day cease-fire. No way. Because we wanted their army destroyed, we would not permit them to leave with their equipment, so our response was: “You have twenty-four hours to clear out, not three weeks.”
As early as February 20, Army Apaches flying strikes against Iraqi targets in southern Kuwait had reported that the noise of their helicopters had brought Iraqi soldiers streaming out of their bunkers to surrender. These prisoners reported that whole units were prepared to surrender en masse, and were just waiting for our attacking army. Even so, there was plenty of Iraqi Army left to inflict casualties on Coalition ground forces.
No one can overstate the courage of those first ground forces as they carefully picked their way into Kuwait and Iraq in the cold wet darkness of that opening night of the ground campaign.
? The opening reports were confused. The lousy weather added to the natural confusion, and the troops in the attack had better things to do than send messages to higher headquarters.
Later, reports began to dribble in, and the lines on the maps began to move; but there were no reports of engagements, only the slow, agonizing movement as the two corps in the east moved into occupied Kuwait. Best of all, there were no reports of our losses.
By midmorning, CENTCOM started to send us information: the Marines were through the wire and minefields and moving ahead at speeds five to ten times greater than expected, there were very few casualties, and the Iraqis were surrendering in such numbers that the advancing infantrymen were having trouble handling them.
Meanwhile, aircraft were streaming over the battlefield, hitting the armored and Republican Guard divisions, as they were, we thought, preparing to maneuver for a counterattack. Though our air attacks were severely hampered by the weather, we dropped thousands of bombs on enemy encampments, trying to obstruct their movement in any way possible. Joint STARS had very few meaningful reports of movement. The Iraqi Army was frozen in place.
By noon, it looked like a rout. Though there had been some sharp engagements, our worst fears were not being realized. Iraqi artillery positions had been found unoccupied, and when Iraqi armored vehicles attempted to engage the Marines, they were quickly silenced. The Eastern Area Corps on Walt Boomer’s right flank were advancing apace, rolling up Iraqi defensive positions designed to repel the mythical amphibious landing.
When it became obvious that the Marines were advancing much faster than anticipated, I knew that Schwarzkopf ’s plans for the main attack would be disrupted.
The original plan called for Walt Boomer and the two Islamic corps to initiate an attack into the teeth of the Iraqi defenses, leading Saddam to think that theirs was the main attack. In the far west, Gary Luck would race north and then swing east behind the Iraqi Army, cutting off their escape. Twenty-four hours after the first units had crossed into Kuwait and caused the Iraqis to react to this three-corps attack in the east, VIIth Corps would launch a devastating blow into the flanks of the Republican Guard and armored divisions (for the most part located near the northwest of Kuwait) as they maneuvered to their left to engage the fake main attack.
But the Iraqis refused to act as predicted. As the attack in the east raced north, the Republican Guard and armored divisions stayed put, probably in the belief that if they moved, they would suffer air attacks like those at Al-Khafji.
Meanwhile, as the Marines and the Northern Area Corps moved forward, their own left flank became increasingly exposed to the Iraqi armor located west of Kuwait City.
The only solution was to push up the launch of VIIth Corps. In that way, the Republican Guard and other Iraqi armor would stay pinned, but the flanks of the Marines and the NAC would be protected.
When I heard that the CINC was contemplating this move, I thought to myself,
CENTCOM kept us informed about the traffic between Schwarzkopf and Fred Franks, as they discussed changing the launch of VIIth Corps’ attack. I could imagine the confusion this introduced into the carefully planned operation. Nonetheless, the order went out for the VIIth Corps to move up the attack, and the race was on.
Soon, all five corps were in Iraq and Kuwait. The weather was getting better, but there were few requests for close air support. The fighters were ranging ahead of our forces on the ground.
? Earlier, during the “air-only war,” we had done everything in our power to minimize aircraft losses. Thus, my orders then had stated, “No enemy target is worth one of our aircraft. If you can’t hit it today, because of weather or enemy defenses, go somewhere else and we will come back tomorrow.” But now the orders were just the reverse: “You have a sacred duty to help the men on the ground. If they need you, you go, even if it means that you may stand a good chance of being shot down or losing your life… Now is the time for you to risk your jet, to risk your life, because they are down there engaged in combat and are for sure risking
At the same time, we had to make sure that our close air support did not endanger the lives of the ground troops. From the start of the war, I had agonized about air-delivered weapons falling on friendly forces.
Modern air war was so deadly that even the slightest mistake was catastrophic. In other wars, if you bombed a friendly position or vehicle, someone might be killed or wounded. In this war, if we mistakenly unleashed our deadly guided weapons or fragmentation bombs on a friendly position, everyone in the vicinity of the attack would be killed. Airpower had grown too deadly for the mistakes one expects in the fog of war. I knew such mistakes would happen; they always do; and they had — during the battle of Al-Khafji, an A-10’s errant Maverick missile and bombs from A-6s had killed Marines and Saudis on the ground — but I wanted to make sure we had done everything within our power to prevent more.
Thus, I gave an “if in doubt, don’t” order. And I had challenged everyone on the staff, especially the tactics team headed by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Bob Phillips, to figure out ways to avoid hitting Coalition ground forces, and a number of measures, rules, and guidance had been worked out between the Black Hole planners and the BCE.
The factor that drives our approach to close air support is not what one might think. Though bombing or strafing of enemy positions is certainly important, the chief aim of CAS is to
The first such boundary is usually called the Front Line of Own Troops, or FLOT (though there are other names for it, such as FEBA, Forward Edge of the Battle Area). Whatever it’s called, the concept is simple: Your guys are behind a line (the FLOT), and ahead of them is a no-man’s-land or else enemy. You don’t drop bombs behind the FLOT.
A second line is called the Fire Support Coordination Line, or FSCL, pronounced “fissile.” Between the FLOT and the FSCL are enemy ground forces opposing your own ground forces. If you drop a bomb in this region, you stand a good chance of killing an enemy soldier.
The complication comes because of the fluid nature of warfare. That is, the close air support pilot wants to make sure there are systems and procedures that let him avoid hitting friendly soldiers who have advanced since the FLOT/FSCL lines were determined. Thus the role of forward air controllers, and the rule “When air operates in close proximity to friendly ground forces, it must be under the control of a forward air controller.” A FAC is an airman who is in contact both with the ground commander and with the CAS aircraft, so he understands what the ground commander wants done and can convey that to the pilot, while making sure the pilot does not mistakenly attack friendly ground forces.
This rule always applies — except during emergencies, as when the guy on the ground is being overrun and says, “To hell with it, my only hope is for air to bomb my position. Maybe the enemy soldier with the knife at my throat will get hit instead of me.”
The area between the FLOT and FSCL defines close proximity, meaning that if you are attacking a ground target between these two lines, you are doing close air support and are by definition in close proximity. On the other side of the FSCL, any military target could be hit.
