As U.S. forces deployed to Saudi Arabia in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, anti-military groups in the United States began rallying to the cry “No more Vietnams!’’
For once, they were right. Planning for and execution of Operation Desert Storm to date bear no resemblance to the U.S. experience in Vietnam, with one exception: enemy abuse of U.S. and allied prisoners of war. For rules of engagement, the contrast with Vietnam is significant.
The 1965-1968 Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam provides stark contrast to Desert Storm. In August 1964, responding to a request from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) developed a graduated program for aerial attack of military targets in North Vietnam. The JCS war plan was to sever the North Vietnamese lines of communication used for the import, export, and internal movement of war materials, while simultaneously establishing air superiority. The next step was to attack war-related industries and storage. To this end, the JCS identified 94 fixed targets requiring attack.
The heavy hand of the Secretary of Defense was present from the beginning. Based upon his direction, the JCS program for employment of air power was graduated geographically and in its intensity, to allow time for a little bombing, interrupted by frequent pauses to permit negotiation with the North Vietnamese to end the war—if the North Vietnamese chose to negotiate. The plan also called for attack of targets outside of populated areas only, even though military targets may be attacked legally wherever they are located.
Secretary McNamara’s purported concern was about collateral civilian casualties. The law of war concerning collateral civilian casualties follows common sense. The obligation is one of discrimination, which originated in the Just War tradition.
The obligation of distinguishing combatants and military objectives from civilians and civilian objects is a shared responsibility of the attacker, defender, and the civilian population as such. An attacker must exercise reasonable precaution to minimize incidental or collateral injury to the civilian population, consistent with mission accomplishment and allowable risk to the attacking force. A defender must exercise reasonable precaution to separate the civilian population and civilian objects from military objectives. Individual civilians must exercise reasonable Precaution to remove themselves from the vicinity of military objectives or military operations.
The principal responsibility for protection of the civilian population rests with the party controlling the civilian population. In no case may a combatant force use individual civilians or the civilian population to shield a military objective from attack.
In contrast, Secretary McNamara assumed all responsibility for collateral civilian casualties in North Vietnam. For this reason, he emphasized attack of roads and bridges in unpopulated areas, essentially turning the operation into a highly restricted interdiction campaign. He directed the attack of targets 'n a manner that purportedly reduced the risk to the civilian Population while increasing the risk to aircrews. He personally selected fixed targets for attack, in some cases selecting the aircraft, weapons loads, dates and times of strike, and routes of ingress to and egress from the target. Limitations were imposed upon weapons employment because of anticipated public criticism of particular weapons, even where those weapons could have achieved a greater degree of target destruction at less risk to aircrews and to civilians near the targets.
The North Vietnamese sensed a weakness: an over-concern by U.S. senior officials for collateral civilian casualties. They responded by moving military objectives—such as aircraft, antiaircraft guns, ground-control intercept radar, and military convoys—into or adjacent to populated areas, or placing them in or on sensitive, off-limits areas, such as atop the dikes and dams of the Red River Valley dam system, on the roofs of hospitals, and in and around the Haiphong cultural center. They increased the level of their propaganda campaign against the bombing campaign, alleging “indiscriminate” attack of civilians. The Secretary of Defense responded by increasing the restrictions on U.S. aircrews, while continuing to refuse to authorize attack of the most important targets.
One week into Desert Storm, on the other hand, President Bush emphasized that “Never again will our forces be sent out to do a job with one hand tied behind their back." Special trust and confidence have been returned to the battlefield commander, and that trust and confidence are reflected in the manner in which Desert Storm was planned and is being executed.
To be sure, other factors undoubtedly influenced this philosophy, not the least of which was the confidence shared by the national leadership, military planners, and aircrews in the ability of U.S. forces to wage a highly discriminate campaign. Notwithstanding marked increases in the complexity and lethality of enemy air defenses, technological advances have substantially improved target identification capabilities and bombing accuracy—to the point that the 500-foot CEP* of the average Vietnam-era strike aircraft for a daylight (only) attack has been reduced to less than 1% of that, day or night, with smart munitions. Stand-off weapons such as Tomahawk, Harpoon, and SLAM (modified Harpoon land-attack missile) can be employed against targets in high-threat areas to decrease the risk to aircrews. Highly professional, state-of-the-art training in integrated strike planning and execution at schools such as the Naval Strike Warfare Center and Marine Aviation Weapons Tactics Squadron One have enhanced aircrew confidence and capabilities. Quantum leaps in computer technology greatly facilitate strike planning and force integration.
