According to the commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) for 22 months of planning for and fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the war's two segments thus far have proved very different. In 2003, OIF I was comparatively less difficult, with Marines fighting mostly against Shia in the south. In OIF II against Sunni tribes in the west, "our vision to win hearts and minds was met squarely with a 300% increase in the number of attacks in our sector," he says, which translated into casualties (right) in "the turbulent city of Fallujah."
Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolded in four distinct phases: a deployment phase, a shaping phase, a decisive operations phase, and a reconstruction phase. During January and February 2003, the Marine Corps flexed its expeditionary muscle, with 60,000 Marines and sailors and their heavy equipment deployed to Kuwait in 45 days. Operation Iraqi Freedom, just as Operation Desert Storm more than a decade before, was a logistical victory. No other nation on earth even could have attempted such a monumental transfer of men and materiel, to a moonscape on exactly the opposite side of the globe, in preparation for an attack.
Our organization for combat remained dynamic throughout phases I and II. The I Marine Expedionary Force was assigned to the Third Army, where we joined with V Corps as the ground force. This would be the main attack force in a fast-moving sweep across mainly desert terrain southwest of Baghdad. We would be the supporting attack, crossing rivers and other poorer avenues of approach. Our role was to look like the main attack: pick a fight with anybody who would engage us, and yet keep battlefield geometry so we were abreast or even slightly in advance of V Corps. Both forces were to focus like a laser on Baghdad. When Turkey closed its borders to Coalition forces, the entire British First Armored Division was assigned to the MEF. Marvelous troops and leaders, with first-rate equipment, they swelled our ranks to just short of 90,000 Marines, soldiers, and sailors. I told the colorful British formations that there was a time in our country when the phrase, "The British are coming," was used to scare children. In this instance, however, U.S. Marines in Kuwait were glad to hear it.
The all-volunteer force has provided an amazing quality of Marine and sailor. Bigger, stronger, and faster than their namesake of decades past, they also are more informed, and therefore more opinionated and inquisitive. My commanders and I constantly spoke to the troops in their training bases in Kuwait to provide information and squelch rumors. Their number-one question was: "Is the country behind us?" They had read or heard about large antiwar demonstrations in the United States and elsewhere and wanted assurances. We told each formation not to worry about it; just do their jobs. American citizens were mature enough in their beliefs that even if they didn't support the war, they would still support the troops.
In what had become a predictable pattern, a U.S. air campaign was planned to precede the ground attack. What had been 40 days was reduced to 16 days, and that was cut in half to an 8-day period of "shock and awe" by the air planners. Increasing reports of explosives being moved into the southern oil fields, however, made it apparent that air attack could be the signal for Iraqi forces to demolish the oil platforms in a calculated act of senseless destruction. Since rapid and intact seizure of the southern oilfield production was a MEF mission, we were early advocates of launching the ground attack before an air campaign. For a time, the best we could do was launch them simultaneously. But there is an old adage, well remembered, that "the enemy gets a vote." Without warning or provocation, on 20 March, Saddam started destruction of the fields. Our attack was moved forward initially 24 hours, then 8 hours more. It's okay to delay an attack, as long as you rest the troops. Moving an attack forward is very much another matter. That said, I could not have been more pleased with the response of my commanders, air and ground, as we thundered across the international border a full 32 hours ahead of plan.
Our intelligence offered different analyses of enemy strength and intentions, and where he would use his chemical weapons. We faced three Iraqi Corps in our sector—two Regular Army and one Republican Guard, consisting of nine total divisions. We were led to believe major portions of some of those divisions would capitulate, the division most likely to collapse being the 11th Infantry division around an Nazariah. We found the opposite to be true. Some intel experts thought Saddam would unleash his chemical weapons as soon as we crossed the Kuwaiti border; others thought it would happen when we crossed the Euphrates River. My own view was, they would hit us with chemicals as we approached the Republican Guard divisions anchored on the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad. Taking no chances, we crossed the line of departure in our bulky chemical suits and stayed in them for two and a half weeks.
