By David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 3, 2004
FT. LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — American soldiers who defeated the Iraqi regime
15 months ago received virtually none of the critical spare parts they needed to
keep their tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles running. They ran chronically
short of food, water and ammunition. Their radios often failed them. Their
medics had to forage for medical supplies, artillery gunners had to cannibalize
parts from captured Iraqi guns and intelligence units provided little useful
information about the enemy.
These revelations come not from embedded
reporters or congressional committees but from the Army itself. In the first
internal assessment of the war in Iraq, an exhaustive Army study has concluded
that American forces prevailed despite supply and logistical failures, poor
intelligence, communication breakdowns and futile attempts at psychological
warfare.
The 542-page study, declassified last month, praises commanders
and soldiers for displaying resourcefulness and resiliency under trying
conditions, and f or taking advantage of superior firepower, training and
technology.
But the report also describes a broken supply system that
left crucial spare parts and lubricants on warehouse shelves in Kuwait while
tankers outside Baghdad ripped parts from broken-down tanks and raided Iraqi
supplies of oil and lubricants.
"No one had anything good to say about
parts delivery, from the privates at the front to the generals" at the U.S.
command center in Kuwait, the study's authors concluded after conducting 2,300
interviews and studying 119,000 documents.
Among other highlights, the
report revealed that the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad before
cheering Iraqis was the brainchild of a U.S. Marine colonel, with help from a
psychological operations unit. The report also credited a U.S. Army colonel
with shortening the war by "weeks, if not months" with his dramatic "thunder
run" into Baghdad.
Portions of an early draft of the report were
described by the New York Times in an article in February. The study has since
been revised and refined, but the overall conclusions in the final, unclassified
report have not changed significantly.
Within the Third Infantry
Division (Mechanized), which spearheaded the U.S. assault on Baghdad,
"literally every maneuver battalion commander asserted that he could not have
continued offensive operations for another two weeks without some spare parts,"
the study said.
The study, titled "On Point" and aimed at "lessons
learned," is at odds with the public perception of a technologically superior
invasion force that easily drove Hussein from power. In fact, as the authors
point out in their battle-by-battle narrative, there were many precarious
moments when U.S. units were critically short of fuel and ammunition, with
little understanding of the forces arrayed against them.
The report, by
the Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group at Ft. Leavenworth, called ammunition
resupply "problematic" and said the medical supply system "faile d to work."
Engineers desperate for explosives foraged for Iraqi explosives and tore apart
mine-clearing charges to use the explosives to blow up captured Iraqi
equipment.
Many soldiers plunged into combat not knowing whether they
had enough food or water to sustain themselves in punishing heat and blinding
sandstorms. "Stocks of food barely met demand," the study said. "There were
times when the supply system was incapable of providing sufficient MREs for the
soldiers fighting Iraqi forces."
Military intelligence provided little
useful information about the deployment or intentions of Iraqi forces, the study
concluded. A Third Infantry tank commander whose company was attacked by Iraqi
fighters hidden in an elaborate bunker and trench system in Baghdad on April 8
told The Times that he later learned from a French journalist that newspapers
had reported details of the bunker network. Yet his own intelligence officers
had told him nothing.
Most significantly, military planners did not a
nticipate the effectiveness or ferocity of paramilitary forces that disrupted
supply columns and mounted suicide charges against 70-ton Abrams tanks. Some of
those same forces, using tactics refined during the invasion, are part of the
current insurgency.
The study, which covers events in Kuwait and Iraq
until President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1, 2003, does
not address the insurgency, which has killed far more Americans than were killed
during the so-called combat phase. Nor does the study discuss the Pentagon's
failure to anticipate or control the looting and chaos following the collapse of
the Iraqi regime in April 2003.
But the report does say that the
military's "running start" — the strategy of launching the invasion before
all support units had arrived — made it difficult for commanders to
quickly adjust from major combat to postwar challenges. Because combat units
outraced supply and support units, combat commanders were caught unprepared when
Husse in's regime collapsed after three weeks.
