Intelligence Support to Operation Anaconda - Case Study Example

Introduction The government of the United s of America has realized a global move to end terror through its Global War on Terror undertaking. One of its operations founded on this undertaking is the battle the United States fought against Afghanistan. The official name for the war it wedged on Afghanistan is referred to as ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. The battle fought in the Shahikot Valley in Afghanistan under the Operation Enduring Freedom, is particularly referred to as Operation Anaconda. The goal of the operation Anaconda was to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban government in the Shahikot valley. These were remnants of earlier offensives by the US about three months earlier who were seen gathering around this valley. The battle spanned the period between 2nd march to 17th March 2002 and it included the combined forces of the US military, Canadian forces, New Zealand, friendly Afghan soldiers, Danish, Germany, Norway, as well as the Australian military forces against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda forces. The US forces, under the command of General Franklin Hagenbeck, managed to get out of this battle as winners after managing to drive the enemy out of the valley with heavy death tolls to measure up their success. The win was however not a smooth sail as can be suggested from the fact that though the war was planned to end after three days, it took seven days to conquer the Taliban and al-Qaeda opposing forces. The US had to exercise heavy combat against their enemies to force them into admitting defeat- a development that was never expected. At the same time, the US suffered a total of 80 casualties where 8 died while the other 72 were wounded to differing degrees. The following essay will undertake to assess both the right and the improvement seeking steps that were taken by the intelligence supporting Operation Anaconda. Incorrect moves by the intelligence in support of Operation Anaconda The US forces did not have sufficient knowledge of neither the number of the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces nor their weaponry. This meant that the US forces planning the assault failed to include the accurate information in their plan- a move that rendered their making wrong moves during the execution of the offensive. Most of the information that was relayed to the US forces was through overheard reconnaissance, human intelligence as well as communications captures that never offered the accurate information, resulting into misleading perceptions. The number of the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, for example, actually amounted to approximately between 700-1000 men. From the contrary belief, the enemy was armed heavily with grenades, heavy machine guns, artillery pieces and mortars they used against the US fighters. The US fighters made the mistake of underestimating the level of resistance that the opposing enemy forces could put against them. There was a general feeling that the enemy would put up light resistance and own up hastily owing to the previous defeats that the American forces had had over them. Contrary to this, the enemy did put up a fierce resistance with the goal of attempting to control the valley, thus engaging the US fighters with unexpected extension of the time taken battling them (Naylor 2006p229). One major mistake was committed by the US intelligence during the early days of planning for the execution of the offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the Shahikot valley. The operational level of preparation experienced problems in the organizational area as explained. As Operation Anaconda was at the organizational level, inadequate preparation was shown when the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) were alerted by General Hagenbeck on their role of leading Operation Anaconda two weeks prior to the day the operation was scheduled to start. Likewise, CFACC and CAOC were exempted from the initial planning and only notified of their roles on February 20th. This indeed was a short time for them to adequately prepare with all the necessary battle requirements. The CJTF, for example, had an Air Support Operations Centre (ASOC) for all air coordination work with the ground forces lacking. The time for detailing the air expertise of the plan was highly curtailed. This meant that the vital command and control nodule to integrate air with the ground schemes was literary lacking. This threw coordination into disarray during the execution since the aviators did not have the knowledge regarding the operations of the other flights. At the same time, the Operation Anaconda somehow lost its regard for important parts of preparation with the time for the start of the operation approaching fast, for example, the Task Force Mountain overlooked the mobilization of the resources for use during the assault in favor of the task of putting assets together for the assault (Grossman 2004). The US intelligence planning the Operation Anaconda had initially planned for the ‘hammer and anvil’ approach to the battle and had placed the friendly Afghan soldiers to take the position of the hammer under the cover of the US troops who took the role of the ‘anvil’. It was on the very first day of the assault planned by the US intelligence that most of the trucks in which the Afghani soldiers were using either broke down