The MEF had been honed by our predecessors to be the most efficient killing machine on the battlefield. With integrated ground, air, and logistics elements under a single commander, the force generated a level of speed and momentum that only the enemy could appreciate fully. The MEF had available more than 340 combat aircraft that could generate almost 700 sorties each day against any target we chose. During the Gulf War it took ten bombs to destroy each target. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, a single aircraft could destroy ten targets. It has been said that the Iraqis melted away, but that does not give proper credit to the Iraqi Army. When they amassed, they were blown away by the effects of our deep air attack. A captured Iraqi tank brigade commander told of making an 80-mile forced march to position his tanks east of Baghdad. So he could rest his troops on the first night, he moved his tanks into palm groves. At 0200, during the worst sandstorm in 20 years, under complete cover of darkness and deep in the palm groves, Marine air began the systematic destruction of his tanks. When 30 had been destroyed by pinpoint bombing, his troops then melted away. He told us, "I wanted to order them back but knew that if I did, it meant certain death."
We employed a revitalized concept for reporting the war with multiple media embedded in our formations. The program was not without its faults, but on the whole it was a huge success. Members of the media lived the lifestyle of "the grunt" in the cold, the wet, and the biting sand storms. They saw raw emotions as Marine aggressiveness overcame fog and friction, and as the exhilaration of battle was tempered by the realities of casualty evacuation. They marveled repeatedly at the professionalism of the 19-year-old lance corporals as they handled all of the above. The stories they filed were 95% positive, and there were more than a few tearful farewells as they left us. Not since the days of Ernie Pyle and World War II had such bonding occurred between the media and the war fighter.
In every war, some things make you smile, and other things make you cry. One such incident occurred as armor columns attacked up Highway 6 southeast of Baghdad. It was difficult to maintain, but we still showed readiness rates of 93% and 94% on tanks and tracks, respectively. As I stood watching the troops move up the highway, I understood why. I saw one amphibious assault vehicle steam past me at 40 miles per hour, towing another. Atop the second vehicle were three Marine mechanics, with feet and hands into the engine compartment, working on the engine. I said to the division commander standing next to me, "General [Major General James N.] Mattis, that is a safety violation. God bless 'em!"
Later in the attack on Baghdad, the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines got into a serious fight in and around the Imam Ali mosque in the north-central portion of the city. They killed roughly 250 Republican Guards, Baathists, and Sadaam Fedayeen as they took their objectives. First casualty reports coming in on our side were one gunnery sergeant killed and 41 troops wounded. The next day that figure zoomed to 1 killed and 73 wounded. As we asked how that happened, we learned of the lance corporal who came to the battalion aid station weak and with a bloody arm. The corpsman asked him how many times he had changed the bandage, and the Marine told him he had lost count. The doc, as he should, got on the Marine's case. The trooper said, "Doc, I'm not the only guy out there like this." Indeed, he was not. As the company commanders and first sergeants examined their men, they came across the additional casualties. Asked why they didn't turn themselves in to the aid station for treatment and possible evacuation, they answered, "Sir, I am the only automatic rifleman left in my squad," or "Sir, I thought there might be another big fight today," or just "Sir, I didn't want to leave my buddies." With troops like those, the outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom was never in doubt.
After securing Baghdad, we then dispatched a light armor column north to take out any remaining resistance around Saddam's birthplace, in the vicinity of Tikrit. The MEF had attacked farther and faster than any unit in U.S. history. Feeling pretty spirited, I announced to my Army boss, Lieutenant General Dave McKiernan, that Marines are assault troops, we don't do nation-building, and we were ready for backload. He said to me, get your butt down south and get started with reconstruction until I can get you relieved. In fact, we spent five and a half months in the southern provinces of Iraq in phase IV operations. We found our 1920s-vintage "small wars manual," written by Marines on duty in Nicaragua and Haiti, to be very applicable to the situations we faced in cities like Najaf, Karbala, and Samawah. One passage captured the essence of our activities: It said, "Conceived in uncertainty, reconstruction operations are often conducted with precarious responsibility, and doubtful authority, under indeterminate orders, lacking specific instructions." Our battalion commanders and their company commanders thrived under those conditions and rapidly became effective little potentates until we turned over our sector, and could break them of it, in September 2003.
