Shock and Awe Worked, God Help Us
By William M. Arkin
Washingtonpost, 19 Mar 2007
If there is one thing that defines American military technology, one thing that floats seductively suggesting engagement without true commitment, it is airpower.
Airpower was the boost of confidence we needed in 2003 to travel on our own highway of death. Given the current ground quagmire in Iraq, airpower will be even more our downfall in the future.
That is the far greater truth we miss in our splintered and partisan world, where Bush administration "lying" about weapons of mass destruction has become the only politically correct explanation for the mess we have made in Iraq.
Four years ago today, the United States opened a second front in the "war" against terrorism, intent on taking down Saddam Hussein. Twenty-one days later the Army and Marine Corps entered Baghdad, mission accomplished.
Self-deception was as important as deception in the White House decision to attack. The administration convinced itself and the keepers of conventional wisdom that the best way to ensure nuclear safety was through regime change. That the mission would be easy, like Afghanistan. That on the ground the people would welcome us with open arms.
That high technology and a "small footprint" would avoid a quagmire.
On the morning of March 19, 2003, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and the theater commander for the Middle East, showed up at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia to visit the Combined Air Operations Center and receive the final briefing from his air commander, Lt. Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley.
A-Day, A-hour was designated at 9 p.m. local time on March 21: a massive choreographed attack on leadership, command and control, air defense, and WMD targets throughout Iraq. The attack had been dubbed "shock and awe" in the news media, a label that annoyed Franks and other military leaders for suggesting not only instant victory but also that airpower would do the heavy lifting in bringing down the Iraqi regime.
Later on the morning of March 19, Franks spoke with his intelligence staff about critical imagery freshly available that suggested that Iraq might be preparing to sabotage its oil well in the southern Rumaylah fields. The ground attack would be accelerated by 24 hours to "save" Iraq and avoid another Kuwait conflagration.
Back in Qatar, Franks had his final prewar video teleconference with President Bush and the national security team in Washington. The main ground attack - G-Day - scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. March 21 was now scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on March 20. All across the Kuwaiti front, and from secret bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, preparations were made to initiate the final assault on Baghdad.
If March 19 weren't busy enough, the CIA also received reports from Iraqi spies that Saddam Hussein might be spending the evening at a Tigris River farm in eastern Baghdad. A frenzied process of target study and emergency preparations began before dawn. There would be no repeat of Kandahar on opening night 2001 or Tora Bora later, where Osama bin Laden was in sight or cornered, and the shot was missed. Airpower could reliably reach into the heart of Baghdad, literally into the earth, an ever so seductive tool available at a mental push of the button.
A million pieces started to fall into place, and in the south, west and north, U.S., British and Polish special operations forces and CIA paramilitaries infiltrated and attacked targets throughout Iraq. Marines attacked across the Kuwaiti border into the southern oil fields. War was on.
After nightfall on March 20, 540 aircraft strike missions and 177 cruise missiles attacked Iraqi targets. The Baghdad night sky filled with anti-aircraft fire and loud detonations were heard - and remotely "seen" off in the distance -- throughout the city.
"What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said from the Pentagon podium. "It will be of a force and a scope and a scale that has been beyond what we have seen before."
We all know the rest of the story: Unconfirmed reports that Saddam Hussein was injured and rushed off in an ambulance; that his son Uday was killed; that the entire Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division was reported to have surrendered west of Basra; that Saddam's palaces and home were hit; that the office of telegenic Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was destroyed.
The "shock and awe" air campaign officially launched a few minutes before 9 p.m. local time on March 21, really the third night of the accelerated campaign: 1,700 aircraft flying 830 strike sorties plus 505 cruise missiles attacking 1,500 aimpoints at several hundred targets: palaces, homes, guard headquarters, government buildings, military bases.
More targets were attacked in Baghdad in the span of one hour on March 21 than were hit in the entire 43-day air campaign in 1991, and airpower followed up reliably every day with hundreds more strikes. When the sandstorm came, when the Fedayeen arrived, when ground commanders got nervous that Iraq was not the country that the U.S. had wargamed against, when the Red Line was crossed, when the public got equally nervous, airpower continued in the background, bombing, bombing, bombing.
For the three weeks that followed shock and awe - less than three weeks! - we were fed a steady diet of heroics from the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1st Marines, and special forces. But really the only time we heard about airpower was when U.S. briefers uttered some more meaningless statistics that suggested industrial production, or when some mistakes were made on the ground.
An army of embedded reporters tracked every brilliant ground troop, unit and maneuver. But the embeds, as they came to be known, reported from behind U.S. lines from the U.S. perspective. There was great destruction being meted out by Army gunners and tankers, by Marine Corps aviation. There were civilian deaths, but in most cases, there was almost always an explanation, a sympathetic observer, a comrade in arms explaining the difficulty and the bravery and chivalry of the American ground assault.