or veered from the road making it impossible for them to make it to the battle field at the allotted time of 6.45am. It was after most of the trucks had managed to get back to the road that the trail came under heavy enemy fire forcing the Afghan soldiers to scamper for safety in Carwazi, despite the insistence by the US SOF guides to walk the remaining short distance on foot. The friendly Afghan soldiers gave up on the battle due to demoralization, disorganization and the heavy enemy fire that threatened to kill them all. Following this incidents, the US military forces had to change their style of combat to survive the battle since the backing off of the Afghani troops led to the failure of their initial plans (Robinson 2005p218). There existed divisions among the US troops during the actual execution of the offensive. While the Task Fount Mountain forces, backed by the CFACC and CAOC, preferred an offensive composed of two fast days of heavy bombing, the army officers were totally against it. This controversy gave time a major group of the enemy, the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, included, to flee before the ground assault could be started. Unsound coordination at one time led to the US forces mistakenly attacking part of their own troop. This was a break away group from an entourage composed mainly of the Afghani soldiers who were on their way to the posts of duty. The breakaway group was on a mission to a post referred to as ‘Guppy’ where they intended to block a passage that the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces were using to escape through. This saga led to the death of one US Special Operations Forces’ (SOF) soldier and two troops from the Afghani friendly soldiers. One other SOF soldier and 12 other Afghani soldiers were wounded before their identity was revealed and the attack stopped. This is a controversial case that involved laying casualties of ones own group members that could have been kept under control should there have been better coordination with the whole group in all ways including communication (Clements and Adamec 2005). The US military force lacked enough weaponry for their offensive. Since the initial assumption was that the Taliban and al-Qaeda troops would give in in a very short time made the US military not to consider arriving at the battle field armed with enough weaponry. They lacked artilleries and heavy mortars with which to suppress the enemy forces that, on the other hand, fired on them heavily using mortars and heavy machines at the Takur Ghar. This saga led to the death of seven US soldiers who were gunned down by the opposing forces, and six wounded others. At least one Chinook was downed by the heavy fire from the opposing enemy forces. At this juncture, the Task Force Mountain called for help from the US air forces. This was something that was unexpected but it nevertheless led to the winning of the battle. Nevertheless, a new approach in combat was devised when the ‘hammer and anvil’ approach was abandoned and in its place an approach that focused on massive air attacks towards the eastern side of the valley was adopted. The new method of close air support (CAS) posed a challenge to the US fighters. The problems had to do with the newly adopted system that was yet to be refined, for example, in normal cases, the artillery and mortars would have been at the disposal of the army officers to cater for fire cover over a large part of the enemy territory. This would then ensure that air forces would have to be used solely on precision strikes on targets that were unreachable by soldiers. The heavy mortars and artillery were missing at Anaconda rendering the air forces useful both for their purposes and for provision of a replacement for armaments and mortars. It was quite tasking for the air forces to take on the two jobs but they managed to accomplish them anyhow (Grossman 2004). Some issues arose from the command relationships which acted as outgrowths of the lack of enough equipment to mount heavy air strikes. The Task Force Mountains and its troops that catered for the ground offensives had to take command from the Coalition Forces Air Component Command (CFACC) and Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC). The two areas also had to approve of the requests from sorties in times when the reinforcements were needed. The requests that were made on emergency note were granted an immediate response. The problem arose with granting responses for non emergency cases since a lot of time, usually 25-45 minutes, was taken before the responses could be made. This caused the ground commanders much frustration and demoralization. The intelligence forces planning the Operation Anaconda had assigned the role of identification of the ground targets to be hit by the air forces to the ground forces. This role was hampered by the fact that the enemy forces were rather minute and therefore hard to spot. Even then, reporting the precise location of the target proved rather problematic due to the issues of lack of enough equipments and lack of the laser target designators and tactical maps without detail. The same problem was also faced by the USAF officers as well as other Enlisted Forward Controllers of the Air. These problems had to do with either problems translating the GPS coordinates or problems with precisely identifying the targets on the maps. The voice communications had at times to be used but even then, the visual problems