Reuters February 4, 2003
Logistics dictate Iraq war timing
By Douglas Hamilton
DOHA (Reuters) - Galaxy, Globemaster and Hercules transports are now flying night and day over the Gulf, ferrying their share of a mountain of equipment the United States must put in place before it is fully ready for war with Iraq.
Most land or take off from two hub bases here in Qatar after dark, but there is nothing covert about their low roar over Doha city.
If, as some reports suggest, President George W. Bush is considering giving Iraq six more weeks to comply with United Nations demands, it is not simply diplomatic calculation or patience: his military needs that extra time to deploy.
"Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics," goes an old military adage. It applies to the likely timing of a U.S. assault today as much as it did in the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Once strategists determine the war's aim and generals set the size and shape of the force needed to accomplish it, the logistics commands must get all the pieces to the war theatre.
The decision to use it will be for Bush to make, either with or without further UN support.
But forces cannot arrive one day and fight the next. They must acclimatise, test guns and get used to the terrain. Three weeks in the war zone before action is a rule of thumb.
Less than half the likely force -- estimated by analysts to be at least 150,000 troops -- has arrived in the Gulf.
There are an estimated 450 U.S. aircraft of all sorts in the region, suggesting an aerial campaign might begin at any time, but it cannot be launched in isolation and war plans require specific aircraft in specific roles and precise numbers for an orchestrated campaign that can be sustained.
Analysts expect F-117A stealth bombers, along with sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles, would kick off the U.S. air campaign ahead of a land invasion.
So far, none of the stealths of the USAF 49th Tactical Air Wing are in the Gulf, according to GlobalSecurity.Org, the leading independent U.S. military website.
"The United States is no doubt trying hard to prevent the public and Iraq from determining just how many forces are involved", it cautions. Its best estimate of the total number of troops in the region is currently around 70,000.
Of this, 25,000 are army and the rest air force, marines, aviators and Navy crew aboard two aircraft carrier battle groups, an amphibious assault group and support vessels.
SHIPS NOT LOADED YET
Some heavy equipment has not been loaded onto ships yet for the three week voyage from U.S. ports to the Gulf. Three roll-on, roll-off ships have just left Texas. A further 13 would not be likely to unload at Gulf ports before March 1.
The timing persuades analysts it may be mid-March before land forces would be ready, whatever happens with diplomacy.
GlobalSecurity says 95,000 U.S. troops have been ordered to the region with 48,000 more on alert to do so. Britain's promised 26,000 armoured and air assault troops have not left Europe. Turkey has yet to authorise a major U.S. presence.
Moving a force of 200,000 is a mammoth task and things inevitably go wrong.
In their Gulf War history "The Generals' War", Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor said deployment of U.S. forces was delayed by political factors but also by chronic lack of attention to logistics, the "plain Jane" of the military family.
Shortage of trucks to carry tanks to German ports, Pentagon red tape and bad luck held things up.
In his Gulf War history "Crusade", Rick Atkinson says "brute force logistics" got VII Corps from Germany to Saudi Arabia on 465 trains, 312 barges, 578 aeroplanes and 140 ships.
Moving two other corps secretly west along the Saudi front for the "left hook" flank attack which took Iraqi forces by surprise involved 235,000 troops in 95,000 vehicles.
Trucks and tanks rolled along one highway at intervals of about three seconds, 24 hours a day, according to one report.
UNFORESEEABLE DELAYS
The 1991 goal was to deploy a force fast enough yet heavy enough to deter an Iraqi move on Saudi Arabia from occupied Kuwait. Today, with no such threat, the time running out is political. The desert's winter cool also runs out, in April.
In 1990, to the frustration of the generals, Washington held off unmooring ships that held weapons and stores for 17,000 men until the Saudis agreed to the use of force.
Vehicles arrived with flat batteries and the wrong oil for desert temperatures. Some Navy freighters were unseaworthy, and getting the right parts to the right machines was a nightmare.
"On average, a combat battalion's equipment was stowed on seven vessels that reached Saudi Arabian ports over a period of 26 days," said a study cited by Gordon and Trainor.
"In its single-minded pursuit of high-tech weaponry," the authors concluded, "the military ignored some unglamorous but essential areas." How they are doing on logistics this time will, as in 1991, not become clear until after the event.
Copyright © 2003, Reuters