The change in philosophy regarding management of the air campaign is significant in its impact on the rules of engagement. That change apparently reflects in part the personal philosophy of President Bush, who steadfastly has declined to repeat the micromanagement practices of several of his predecessors.
The result is that responsibility and authority to plan and execute the military mission were returned to the theater commander, where they belong. Based upon national objectives and the mission assigned by the National Command Authority, U.S. Commander-in-Chief Central Command (USCinCCent) developed his war plan. Consonant with that war plan, USCinCCent prepared rules of engagement and the strategic target list. Each was approved by the JCS Chairman and the National Command Authority.
On commencement of Desert Shield, Saddam Hussein attempted to follow the practices of Ho Chi Minh and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. In 1986, in anticipation of U.S. air strikes against terrorist-related targets in Libya, Gadhafi threatened to place U.S. and other foreign nationals around key targets to shield them from attack; subsequently, he did so in order to protect his Rabtah chemical weapons facility from attack.
This practice, prohibited by the law of war, was pursued by Saddam as he placed U.S. and foreign nationals around possible targets in an effort to shield them from attack. His ploy was unsuccessful; President Bush made it clear that the presence of hostages would not deter the U.S. from attacking any target, and that the United States would hold Iraq accountable for injury suffered by U.S. citizens as a result of their use by Iraq as human shields. Following international public outcry and several U.N. Security Council resolutions stating an intent to hold the Iraqi leadership responsible for its war crimes, U.S. and other foreign hostages were released by Iraq in December. Saddam’s threat to use U.S. and allied prisoners of war as human shields around high-value targets also takes a page from North Vietnamese practice. In May 1967, following a successful attack by U.S. Navy aircraft on the Hanoi thermal power plant, North Vietnamese officials constructed a new prisoner-of-war camp—nicknamed “Dirty Bird” by U.S. prisoners because of its filth—adjacent to the power plant to shield it from further attack, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Prisoner of War Convention. Using an earlier generation of the laser-guided bombs that i now are plaguing Saddam, U.S. Air Force F-4 aircraft again disabled the power plant during Linebacker II operations, with no collateral injury or damage. The North Vietnamese action purposely was kept from the U.S. public by senior U.S. officials; if anything, Saddam’s threat further galvanized U.S. public opinion in support of his defeat and trial as a war criminal.
The USCinCCent rules of engagement nonetheless reflect the traditional concern of U.S. forces for avoidance of incidental injury to innocent civilians. Missions are planned with the admonition to take reasonable measures to minimize collateral civilian casualties, consistent with mission accomplishment and allowable risk to U.S. and allied forces. Measures to minimize collateral damage to civilian objects are not to include steps that would place U.S. and allied lives at greater or unnecessary risk. Based upon data from the Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual, rather than the whims and fears of Washington politicians, mission planners determine the appropriate munitions and delivery parameters for each target. Maximum suppression of enemy air defenses, to include electronic warfare, is integrated into strike plans to allow minimum distraction of strike crews from their goal of putting bombs on target. Targets in populated areas can be attacked, but aircrews are not to bomb if there is uncertainty in target identification.
Unlike Rolling Thunder, Desert Storm began with a bang, not a whimper. The public warnings by JCS Chairman General Colin L. Powell in the months preceding the 15 January deadline for U.N.-mandated Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, that there would be no Rolling Thunder-like “gradualism” in any alliance attack, rang true at 0300 Baghdad time on 17 January. The success of Desert Storm has been reported to the American public, frequently accompanied by videotapes providing vivid examples of the accuracy of U.S. air strikes. The discriminate U.S. campaign stands in stark contrast to the indiscriminate employment of Scud missiles against Israel and Saudi Arabia by Iraq.
Saddam Hussein would do well to read President Bush’s lips: No more Vietnams.
*CEP stands for circular error probable, which is the radius of a circle within which half of an aircraft’s or missile’s munitions are expected to fall.
Colonel Parks is Chief of International Law in the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, where he has been involved in writing rules of engagement for more than a decade.