The MEF had been back at its bases in Southern California for roughly five months when we were unexpectedly ordered back to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom II. We were tasked to replace the 82nd Airborne with a 25,000-Marine air-ground task force in the Al Anbar province during March 2004. On arrival, our numbers grew to 30,000 with the inclusion of a very capable Army brigade combat team. Our responsibilities included the turbulent city of Fallujah and major portions of the Iraq-Syria border. Our new area was about the size of Wyoming and included most of the Sunni Triangle, where Saddam had drawn many of his best officers for the Republican Guard and other elite units.
Returning to western Iraq was very different from our experiences in the south. The tribes were Sunni, not Shia, they were already quite hostile toward Coalition forces, and our ability to employ our proven techniques was much abated. In the Shia provinces, we had been attacked frequently but had not lost a single Marine to enemy fire. After two weeks in the Al Anbar province, by the time of the transfer of authority with the 82nd, we had lost five killed in action. Our vision to win hearts and minds was met squarely with a 300% increase in the number of attacks in our sector.
Initially, we found Iraqi security forces in the region very undependable. Iraqi society is driven by loyalty to the tribal sheiks and religious imams, and this cultural norm frequently made it impossible to rely on the police or national guard units as effective paramilitary forces. Further, they were intimidated by the insurgents and were watching to see which side was going to win. As we built the forces to be more secular, however, and provided them with the weapons and equipment they needed to succeed, they became much more reliable. Indeed, in the fighting in Samarra, Najaf, and the northern Babil province, Army and Marine commanders have given the Iraqi security forces, especially the regular army, a solid grade of "B" for their performances there.
The Coalition forces learned many lessons about information operations (IO) in southwest Asia, and we frankly need to get better in our approach at every level. We tended to treat all media the same, assuming a level of journalistic integrity and responsible reporting. The Arab media, however, were different. We found right away in Fallujah that Al Jazeera and Al Arabia were bound by no such principles of integrity and routinely provided a shrill and outrageous perspective to an Arab public all too willing to believe such distortions. Eventually, we treated them as enemy combat camera and controlled their access to our actions. Our most consistent and effective IO message to the Iraqis was, "You may not want us here, and we don't particularly want to be here, but we aren't leaving until there is a level of stability and security in Iraq. So help us achieve that end."
An amazing figure accompanied our casualty rates in Iraq. As a result of superb planning and execution at all levels, for every 11 Marines or sailors hit, one would be killed but seven would be returned to duty almost immediately. Never before in combat had such recovery figures been the norm. Our protective gear, the helmets, and SAPI (small arms protection insert) plates worked. Our corpsmen in the line companies were magnificent, as were the medevac pilots and the docs at Alpha and Bravo surgical companies. They were truly the "angels of the battlefield," and when we see each other again, none will ever buy his own drink as long as I am at the bar.
During this deployment, our Commandant won a major victory in Washington, D.C. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had questioned our seven-month rotation policy and initially felt that all services should adhere to the Army's 12 months "boots-on-the-ground" approach. We argued that our overall operational tempo was equal to or greater than any other service. For instance, all the MEF's major headquarters were in Kuwait or Iraq for 17 of the 22 months I was the MEF commander. We argued that six- or seven-month rotations were the norm for the Marine Corps—though not as frequently as we are experiencing now—and that we risked breaking the force if we posed an even more serious burden on our young men and women, especially those with families. The Secretary said to the Commandant "Okay, I've got it." In the Pentagon, you are never sure you have completely won a fight; but we felt much better when Secretary Rumsfeld began asking the Army Chief of Staff to explain why the Army was not doing seven-month rotations.
Operation Iraqi Freedom II continues, and Marines from I MEF will continue to be in Iraq until April or May 2005. That said, our view since 28 June and the declaration of national sovereignty is that Iraqi security forces must win against the insurgency in Iraq. We can only set the conditions for success by the host nation. Even then, we must act to ensure an Iraqi lead.
The contrast between the two OIF operations is stark. To begin, they were two very different scenarios: OIF was a classic offensive operation. We never lost the initiative as we put the enemy on his heels from the outset and kept him there until we had secured all objectives. OIF II has evolved into a classic insurgency. Out of necessity to maintain logistical hubs, we operated from fixed sites. But that allowed the enemy to match our freedom to maneuver. Ours was more a defensive role, with emphasis on heavy offensive patrolling and significant civil affairs work. There was a constant effort to hold the initiative, both militarily and psychologically, because as one military dictum says, the commander who maintains the initiative wins.
