OIF Hallmarks: Integrated Joint and Coalition Operations with Adaptable Commanders and Agile Planning and Execution.

Q The campaign in OIF to remove Saddam Hussein's regime was one of the most successful joint and Coalition campaigns in history. What made it so successful?

A Joint integration, Coalition integration--the key word is "integration." For many years in our military doctrine we've talked about "deconflicting," which really doesn't do justice to what we saw in this campaign. Our success was due, in part, to the very close personal and professional relationships of the leaders across the board, which allowed us to break through some barriers that have existed either in past doctrine or community prejudices.

Today's joint forces have transformed our equipment, thinking and capabilities to a degree that we can afford to break away from some of those parochial mindsets with respect to joint warfare. In this campaign, we took advantage of a place in time where everyone was configured to become truly integrated.

Why was this possible? Clearly we learned many lessons during Operation Enduring Freedom [OEF in Afghanistan]--lessons in distributed command and control; the integration of the components' planning staffs, as well as from the components to the joint force command; the importance of a theater ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] that is agile enough to respond to a component commander on the battlefield within minutes as opposed to hours or days. We learned it is very difficult on an underdeveloped battlefield to take advantage of technology to bring very precise firepower to bear anywhere on the battlefield on very short notice.

Then in OIF, we used the incredible power of strategic and operational lift on the battlefield to position forces very rapidly where we needed them. And we took advantage of probably the most sophisticated logistical support train we've ever had to supply this campaign, not just linearly along the roads and lines of communication, but also across the battlefield in terms of how we supported special operations in the field. On the whole, no one was left wanting for beans, bullets or fuel, the things important to winning battles.

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Q Please describe the battlespace to the west where the air component commander was supported by ground forces. What was the mission and what were the challenges?

A In the western portion of Iraq, we had the mission of countering enemy theater ballistic missiles [TBMs]--eliminating Saddam's option to threaten other nations with weapons of mass destruction [WMDs]--and the air component commander was the supported commander. To a degree, this battlefield was unprecedented because Special Operations Forces [SOF] supported the air component.

The air component "owned" the battlespace, which was unique. But we conducted detailed planning and training for that environment that made the air component commander very comfortable. The SOF and, to a lesser degree, the conventional forces were comfortable supporting in that relationship.

The air component was able to bring air and space resources to bear in a way that made the land forces agile in support of the air component's mission. Although the mission was unique, I think it's one we'll see again--the air component supported by SOF.

One challenge was to position the SOF and some small number of conventional forces to respond rapidly. So we had to communicate an operating picture that allowed them to move their light forces quickly, sometimes at night, to where they could interdict a potential Iraqi launcher. Integrating their movement and positioning into a command and control system the air component could use was challenging, but successful.

Another challenge was targeting the mobile missile launchers that can range a broad area of landmass. We had to balance the requirement for persistent ISR in that area of operations with the demands for ISR on the rest of the OIF battlefield. There were a limited number of platforms with which to conduct this critical mission.

So we had to create a means of prioritizing a variety of space-based, air breathing and unmanned ISR platforms to ensure the air component had situational awareness on the key critical launch areas--time-sensitive targets.

The air component coordinated operations with the special operating liaison element, the SOLE; the battlefield coordination detachment, the BCD; and an element the air component crafted as a result of OEF, the ACCE, or air component coordination element, as a liaison for the other components. So each component knew what every other component knew and what they were planning and thinking.

This allowed the air component commander to flex critical resources around the battlefield in a timely fashion. Persistent ISR could be working in one area and as, maybe, a Global Hawk came on the scene, he could turn a joint STARS [surveillance and target attack radar system] in another direction to support the land component on another portion of the OIF battlefield.

Integrating the operations of the joint and Coalition Forces was a dance, a very precise dance. The integrated components and joint force command monitored and choreographed that dance.

Q Some forces employed with the SOF in the west were Field Artillerymen with the high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS). How effective was HIMARS?

A We used HIMARS and, in some cases, Abrams tanks to bring significant firepower to bear very quickly.

HIMARS was a great success story--obviously very mobile with great stand-off range.

The SOF infiltrated areas, positioned themselves to observe a target, reported that information back and then used the range, mobility and flexibility of HIMARS to very precisely strike some of the targets. During these operations. HIMARS had a huge impact on protecting our small number of forces who were significantly outnumbered on a large battlespace.

Q How do we train to maintain and improve that level of integration for future campaigns?

A Instead of training objectives by services and then integrating them on the battlefield, we must incorporate them into joint training, such as the Air Force Red Flag series of training exercises and at the Army National Training Center [NTC, Fort Irwin, California] rotations--at every training opportunity possible.

