AMERICAN SOLDIER. general TOMMY FRANKS. Malcolm McConnell. with

Transcription

1

2

3 AMERICAN SOLDIER general TOMMY FRANKS with Malcolm McConnell

4

5 to all who serve... and those who love them.

6

7 contents Epigraph Prologue: D-Day ix part i DEEP R OO T S 1 Planting Seeds 3 2 Make em a Hand 27 3 The Crucible 63 part ii PR OFESSIONAL SOLDIER 4 A New Army Flag Rank 145 part iii COMMANDER IN CHIEF 6 A Dangerous Neighborhood A New Kind of War Historic Victory 283 part iv A RE V OL UTION IN WARFARE 9 Commander s Concept The Plan Operation Iraqi Freedom A Campaign Unlike Any Other 478 Epilogue 537 Acknowledgments 565 Glossary 569

8 Index 577 Photographic Insert 1 Photographic Insert 2 About the Author 591 Credits 592 Cover Copyright 593 About the Publisher 594

9 The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected. sun tzu

10

11 prologue d-day 1634 hours, 19 march 2003 prince sultan air base, saudi arabia I leaned forward in the leather chair, watching the blank video projection screen. After a flicker of static, the wood-paneled White House Situation Room snapped into focus. President George W. Bush sat between Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell at the head of the mahogany table. The five other members of the National Security Council sat along the sides, facing the screen on which our image appeared, just as theirs was displayed here. The men s dark suits were well cut. Dr. Condoleezza Rice wore a tailored jacket. They could have been a corporate board, but the subject of this teleconference was not profit or loss. The topic was war. If the President gave me the order, thousands of Coalition soldiers and Marines would attack across the Iraqi border in a matter of hours. Hundreds of American, British, and Australian warplanes would support the ground force. Can you hear me, Mr. President? I asked. Yes we can, Tommy. We can hear you fine. You ve got the National Security Council here. Sir, I began. I would like to give a brief introduction of our component commanders and let them give you a quick status report. We ll go around the horn. I ll start with Lt. General Buzz Moseley.

12 x PROLOGUE I nodded to my left. Buzz wore a desert-tan U.S. Air Force flight suit with the three stars of his rank on the shoulders. Beside him at our oval table was Royal Air Force Air Vice Marshal Glenn Torpy, who commanded the Coalition s British aviators. Group Captain Geoff Brown, the commander of the Australian Air Component, sat to my right. Our command and control is full up, Mr. President, Buzz reported. Our Coalition forces are in place. The Air Component is airborne, overhead Iraq right now. Mr. President, we have the besttrained, best-equipped, best-motivated people in the world, and we re well prepared to execute this task. The people in Washington looked grave. Colin was plainly tired. Maybe even as tired as I was. My immediate boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was calm, thoughtful. Beside him, Air Force General Dick Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared somber. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet sat across the table, listening closely. They recognized the gravity of the moment. The ultimate objective of our forces was Baghdad. Their mission was to overwhelm the enemy and topple one of the most dangerous and repressive dictatorships in the world, the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Then, as I looked at the screen, I could see President Bush speaking but now I couldn t hear his words. Apparently the sound on the secure satellite video link had just failed. Hope this isn t an omen. The President spoke again, but the picture was mute. Don Rumsfeld waved, pointing a finger toward his ear and mouthing something. Then Buzz leaned over and tapped a switch on my black console. I had inadvertently cut the audio. Mr. Secretary, I found this thing on my machine here, I said with exaggerated contrition. I can read you loud and clear now. My gaffe had broken the tension. The White House Situation Room echoed with laughter.

13 PROLOGUE xi Don t worry, Tommy, the President said, grinning. We haven t lost confidence. Fortunately we re dealing with pilots sitting next to you. His tone changed. The President s words were precise. General, he asked Buzz Moseley, do you have everything you need to win? You bet, Sir. Pleased with the strategy? the President continued. Absolutely, Buzz answered. Our strategy to defeat Saddam s military and free Iraq was contained in a complex and ambitious operations plan that my staff and I had hammered out over months with Don Rumsfeld, an OPLAN unique in military history. During Operation Desert Storm, which drove the Iraqis from Kuwait, the coalition had deployed 560,000 troops in fourteen divisions. The four-day ground war did not begin until an intense five-week air campaign had pounded the enemy. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, I would command fewer than half the number of troops in only five divisions, equipped with less than half the armor and artillery than the force that had defeated the Iraqi army in But we would not stop at the Euphrates River. We planned to go all the way to Baghdad and beyond. And under our strategy, decisive air operations would begin after our ground units went into combat. This was a calculated risk. But in thirty-eight years as a soldier, I d learned the difference between a risk and a gamble. Next, I introduced U.S. Army Lt. General David McKiernan, our Land Component commander in Kuwait. Mr. President, we have 170,000 American, British, and Australian soldiers and Marines that are trained and ready here. We re proud of the British and the Australians, the President said. As we speak, David continued, we re moving into forward attack positions along the Kuwaiti border. Our logistics are in place to sustain our operations for as far north and as long as we need to go.

