themselves assembled and combat ready, at which point they could signal that they were ready to play. While they were assembling, training, planning, and dealing with the myriad other details of preparing for battle, VII Corps units had a number of tough things to do.
The 2nd ACR, the first unit in-theater, became operational on 21 December. At that time, the VII Corps mission was to provide a security force in the then-150-kilometer gap between XVIII Corps's western boundary (at this time XVIII Corps had a defensive mission from the coast to about 100 kilometers west) and the eastern boundary of the Joint Forces Command North (that is, the two Egyptian divisions and the Syrian division). The 2nd ACR had that job.
From that point on, VII Corps was directed to be prepared to fight with the forces they had in-theater. This directive required continuing adjustments in estimates, planning, training, modernization, debarkation and movement to TAAs, and in command, even as the corps planned for its attack toward the RGFC (if that proved necessary).
On 26 December, after a heads-up that Third Army might be called on to attack soon after the UN deadline passed on 15 January,[16] John Yeosock informed Franks that he wanted VII Corps's combat power (i.e., the forces they had then) available as of 15 January, 1 February, and 15 February. From that moment on, the corps planners had to be simultaneously available for war with what they had, while planning for war with the entire fully deployed corps.
On 27 December, at an informal meeting in his office in Riyadh, General Schwarzkopf informed Franks, Pagonis, Luck, and Yeosock that the President had called on Christmas Eve to tell him that they might be at war in three weeks. The CINC then instructed his commanders that he would try to hold off the ground attack until somewhere between 10 and 20 February, but that they should be ready to go earlier with what they had.
On 27 December, VII Corps was far from ready to go. They would be only slightly more ready to go in three weeks. Franks, in short, was not at all pleased to hear that they might be expected to attack then. All the same, he determined to drive the corps even faster to get ready.
He speculated in his journal on possible reasons behind the CINC's announcement: '[I] believe,' he wrote, 'some promises were made at the highest levels… that if we committed forces by early November they would be ready by 15 January. Then our gov't took that date and got the UN resolution passed. I'd like to meet the staff who came up with that projection. Here we are with 2nd ACR, one AH-64 battalion, and two artillery battalions. Have next to no CL IX' — spare parts. 'Have no maps. Have no nav aids' — 137 total. 'Have lousy comms.'
But an order is an order. So he kicked the corps into higher gear and planned accordingly. It was at this point that he adjusted his pre-combat training time from three weeks to two.
Meanwhile, other missions came to them:
On 7 January, John Yeosock gave Franks the order to defend the Tapline Road against a possible Iraqi attack down the Wadi al Batin. To cut that would cut the major northern Saudi east-west supply corridor, as well as the avenue XVIII Corps would soon be using for their move west to their attack positions. For this mission, Franks planned to use the 1st CAV and the 2/101st to defend, while the aviation elements of the 1st AD would be his reserve. Air and the reinforced 1st CAV would be enough combat power to stop an Iraqi attack, he reasoned, and by using no more than those forces, he would be able to preserve his ground troops so as to protect their training and to allow them the time they needed to get out of the port area.
On 9 January, General Schwarzkopf met all of his commanders in Dammam. The air campaign would begin shortly, he told them, but — good news for Fred Franks — there was no longer pressure to start the ground campaign before 15 February. They were therefore to be ready to attack then. Meanwhile, the Iraqis were moving armor and artillery forward; it was likely that if they thought we were going to attack, they would conduct a preemptive attack. Thus, the CINC concluded, all should be in a heightened state of alert and prepared to defend themselves.
That same day, intelligence reported that the Iraqis were moving three divisions to the Wadi, either to attack or to blunt the U.S. attack.
The next day, Franks met with the French and tied their operations to his. He wanted them to defend the western approaches to Tapline Road and King Khalid Military City in case the Iraqis came wide through the opening in the west of their defensive line.
On 13 January, Franks and Martinez rode in their HMMWV with driver Staff Sergeant Dave St. Pierre cross- country in a driving rain to visit the 2/101st, now deployed into defensive positions west of Al Qaysumah. Once he personally saw their position, and met with Colonel Ted Purdom, the brigade commander, and after considering the recent intel about possible Iraqi preemptive strikes, he ordered John Tilelli to move the 1st CAV forward, and ordered reinforcement of the 2/101st with engineer support and artillery from corps. The 1st CAV moved within thirty minutes of the order, at about 1530, and closed just south of Tapline Road that evening. Later, on 23 January, Franks started the 1st CAV north of the Tapline Road. He wanted 1st CAV forward to the border to be in a better defensive position to protect the lines of communication and to begin artillery raids and feints for the deception plan.
On 17 January, the air war started.
The air campaign against Iraq, created and waged by the USAF, with no small tactical help from the U.S. Navy, the RAF, and elements of the French air force, was on many levels a brilliantly devised and magnificently executed operation. It brought the war devastatingly to the enemy's 'head' — his centers of leadership, control centers, telecommunications centers, transportation centers, and centers of production for war and for weapons of mass destruction. Never before had these centers of gravity been so effectively and precisely neutralized.
Yes, the USAF claimed at the time more precision and more devastation than was actually achieved, but that does not diminish their actual achievement. Within hours of the start of the attack, one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world was rendered virtually harmless (above roughly 10,000 feet; below that, Iraqi SAMs and antiaircraft guns could hurt you). Within days, the Iraqi air force, armed with top-of-the-line Soviet and French aircraft, was chased out of the skies. These successes not only rendered the entire country naked to air attacks, they left the Iraqi army without any deep support or capability to maneuver, and allowed the U.S. Army to make its vast move to the west for the great 'left hook' undetected. By 24 February, the air campaign had wrought considerable damage on the Iraqi army — not the 50 percent of Iraqi armor and artillery that the U.S.A.F. had set out to kill, but a lot. By G-Day, the Iraqi leadership's command-and-control capability over their army was seriously diminished, and the will to fight of Iraqi frontline troops, mostly in Kuwait, had been pounded and blasted into the sand.
The RGFC was another thing. At best, 25 percent of their armor and artillery had been knocked out of action. And their will to fight…? When the battle came, they fought, and fought hard. To the benefit and credit of the U.S. Army, they were outclassed.
Back to VII Corps, when the air war started, it had been forty-one days since 6 December, when the first VII Corps troops had arrived, and twenty-six days since the 2nd ACR had become operational. More than half of VII Corps was still deploying, and there was not a combat-ready division available in VII Corps.
On 11 January, Franks had ordered the corps to begin conducting 'stand to' at 0500 daily. He wanted to increase their combat-ready mentality and to get daily status reports.
On 19 January, in the first VII Corps combat action since World War II, a battery of the 75th Artillery Brigade, under the command of Captain Jeff Lieb, fired a TACMS missile in support of the USAF and destroyed an Iraqi SA-2 air defense site. Franks talked to the crew later that day. They called the TACMS 'AT&T,' or 'reach out and touch someone.'
The next day, another TACMS was sent against an Iraqi logistics site that supported their armored units just behind their frontline defending division. Franks reasoned that they would go nowhere without logistics and wanted the site destroyed to prevent a preemptive attack.
Intelligence reports intensified. There were reports on 21 January of terrorist infiltrators targeting command posts. VII Corps began tracking all civilian movement in their TAAs.
On 29 January, the Iraqis did attempt a preemptive strike in the east toward the Saudi town of Khafji. They were beaten back with high losses by a combination of air and U.S. Marine and Saudi land forces. Franks and his planners and commanders took lessons from the Marine report on that operation and applied them to their upcoming attack.
