Planning a Storm

Reprinted from U.S. Army Intelligence Agency, How They Fight: Desert Shield Order of Battle Handbook (1990)

Diagram of an Iraqi company subsection of a triangular strongpoint.

tional war over Kuwait, it ended the year reasonably confident that its plans and defenses would lead to a negotiated settlement and that it could prevail against the untested American military forces and unstable Coalition facing them. Saddam declared to his staff in November 1990 that “as long as our blood is less, as long as our breath lasts longer, and at the end we can make our enemy feel incompetent.” He was certain that it would be a long war, and that a long war would play to Iraq’s strengths and the United States’ weaknesses.

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Planning for an offensive against Iraq actually began in August. In the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Kuwait, General Schwarzkopf asked the Air

Force to provide a plan for an air campaign against Iraq because this was the only offensive option that could be employed if the president wanted to strike Iraq immediately. Central Command’s staff was busy with the complicated business of deploying forces to Saudi Arabia and forming plans to defend the Desert Kingdom. The job of creating this campaign plan was given to Colonel John A. Warden III, USAF, then the Air Force’s deputy director of warfighting concepts and head of its “Project Checkmate” wargaming office in the Pentagon. Colonel Warden developed a “ring” targeting model that he believed could defeat an opponent through airpower alone. He quickly developed an air campaign dubbed “Instant Thunder” that was presented to General Schwarzkopf and the U.S. Air Forces Central Command commander, Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, in mid-August in Riyadh. Unlike Colonel Warden, neither General Schwarzkopf nor General Horner believed the air campaign alone could defeat Iraq.

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After hearing Colonel Warden’s briefing on the Instant Thunder campaign, General Horner appointed Brigadier General Buster C. Glosson as director of campaign plans for Air Forces Central Command, a department often referred to as the “Black Hole” due to its extreme secrecy. General Glosson took the original Instant Thunder campaign plan and reworked it into the plan that was eventually used against Iraq. Colonel Warden returned to the United States, but one of his deputies, Lieutenant Colonel David A. Deptula, USAF, became a key member of the Black Hole. Although the plan was adjusted to better fit local conditions and made more practical, Warden’s guiding principles and targeting priorities heavily influenced the final version of the Gulf War air offensive plan.

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Once the early, Wild West days of Operation Desert Shield were over, Marine and Air Force air combat doctrines began to clash. The Air Force had pushed through its concept of a joint forces air component commander in the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. This joint air commander would control all fixed-wing

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air assets in the command; during the Gulf War General Horner held this position. Under Air Force doctrine he would control these forces through the air tasking order, a daily document that was intended to contain all of the fixed-winged sorties planned for each day. The intention was to allocate aerial resources according to theaterwide

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For the most part,the Air Force is disinterested in helicopter operations. priorities, subordinating all of a theater’s airpower to a single commander. After the war General Horner succinctly explained the concept in the following way: “The ATO [air tasking order] is the JFACC [joint forces air component commander].”

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The history of the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing’s operations in the Gulf War aptly summed up the Air Force position:

Given the appropriate resources and wide latitude from political leaders, Air Force leaders argued that an air campaign focusing on strategic targets could break the enemy’s will and compel him to surrender or desist without the U.S. having to resort to a costly and possibly unpopular ground campaign. This form of nearly unrestricted air warfare against deep or strategic targets demanded that ground officers who favored using airpower primarily against tactical targets be kept at arms’ length.

To ensure that the air commander in a joint operation possessed the authority to direct or redirect strikes across the length and breadth of the theater in pursuit of campaign objectives, Air Force doctrine also demanded that airspace not be ceded or parceled out to other services or allies.

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In contrast, the Marine doctrine was focused on close air support for the Marine ground forces; air and ground were combined in the same team, the Marine air-ground task force. Rather than a daily, planned sortie list, the Marines emphasized flexibility and rapid response to the ground commander’s needs and a geographic organization similar to the Vietnam-era “route packages” (which the Air Force vociferously rejected). Marines felt that under the Air Force theaterwide system response times to close air support requests would increase dramatically. Although Goldwater-Nichols established the basic authority of the joint forces air component commander, the 1986 Omnibus Agreement for Command and Control of Marine Tactical Aviation in Sustained Operations Ashore stated that the Marine commander would maintain operational control of his organic air assets.

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In September, the Solomon-like solution was that all of the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing’s Intruders and Prowlers would be devoted to “JFACC mission,” while half of the sorties flown by the Hornets would be similarly tasked. The Marines’ Harriers and all of their helicopters would be retained entirely for Marine directed missions. General Boomer later said, “It made no sense to me to not allow the

Photo by MSgt Jose Lopez Jr. Defense Imagery DF-ST-92-07542 Civilian and military decision makers during a conference for Operation Desert Shield. Bottom row, from left: Paul D. Wolfowitz, under secretary of defense for policy; Gen Colin L. Powell, USA, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard B. Cheney, secretary of defense; Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA, commander in chief, U.S. Central Command; LtGen Calvin A. H. Waller, USA, deputy commander, U.S. Central Command; and MajGen Robert B. Johnston, chief of staff, U.S. Central Command. Back row, from left: LtGen Walter E. Boomer, commander, Marine Forces Central Command/I Marine Expeditionary Force; LtGen Charles A. Horner, commander, Air Forces Central Command/Ninth Air Force; LtGen John J. Yeosock, USA, commander, Army Forces Central Command/Third Army; VAdm Stanley Arthur, Commander, Seventh Fleet; and Col Jesse Johnson, Special Operations Command Central.

Marine air wing to be used by the joint commander to help prosecute the campaign. That’s what our doctrine says will happen. Marines always tended to wrap around the axle here, in my view. Some felt no one could task Marine air except the Marine commander. I don’t think that’s true and I don’t think it’s wise.” In contrast, a later Air Force study concluded the agreement was acceptable “in the interest of harmony,” primarily because the Air Force had enough resources in the theater that it could afford to be generous.

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Planning for the ground war began in September when General Schwarzkopf assembled a small team of Army officers on his staff in Riyadh—all of whom were graduates of the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies—and charged them with planning for a ground offensive to liberate Kuwait. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph H. “Joe” Purvis, this team kept its work secret and self-contained; it was officially called the Special Plans Group but was known informally as the “Jedi Knights.”

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Initially charged with creating a plan based on the forces earmarked for Operation Desert Shield, the Jedi Knights provided a one corps plan that called for Coalition forces to advance into Kuwait from the elbow to the Wadi al-Batin while Navy and Marine forces staged an amphibious feint on the coast. Neither the Jedi Knights nor General Schwarzkopf liked this plan, and it can be seen how closely it mirrored the approach routes that Iraqi intelligence antici-

*A reference to a mystical military order in the popular Star Wars movie franchise.

Adapted from a Central Intelligence Agency map by Marine Corps History Division Kuwait is a small state, and there are limited avenues of advance into the nation from Saudi Arabia. The “one corps plan” depicted here is remarkably close to the Iraqi map of expected Coalition offensives seen earlier.

pated, as noted above. Nonetheless, Marine Major General Robert B. Johnston, the Central Command chief of staff, and Lieutenant Colonel Purvis briefed the Joint Chiefs on this plan on 10 October and the president on 11 October.

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General Boomer and his staff were surprised to discover that an Army cell was developing plans for a ground offensive to liberate Kuwait. The Jedi Knights had no Marine members, and General Boomer was not informed that the planning cell