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By training joint service objectives at the lowest levels, we will build a generation of leaders for whom it will be second nature to support other components in combat. For example, we need to begin to expand the circumstances where a conventional land element with high speed, mobility and firepower, such as the Stryker Brigade, supports an air component mission on one portion of the battlefield and vice versa on another portion of the battlefield.

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Q Is the Air Force air tasking order [ATO] cycle of 72 hours flexible enough for the joint force commander and ground commanders' mobile targeting? How do we improve it to make it more responsive?

A Yes, it is flexible enough for both. To a degree, some have a misperception about the ATO process. The 72-hour cycle is a planning cycle. We plan for the right resources to meet the joint force commander's intent over the next 72 hours.

However, targets are put in and taken out daily, and the air component's targeting process can respond to a target that becomes relevant "today"--in fact we did that quite a lot during OIF.

Now, we created some new doctrinal terms to make it as responsive as possible. For example, we defined time-sensitive targets as fleeting targets that took top priority--these were key regime leaders and weapons of mass destruction.

Time-sensitive targets were those that became visible in the course of an ATO execution, targets that were not preprogrammed, so they didn't have a mission assigned against them and were not part of an established killbox or close air support [CAS] allocation. For example, we had short-range theater ballistic missile launchers show up in an area in the east. We didn't have internal fires available, and the launchers were not in a killbox, so we inserted that target into the ATO execution cycle to get it serviced immediately. To do that, we needed a means to alert the air component commander that a target of this level of importance had popped up and would take priority, and that was the term "time-sensitive target."

Too often "time-sensitive" was applied to targets that were fleeting but not necessarily of high priority for the joint force. Certainly, a battalion commander will have many targets on the battlefield to kill that are fleeting and of high value at the tactical level. But he has indirect fires assets organic to his ground force, mortars. Field Artillery, attack helicopters and, in many cases, killbox CAS available to him. He knows the rules of engagement [ROE], so he can attack those targets.

That battalion commander has time-sensitive targets at his level--but not targets for which we will change the ATO and move resources to kill.

At the joint force level, we established a hierarchy of timely targets. Time-sensitive targets were always highest priority. The joint critical targets were the next tier and allowed us to respond to targets appearing on the battlefield that were important enough to get resources to as fast as possible, but time-sensitive targets took priority.

There are a number of other targets we called emerging targets. These were targets that, if we ended up having extra resources that day, we killed them. For example, if air platforms couldn't get into one of the killboxes because of weather and the aircraft had bombs available, then the aircraft used them against emerging targets--which were fixed targets, a new division headquarters that popped up or logistical sites identified in ISR. It might be "early" to put them into the ATO cycle, but with assets available and enough targeting information to go after them, we attacked them with air assets or, in some cases, ATACMS [Army tactical missile system].

Each of the component commanders could come to the joint force command and say, "I've got target 'x', and I really need to strike it. I don't have the resources. Can you help me?" We would go to the air component, for example, and say, "Land component has target x; what do you have available?" The director of the CAOC [combined air operations center] would look at his resources and say. "I think I can get there." and enter target x as an emerging target.

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This process allowed the ATO cycle to be flexible yet prioritized targets.

Q How did you manage fire support coordination lines [FSCLs] and forward boundaries?

A Generally, the land and air components worked those across their component lines; we became involved only when there were competing issues.

The killbox concept "gridded" airspace to give the air component the most flexibility. In a grid square, the pilot maneuvers to reach whatever the desired objective is--to eliminate a logistics supply area, a maneuver unit, whatever. His targeting objectives are based on what the land component wants to occur in that grid box.

On the other hand, the land component commander oftentimes is more comfortable with some kind of linear boundary with the belief that he can control that better. So there is a natural friction between the desire for max flexibility and the desire for max control.

Through the course of OIF, we learned that the traditional linear fire support coordination line can significantly limit the land component commander as well as the air component commander. Using a gridded battlefield offers both the best flexibility: it allows the land component commander to determine the effects he wants in a particular grid box and close that grid box if he's going to maneuver through it and allows the air component the agility to maneuver to kill the land component's targets. It allows us to very rapidly change fire support coordination measures digitally.

The gridded battlefield also allows the air component commander the flexibility to operate in what we traditionally would have called BAI [battlefield air interdiction] areas, beyond the FSCL out to the forward boundary in a way that makes him more capable of meeting the joint force commander's strategic and operational requirements.

I believe we're beginning to incorporate the grid system universally across the services. It is the way we ought to go--the gridded battlefield is more rapidly responsive to the dynamics of the battlefield.

