main relied on reports from subordinate units, and just as the main usually cut off its information at a definite time, subordinate units usually cut off their information at a somewhat earlier time. If they had to get a report to the VII Corps main CP by 2300 (to give the main an hour to prepare for its midnight transmission to Third Army), they would probably cut their own information off at 2200 or earlier. So by the time the consolidated VII Corps report went to Riyadh at 2400, the information from the division CPs was already at least three hours old.
Throw in the weather and interrupted communications from the jump TAC to the main CP, and matters get worse. Worse still, the Third Army liaison officer, Colonel Rock, was stuck with the corps TAC CP in the middle of the 3rd AD sea of vehicles.
In the absence of any kind of automatic electronic update of the maps at each echelon, this is the way it got done. So by the time the CINC got his morning update at around 0700 or so, the information on VII Corps units was almost twelve hours old.
Ironically, the enemy information was more current, while Third Army (and CENTCOM) received information on VII Corps primarily from the fragmented voice reports sent by our CPs through the fragile communications 600 kilometers away. If the staff in Riyadh was relying solely on those reports to post their maps and brief the CINC, then the information gap was beginning to widen considerably.
Mind you, this was not unexpected. All experienced tactical field commanders know and deal with this phenomenon. Even at the edge of the so-called information age, such a lag is simply characteristic of fast-tempo operations and long-distance reporting.
It is only when senior commanders at higher HQ act on old information without validating it that they can get their decisions wrong. Most of them correct the possible misinformation by finding out for themselves — by visiting subordinate commanders or, at a minimum, calling the subordinate unit to verify facts and discuss the situation. I was later to learn that John Yeosock constantly attempted to ensure that the CINC's briefers had current information.
During the four days of the ground war, I never saw the reports that went to Riyadh. I trusted my chief of staff and the troops at the main CP to get it right and to do the best they could with the information they had. As it turned out, their reports were particularly sharp on the enemy situation and on our future plans, but the friendly situation was just as I've described. It is a fact of land warfare that you cannot have perfect knowledge of everything going on, so if you want to act, or think you need to act, then the higher you are, the more imperative it becomes to validate the information if your actions will affect the tactical battle.
The main problem that came out of all this was Riyadh's sense of our movement rate. On the one hand, there seemed to be a perception down there that all the Iraqi forces had been defeated virtually from the get-go (including the RGFC) and that all that was left was to pursue the defeated enemy and mop up (that nothing much was left for the Army and Marines to do but garrison the ruins).
Well, the RGFC was still very much a fighting force, though greatly weakened. And we were not taking our own sweet time in getting ourselves to them — especially considering the lousy weather and the maneuver skills needed to put together a three-division fist. This wasn't some kind of a free-for-all charge, with tanks instead of horses and raised sabers. It was a focused maneuver involving several thousand fighting vehicles to concentrate combat power in a rolling attack against an enemy defending with tanks, BMPs, and artillery.
By this time, I was getting sensitive to movement rates, but unless I got specific orders to the contrary from either Yeosock or Schwarzkopf, I was determined to do what I thought looked right to accomplish my mission at least cost to our troops. Suggestions and innuendoes were not what I needed. Commanders with units in combat and taking casualties get very focused. They are not sensitive to casual comments or sideline suggestions, and it is not a time for subtle mind-reading or communication games. You use very direct language and remove as much ambiguity as possible.
My other focus was air. So far, we had had plenty of close air support… as much as we wanted, and we got as much as we wanted for the rest of the war. When CAS was able to fly during the previous two days, we had used 98 CAS sorties—38 by 2nd ACR, 44 by 1st INF, and 16 by 1st UK.
We did have two problems with CAS, however: First, the aircraft normally flew at 10,000 feet (for good reason; twice they came below that in the 1st AD sector and they had two aircraft shot down). Because they had to fly so high, though, the low weather ceilings became a problem. Second, because of the sand stirred up in the battles, the irregular nature of what even loosely could be called front lines, and the need to prevent fratricide, when CAS attacked targets in the immediate battle, everything else we were doing had to stop. Since ground commanders, for obvious reasons, found that situation unsatisfactory, they soon pushed CAS and their own organic Army aviation well forward of their ground elements, thereby creating a lethal zone in front of our maneuver units about twenty to forty kilometers deep.
Aside from these relatively minor issues, though, the close air support was there for us. It not only destroyed enemy targets and produced a shock effect on the enemy (who would not have been able to see them at 10,000 feet even if there had been no clouds), it also gave a lift to our troops when they saw their comrades in blue working with them as a team. Before the ground attack on the twenty-fourth, the Iraqis particularly feared the A- 10; it never seemed to go away, they told us after the war. 'I know you are not into it yet,' an A-10 pilot told me before the ground war, 'but when you are, we'll be there for you.' It was the same kind of air-ground team loyalty I had seen in Vietnam. It's powerful.
That day, we were scheduled to get 146 CAS sorties and 86 AI sorties flown in support of the corps. I decided to allocate the CAS to the three attacking U.S. units—40 percent to 1st AD, and 30 percent each to 3rd AD and 2nd ACR. Since 1st UK also needed CAS, we allocated some for them as well and made appropriate adjustments.
Even though close air support was never a problem, coordination with CENTAF of the deep attack
But CENTAF still controlled the sorties beyond the FSCL, and as a consequence, I had very little influence on the choice of targets in my sector, and the same was true for Gary Luck and John Yeosock. Since the theater commander made the rules, I had to assume the theater commander would take care of isolating the RGFC.[38]
These differences never did get resolved. The result was that I largely ignored the area that CENTAF said they would handle. Even without CAS, there were still the better part of more than 1,000 sorties a day, and CENTAF could do whatever they wanted to with them. So, after the war, when in some accounts the escape of the RGFC was laid at my feet, I had to wonder what CENTAF and the theater commander had been doing with all those sorties and with the other assets at their disposal to isolate the battlefield.
Meanwhile, since the most likely escape routes for Iraqi forces to get out of Kuwaiti theater of operations — north from Basra and north over the crossings of the Euphrates — were now in XVIII Corps's, Third Army's, and CENTCOM's area and out of mine, the focus of my attention had turned due east, toward the Gulf and the RGFC and the other forces forming a defense in depth.
Of course, now that XVIII Corps had the sector to our north, I was very curious about what they would do deep up there, and how that might affect the RGFC units in our sector. I had no information about that, however. At this point in the battle, I was forward about 100 kilometers into Iraq, John Yeosock was 600 kilometers away in Riyadh, and Gary Luck was about 300 kilometers away in XVIII Corps's sector.
So, now that the RGFC was clearly in the Third Army zone (and not solely in the VII Corps zone), how was Third Army going to use the two corps and the deep air to destroy them? And what would CENTCOM do to influence the outcome?
My assumption was that XVIII Corps units would swing east with us that day, and that together we would attack to destroy the RGFC divisions and their subordinate units. I also assumed that the theater commander would
