Mike
22 November 2000, 12:56
Stars and Stripes OmnimediaNovember 14, 2000 Gulf War+10: Secret History
Week Sixteen: The Special Forces Mystique
By William M. Arkin, Special to The Stars and Stripes
(Stars and Stripes Omnimedia is a privately owned news source and is in no way
affiliated with the U.S. government.)
With the Oct. 1990 decision by the Bush administration to double American
forces, one segment of the American military was left in the lurch. This was the
special operations force -- The Army Green Berets and Delta Force, Navy SEALs,
Air Force and Army special operations aviation units and a variety of commando
groups -- who had deployed to Saudi Arabia and Turkey right after the invasion
of Kuwait, only to find their contingency planning increasingly circumscribed as
the march toward war became inevitable.
The special operations forces (SOF) developed plans for sabotage, hostage
rescue, and even an independent operation to assassinate Saddam Hussein in
Baghdad.
But Washington decision-makers were wary of any provocations that might provoke
a premature war with Iraq, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the theater
commander, had an enormous distrust of special forces. Only with the Iraqi
firing of Scud missiles after the start of the air war would SOF mount
significant covert operations, as U.S. and British commandos infiltrated into
Iraq hunting down mobile launchers. But those operations were never anticipated
in the planning for the war.
Some excellent accounts of SOF in the Gulf War have been written, most notably
Douglas Waller's "The Commandos" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). Though
Schwarzkopf would do his darndest to constrain the special operators, when it
was all over, he typically developed amnesia and call them "unsung heros." It is
an accolade that serves to obscure a debatable contribution. Pacific Wind
SOF were on the ground four days after the Iraqi invasion, initially made up of
Army Green Berets and covert operators, but soon enough joined by Army special
operations aviation units, Navy SEALs and Special Boat Units, and Air Force
special operations squadrons.
The elite of the elite, the highly classified Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), parent command of the famed Army "Delta Force" anti-terrorism unit, also
deployed. A small Delta contingent supplemented Schwarzkopf's protection detail,
providing bodyguards who would never leave the general's side.
JSOC also worked with the Joint Staff special operations division and the CIA on
Top Secret "Pacific Wind" contingencies to rescue American hostages inside the
U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City. A mock-up of the embassy was reportedly constructed
at a remote area of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and operatives were
prepared to infiltrate Kuwait with concealed transponders and other gear. CIA
Arab national agents were also slipped into Kuwait to develop contact with the
embassy, and build links with the Kuwaiti resistance to facilitate operations
behind enemy lines.
Meanwhile, Navy units conducted security missions along the Kuwaiti coast
starting on Aug. 23, and Navy SEALs conducted nightly water patrols. By October,
SEAL platoons and Saudi naval commandos maintained a continual presence north of
Ras Al-Khafji, the closest town to the Kuwaiti border, and one that became a no
mans land in a buffer zone between coalition and Iraqi forces. Troops of the
Army's 5th Special Forces Group, in cooperation with Saudi paratroopers, manned
observation posts further west along the Kuwaiti border to provide border
surveillance and early warning of any Iraqi attack.
"Pacific Wind" never progressed beyond the planning stage, as Washington feared
that a mission gone bad could erupt into a full-scale war at the wrong time.
Washington also restrained SOF covert plans to build a resistance and guerrilla
movement inside Iraq. The Saudi royal family wanted no part of an effort to arm
fundamentalist Shiites in southern Iraq, let alone the Kurds in the north, acts
that could lead to a balkanization of Iraq and an eventual threat to the Sunni
Moslem hold in the rest of the Gulf. Protect My Forces
By November 1990, moreover, the active Kuwaiti resistance largely found itself
contained by the Iraqi occupiers, limiting SOF options inside the country.
Schwarzkopf significantly constrained any cross-border efforts, also to limit
any chances of a provocative act. The general was particularly distrustful of
SOF independent operations. His feelings extended back to his experiences in
Vietnam and Grenada, where he experienced SOF operations that seemed to always
require emergency assistance of conventional forces, thus draining the
capabilities needed for the main event.
Any important role for SOF, in Schwarzkopf's mind, would be limited to support
for his conventional battle plan. As an offensive ground war plan unfolded,
Schwarzkopf's priority was in using special forces in liaison work and training
of Arab military forces who were members of the coalition.