Q AARs [after-action reports] and lessons learned indicate BDA [battle damage assessment] was not as effective in OIF as we would have liked. What was the impact on operations and how do we fix BDA for future campaigns?

A I think the challenge in BDA, unfortunately, is numbers counting: how many "tanks" are dead and how do we prove it, which determines how we respond on the battlefield.

It was frustrating for our intelligence staff because the collection-analysis-assessment process was not agile enough to keep up with the pace of the battlefield that had thousands of targets a day. This campaign required agility on-the-run to adapt to what we saw. So the system was not up to that challenge.

What was the impact? During a period of bad weather [24-27 March in the Mother of All Sandstorms], the traditional assessment tools, such as national imagery and electro-optical kinds of tools, were ineffective. It was difficult for the component commanders to determine if they'd met the joint force commander's objectives in terms of effects on the battlefield. Ultimately, both the land and the air components had to accept risks, knowing the capabilities of their systems, and say, "We believe we're ready to move forward." And in fact, their gut feelings were correct.

In OIF, we had to rely on a federated assessment system. No single component, no single intelligence command, has sufficient resources to process such a volume of data. We've got to bring the battlefield effects and assessment system along so it can handle that data and take advantage of, for example, weapons videos or Global Hawk and radar imagery.

The process should not necessarily determine exactly how many tanks are dead but that there are a lot of broken parts out there, providing at least a 70 percent certainty the target is gone. Then we've got to get that information to the commander very rapidly to provide him a higher level of confidence that the target was killed, a confidence level that matches his gut feelings.

We sometimes "assume away" BDA in exercises. We've got to force ourselves to put BDA into joint exercises so we train our federated systems to respond inside the time cycle of the decision maker on the battlefield.

Q Do you support the concept of the "joint observer" from the multi-services capable of directing joint air power and ground-based fires on the battlefield?

A Absolutely. The key is everyone has to be trained and certified the same.

Joint close air support [JCAS] in OIF, overall, worked very well. But we saw varying levels of success, depending on where you were on the battlefield.

The ANGLICO [Marine air-naval gunfire liaison company] teams did a wonderful job of integrating CAS on the run. In some cases, we had tactical air control parties [TACPs] out with maneuver units, such as the 3d Infantry Division, doing a great job of integrating fires.

In other cases, either the system wasn't mobile enough to keep up with the pace of the battlefield or we didn't have enough tactical air controllers, Marine or Air Force, to service the requirements. We've got to expand those resources.

It should make no difference to a joint pilot who's on the other end of the radio directing his air power. Every joint observer should be trained, certified and equipped to direct that fire to an established standard.

An artilleryman should be able to look through his laser rangefinder, locate the target, get GPS [global positioning system] coordinates and then, in a perfect world, data-burst the coordinates to the cockpit of some airplane to attack the target. But in the less-than-perfect world, he must be able to brief an incoming pilot using common terms and a common format on a target in his area of operations.

In OEF, we had to buy GPS-capable laser rangefinders sort of one-at-a-time. In OIF, we had proliferated them to a degree, but they certainly weren't in every artilleryman's kit bag. We must make those capabilities priorities for the future--they create a huge effect on the battlefield. We also need to ensure our communications and Blue Force Tracking IFF [identification friend or foe] equipment is user-friendly and common across all services.

Q How did you employ information operations [IO] at the joint force level and what was the effect?

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A Information operations were critical in this campaign. For example, it was important for us to ensure that Saddam believed he could be threatened from any direction in his country. While we would have liked to have had the 4th Infantry Division attack through Turkey in the north, when it was not possible, we used IO to create the perception that the Iraqis were threatened from the north.

We made the insertion of the 173d Brigade with 2,500 paratroopers and 40 SOF teams who built a coalition with the Kurdish fighters in the north look "bigger" than they were. They were perceived as having immediate access to air power that could kill Iraqis in their battle positions on demand. So focused air power in the northern battlefield allowed the very small force to seem very large and lethal--helped make them successful.

Information operations also helped protect the southern and, maybe, the northern oil fields, as well. We spent a great deal of time and effort sending the message to the Iraqi oil field workers and military assigned in those sectors that it would not be in their best interests to destroy their oil fields.

After combat operations, we interviewed some Iraqi oil workers who were going back to work in the fields. We asked them why they blew up only a few oil wells, set charges that never would have destroyed the wells or set no charges at all.

Their response: "You told us not to do that. We didn't want to be seen as destroying the livelihood of our country for the future. We knew we set the charges incorrectly, but that allowed us to obey orders without destroying our infrastructure." That's a powerful message, in terms of what information operations can do operationally on the battlefield.

