Civil Affairs during the Gulf War

Introduction

The purpose of the Army Reserves Civil Affairs during the Gulf War was to rebuild Kuwait following its occupation by Saddam Hussein. This was no small task: Kuwaiti infrastructure was damaged by the Iraqi invasion, and upon being evicted, Iraq resorted to a “scorched earth” policy, setting fire to more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells. It took Coalition forces 11 months to extinguish them all. Further, to prevent an amphibious landing, Iraq dumped 4 million US barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf.

The Kuwait Task Force, the Civilian Affairs (CA) force that would eventually rebuild Kuwait, was created before the oil well fires and the oil spill – all members of the Task Force knew was that the support they would be providing would be considerable. The establishment of the Kuwait Task Force would prove almost as difficult a task as the reconstruction.

Gulf War Oil Fires. Photo by Ateve McCurry.

Brief History of Civil Affairs

Army Civil Affairs units were created during World War II to allow military commanders to take on governmental roles. As the Cold War began, CA added skill sets usually found only in civilian sectors, including cultural and linguistic knowledge relevant to the country of operation. The result of this was to focus the CA on infrastructure rebuilding in coordination with the host-country.

In the mid-1980s, General William R. Richardson of USATRADOC believed that the functions provided by CA should be outsourced, either to other parts of the military (such as the Army Corps of Engineers) or even to civilian agencies (e.g., the State Department). CA was an anachronism according to Richardson and needed to be removed from the Army.

CA was rescued by the (long term) advocacy of Senator Strom Thurmond, but this left open the question as to where CA should be placed. As it goes, CA was placed within the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) starting in 1987. The Army then redesigned Reserve CA units to support most major logistical operations, wherever USSOCOM operated.

CA is maintained as a military position because civilians in a war zone are more apt to interact with military personnel. CA is a job for Reservists because the particular technical skills CAs possess take an inordinate time to develop, incompatible with active duty time committments.

CA and the Gulf War¹

As the Gulf War started, there was no clear plan for rebuilding Kuwait: USCENTCOM was not developing a plan, and there was a top-level CA vacancy in the Third Army. To people such as COL Randy Elliott (member of 352^nd U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Command as well as the chief of the Middle East Division of the State Department), COL Dennis Barlow ²(of the Joint Staff), and LTC Paul Mikesh (Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict), this appeared to be a repeat of the 1989-1990 events in Panama in which CA tasks were ignored until after days of looting in Panama City.

Could CA be organized so that the needed plans and resources for rebuilding Kuwait be in place before the conflict was concluded? Mikesh, Barlow, and Elliott understood that there was no policy for operationalizing the goal of Kuwaiti reconstruction, and that such a policy would be needed so that CA would be ready at the right time. Of the three, COL Elliott would be most directly influential as it was his 352^nd U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Command that would be deployed to Kuwait.

On 14 August 1990 – almost immediately after President George H. W. Bush’s demand that Iraqi occupying forces withdraw - Mikesh and Barlow wrote a staff paper advocating the early stand-up of a CA team. This paper was submitted to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Jim Locher. Locher accepted the recommendations in this paper and on 22 August he wrote a memo recommending Mikesh and Barlow’s ideas. The ideas in this memo were rejected by the Director of Joint Staff, claiming that the task of rebuilding Iraq must wait until after the conclusion of combat operations.

Locher persisted, writing a policy directive requiring that planning for reconstruction should begin early. The Department of the Army’s response was essentially a repeat of General Richardson’s position: the proper agency to act on reconstruction would be the State Department, that the Army Corps of Engineers would be the appropriate force to perform the reconstruction, and that the twenty functional capabilities outlined in Locher’s directive were best handled individually.

Despite the Department of the Army’s protestations, work on the reconstruction plan continued, but was halted in October 1990 by the Commander and Chief of USCENTCOM, reasoning that no policy should be prepared since none was requested.

Locher persisted and sent messages to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz as well as senior officials in the Army, USSOCOM, and the Joint Staff. They provided little response, but Locher was able to build alliances with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. Mikesh and Barlow were assigned to key roles, but progress was slow.