Starting in September, almost the entire 5th Group became involved in this
program, and CENTCOM requested an additional battalion of the 3d Special Forces
Group to carry out any long-range patrol work north of the border. To be fair to
the special operators, though, Schwarzkopf also regarded air and naval power
also as merely support for the all-important ground war.
The air and ground war plans solidified in November and December. The main SOF
role would be in support of a pre-H-hour attack of Iraqi air defense ground
control intercept sites to facilitate F-15E Strike Eagle attacks on western
Iraqi Scud launch sites and combat search and rescue into Iraq to pick up any
downed coalition pilots.
The one exception in the use of SOF for true unconventional warfare was in the
case of the British Special Air Service. By coincidence, Schwarzkopf's British
counterpart in Saudi Arabia, Sir Peter de la Billiere, had once commanded the
SAS regiment, and de la Billiere quietly lobbied the American general to get his
SOF into the fight. De la Billiere proposed sending in small SAS teams into far
western Iraq to harass Saddam's force and distract their attention from the main
event in Kuwait. It was just the operation, supporting Schwarzkopf's ground war,
that had appeal to CENTCOM. I Killed A Tent
Despite post-war claims, neither the SAS nor their Delta counterparts were
trained or prepared to go into operations against mobile Scud launchers once
Iraq started firing the missiles. When the air war broke out, the first SAS
troops were covertly inserted into Iraq on Jan. 20, but it wasn't until three or
four days later that they were retasked to target mobile Scuds.
On Jan. 28, according to various accounts, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin
Powell had to personally order Schwarzkopf to unleash British and American SOF
in western Iraq in a full-fledged Scud hunt. The first U.S. mission against the
Scuds took place on Feb. 7, involving 16 Delta commandos.
How much would the SOF aid in the hunt for mobile Scuds? Firings peaked on Jan.
26, long before they got into the fight, and there is no post-war evidence that
a single Scud launcher was destroyed on the ground as a result of coordinated
air and ground efforts.
Despite the arrival of the covert cavalry and a bunch of post-war bravado,
coordination between coalition aircraft flying Scud patrols and teams on the
ground was virtually non-existent at first.
In one case, an American fighter destroyed a Bedouin tent encampment in the
belief it was attacking a mobile launcher unit cleverly disguised to look like
an Arab encampment. The encampment was indeed disguised; it was one of the CIA
Arab teams set up in the desert to help with pilot escape and evasion.
Week Sixteen: The Special Forces Mystique
By William M. Arkin, Special to The Stars and Stripes
(Stars and Stripes Omnimedia is a privately owned news source and is in no way
affiliated with the U.S. government.)
With the Oct. 1990 decision by the Bush administration to double American
forces, one segment of the American military was left in the lurch. This was the
special operations force -- The Army Green Berets and Delta Force, Navy SEALs,
Air Force and Army special operations aviation units and a variety of commando
groups -- who had deployed to Saudi Arabia and Turkey right after the invasion
of Kuwait, only to find their contingency planning increasingly circumscribed as
the march toward war became inevitable.
The special operations forces (SOF) developed plans for sabotage, hostage
rescue, and even an independent operation to assassinate Saddam Hussein in
Baghdad.
But Washington decision-makers were wary of any provocations that might provoke
a premature war with Iraq, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the theater
commander, had an enormous distrust of special forces. Only with the Iraqi
firing of Scud missiles after the start of the air war would SOF mount
significant covert operations, as U.S. and British commandos infiltrated into
Iraq hunting down mobile launchers. But those operations were never anticipated
in the planning for the war.
Some excellent accounts of SOF in the Gulf War have been written, most notably
Douglas Waller's "The Commandos" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). Though
Schwarzkopf would do his darndest to constrain the special operators, when it
was all over, he typically developed amnesia and call them "unsung heros." It is
an accolade that serves to obscure a debatable contribution. Pacific Wind
SOF were on the ground four days after the Iraqi invasion, initially made up of
Army Green Berets and covert operators, but soon enough joined by Army special
operations aviation units, Navy SEALs and Special Boat Units, and Air Force
special operations squadrons.
The elite of the elite, the highly classified Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), parent command of the famed Army "Delta Force" anti-terrorism unit, also
deployed. A small Delta contingent supplemented Schwarzkopf's protection detail,
providing bodyguards who would never leave the general's side.