with the pilots made it hard to precisely locate the targets to strike (Grossman 2004). Areas of intelligence assessments success in support of Operation Anaconda The success of the US troops during the Operation Anaconda may be tagged to a number of things but the most ingenious move that made the group win might just as well have been the kind of attitude that the US fighters adopted. They exhibited flexibility in the change of their tactics whenever a chance provided itself. They had to change their fighting tactic just one day into the battle with the pulling off of the Afghan troop and adopting air offences that worked for them. The US forces were using advanced technology for their artillery. This acted to their advantage because through the use of advanced technology, they could manage to kill great numbers of the enemy, and target them at long range. Task Force Mountains drew on the air forces that included an approximated over 200 fighters, bombers and support aircrafts for combat. More aircrafts came in handy to support the air offensive campaign. These included the A-10s and the AC-130s. Others included Marine Corps helicopters, and army apaches, that flew for an approximated 2900 strike sorties over the whole span of the battle period. The use of skill in the air attacks ensured that the US troops laid heavy tolls on the side of the enemy and this led them to succeed in the offense (Clements and Adamec 2005). The air combat approach adopted by the United States’ troops for raiding against the enemy worked to their greater advantage over their enemies. It helped them to use their artillery over a large expanse of the territory that was occupied by their enemies. This approach was further enriched by the use of air to ground communication and vice versa to ensure that a very large expanse of the enemy territory was attacked and destroyed. The air strikes utilized a number of armaments that included precision guided munitions, cannon fire, and conventional iron bombs, among others to unleash terror against their enemy. The attacks were conducted at either high or low altitudes. The effect of the use of the air combat was to adequately suppress the enemy fires at the same time killing a good number of the enemy. The US intelligence looking into the Operation Anaconda did not approach the enemy without factoring in the possibility of the unplanned eventualities taking place. Due to this therefore, the Task Force Mountain made a ‘branches and sequels’ preparation. Its role included provision of variations on the core battle arrangement. It also put together a duet infantry company as well as on-call Close Air Support (CAS) in case it would be required. This helped much since the original plan had to be done away with once the friendly Afghani soldiers pulled out of the battle. It happened to be one way through which the US military managed to win the raging battle (Bailey 2003 p455). The US troops displayed tact and skill in undertaking their operations. They engaged the enemy in the battle as the situations availed themselves at times going into hide outs and at times making offences. For example, the first 200 troops deployment of the US troops landed as scheduled by Chinooks but could not engage the enemy into a fight due to the heavy fire the enemy adopted once they landed. Enemy attack was fiercer in the southern where the 10th Mountain Division landed. Most of the 10th Mountain troops sought cover close to BP Heather and Ginger within the valley. The night time provided a good time for the evacuation of the remainder of the troops and the wounded soldiers as well. The success of the American troops can also be seen by the number of lives the offensive took against the enemy. The number of lives of the opposing enemy forces that were claimed by the offensive is approximated at above 500 individuals. The opposing group also fled from the Shahikot valley as a sign of defeat. Conclusion Operation Anaconda proved to be a great success for the US troops that fought against the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the year 2002. It was a true test of the prowess of the US military power. This is true considering the tests the battle forced the US intelligence to take. The use of multiple unexpected approaches in the battle, the great coordination the US troops, as well as the great numbers of losses the opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda troops suffered truly are indications of the prowess of the American military. References Bailey Jonathan B (2003) “Field armaments and firepower” Naval Institute Press p455 Clements F & Adamec Ludwig W. (2005) “Conflict in Afghanistan” as retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=bv4hzxpo424C&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=Intelligence+Support+to+Operation+Anaconda&source=bl&ots=bC_Ytymr3C&sig=utwhGtla5hNymM4Uz9xG3OmDFw&hl=en&ei=gbtHSvLFNM_A-QbaleQO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10 on 29th June 2009, at 5.40am Grossman Elaine (2004) ‘Inside The Pentagon’ as retrieved from http://www.d-n-i.net/grossman/army_analyst_blames.htm at 6.42 am, on June 29, 2009 Naylor Sean (2006) “Not a Fine Day to Die: The Untold Tale of Operation Anaconda” Berkley Books p229 Robinson L (2005) “Masters of Chaos: The Furtive History of the Unique Forces” PublicAffairs p 218 Smith Michael (2007) “Killer elite, the story within, Americas most secret special operations” St. Martins Press, p189 Read More