Introduction

Somewhere in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, it was ten minutes to four in the morning when General Buford “Buff” Blount, commander of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, rolled over in his bed and looked at the clock. President George W. Bush was set to go live on television at 4am Kuwait time and deliver an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. Blount jumped out of bed, realizing he had overslept. He had set an alarm, or thought he had, but if he had set it, it had failed to wake him up. Blount dressed quickly and made it into the command center right at four as the broadcast began. ABC’s Ted Koppel was there waiting for him. Koppel was in Kuwait on assignment, embedded with the division, and Blount had invited him to watch Bush’s address with him at division headquarters. “General, I thought you were going to miss it,” Koppel remarked as Blount sauntered into the room. Blount smiled as he stood in front of the TV. Not a chance would he have missed it. His entire military career had led him to this moment, and the president’s words would determine what came next for Blount and his soldiers.

The day was March 17, 2003, and Bush’s ultimatum demanded that Hussein leave Iraq within 48 hours or U.S. troops would invade. If it came to that, the 3rd Infantry Division (3rd ID) would lead the invasion as the “tip of the spear” that was U.S. land forces. The entire division was in Kuwait, and for six months, the soldiers of the 3rd ID had trained for a war in the Middle East. Before arriving in the Middle East, units had completed rotations at the National Training Center in the California desert.

Even before invasion orders came down, Blount knew that the operation was imminent. Units had cut back on their training so as to not put more wear and tear on their tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Soldiers knew what it meant, and they had begun to get anxious. Then the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions started arriving. General David McKiernan, commander of Third Army Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC), which would oversee Army actions in Operation Iraqi Freedom, called Blount and told him that 3rd ID soldiers had to move out of their camps to make room for the airborne units. Blount initially balked at the order. The camps had hot water, showers, and dining facilities offering three meals a day. Soldiers slept on cots in tents that had real wooden floors. As far as they were concerned, they had been in Kuwait for half a year, and these were their quarters. Some of Blount’s soldiers suggested that the new arrivals go sleep in the open desert to get used to their surroundings.

But Blount understood why McKiernan had ordered the 3rd ID to move out. CFLCC wanted the division to get into tactical mode, ready to attack. 3rd ID units moved closer to the Iraqi border where their attack positions would be. Tension was high as Blount’s soldiers left the camp and headed for the border. They knew it was only a matter of time before President Bush gave them the go-ahead to start rolling.

Air Force commanders had pushed for two weeks of “shock and awe” air strikes before the ground invasion began, but Blount disagreed. He advocated for air strikes and the ground invasion to occur simultaneously. Blount’s soldiers were trained and ready to go. The days would get hotter the longer they waited, and air strikes would tip off the Iraqis that the 3rd ID was coming, eliminating any element of uncertainty or surprise. Air strikes were akin to announcing that the U.S. was about to invade.

What’s more, Blount had observed Operation Southern Watch closely from his office in Riyadh, where he had been program manager for the Saudi Arabian National Guard modernization project. For more than a decade, since the end of the first Persian Gulf War, Operation Southern Watch consisted of joint U.S. air patrols enforcing the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. A two-star Air Force general had been in charge of the operation from Riyadh, and Blount met with him weekly. The Air Force general explained which targets were priorities and which they’d hit that particular week. Military sites and communications centers were the primary targets during Southern Watch, the same targets Air Force planners proposed to hit at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but Blount knew U.S. missiles had probably already taken them out or caused them to move.

Targets of Southern Watch had been structural, but the new air attack would hit human ones. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had created a deck of 52 playing cards, each one bearing a picture of one of Iraq’s most wanted, all high-level Ba’ath Party officials and close advisors to Hussein. U.S. defense planners hoped to capture or kill everyone in the deck of cards, but no missiles fired had found any of them. They had all gone into hiding, and Hussein had ordered his palaces to be packed up and cleared out. If U.S. missiles had already hit the main military and communications targets, and all the Ba’athists were in hiding, Blount questioned what shock and awe would accomplish. United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and V Corps commanders eventually agreed, and they slated missiles to begin firing as the 3rd ID began its charge into Iraq.

When it came time to cross the berm separating Kuwait from Iraq, Blount was confident in his commanders and soldiers. They had trained, choreographed, and rehearsed their operations for months. What awaited them across the border they didn’t know, but they were as prepared for the contingencies of war as they could be. If the Iraqis fired on them, they had their armor. If Hussein unleashed chemical weapons on them, they had their chemical suits. The chance of dying exists for everyone about to enter a war zone, but the thunder of 10,000 vehicles as their engines roared to life and they moved into position offered what might have been a sense of comfort or assurance. Blount had told his soldiers that the way to get home was to get to Baghdad, and the road to Baghdad started at the berm.

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