The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, in concert with a few faithful allies, performed amazing feats during the first three weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Aerial bombardment obliterated key enemy facilities in Baghdad. Special Operations Forces and Patriot air defense batteries muffled ballistic missile responses. Spearheads sped north at breathtaking speed before logistical shortages and a blinding sandstorm made them pause briefly, then gutted Republican Guard diehards who guarded Baghdad's front door. Organized resistance in the capital city collapsed on 9 April, 21 days after combat began. Six soldiers remained missing in action when this issue went to press, but all seven U.S. POWs were safe. Coalition and civilian casualties were much lower than the most optimistic predictions. Countrywide mop-ups and counter-guerrilla operations continued, but full-scale warfare was finished.
Commander Queeg, who captained the ill-fated minesweeper Caine, claimed, "You can't assume nothin' in this man's Navy." He was wrong, of course, because military planners frequently must substitute assumptions for absent facts. Those who did so in preparation for war with Iraq erred egregiously, according to skeptics who alleged that key suppositions began to clash with reality before the war was one week old.
Assumption 1: The United Nations and NATO will furnish forces to help defeat Saddam Hussein.
Reality: The United States, Great Britain, and Australia contributed almost all military power available to a "coalition of the willing."
Assumption 2: Simultaneous U.S. attacks from Kuwait and Turkey will make Iraqi defenders fight on two fronts.
Reality: Turkey marked its military bases off limits to Coalition combatants and allowed overflights only after combat had commenced.
Assumption 3: "Shock and awe" assaults against militarily important targets in Baghdad will cripple the Iraqi high command.
Reality: Saddam Hussein's command-and-control apparatus was much more resilient than expected.
Assumption 4: Oppressed Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq actively will assist U.S. and allied liberators.
Reality: No uprisings occurred before Coalition forces seized control of the region.
Assumption 5: Victory over Iraq will come quickly.
Reality: No one knows how long underground and guerrilla activities will dangerously destabilize "postwar" Iraq.
Assumption 6: Strong land force reserves will not be required to exploit offensive opportunities, cope with unexpected troubles, or relieve front-line troops.
Reality: A slew of active and retired U.S. Army generals openly deplored the absence of land force reserves.
Assumption 7: Poorly equipped, trained, and motivated run-of-the-mill Iraqi divisions will fold quickly under pressure.
Reality: Coercion coupled with struggles for survival against infidels invading their Islamic homeland held those "dregs" together longer than anticipated.
Assumption 8: Traditional land combat will predominate.
Reality: Army Lieutenant General William Wallace, the senior battlefield commander, on 28 March lamented, "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against."
Assumption 9: Saddam Hussein's paramilitary Fedayeen are militarily unimportant.
Reality: Lightly armed but elusive hit-and-run Iraqi raiders made U.S. Central Command divert substantial offensive combat power to defend vulnerable supply lines almost from the outset, and they continued to fight after Baghdad fell.
Assumption 10: Blitzkrieg-style, victory that demonstrates unbeatable U.S. military power will bolster global deterrence.
Reality: Some highly respected pundits hypothesized that war with Iraq could have opposite effects.
Assumption 11: Saddam's defeat greatly will reduce prospects of terrorist attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad.
Reality: Some highly respected counterterrorism specialists hypothesize opposite effects.
Assumption 12: Seventy thousand U.S. troops may need to occupy postwar Iraq briefly.
Reality: Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki postulates about 200,000 for a much longer period.
As critics originally claimed, assumptions 1-4 missed the mark by wide margins. Neither the United Nations nor NATO joined the coalition of the willing. Major improvisations were imperative when Turkey banned U.S. use of its bases, because there was no Plan B when Plan A failed. Redundant command, control, and communications systems dispersed throughout Iraq dramatically reduced results expected from initial shock-and-awe attacks against command, control, and communications centers in Baghdad. Saddam's hard-nosed henchmen discouraged large-scale Shiite uprisings in southern Iraq when Coalition forces advanced.
The validity of assumption 5 depends on residual resistance.
Assumptions 6-9 proved correct. Traditional land combat predominated. Grossly outnumbered Coalition forces flattened Republican Guard divisions in record time. Hit-and-run Fedayeen raids were sideshows. Reinforcements who arrived late lightened loads but did not decisively influence outcomes.
The accuracy of assumptions 10-12 is still speculative. Operation Iraqi Freedom may or may not deter aggression by rogue states and discourage global terrorism. The number of U.S. occupation forces needed depends on how many peacekeepers the U.N. provides and the level of residual Iraqi resistance.
The mid-April scoreboard accordingly looked like this: Prewar planning assumptions 1-4 fell flat. The last three were inconclusive. Luck allowed assumption 6 to pan out, even though disdain for readily available land reserves violated doctrine that practitioners have revalidated since the Stone Age. Only 4 out of 12 remained rock solid.
Officials atop the U.S. national security chain should review reasons for that defective record, even though Coalition forces won handily, because faulty assumptions have caused mission failures and needless loss of lives in the past and could do so again. Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie offers ways to improve future performance in his slim treatise Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1967, pp. 83-85). Requirements exist for a full bag of concepts that apply "to a particular situation assumed for the future or existing at any given moment," plus a "comprehensive reserve of [contingency plans] ready for use whenever the situation changes or when war fails to proceed in accordance with the plan in use." Well said.
Colonel Collins completed a 30-year Army career in 1972, served the next 24 years as Senior Specialist in National Defense with the Congressional Research Service, and has been a distinguished visiting research fellow at National Defense University since 1996. One of his 12 books is Military Strategy: Principles, Practices, and Historical Perspectives (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002).