"Local commanders were
torn between their fights and providing resources — soldiers, time and
logistics — to meet the civilian needs," the report said. "Partially due
to the scarce resources as a result of the running start, there simply was not
enough to do both missions."
The report does not address the Bush
administration's stated reasons for the invasion — Iraq's alleged weapons
of mass destruction, purported operational links between Baghdad and Al Qaeda,
and atrocities committed under Hussein's dictatorship. Instead, the study
critiques the Army's combat performance with an eye toward future wars.
The principal authors — retired Col. Gregory Fontenot, Lt. Col. E.J.
Degen and Lt. Col. David Tohn — warned that Iraqi forces could have
created significant problems if they had attacked relatively undefended U.S.
units staging in Kuwait in the winter of 2002-03. Those units arrived without
significant firepower or r einforcements and were vulnerable to a surprise
attack.
The authors also said Iraqis could have extended the battle for
Baghdad for weeks if they had destroyed or blocked approaches to the capital, or
had forced American troops to fight a drawn-out battle in dense urban areas.
(Former Republican Guard commanders interviewed by The Times in Baghdad said
Hussein left the highways to Baghdad open because he thought his own forces
would need them once they blocked the American invasion south of the
capital.)
In an interview Friday, Fontenot said the Army excelled at
"joint operations," integrating infantry, armor, artillery and air power to
great effect during the war. "Arguably, the integration of joint warfare
reached a level we had not seen at least since the Korean War," he said.
He also praised the effective use of Special Forces, the successful
"pre-positioning" of vast quantities of materiel in the Middle East, and the
quality of Army training. Fontenot, a tank battalion commander d uring the
first Gulf War, said officers and men at the tactical level were better prepared
last year than 13 years ago.
"I thought I was a pretty good tank
commander, but the quality of these battalions is far better than we were," he
said. "I was really impressed by the quality of the tactical
leadership."
Fontenot said the narrative study, ordered by former Army
Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, was not intended as the "seminal work"
on the war. Rather, he said, "it's a first look."
The study credits a
relatively junior commander — Col. David Perkins of the Second Brigade of
the Third Infantry Division — with shortening the war with a bold armored
strike into the heart of Baghdad on April 7. Perkins' "thunder run" surprised
Baghdad's defenders with its speed and firepower, collapsing the regime from
within before Iraqi forces could draw the Americans into a protracted urban
war.
The authors said Perkins "made the single decision that arguably
shortened the sie ge by weeks, if not months."
The Pentagon's plan for
Baghdad had envisioned a series of attacks to slowly chip away at the regime.
But the authors said Perkins' decision to suddenly revise the plan under fire
and stay in downtown Baghdad was a prime example of flexibility and innovation
by both the Pentagon brass and commanders in the field.
They "rapidly
adapted and fought the enemy they found rather than the one they planned on,"
the study said.
U.S. forces prevailed despite seriously underestimating
paramilitary forces, especially Saddam Fedayeen, Baath Party militiamen, al Quds
local militiamen and Muslim jihadists from Syria, Jordan and other Middle
Eastern countries, the study said. Those fighters harassed U.S. supply columns
and nearly overran Col. Perkins' forces along Highway 8 south of Baghdad on
April 7.
"The intelligence and operations communities had never
anticipated how ferocious, tenacious and fanatical they would be," the authors
said. By dressing in civilian c lothes and firing from civilian neighborhoods,
paramilitaries were able to "hide with some success from the incredible array of
technical intelligence" available to U.S. forces.
Efforts by
psychological operations units to persuade Iraqi forces to surrender largely
failed, the study concluded.
Despite success in minimizing damage to oil
fields, the psychological units "produced much less than expected and perhaps
less than claimed," the authors said. Some leaflets baffled Iraqi forces, while
others were outdated, forcing units to resort to loudspeaker broadcasts, the
report said.
Poor U.S. intelligence efforts were compounded by ground
commanders' decisions — because of the dangers involved — not to
send scouts and other reconnaissance troops ahead to report on enemy positions.
In addition, long-range surveillance units flying in lightly equipped
helicopters "did not produce great effect for the investment of talent and the
risk to those involved," the report said.