There were, however, no embeds in the cockpit, none even on most air bases secreted away in places like Saudi Arabia. By default, the dominant narrative became airpower, death and destruction from the Iraqi side, from the Iraqi perspective. Or worse, death and destruction, seeming to come only from the air, bombing, bombing, bombing and the accumulation of those heartless statistics, built an image of airpower stuck in World War II mass destruction and Vietnam carpet bombing.
It just didn't sink in that the ground forces weren't operating alone, that the Iraqi government and military was fighting for its very survival in every nook and cranny of the country because of airpower, as the tanks and armored vehicles slogged through mud, over the rivers and escarpments, through the villages.
When the statue was pulled down in Baghdad, to some, the "shock and awe" experience confirmed a modern sickness of high technology. Airpower advocates again promised too much, and the results -- Saddam and his henchmen survived, civilians died -- proved that air warfare could not deliver.
That isn't the war I saw in 2003. The war I saw was 21 days of air attacks in Baghdad that succeeded in defeating a government that was far more powerful and ready than the Taliban, with ground forces blowing through a defeated and exhausted force, a force that I submit caused far more civilian harm with each inch of territory it took.
Dozens of books have since been written about the brilliance of the Army and Marine Corps, some almost reading like the war took place before the airplane was invented.
Yet it was airpower that had the unique ability, just as it had on such short notice in Afghanistan in October 2001, to reach thousands of miles into the very bedrooms and bunkers of the enemy. Friendly losses associated with hundreds of air missions crisscrossing dozens of countries every day proved so ridiculously low that its use seemed almost cost free.
As targets were selected, missions flown, aimpoints hit, the Taliban and then the Iraqi government were swept from power: The seduction in 2003 was as much that it was made a seeming cakewalk by airpower as it was any other justification or reason.
That is airpower's continuing allure: military engagement with no commitment.
I know all of the arguments, that airpower can't plant a flag on a hill, that airpower can't occupy territory. I know, and have argued in dozens of articles over the years, that we can not figure out why it works, or what it is that precisely happens on the ground with airpower's meticulous repetition. But in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan, where ground forces struggle, airpower seems so effortless and trouble-free.
That is why it is so alluring, and so dangerous.
Washingtonpost, 19 Mar 2007
If there is one thing that defines American military technology, one thing that floats seductively suggesting engagement without true commitment, it is airpower.
Airpower was the boost of confidence we needed in 2003 to travel on our own highway of death. Given the current ground quagmire in Iraq, airpower will be even more our downfall in the future.
That is the far greater truth we miss in our splintered and partisan world, where Bush administration "lying" about weapons of mass destruction has become the only politically correct explanation for the mess we have made in Iraq.
Four years ago today, the United States opened a second front in the "war" against terrorism, intent on taking down Saddam Hussein. Twenty-one days later the Army and Marine Corps entered Baghdad, mission accomplished.
Self-deception was as important as deception in the White House decision to attack. The administration convinced itself and the keepers of conventional wisdom that the best way to ensure nuclear safety was through regime change. That the mission would be easy, like Afghanistan. That on the ground the people would welcome us with open arms.
That high technology and a "small footprint" would avoid a quagmire.
On the morning of March 19, 2003, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and the theater commander for the Middle East, showed up at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia to visit the Combined Air Operations Center and receive the final briefing from his air commander, Lt. Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley.
A-Day, A-hour was designated at 9 p.m. local time on March 21: a massive choreographed attack on leadership, command and control, air defense, and WMD targets throughout Iraq. The attack had been dubbed "shock and awe" in the news media, a label that annoyed Franks and other military leaders for suggesting not only instant victory but also that airpower would do the heavy lifting in bringing down the Iraqi regime.
Later on the morning of March 19, Franks spoke with his intelligence staff about critical imagery freshly available that suggested that Iraq might be preparing to sabotage its oil well in the southern Rumaylah fields. The ground attack would be accelerated by 24 hours to "save" Iraq and avoid another Kuwait conflagration.
Back in Qatar, Franks had his final prewar video teleconference with President Bush and the national security team in Washington. The main ground attack - G-Day - scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. March 21 was now scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on March 20. All across the Kuwaiti front, and from secret bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, preparations were made to initiate the final assault on Baghdad.
If March 19 weren't busy enough, the CIA also received reports from Iraqi spies that Saddam Hussein might be spending the evening at a Tigris River farm in eastern Baghdad. A frenzied process of target study and emergency preparations began before dawn. There would be no repeat of Kandahar on opening night 2001 or Tora Bora later, where Osama bin Laden was in sight or cornered, and the shot was missed. Airpower could reliably reach into the heart of Baghdad, literally into the earth, an ever so seductive tool available at a mental push of the button.