14 xii PROLOGUE General, George Bush asked him, you got everything you need to win? Yes, Sir. Satisfied with the strategy? Yes, Sir. Next came my Naval Component commander, Vice Admiral Tim Keating, in Bahrain. He described his 149 ships sixty from Coalition allies deployed in the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Gulf, a fleet that included five aircraft carriers. We re ready to execute, Mr. President. Got everything you need? George Bush asked again. We do, Sir. President Bush tilted back in his chair and smiled. I m going to stop asking about the plan since you guys were the ones that developed it. I heard laughter around the teleconference loop. The President had the natural leader s ability to put his subordinates at ease. I moved on to our Marine Component commander, Lt. General Earl Hailston, also in Bahrain, who led our Consequence Management Task Force. Morale is high, he stressed, then added that his forces were ready to respond to any incident involving biological or chemical weapons. All across the theater of war, our young men and women were pulling on their hot, uncomfortable MOPP protective suits before saddling up in the rest of their combat gear. Our latest intelligence reports suggested that Iraqi frontline units and Republican Guard divisions had been armed with nerve and mustard gas and possibly weaponized anthrax and botulinum toxins. Neither Earl Hailston nor I could confirm the validity of this intelligence until the troops entered Iraq. But we had seen the Iraqis training to operate in a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) environment, and communications intercepts indicated their concern with chemicals and toxins. Since the Iraqis know we won t use WMD, I thought, their preparations must mean they will. I had no

15 PROLOGUE xiii doubt WMD would be used against our forces in the days ahead. The enemy had the artillery and missiles to deliver these weapons of mass destruction. It was my duty as Commander, U.S. Central Command, to make certain the Coalition forces I would order into harm s way were protected against any threat the enemy could present. Indeed, I was glad that we had created Earl Hailston s task force to respond to whatever WMD threats we might encounter. Safeguarding the kids in my command to the maximum degree possible while accomplishing the mission was a responsibility I took very seriously. But in the coming hours, no matter how well my commanders had prepared their units, some of these brave young people would be killed and wounded, an immutable aspect of war that those who had never experienced combat often forgot. I had learned my first lessons about war s harsh reality as an Artillery forward observer in the rice paddies and mangrove swamps of Vietnam s Mekong Delta thirty-five years earlier. Tonight, as our soldiers and Marines bulldozed through the thick sand berm on the Iraqi border and rolled north into the dark fields of landmines, they would be ready to shed their blood, following the orders I would transmit to their commanders. Even after all these years in uniform, this still amazed me. I would be seated in my air-conditioned command center in Qatar, scanning a wall of digital maps pulsing with bright symbols, but I would also be riding in those clanking Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. In my mind, I d choke on the dust and sooty diesel fumes and smell the bitter sweat of fear. I continued to introduce my commanders, moving the teleconference around the region. From a desert field site near Saudi Arabia s border with Iraq, U.S. Army Major General Dell Dailey, who commanded the elite Special Mission Units of Task Force 20, told the President his men were ready to go to war again. Dell s Joint Special Operations Command had spearheaded ground combat in Afghanistan in October 2001, less than a month

16 xiv PROLOGUE after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In Operation Enduring Freedom, Central Command and its Afghan allies had defeated the Taliban regime and destroyed Osama bin Laden s al Qaeda terrorist sanctuary in seventy-six days. Now my command was going to war for the second time in less than two years. While the component commanders reported their readiness, I glanced at the CENTCOM logo on the conference room wall. The map of our Area of Responsibility covered twenty-five nations, spreading from Africa across the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then on through former Soviet Central Asia, right up to Kyrgyzstan s glacier frontier with China. Half a billion people, most of them young, poor, and angry at their plight, lived in this troubled area. War had plagued the region which held 65 percent of the world s proven reserves of oil and natural gas for decades. I remembered the advice my predecessor, Marine General Tony Zinni, had offered before I d assumed command in July Tom, he d told me. Your mission will be to foster peace, stability, and security. But the region is boiling over with destabilizing tribal, ethnic, and religious hatred and is fertile ground for terrorism. If America gets involved in a major war in the next few years, it will probably be in this part of the world. It s a dangerous neighborhood. When the commanders reports ended, I spoke again, slowly and deliberately, aware of the historic moment. Mr. President, this force is ready. D-Day, H-Hour is 2100 hours tonight Iraqi time, 1800 hours Greenwich Mean, 1300 hours East Coast time. President Bush nodded to the National Security Council, then turned toward me. All right. For the sake of peace in the world and security for our country and the rest of the free world.... He paused as we listened intently.... And for the freedom of the Iraqi people, as of this moment I will give Secretary Rumsfeld the order necessary to execute Operation Iraqi Freedom.

17 PR OL OGUE xv Tommy, the President added, his voice firm. May God bless the troops. The seven thousand miles separating me from the White House vanished. I felt the impact of the President s invocation. Mr. President, I answered. May God bless America. I saluted, and the Commander-in-Chief returned the salute. T HE TARMAC ROARED WITH THE ENGINES OF REFUELING TANKERS and reconnaissance jets taking off. I paused, climbing the stairs to my plane. The President had just ordered me to go to war. The troops were ready. The question in my mind was, am I ready? Watching a huge gray jet lumber down the runway and climb into the desert sky, I felt a deep well of confidence. But strangely, I did not think of my seasoning in combat, my years as a commanding officer, or the military education I d received in my career. Instead, my thoughts cast back to the small towns of the American Southwest where I d grown up. It was this environment, my family, my friends, and my faith that had formed my values, my character. It was these elements that had made me who I was, years before I ever put on the uniform of a soldier. Success in the campaign ahead would depend more on character, sense of purpose, and values the nation s, the President s, my own, and the troops than on raw military power.

18

19 PART I DEEP ROOTS Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. robert louis stevenson

20