troops had their TVs.
SHEPHERDING COMMANDERS
Probably the most difficult issue for Horner as “CENTCOM Forward” was the determining of command relationships. At that time, command relationships between United States forces were not always easily understood or conducted. No one doubted General Schwarzkopf ’s authority, as defined by Goldwater-Nichols, but several areas needed work.
For example, there were air component and naval component commanders in CENTCOM, but there was no separate and distinct land component commander, which raised a number of nagging questions.
On the ground, Lieutenant General John Yeosock commanded the U.S. Third Army, which was in those days composed of one corps, XVIIIth Airborne Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Gary Luck (later Lieutenant General Fred Franks’s VIIth Corps would be added to Third Army). There was also a United States Marine Corps component, MARCENT, commanded by Lieutenant General Walt Boomer, with his 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (1st MEF). 1st MEF was initially composed of the 7th MEB, with their attached MAW and support elements, about 20,000 personnel; but eventually it grew to more than two divisions ashore, with over 90,000 Marines.
In the best of worlds, a ground component commander would have coordinated the various land forces, but for various political and practical reasons — primarily to keep the Army and Marine chauvinists in the Pentagon from going to war over the issue of which service was in charge, and to make sure that he himself was the focal point of the ground war, his area of expertise — General Schwarzkopf decided to retain the authority of land component commander for himself. The result was that when Schwarzkopf was wearing his CINC hat, he commanded the air, navy,
Meanwhile, Khaled and John Yeosock devised an organization between them to coordinate their efforts, one that would integrate the land forces of the host nations with the land forces of the non-host nations, principally those of the United States, France, and Great Britain. They named the organization C3IC — an acronym that meant nothing at all. The idea was to fuzz things up, to let the name mean all things to all people. A precise definition would have started debates about command and control between the nations. By keeping its nature amorphous, everyone was able to work together without the need for rigid guidelines telling who had to do what to whom.
C3IC was located in a large space with a two-story-high ceiling on the main floor of the MODA command bunker. It was there mainly because Horner and Khaled knew that General Schwarzkopf would eventually make his headquarters at MODA, and he was going to be the U.S. land component commander. John Yeosock brought a superb officer, Major General Paul Schwartz, to head the U.S. side of C3IC, while Khaled provided an equally talented Saudi Army general, Brigadier General Abab Al-Aziz al-Shaikh.
Also on the main floor was the CENTCOM J-2 intelligence shop, and the CENTCOM J-3 operations shop in the hall. Schwarzkopf’s command center, where evening meetings were held, was located in a small conference room near the command center. On the other side of the command center wall was a small amphitheater, where larger staff meetings were held until the air war started in January. Then all meetings migrated to the command center. On the floor above were offices manned by Saudi officers working with the Americans. There was also a main conference room with windows that looked down on the C3IC room.
? As time went on, it did not prove practical to integrate every command, though C3IC remained. In the beginning, all commands were fully integrated; but over time, Third Army staff outgrew the Royal Saudi Land Forces headquarters, where the land commanders had originally set themselves up. So John Yeosock and the other land commanders found it more useful to maintain separate locations, and Yeosock moved Third Army headquarters to Eskan Village.
On the other hand, air planning and execution were fully integrated throughout the war. Integration is easier with air than ground. Once there’s an Air Tasking Order, then the individual wings retain command of the units: Americans work for an American wing commander, though on a Saudi or UAE base; and the flight leader of a Saudi flight is Saudi, even though the flight might be part of a larger package commanded by a British flight leader.
Major General Jousif Madani, RSLF, the J-3 for the MODA staff, was a quiet, thoughtful man, who was charged by Hamad to sit down with Horner and work out the command and control issues; and Horner spent considerable time with him. Horner’s problem was that he could go only so far without Schwarzkopf ’s approval. Though the CINC had empowered him during those days to do what he thought best, he didn’t want to handcuff Schwarzkopf with any arrangements the CINC would have to change later. So, for once, it was the Americans and not the Saudis who were moving glacially.
However, Horner and Madani reached a general agreement that Khaled and Schwarzkopf would serve on an equal footing, which would also place Hamad and Powell on the same level. This equality issue was of some concern to the Saudis, because it was important to them to make sure they were respected by the Americans.
All of this activity provided a framework for the buildup of forces that were beginning to flow into the region, but it in no way anticipated the eventual size of the Coalition force that would go to war some six months later. Time and events would severely strain these early arrangements, but for the time being, they had to do.
? As air component commander, Horner had to solve a few other command relationship problems, as well.
According to Goldwater-Nichols, the various services still organized, trained, and equipped their forces, and they still watched over promotions, but U.S. forces did not “belong” operationally to them. Operationally, U.S. forces belong to the unified commander. Goldwater-Nichols further stated that the unified commander could organize his force any way he saw fit. In other words, neither service doctrine nor the service chiefs (nor even the Joint Chiefs of Staff) could make him use or organize his force in a way he did not want.
Meanwhile, service doctrine favored service commands — Central Command Air Forces, Army Central Command, Naval Forces Central Command, and Marine Central Command — while the unified CINCs tended to find functional command arrangements more to their liking — land, sea, air, and now space — since that allowed for better coordination and unity of effort. The passage of Goldwater-Nichols inevitably led to struggles between the CINCs and service doctrines and the service chiefs.
Like most CINCs, Norman Schwarzkopf favored functional command arrangements. Thus, all CENTCOM air was integrated under one commander, called JFACC (Joint Forces Air Component Commander). The CENTCOM JFACC was Chuck Horner. Though integrating functions made sense both philosophically and operationally, it wasn’t always easy in practice. The Goldwater-Nichols command structures had never in fact been tried in wartime.
According to Marine doctrine, Marine air was intended for close air support of Marine ground units; it was a substitute for the heavy artillery they didn’t normally carry with them. Marine doctrine or no, however, the air component commander in Desert Shield/Desert Storm was ferociously opposed to splitting airpower into separate duchies, and he fought to keep it from happening. Some accounts of the war tell a different story: that Horner and Boomer worked out a deal that gave Horner command of Marine air until it was directly needed for close air support of Marine ground units. These stories are not true.
What happened was that soon after Boomer arrived in-theater, he and Horner met in Riyadh, and Horner said: “Look, Walt, I don’t want your air. But, by God, we are not going to fragment airpower. So your planes are going to come under me, and you will get everything you need.”
To which Boomer said, “Okay by me.”
And that was that.
Meanwhile, Boomer’s air commander, Major General Royal Moore, who felt that a higher power than Goldwater-Nichols had ordained him to be in charge of the Marine air, tried everything possible to undermine the centralized tasking that placed Marine air under Horner. Before the war started, he tried to pull Marine air out of the Air Tasking Order, but he ran into the brick wall that was the air component commander. Later, during the war, he continued to play games, but in fact it didn’t bother Horner. Moore was generating sorties to hit the enemy, and that is all Horner wanted him to do. The bottom line was that Horner, not Moore, was in charge.