During OIF II, for reasons still not clear, the media were bent on providing a comparatively more negative slant. Our observations were supported by the reporter who, when asked to come out from Baghdad to cover the opening of a women's hospital, declined, telling our public affairs officer he "wasn't really looking for a good news story." Katie O'Beirne is a political commentator, but she may have offered some insight when she remarked, "You've got to remember, most journalists spent their high school years being stuffed into lockers by the kind of males who are running our military. Now they're determined to get even." My perception since being home is that any bad news coming out of Iraq is not properly balanced with the great things troops from all the nations are doing.
One thing that remained constant during both operations was the magnificent performance of the troops. Whether they were infantrymen running toward enemy fire, mechanics working in 130° heat, Cobra pilots dueling with heavy-caliber machine guns in support of ground troops, or corpsmen dashing forward to treat a wounded Marine, our young troops were unbelievable in their resolve, discipline, and courage under fire. The older generation worried about this new generation "Y." We saw them as the joy-stick generation and were concerned they might not measure up when the time came. In the hands of these young warriors, our Corps—indeed, our nation—has absolutely nothing to worry about.
What about the way ahead in Iraq? I believe there will be elections in January, and I suspect very shortly afterward you will start to see a reduction in U.S. forces, not because U.S. planners will seek it, but because the Iraqis will demand it. I used to think that Americans were impatient, but we don't hold a candle to the Iraqis. We are seen as infidels and nonbelievers, and further, most Iraqis now consider us occupiers. They will expect us to provide regional security for a long time because we have destroyed their army. But they will be willing to accept internal security risks in exchange for a reduced Coalition presence.
I think our strategic planners have it right. When the Iraqis establish a free and democratic state, it probably will not be Jeffersonian, but it will put a stake in the very heart of the region producing terrorists. We will not just be killing terrorists. Rather, we will be doing something about the very cause of terrorism. In a region that has made little progress over the centuries, Iraq has the potential to be a prosperous and powerful regional player. Every day we are in Iraq brings us another step closer to Iraqi victory. Iraqi infantry and counterterrorism forces are being stood up at a rate that will field 27 secular battalions, trained and equipped, by March. These battalions are loyal to the central government and have the support of average Iraqi citizens. When they focus their full attention on the insurgents and foreign fighters, they will have little problem gaining actionable intelligence from their countrymen. Will there continue to be bombings and attacks? I fully expect so, because the terrorists recognize the threat to their very existence. I anticipate Iraqis will one day soon make short work of the principal threats to their government.
For the United States and its allies, Iraq and Afghanistan are important battlegrounds in the war on terrorism—not the whole war. Many of the young Arabs we kill are would-be suicide bombers. These are the same fanatical misfits who would otherwise be seeking their way into Los Angeles or Boston. We are engaged in a defense against these people far from our borders and our families. That's okay with our troops; they understand it, and they very much prefer to take care of business in Iraq. Coalition forces will, covertly or overtly, battle terrorists in many other locations across the globe, but history might well show Iraq was our most important fight.
Finally, I ask three things of anyone reading these remarks.
- Don't wait for the historians to put the world we live in today in their context. Think of the nation at war instead of enjoying an interrupted peace and it will shape your outlook.
- Don't lose your patience, or more important, your resolve to see the job done. Our enemy knows popular support is the center of gravity for any U.S. government engaged in conflict and he works to disassemble that support every day. You are the ultimate target of the beheadings and bombings. So stay the course.
- Continue to support the troops. Their exterior is hardened and battle-ready. But their psyches are more fragile and susceptible to the convictions of their countrymen. Without your support their will will weaken, their confidence wane, and their morale suffer. With the enthusiastic support of the American people, however, our forces are the most formidable, most responsive, and most disciplined troops on the face of the earth. I can only hope they make you, as they have made me, very proud.
General Conway commanded the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Operation Iraqi Freedom and is currently the Director of Operations (J-3) of the Joint Staff. This is an edited and abridged version of remarks he delivered at a seminar cosponosered in October 2004 by the Naval Institute and the Marines' Memorial Association in San Francisco.