and the courage of the aircrews. We had it the minute Bernard Shaw went off the air, because that told me the central nervous system of the Iraqi air defense system had been severed. We had it when it became clear that Iraqi fighters, their most potent weapon, were being shot down and our fighters were not. We had it when it was clear that Iraqi SAM radar operators were not turning on their radar, even as they shot missiles blindly into the sky. We had it when RAF Tornadoes finally stopped flying at low altitude.
About three days into the war, General Schwarzkopf announced that we had air superiority. This information did not come from me. He just went ahead and said it, I suppose because it was “good news from the front” sort of thing. Later he announced that we had air supremacy. Again, I never told him that, but I guess it provided him a means to show progress. Did I mind? No, of course not. My job was to plan and employ airpower operations against an enemy and to do that as efficiently as possible (realizing that war is about the most inefficient thing man does… and the most stupid). His job was to handle the bigger picture.
? Here’s how we did all this.
I’ll say it again, the Iraqi air defenses were massive. One had only to tune in to CNN and watch the night sky over Baghdad to get some idea of what our aircraft confronted throughout the war. What you did not see were the Iraqi fighters and surface-to-air missiles.
Our plan to control the air was complex. First, we would blind the Iraqis by destroying communications links between the air defense search radars, the commanders who dispatched interceptor aircraft or assigned targets to individual SAM batteries, and the pilots who would be given vectors toward their target. Second, we would strike fear in the minds of the Iraqi Air Force pilots, SAM radar operators, and antiaircraft artillery gunners. Our goal was to make them hate to come to work. We wanted them convinced that if they tried to engage our aircraft they would die. Nothing subtle, no nuances, just fear. Finally, we would avoid as many defenses as possible.
? There is a new buzzword going around nowadays—“information war.”
When people talk about it, they usually mean putting viruses in a computer or making networks crash. Information war can do that, but it is really a lot more.
The key concept involves getting inside your enemy’s decision cycle. That is, you know what is going on faster and better than he does, and can therefore make and implement decisions faster. This permits you to take and maintain the initiative, and causes him to lose control.
At Khafji, for example, Joint STARS told me where and when the enemy was moving — which of course told me nothing about his intentions. Nevertheless, I attacked his movement, and as a result destroyed his attack before it started. He could not form up his attacking forces or mass for the attack, because when he tried, his convoys en route to the battle or invasion were destroyed. Perhaps this is stretching a point, but you could make the case that my information superiority and my increased capacity to analyze and decide what that information meant gave me the means to thwart an attack before I even knew I was being attacked.
Information war, then, is primarily a function of the increased pace and accuracy of data now yielded by computers, sensors, and communications systems.
The analysis of the KARI command control and communication system, as well as the subsequent disruption and dismemberment of its elements, was information warfare pure and simple. Our selection of targets was the product of this analysis — who was in charge of which sectors, which kinds of sensors, whether a radar site or a man out in the desert with binoculars and a telephone. We were counting on the Iraqi reliance on centralized control. Once it was gone, the air defense system would be disorganized.
Attacking the KARI computers and links was the divide-and-conquer concept on a massive scale. Our strategy meant the “AT & T” telephone exchange had to go, and it did. Communication cables in the desert and under bridges had to go, and they did. Microwave antennas located throughout the country had to go, and they did. Some of the links were off-limits, owing to their location in hotels or near religious buildings, and so they survived. But in the first forty-eight hours of attacks, we got enough to cripple KARI. After that, individual elements — fighter aircraft, radars, SAM sites, and AAA batteries — had to fight alone and uncoordinated, acting on their own initiative and judgment; and they had not been trained to do that.
? Meanwhile, I had no doubt that the Iraqi defenders were as intelligent and courageous as any soldiers. I also had no doubt that they loved their country, and were willing to die in its defense, no matter how much they loved or despised Saddam Hussein and his gang. My conclusion: after weakening their systems of defense, we had to weaken their spirit of defense.
To that end, we conducted a campaign to strike fear in their hearts. I knew they would man their radars, fire their SAMs, and shoot their guns at our aircraft. They would do this, first, in defense of their people and their nation, but perhaps more important, to avoid being arrested and executed by their military superiors. I wanted thousands of Iraqi gunners who felt good about shooting (they would under most circumstances) but didn’t feel bad about missing. You know, shoot your SAM missile, especially when the major is around, but don’t bother to turn on the tracking radar needed to guide the SAM to the Coalition aircraft. Bluntly, we were going to bribe the Iraqi air defenders by using their own lives as the payment.
The main target of the intimidation campaign was surface-to-air radar operations. This was nothing new. In Vietnam, we had learned the hard way that the SAM is a tough nut to crack. Now we had a war with lots of SAMs, most of which were more deadly than Vietnam’s SA-2s. We also had F-4G Wild Weasels that were equipped with the new AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM), a radar-killing weapon more accurate and easier to employ than anything we’d used in Vietnam. Though the F-4Gs were oldsters next to their F-16 wingmen, they were much more capable than the Vietnam-era F-105G Thunderchiefs I had flown. Most of all, we had a host of Wild Weasel aircrews who had benefited from superb electronic training at monthly Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB in Nevada. The Air Force, Marines, Navy, and allied crews who had flown in Red Flag knew what these Weasels could do. The F-4G “Rhinos” were old and ugly, but now that we were at war the first thing the F-16 flight leaders wanted to know was “Where will the Weasels be during our next mission?”
But first, we had to light up the minds of the SAM operators with fear. And to do this, we staged a party —“Puba’s Party.”
General Larry Henry (“Puba”) had come to me in August to work in the “Black Hole” developing our offensive air campaign. His experience as an electronic-warfare officer in Wild Weasels, and his generally twisted mind, created the party we threw for the Iraqi radar operators.
His script was simple to build but difficult to execute. First, BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles and F-117As would arrive unannounced over Baghdad, their exploding bombs and warheads ensuring that Iraqi defenders who were not awake would get up and report to their units. At that point, the air defenses would be on full alert and fully manned, eager for the forthcoming battle. Puba would then send over Baghdad a host of small unmanned drone aircraft (ground-launched Northrop BQM-74s) that were designed to look like full-size manned aircraft on SAM radarscopes. Immediately behind the drones would be HARM-laden Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft. As the drones entered the SAM-defended areas over Baghdad, the SAM radars would radiate and the Iraqi operators would track their targets and fire their missiles. What they would not see was almost a hundred HARM missiles being launched from just outside their radar coverage.
And so it happened on the first night of the war. The Iraqi SAM operators succeeded in downing nearly all of the drones, and in so doing they provided dozens of targets for the incoming anti-radiation missiles.
The results had to be horrible. And from the horror came fear.
After Puba’s Party, the number of SAM missile firings remained high, while the number of Coalition aircraft shot down remained very low. As we had hoped, the guidance radars were not turned on. This was the feedback that told us Puba’s Party was a stunning success. It was not easy, and it wasn’t cheap (the drones and HARMs cost a bundle!), but it made possible all the efficiencies of precision munitions delivered from medium to high altitude that shortened the war and reduced the loss of life.
It was Puba’s Party that gave us the vital medium-altitude sanctuary. Sure, some continued to try low-level tactics to escape the radar SAMs, but as our losses at low altitude mounted, the message became very plain: get up to altitude and rely on the electronic battle now being directed by General Glenn Profitt, Larry Henry’s replacement.
This lesson did not come easy. During Desert Shield, I had laid down the law to the wing commanders at the bases: no low-level tactics or training unless they could explain to me why they wanted their aircrews to do it. I