JSOC also worked with the Joint Staff special operations division and the CIA on
Top Secret "Pacific Wind" contingencies to rescue American hostages inside the
U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City. A mock-up of the embassy was reportedly constructed
at a remote area of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and operatives were
prepared to infiltrate Kuwait with concealed transponders and other gear. CIA
Arab national agents were also slipped into Kuwait to develop contact with the
embassy, and build links with the Kuwaiti resistance to facilitate operations
behind enemy lines.
Meanwhile, Navy units conducted security missions along the Kuwaiti coast
starting on Aug. 23, and Navy SEALs conducted nightly water patrols. By October,
SEAL platoons and Saudi naval commandos maintained a continual presence north of
Ras Al-Khafji, the closest town to the Kuwaiti border, and one that became a no
mans land in a buffer zone between coalition and Iraqi forces. Troops of the
Army's 5th Special Forces Group, in cooperation with Saudi paratroopers, manned
observation posts further west along the Kuwaiti border to provide border
surveillance and early warning of any Iraqi attack.
"Pacific Wind" never progressed beyond the planning stage, as Washington feared
that a mission gone bad could erupt into a full-scale war at the wrong time.
Washington also restrained SOF covert plans to build a resistance and guerrilla
movement inside Iraq. The Saudi royal family wanted no part of an effort to arm
fundamentalist Shiites in southern Iraq, let alone the Kurds in the north, acts
that could lead to a balkanization of Iraq and an eventual threat to the Sunni
Moslem hold in the rest of the Gulf. Protect My Forces
By November 1990, moreover, the active Kuwaiti resistance largely found itself
contained by the Iraqi occupiers, limiting SOF options inside the country.
Schwarzkopf significantly constrained any cross-border efforts, also to limit
any chances of a provocative act. The general was particularly distrustful of
SOF independent operations. His feelings extended back to his experiences in
Vietnam and Grenada, where he experienced SOF operations that seemed to always
require emergency assistance of conventional forces, thus draining the
capabilities needed for the main event.
Any important role for SOF, in Schwarzkopf's mind, would be limited to support
for his conventional battle plan. As an offensive ground war plan unfolded,
Schwarzkopf's priority was in using special forces in liaison work and training
of Arab military forces who were members of the coalition.
Starting in September, almost the entire 5th Group became involved in this
program, and CENTCOM requested an additional battalion of the 3d Special Forces
Group to carry out any long-range patrol work north of the border. To be fair to
the special operators, though, Schwarzkopf also regarded air and naval power
also as merely support for the all-important ground war.
The air and ground war plans solidified in November and December. The main SOF
role would be in support of a pre-H-hour attack of Iraqi air defense ground
control intercept sites to facilitate F-15E Strike Eagle attacks on western
Iraqi Scud launch sites and combat search and rescue into Iraq to pick up any
downed coalition pilots.
The one exception in the use of SOF for true unconventional warfare was in the
case of the British Special Air Service. By coincidence, Schwarzkopf's British
counterpart in Saudi Arabia, Sir Peter de la Billiere, had once commanded the
SAS regiment, and de la Billiere quietly lobbied the American general to get his
SOF into the fight. De la Billiere proposed sending in small SAS teams into far
western Iraq to harass Saddam's force and distract their attention from the main
event in Kuwait. It was just the operation, supporting Schwarzkopf's ground war,
that had appeal to CENTCOM. I Killed A Tent
Despite post-war claims, neither the SAS nor their Delta counterparts were
trained or prepared to go into operations against mobile Scud launchers once
Iraq started firing the missiles. When the air war broke out, the first SAS
troops were covertly inserted into Iraq on Jan. 20, but it wasn't until three or
four days later that they were retasked to target mobile Scuds.
On Jan. 28, according to various accounts, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin
Powell had to personally order Schwarzkopf to unleash British and American SOF
in western Iraq in a full-fledged Scud hunt. The first U.S. mission against the
Scuds took place on Feb. 7, involving 16 Delta commandos.
How much would the SOF aid in the hunt for mobile Scuds? Firings peaked on Jan.
26, long before they got into the fight, and there is no post-war evidence that
a single Scud launcher was destroyed on the ground as a result of coordinated
air and ground efforts.
Despite the arrival of the covert cavalry and a bunch of post-war bravado,
coordination between coalition aircraft flying Scud patrols and teams on the
ground was virtually non-existent at first.
In one case, an American fighter destroyed a Bedouin tent encampment in the
belief it was attacking a mobile launcher unit cleverly disguised to look like
an Arab encampment. The encampment was indeed disguised; it was one of the CIA
Arab teams set up in the desert to help with pilot escape and evasion.