While the war has slid quickly from view, it still offers valuable insights and cautionary tales. A short list:
Investment in precision weapons and stealth was vindicated in the gulf But it was tough, realistic training of a highly motivated all-volunteer military in the 1980s that made the real difference in Desert Storm. “Technology was the headline, but training is the story,” says James Dunnigan, a war-gaming expert and former consultant to the Army War College. Some worry that the military will learn the wrong lesson, ponying up billions of dollars for new weapons and scrimping on training. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), moribund before the war, has received a major budget boost based on the disputed performance of the Patriot antimissile system.
While the Air Force transfixed television audiences last year with precision wizardry, the brief ground campaign obscured problems. The highly touted M-1A1 tanks tore across the desert battlefield with unprecedented speed and lethality, but their gas guzzling (only a half mile to the gallon) strained the Army’s resupply ability. Field-artillery units also reported that they could not keep up with the tanks they were supposed to support. The inferior sighting system on the Fire Support Team Vehicle (FIST-V) meant that tanks were firing at targets that artillery teams couldn’t even see. The Mine-clearing Line Charge (MICLIC), designed to breach Iraqi minefields, didn’t save soldiers from digging up mines by hand.
Desert terrain and Saudi airstrips set the stage for a devastating campaign that quickly achieved air superiority. But a region with dense jungle or mountains might have posed problems. Even in this ideal setting, the Air Force had trouble finding mobile Scud launchers. Bad airborne cameras and limits on satellites and tactical reconnaissance aircraft made timely bomb-damage assessment difficult. Because of incompatible computer links, the Air Force had to send daily bombing-target orders to Navy pilots by courier.
It killed 35 of the 146 Americans who died in gulf combat and wounded 72. Most were traveling in armored vehicles. Tank commanders are searching for a version of IFF (Identification Friend or Foe), a radio system in U.S. warplanes that helps pilots avoid fratricidal accidents. The Army is not likely to find a quick solution. “The regime for identifying friend from foe was not set up to move with fast tanks,” says defense analyst Ralph Ostrich.
The 82nd Airborne and the Marines got to Saudi Arabia quickly but were vulnerable to armored attack. Eight fast sealift ships took nearly a month to deliver the 24th Infantry, a mechanized division. But it arrived with tired, 10-year-old M1 tanks and threadbare Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles that had to be replaced before the fighting began. National Guard “round out” brigades that were supposed to augment active divisions never made it out of stateside training. While the United States received well-deserved kudos for logistical prowess, it was dependent on coalition partners who might not be around to help next time. A new report by the General Accounting Office says logisticians arrived in Dhahran in August 1990 with five forklifts. They borrowed 800 transport trucks and 5,000 tankers from the Saudis. There was confusion as well. When a detachment from the Army’s Tiger Brigade went to the port of Jubail looking for spare tank parts, a duty officer pointed to a mile-long line of cargo crates and asked, “Do you know what container they’re in?” No one had a list of the contents. The soldiers didn’t get their parts. A longer war, or a tougher foe, might have played havoc with supply lines. By the end, some units faced critical shortages of fuel and munitions.
Electronic spying pinpointed practically every telephone switching station and cable in Baghdad so Air Force smart bombs could knock them out. But lack of human intelligence and over-reliance on technology left the United States in the dark on Iraqi intentions. Spies also overestimated the size and ability of Iraq’s forces, underestimated its nuclear program and never had a clear idea of how many Scuds Saddam had. Overlapping agencies feuded and information was slow in getting to field commanders. “The intelligence sucked,” complained one Air Force captain trying to target Iraqi sites. “They kept hoarding their satellite photos and I kept asking, ‘What are you saving this for, the next war?”’
None of this should obscure the military’s achievements. It put together a half-million troops, six carrier battle groups and some 3,000 warplanes almost seamlessly; kept combat casualties to a minimum and, most important, it won. But history suggests that losers learn more from wars than winners. Defeat burns lessons into the soul of a country, as it did to the United States after Vietnam. “We could get ourselves into a lot of trouble by reading our reviews,” says Bob Griffith, a historian and former armored platoon leader in Vietnam. How much trouble? American warriors may not find out until the first battle of the next war.