This changed on 20 September 1990 when officials from the Kuwaiti government-in-exile travelled to Washington, D.C., and specifically asked for reconstruction assistance. COL Elliott knew Ambassador-Designate to Kuwait Edward Gnehm as result of Elliott’s civilian position in the State Department, and Elliott told Gnehm that his CA unit possessed relevant expertise. The Kuwaitis requested CA assistance directly from the President, and 10 days later the plan was approved.

As Iraqi control of Kuwait tightened, the mission expanded beyond infrastructure and government reconstruction to include treatment of Iraqi collaborators as well as displaced civilians. CA progress (of a sort) was made with a Pentagon CA team devising guidelines for the guidelines the Joint Staff were to develop.³

The Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans offered numerous criticisms regarding the Kuwait Task Force during its existence: Army HQ resented the speed and authority which the inter-agency Steering Group committee intervened in Army business; they felt they were denied the opportunity to contribute – they believed that they were “railroaded”⁴; they thought that civilian agencies should be used in lieu of CA Reservists; they gave the ever-popular "diversion of finite and valuable resources from more important projects" excuse for inaction; and they affirmed that the plan was not required by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Finally, they expressed doubts about the competency and dedication of Reservists, with one senior USSOCOM officer openly stating that "the Reserves is just another name for waste, fraud, and abuse."⁵ These doubts were never explicitly raised but were certainly acting as the context for Army HQ’s stalling.

Authorization to activate the CA needed to go through the Army, which gave them a further opportunity to prevaricate. In fact, the Director of Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Michael P.C. Carns, flip-flopped on activation, which resulted in the 352^nd CA Command being alerted for activation twice, and ordered to stand down twice, in four-day period from 17-20 November 1990. Eventually Carnes gave his approval, and a message was sent by the chairman of the JCS to activate a CA task force.

As the standing-up of the Kuwait Task Force proceeded, the commander of the 352^nd, Brigadier General Howard Mooney, was relieved of command of the Task Force on 3 December, and he returned to command of the rest of the 352^nd. The Army raised another objection: they didn’t want active duty officers reporting to flag-rank Reserve officers.

Control of the Kuwait Task Force then moved to COL Elliott. He manned the task force with individuals who had experience in Panama reconstruction efforts; his deputy was the Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the USAID; and Elliott was able to work with numerous federal agencies in Washington, where he was located.

Meanwhile, the USCENTCOM and the US Army Central Command (ARCENT) were developing their own plans for reconstruction, and Kuwait Task Force plans were not coordinated with them. Three reasons were given for this: security (Kuwait Task Force operations were scrutinized by foreign nationals⁶); Schwarzkopf tended to rely on Kuwaiti and Saudi officials for civil affairs issues, instead of his own staff; finally, the Kuwait Task Force reported to interagency officials outside the USCENTCOM command, control, and communication hierarchy.

Nevertheless, the Kuwait Task Force was deployed in theater, so they would come under command of USCENTCOM and ARCENT – but the Task Force would also fall under the recently deployed 352nd CA Command which was headed by… Brigadier General Mooney. Mooney merged the Kuwait Task Force (renamed to Deputy Chief of Staff for Reconstruction⁷) into the Combined Civil Affairs Task Force, which became part of Task Force Freedom, which allowed Mooney and the Task Force to complete their mission.

They did indeed complete their mission:

By the time the KTH and Task Force Freedom departed, the Ministry of Health had become operational and the Kuwaiti medical community was carrying 98% of its pre-war workload. The international airport reopened and the Kuwaitis resumed operational control in April, 1991. Police forces were operational within the first 30 days following liberation. A major Kuwaiti port was opened during the first two weeks after liberation, and two others were being swept for mines. All major roads had been restored to service, with most able to sustain convoy traffic.⁸

Indeed, “not one Kuwaiti died of thirst, starvation, or lack of medical attention after the liberation.”⁹

Analysis and Conclusions

In reading Barlow’s description of events, one must be impressed by the sheer number of federal agencies and the levels of hierarchy that were needed for the Kuwait Task Force to become operational. Further, Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney had to endure internal criticism coming from the Army itself. For them, the amount of bureaucracy they encountered must have been like "swimming through molasses.”

