US commanders, beginning the ground war earlier than expected, sought to reclaim an element of surprise Thursday after the war's unexpected start.
The land assault Thursday by lead elements of Marines, Army and British forces was in striking contrast to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when allied forces began their offensive after a 39-day air campaign.
It was also different in another important way: the degree of risk. When the US military began ground attacks in 1991, it had a much larger force and a more limited objective: evicting the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. This time the force is smaller and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has his back against the wall.
The Marines had been instructed earlier in the week to be ready to attack on four-hour notice in case the Iraqis set the oil field afire, as in 1991 when they burned the Kuwaiti oil fields.
The early attack also seemed intended to help the allied forces regain the initiative and maintain some element of surprise. While the cruise missile attacks on areas around the presidential compound in Baghdad on Thursday night were predictable, the timing of the land attack was not.
The air and land assault that began Thursday night was actually scheduled to occur later this week after several days of preparatory air strikes, probes and psychological operations.
But the attacks were moved up after a cruise missile strike Wednesday night, ordered by President George W. Bush, which apparently failed to kill Saddam, but still disrupted Iraqi command communications. A formation of more than 150,000 troops quickly moved to ready themselves and their weapons to invade Iraq.
The Marines rushed to complete cutting slits in the sand berms and filling in the ditches that separate Iraq and Kuwait. The Army worked out the final details of its plan to fire its ATACMS missile, a surface-to-surface missile that is being used in combat for the first time with a potent 500-pound warhead.
Earlier Thursday, it was the Iraqis who seemed to have the initiative.
They responded to the cruise missile attacks on Baghdad on Wednesday night by firing missiles at the allied troops across the across the border in Kuwait. A Seersucker cruise missile exploded within 600 yards of Camp Commando, the headquarters of Lieutenant General James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Kuwait. The Iraqis fired the Seersucker, a Chinese-made missile designed as anti-ship missile, from Umm Qasr. Shock waves from the explosion knocked down some troops at the camp.
Then two more surface-to-surface missiles, probably Ababil-100s, were fired.
"This is not a drill," blared "Giant Voice," the loudspeaker system at Camp Doha, Lieutenant General David McKiernan's headquarters. The staff put on their chemical protective suits and gas masks and kept working.
By evening, the allies' focus was on wresting the initiative back from the Iraqis and moving ahead with the attack plan.
At 8 pm, McKiernan, the allied land war commander, held a classified video conference with Conway and General William Scott Wallace, the commander of V Corps, to make sure their plans were synchronized. Salvos of cruise missiles were already flying toward Baghdad and the beginning of the land operations was virtually at hand.
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