Monday, February 26, 2001

By Jon R. Anderson
Stars and Stripes

Jon R. Anderson / Stars and Stripes Former President George Bush and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf meet with U.S. troops after live fire exercises Sunday near the Iraqi border.

NEAR THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait — Nearly every day of the year, U.S. troops maneuver within artillery shot of the Iraq border — standing by for a return to a war that ended 10 years ago.

A battalion-sized task force of tanks, infantry and artillery — backed by Air Force A-10 and F-15E warplanes — form Kuwait’s first line of defense should Iraq ever try to reclaim its tiny southern neighbor.

While few would argue the United States could not defeat Iraq should the bullets start flying again, it may not be as easy should there ever be an Operation Desert Storm Part II.

Sunday’s display of military pyrotechnics — rocket launches and live-fire maneuvers — wasn’t the prelude of another conflict. But the show, which marked the 10th anniversary of the day that Kuwaitis recognize as their liberation from Iraq, made some Fourth of July celebrations pale by comparison.

A hill was covered with Persian carpets and camouflage netting to serve as a point for VIPs — including former President George Bush and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf — and Kuwaiti officials viewing maneuvers by U.S. and Kuwaiti troops.

"Too bad we couldn’t get the Republican Guard down here," Schwarzkopf told Bush before the two went to shake hands with participating U.S. and Kuwaiti troops.

The display could undoubtedly be seen from the Iraqi side of the border.

It’s that border that U.S. troops monitor constantly. And military officials say they’re prepared for Iraqi troop movements, even though they would likely have fewer allies this time around. Most agree it would be difficult to rebuild the Arab coalition that faced off against Iraq a decade ago.

The U.S. military is also much smaller now. The Army, for example, has gone from 18 divisions to 10. Indeed, the service dispatched more troops from Germany alone — in excess of 70,000 — than it currently has in all of Europe.

And while the military is smaller, it is busier than ever. The Cold War is still hot in Korea, and U.S. troops now are committed to long-term missions in the Balkans.

Last year, two division commanders — one with troops in Bosnia and one in Kosovo — said they could not meet war plan timelines for deployment to the Middle East. Both said it would take them as long as six months to pull out of the Balkans to refit and retrain for war.

"There is no question the U.S. armed forces could eject Iraq out of Kuwait again," said Anthony Cordesman, author of Iraq and the War of Sanctions and a senior analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"We would still win quite handily," he said. "But I’m not sure we’ll ever again see such a lopsided victory."

Still, he said, Iraq certainly has its own problems. While the Iraqi military lost much less of its combat firepower than initially projected after the war, Saddam Hussein has been able to replace very little of what was lost because of sanctions.

Perhaps more importantly, Cordesman added, many of the better Iraqi commanders have been forced out or killed by the regime.

That doesn’t mean it would be cakewalk, though. It all depends on how quickly it unfolds.

Double jeopardy

The real question, say many analysts and top commanders, isn’t whether the United States can defeat Iraq again, but how quickly it could defeat Iraq while fending off trouble somewhere else.

After the Cold War, the military was shaped so that it would be able to do just that, but peacekeeping operations and a nearly constant stream of contingency missions have forced leaders to admit that two nearly simultaneous wars could exact a much higher toll than initially planned for.

That’s exactly the problem the Germany-based V Corps is wrestling with right now as it prepares for its upcoming Warfighter Exercise in the coming weeks.

A kind of final exam for not only the Corps staff but also for the 1st Infantry and 1st Armored Divisions, the exercise examines how the United States would take on a war in Iraq while much of the rest of the military is dealing with conflict in Central America.

Corps commander Lt. Gen. James C. Riley thinks the balance would come from not needing nearly as many forces to tackle Iraq.

"During the Gulf War we had nearly the entire Marine Corps, XVIII Airborne Corps, VII Corps, the British, the French and the Arab coalition," said Riley recently during warm ups for the Warfighter. "We’d probably need less than half that if we had to do it again."

Speed is the key to making that happen, he said.

A brigade commander during Desert Storm, Riley led the 3rd Infantry Division when the United States faced off for what could have been a Desert Storm sequel in 1998.

Rushing a brigade into Kuwait as Saddam Hussein dug in his heels over United Nations weapons inspections, Riley said the biggest difference was how quickly he could get his forces in place.

"It took us seven days [in 1998] to bring in a tank brigade and an aviation brigade," Riley said.

With 6,000 troops ready to fight almost as soon as they landed, he said, "it was one of the great legacies of the Gulf War."

Rapid reaction

Speed has been the watchword in the 10 years since the United States deployed forces into the Gulf region in 1990.

"It took us about two months to get here for the war," said Sgt. 1st Class Alex Vega, recalling how his 1st Cavalry Division infantry unit first had to paint all its vehicles and then load them onto railcars for hauling from Fort Hood, Texas, to ports where they would be shipped to the Gulf.

Still with 1st Cavalry, Vega came back to Kuwait for two months of exercises that are part of a continuous rotation of U.S. troops. "It was much easier this time around."

It’s easier for commanders like Riley and grunts like Vega, because instead of bringing all their gear with them, units can now fall in on war stocks that have been prepositioned in Kuwait.

A brigade’s worth of M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 155 mm Paladin artillery and dozens of support vehicles stand by just outside of Kuwait City ready to roll north at a moment’s notice.

"From wheels-down at the airport to when they’re rolling out the gate, typically a unit is heading for the Iraqi border within about five hours," said Col. David Lamm, commander of Army forces in Kuwait.

Another brigade’s worth of gear has been positioned in nearby Qatar and another is afloat in the Gulf and at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Marine Corps rounds out the stand-by war stocks with a brigade of its own gear also afloat.

All told, that’s more than a division’s worth of combat power ready to be tapped into at a moment’s notice. Add to that a carrier battle group that is almost always in the Gulf and Air Force strike fighters positioned in Kuwait and in Saudi Arabia.

"There is enough combat power here in country and in the region to rapidly destroy anything the Iraqis might want to send south," said Lt. Col. J.B. Burton, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment. Burton was among those on hand for Sunday’s display.

Military officials say at any given time there’s between 15,000 and 25,000 U.S. troops in the region.

That’s a far cry from the lightly armed contingent of 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers that stood between Iraq and Saudi Arabia for weeks on end while the rest of the Army mobilized for the war 10 years ago.

"If I was Saddam Hussein I wouldn’t even think about coming across that border," Lamm said.

With the eyes of the U.S. intelligence keeping careful watch over the two Iraqi divisions Hussein keeps in the southern sector, as well as the much better equipped Republican Guards farther to the north, Lamm is confident his forces here are prepared for anything Hussein might throw his way.

"We watch everything that goes on across the border and we are extremely ready," Lamm said. "Frankly, I don’t think [Saddam] would do any better now than he did in the ground war in 1991."

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