The Official US Account

Certain Victory

The US Army in the Gulf War

Brig Gen Robert H. Scales Jr USA

Brassey’s Five Star Paperback - 1997

435 pages — Price - not indicated.

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI reviews the book by Brig Gen Scales, Jr.

“... In war, then, let our great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns” ________ Sun Tzu, The Art of War. General Scales is an artilleryman and while the Gulf War was on I ventured to write to him about the employment of US artillery in the Gulf War. He was assigned to the School of Artillery at Fort Sill USA. Little did I know that he had been selected to produce the official account of the US participation in the Gulf War immediately after the ceasefire. Of course he sent me a small note in which he highlighted the employment of artillery as it differed from conventional employment and the organization of field artillery in general. He indicated to me that he will soon produce a book for which I should wait for a fuller and comprehensive treatment. ‘Certain Victory’ is the book he was talking about.

I kept a track of Gen Scales as I was in search of the book but in the meantime I learned that Gen Scales had been posted to Korea as a Divisional Commander and he could not be contacted.

I, however, persisted in my efforts and it took me some time to get the book from Fort Sill. The book is an amazing work of frontline compilation and where the commanders ‘in situ’ have provided the operational accounts which shows that the fighting men are equally good with a pen.

And to weld these variegated accounts into a smooth reading material shows the editorial skills of Gen Scales. The book is indeed highly recommended and provides great insight into modern handling of mobile troops and provision of fire support for operations in quickly shifting scenarios.

According to Gen Gordon R. Sullivan — former Chief of Staff of the US Army Gen Scales “has captured good and bad lessons from the Gulf experiences and moulded them into a model for a future Force Projection Army that will drive our decisions for many years to come.”

It appears that in the current fighting in Afghanistan basically the same initial tactics of softening up have been employed — though not on the same scale — and had paid hands down. Of course, fighting against Taliban is not really a conventional or set piece battle which needs altogether different battle skills.

The book has earned some envious reviews. Some of these are:

“Delivers colour and combat flavour”—- Army.

“Reveals details about the conduct of the war that are closely examined for the first time.”

“... Includes accounts by Iraqi soldiers.”

“... Contains seventy photographs and forty five maps — ”besides an exhaustive index and orbat for ease of reference and for the help of researchers.

The production of such reading material is a little different than writing a straight forward book. The assignment has been tackled with extreme dexterity and five groups as below were formed under the leadership (Director) of Brig Gen Scales:

* Primary Authors — three serving officers including Gen Scales.

* An Editorial Production team. This had four members.

* Research and Writing Team. This team had eight serving officers who must have borne the brunt of the major assignment.

* An Administrative Team of mixed service and civilians of four members.

* Video Production Team. It consisted of three service officers.

“Certain Victory” surely is a unique report of the US Army’s performance during ‘Desert Shield’ and ‘Desert Storm’ and has been written by eight officers from many different specialists with different background.

Gen Scales is very candid when he talks about this work which he says was to uncover “Ground Truth” in soldier slang, and the book is “the first depiction of the war built exclusively on combat interviews and reports from units returning from the theatre. The frankness and candour, as well as the colour, derived from these sources have been carefully preserved.” And of course the focus of the book is the operational and tactical level of war. The whole narrative, and it is bereft of all military jargon, is totally apolitical.

Gulf War has been considered as a one-sided affair by many a critic — all the same as Gen Scales brings out it was a true realization of the dream of a combined operations as visualized by Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower who had said as early as 1958 “... We will fight with all services, as one single, concentrated effort. Strategic and tactical planning must be completely unified, combat forces organized into unified commands, and each equipped with the most efficient weapon systems science can develop, singly led, and prepared to fight as one.” This still remains an important US legacy.

It is to be noted that the book covers a mouthful of events and the authors have been considerate to provide a very brief chronology of the events especially for a reader who is uninitiated and who can be lost in the detailed accounts of formations and units.

The book is full of myriads of details and if one dwells on these in this short review one will be lost in the intricacies of those. The main plus point of the book in the assessment of Gen Sullivan is its three pronged presentation covering the following aspects of Gulf War:

* Firstly, the book tells us and most vividly, the story of the youngmen and women who in the heat and blowing sand of Iraq and Kuwait, took the fight to the enemy and won a compelling victory.

* Secondly, the victory vindicates the tireless and often unheralded work of a generation of Army leaders who forged a new Army from the dispirited institution that had emerged from Vietnam.

* Thirdly, ‘Certain Victory’ provides a window on the future as well as a chronicle of the past. The reader “reflecting on the ever reaching sinews that Gen Scales extracts from the story, will gain insight into how future American wars might be fought.”

It is not possible to present the seething details — but some of the more important aspects of war fighting vis-a-vis the Iraqi defensive approach must be appreciated. I shall just dwell on some of the most significant differences:

* US Aerial bombing, engagement by missiles (Tomahawk — Cruise missiles) from platforms in the Gulf and the use of guided weapons was so intensive that it broke the Iraqi will to resist. The Iraqis had no answer to this massive ‘softening’ up.

* And of course when the time came for the launch of the ground forces especially the armour in the Great Wheel, the Iraqis just had no answer to this.

* The Iraqis had a doctrinal flaw and they fought a 1915/1940 era battle in 1990/91 which was sheer stupidity. How could entrenched Iraqi troops stand against an invincible onrush of hostile armour. The entire Iraqi defence thus became untenable and collapsed.

* The US had a very heavy superiority of guns — especially the Self-Propelled ones and the multiple rocket launchers which would saturate the enemy positions within no time and there even the Iraqi armour was not safe in the shower of steel.

* The Americans used some of the hi-tech weapons like the UAVs Patriots, Cruise missiles — and even the satellite fixation was a great force multiplier.

* As compared to the above the Iraqis had the Soviet supplied Scuds — which unfortunately were tampered with by the Iraqis to trade range for original ballistic performance which did not work in the battle and the Scuds broke into two while in flight on reentry into the atmosphere.

* The Iraqi armour assets were no match for the M-I Abrams MBT.

Finally, this is an amazing book and I suppose should be on the desk of every well meaning officer of the Armed Forces. Gen Scales should be congratulated for producing a most coherent account out of a mass of details that were presented to him.