Another non-kinetic means that can be very effective is humanitarian assistance. During OEF on the very first night of lethal operations, we dropped 75,000 pounds of bombs on targets in Afghanistan and began dropping 75,000 humanitarian daily rations out of C-17s. The people understood we weren't threatening them, that we were feeding them and killing bad guys.

In OIF, as soon as we pushed across the line of departure into Iraq, elements of the humanitarian assistance forces initially moving with the combat forces began establishing relationships with the local leaders and bringing in food, water and other assistance.

The same was true of the SOF teams in the west. As they went across Iraq, they carried humanitarian daily rations, water and medical equipment, winning friends as they attacked the enemy.

Q What message would you like to send to Army and Marine Field Artillerymen stationed around the world?

A I have been involved in CAS all my flying career and have worked closely with Field Artillerymen for many years, so I was not surprised at the professional execution of artillery fires on the OIF battlefield. In some instances, we found pieces of 155-mm rounds. ATACMS and air-delivered bombs all in the same target area. Those kinds of effects don't happen by luck--they happen because people work hard to integrate those fires.

In many areas of Iraq, those integrated fires were synergistic, creating total effects far beyond what any one of the services could have produced. We need and train to that lesson: no one component will be the key factor in battle, but integrated, we will always be decisive.

RELATED ARTICLE: A Soldier's Story

SPC Greg Savage, Generator Mechanic

HHB/4th Div Arty in OIF

Specialist (SPC) Gregory S. Savage from Stillwater, Oklahoma, is a 23-year-old Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 52D Generator Mechanic who deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom II from April 2003 until February 2004 with Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) Artillery (Div Arty). He all but single-handedly kept the generators going so the 4th Div Arty had communications in Iraq. His Div Arty leaders see him as one of the Soldier Heroes of OIF. This is his story.

Iraq was my first deployment. Basically, I just did my job, working on generators, making sure everybody had power. If a generator went down in the middle of the night, then they'd call me and I'd go fix it. I couldn't go to sleep until it was done. Some nights were real long. I'd be so tired, I could barely get any sleep. But that was my job, and I had fun at times.

Sometimes I'd get frustrated because it was so dark and I couldn't see what I was doing. I had to put my mind into it and feel what I had to do. It'd take a while, but I'd finally get the generator up and running.

It was pretty important to keep those generators running. If you don't have power, you don't have communications and a whole lot of other things, like fans. It's hot over there.

If I wasn't working on generators, I was going on convoys--they needed extra bodies to man the .50-cals and Mark 19s on top of the trucks. It could be exciting.

I learned that the Iraqis are just like other people. Some of them are rude, and others are very nice. You just had to get to know them. I had to guard a couple of Iraqis when we fixed their buildings up, and they were generous in offering us food and stuff.

When we first got in Iraq right after combat ended, it was pretty calm. Then after a couple of months, bad guys started planting bombs on the roads--things got worse. Gradually, we began to get control. I think the bad guys kind of regrouped and started planning attacks on us. But we reacted strongly and got control again.

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While I was in Iraq, the 4th ID renovated a lot of schools, got children back learning. We helped the Iraqis get a new police force and ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, equivalent to our National Guard]. I worked with a couple of the ICDC soldiers. They seemed pretty interested in serving their country, in serving with us. In one incident, one of the ICDC soldiers set an IED [improvised explosive device] bomb and they found out who it was and turned him in to us.

I'd tell a Soldier who's going to Iraq, "Stay on your toes, and do your job. You'll learn a lot over there, especially in your job."

After almost six years and a deployment to Iraq, I'm still glad to be in the Army, serving my country.

Lieutenant General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., USAF

J3 of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom

Lieutenant General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., USAF, was the J3 of Central Command (CENTCOM) during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and major combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Currently, he is the Vice Commander of Pacific Air Force at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. He commanded Joint Task Force-Southwest Asia and the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Southwest Asia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, responsible for control of CENTCOM's Operation Southern Watch. As Director of Plans of the NATO Combined Air Operations Center at Headquarters, 5th Allied Tactical Air Force, Vicenza, Italy, he supported Operation Deny Flight. He also commanded two wings and, later, the 76th Fighter Squadron during Operations Desert Shield and Storm in the Gulf. General Renuart is a Command Pilot with 3,800 hours of flight time, including 50 combat missions. He has flown the A-10, F-16, F-15, C-130 and HH-60. He holds a Master of Arts in Psychology from Troy State University in Alabama.

By Patrecia Slayden Hollis, Editor