A million pieces started to fall into place, and in the south, west and north, U.S., British and Polish special operations forces and CIA paramilitaries infiltrated and attacked targets throughout Iraq. Marines attacked across the Kuwaiti border into the southern oil fields. War was on.
After nightfall on March 20, 540 aircraft strike missions and 177 cruise missiles attacked Iraqi targets. The Baghdad night sky filled with anti-aircraft fire and loud detonations were heard - and remotely "seen" off in the distance -- throughout the city.
"What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said from the Pentagon podium. "It will be of a force and a scope and a scale that has been beyond what we have seen before."
We all know the rest of the story: Unconfirmed reports that Saddam Hussein was injured and rushed off in an ambulance; that his son Uday was killed; that the entire Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division was reported to have surrendered west of Basra; that Saddam's palaces and home were hit; that the office of telegenic Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was destroyed.
The "shock and awe" air campaign officially launched a few minutes before 9 p.m. local time on March 21, really the third night of the accelerated campaign: 1,700 aircraft flying 830 strike sorties plus 505 cruise missiles attacking 1,500 aimpoints at several hundred targets: palaces, homes, guard headquarters, government buildings, military bases.
More targets were attacked in Baghdad in the span of one hour on March 21 than were hit in the entire 43-day air campaign in 1991, and airpower followed up reliably every day with hundreds more strikes. When the sandstorm came, when the Fedayeen arrived, when ground commanders got nervous that Iraq was not the country that the U.S. had wargamed against, when the Red Line was crossed, when the public got equally nervous, airpower continued in the background, bombing, bombing, bombing.
For the three weeks that followed shock and awe - less than three weeks! - we were fed a steady diet of heroics from the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1st Marines, and special forces. But really the only time we heard about airpower was when U.S. briefers uttered some more meaningless statistics that suggested industrial production, or when some mistakes were made on the ground.
An army of embedded reporters tracked every brilliant ground troop, unit and maneuver. But the embeds, as they came to be known, reported from behind U.S. lines from the U.S. perspective. There was great destruction being meted out by Army gunners and tankers, by Marine Corps aviation. There were civilian deaths, but in most cases, there was almost always an explanation, a sympathetic observer, a comrade in arms explaining the difficulty and the bravery and chivalry of the American ground assault.
There were, however, no embeds in the cockpit, none even on most air bases secreted away in places like Saudi Arabia. By default, the dominant narrative became airpower, death and destruction from the Iraqi side, from the Iraqi perspective. Or worse, death and destruction, seeming to come only from the air, bombing, bombing, bombing and the accumulation of those heartless statistics, built an image of airpower stuck in World War II mass destruction and Vietnam carpet bombing.
It just didn't sink in that the ground forces weren't operating alone, that the Iraqi government and military was fighting for its very survival in every nook and cranny of the country because of airpower, as the tanks and armored vehicles slogged through mud, over the rivers and escarpments, through the villages.
When the statue was pulled down in Baghdad, to some, the "shock and awe" experience confirmed a modern sickness of high technology. Airpower advocates again promised too much, and the results -- Saddam and his henchmen survived, civilians died -- proved that air warfare could not deliver.
That isn't the war I saw in 2003. The war I saw was 21 days of air attacks in Baghdad that succeeded in defeating a government that was far more powerful and ready than the Taliban, with ground forces blowing through a defeated and exhausted force, a force that I submit caused far more civilian harm with each inch of territory it took.
Dozens of books have since been written about the brilliance of the Army and Marine Corps, some almost reading like the war took place before the airplane was invented.
Yet it was airpower that had the unique ability, just as it had on such short notice in Afghanistan in October 2001, to reach thousands of miles into the very bedrooms and bunkers of the enemy. Friendly losses associated with hundreds of air missions crisscrossing dozens of countries every day proved so ridiculously low that its use seemed almost cost free.
As targets were selected, missions flown, aimpoints hit, the Taliban and then the Iraqi government were swept from power: The seduction in 2003 was as much that it was made a seeming cakewalk by airpower as it was any other justification or reason.
That is airpower's continuing allure: military engagement with no commitment.
I know all of the arguments, that airpower can't plant a flag on a hill, that airpower can't occupy territory. I know, and have argued in dozens of articles over the years, that we can not figure out why it works, or what it is that precisely happens on the ground with airpower's meticulous repetition. But in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan, where ground forces struggle, airpower seems so effortless and trouble-free.
That is why it is so alluring, and so dangerous.
posted by huZmid at 8:46 PM
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