The source of their difficulties was that USSOCOM and USCENTCOM denied the importance of Reserve CA (either completely or until combat operations concluded), and getting results required them to go outside USCENTCOM, to non-military federal agencies. USCENTCOM also doubted the competency of Reserve units in general. It is interesting to speculate on the source of those doubts: were the Reserves demonstratively incompetent, or did the Regular Army ascribe to itself an artificially inflated level of competency? The explanation is not given in either Barlow¹⁰ or Brinkerhoff¹¹.

Does JP 3-0, Joint Operations, address the problems they encountered? By that doctrine, joint forces must view the operational environment from a systems perspective to include other-than-military systems such as political, economic, information, etc. This joint interdependence does not entail the merging of services, however.¹² The expected result of this perspective is that the joint force commander can collaborate with these other systems (embodied as interorganizational or multinational partners) to achieve results that are beyond the capability of joint force commander’s (JFC) authority¹³. Thus, Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney’s work with various federal agencies as well as the Kuwaiti government-in-exile is explicitly not forbidden. JP 3-0 directly mentions that JFC should grant Civil Affairs the authority to coordinate with other-than-military organizations such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.¹⁴

Collaboration is not to extend to any and all partners, even the irrelevant ones, as it is to be understood that "synergy must be available at the lowest echelon at which it can be managed effectively”¹⁴ – the idea is to collaborate with outside agencies only to the extent that it is practical.

JP 3-0 also advocates a mission command philosophy¹⁵, which “is the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based on mission-type orders” and demands that subordinate leaders act aggressively and independently to accomplish the mission.”¹⁶ Mikesh, Barlow, Elliott, and Mooney demonstrated these traits in support of making the Kuwait Task Force a reality.

The current form of JP 3-0 did not come into force until long after the Kuwait Task Force’s mission was completed, but the Kuwait Task Force was created and operated in a manner consistent with those future guidelines. The Task Force used a systems approach to achieving results; it worked with agencies that would be later absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security to extend its range of ability – but it worked with those agencies only up to the point they could be effectively managed; and it used a mission command philosophy.

Footnotes

1. The following account is based on Barlow, D. “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.”
2. This is the same Dennis Barlow that authored Ibid. Most aspects were confirmed in Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force.”
3. This is not a typo – they developed guidelines for the guidelines!
4. Brinkerhoff, J. “United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm”
5. Barlow, “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination,” note 40.
6. Barlow states that this criticism would be valid for combat operations but was irreverent since the Task Force would be operating post-conflict. This ignores the fact that departing Iraqi forces laid booby traps for the incoming Coalition forces, such as placing mines around burning oil wells. Knowledge of the Task Force’s plans would allow the Iraqi to place booby traps to maximize damage.
7. Carlton, in his “Kuwait Task Force,” attributes this name change to the desire to soothe hard feeling within ARCENT and USCENTCOM.
8. Carlton, “Kuwait Task Force.”
9. Barlow, “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.”
10. Ibid.
11. Brinkerhoff, “United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm”
12. Johnsen, “Land power in the age of joint interdependence”, pp. 224-226.
13. JP 3-0, IV-3 – IV-6.
14. Ibid. II-10.
15. Ibid. IV-7.
16. Ibid. IV-5.
17. Deployable Training Division Joint Staff J7, “Mission Command.”

Bibliography

Barlow, D. “The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict planning and interagency coordination.” In Understanding Complex Military Operations: A case study approach. Edited by Guttieri, Franke, and Civic. Routledge, 21 March 2014. DOI: 10.4324/9781315881577-12

Brinkerhoff, J. United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm: Civil Affairs in the War with Iraq. Department of the Army. 9 October 1991. Retrieved 30 May 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA288659.pdf

Carlton, P. “Kuwait Task Force: A Unique Solution to Kuwait’s Reconstruction Problems.” Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications. Retrieved 29 May 2024 from https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1404&context=sea_fac_articles

Deployable Training Division Joint Staff J7, “Mission Command” January 2020. Retrieved 29 May 2024 from https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/fp/missioncommand_fp_2nd_ed.pdf

Johnsen, W. “Land power in the age of joint interdependence: toward a theory of land power for the twenty-first century.” Defense & Security Analysis, 35:3, 223-240, DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2019.1640417

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations. 17 January 2017.