'This Was a Different Kind of War': Interview with Vice Admiral Timothy J. Keating, U.S. Navy
Proceedings, June 2003
Interview: Vice Admiral Timothy J. Keating, U.S. Navy
Proceedings: How did you coordinate air operations in Iraqi
Freedom?
Vice Admiral Keating: Rear Admiral David C. Nichols, who is
the commander of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center [NSAWC] at
Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, was the deputy JFACC [joint force
air component commander] for Enduring Freedom at Prince Sultan Air
Base [Saudi Arabia]. He worked with the JFACC, [Lieutenant] General
[T. Michael] Moseley's staff, and an augmentation team of 101 people,
about 50% reservists and the rest from the weapons schools and the
fleet. So we had a visible presence in key leadership positions. We
had some Navy billets, but primarily they were purple [joint] billets
fully integrated with the CAOC [combined air operations center].
Proceedings: So was it kind of an ad hoc augmentation?
Vice Admiral Keating: I wouldn't call it ad hoc, because the planning
was very detailed and coordinated between the 5th Fleet and the 9th
Air Force in determining who we were going to send and what their
qualifications were. If they didn't have the qualifications, we got
them the schooling they needed to augment. The reservists were a big
hit because they were from the 2nd and 3rd Fleet staffs, and they
are JFACC trained. So they are very process-smart in the manning of
the CAOC. The fleet brought in the experts from the weapons schools
and NSAWC, as well as fleet units.
Proceedings: Having the Navy there on that team clearly was a
lesson learned from Desert
Storm. What other lessons were drawn from this most recent combat?
U.S. NAVY (B. HOULIHAN)
The Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, and Commander,
5th Fleet-here, in an April video teleconference press briefing
from his headquarters in Bahrain-spoke on 8 May at the Pentagon
with the Naval Institute's Fred Schultz and Fred Rainbow. He
talked about the naval aspects of prosecuting Operations Iraqi
Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
Vice Admiral Keating: This was a different war, perhaps obviously,
but for some not-so-apparent reasons. It was joint war fighting at
the highest form of the art I've ever seen. The component commanders
working for General Tommy Franks [Commander, Central Command] had
spent about a year formulating this plan. So there was understanding,
friendship, familiarity, and trust among all the services and special
forces working for General Franks. He did, in my view, a remarkable
job of engendering that friendship, camaraderie, and trust. In fact,
he insisted on it. The operation developed and unfolded a little differently
than we had planned, but there was no service equity infighting-zero.
Joint warfare unfolded differently than we thought it would, but because
of the extensive planning and speed and agility represented, the change
in the execution plan didn't matter. We were able were able to keep
up with the rapidly dynamic and changing war in ways that were, in
my experience, unprecedented.
I was just bragging on how joint a war this was, but from the naval
perspective, the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark]
had told me early on that I would have anything at my disposal to
present to General Franks. So there were five carrier strike groups,
more than a dozen submarines, scores of surface ships, military sealift
command ships, and amphibious task forces east and west, all of which
deployed and arrived in theater ready, well before the war started.
It was remarkable.
Proceedings: What tasks did General Franks assign to you, and
did you accomplish all of them?
Vice Admiral Keating: I believe we did accomplish all the tasks,
which included providing operational fire on call when directed-sea-based,
air-based, submarine-based. Another task was to maintain open sea
lines of communication. It was not an insignificant effort, because
it was not just the Iraqi threat. We had-and still have-a terrorist
threat, and we are still very concerned about it. We think the al
Qaeda network in particular is reduced in scope and capability, but
we had to worry about that a lot, so we were escorting all ships through
those particular transit points.
We had to be prepared for environmental challenges, too. We had to
be prepared to handle the dumping of oil into the Arabian Gulf, which
Saddam Hussein had done in years past. It didn't happen this time
because of aggressive offensive operations, but we had to be prepared
to handle it anyway. We were watching Iran very carefully, and in
diplomatic and political circles we made sure the Iranians knew this
war wasn't against them. We were conducting leadership interdiction
operations in the North Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, and the Red
Sea, looking still for terrorists who might be making good their escape
by sea. At the height of the war, we had 175 ships in our AOR [area
of operations], 65 of them Coalition ships. Incidentally, some of
them were French and some of them German. So in spite of those clear
and obvious diplomatic challenges, we still had a broad Coalition
supporting Operation Enduring Freedom-not Iraqi Freedom but Enduring
Freedom.
Proceedings: So French and German units continued to participate
in Enduring Freedom while Iraqi Freedom proceeded?
Vice Admiral Keating: Correct.
Proceedings: Obviously, you were prepared for various contingencies.
What things did the enemy do that were not in the plan?
Vice Admiral Keating:Perhaps more glaring is what they didn't
do. They did not launch a single fixed-wing sortie. In terms of a
defensive counter against our naval forces, we were very much surprised
at that and don't know exactly why they didn't. They did not launch
any cruise missiles at naval forces, thank goodness. That was at least
partly, if not largely, because of a very aggressive counter-cruise-missile
campaign.
There was no mass movement of Iraqi citizens across borders, which
we had been worried about, no dramatic civil unrest, and no environmental
disasters. They had rigged explosives at several oil fields, but they
were not able to torch them off. Did the information operations campaign
that General Franks executed have some influence here? You bet! We
dropped millions of leaflets, and we made extensive broadcasts from
all assets. How do you know that what we told them not to do is the
reason they didn't do it?
U.S. NAVY
U.S. Air Force airmen stand in a crater made
on the Baghdad Airport's main runway by two 2,000-pound JDAMs
(joint direct attack munitions). "The first one gets through
the concrete," says Admiral Keating, "the second one goes in
deeper and blows up. You're not going to fill that hole overnight."
Proceedings: What effect did weather have on air operations?
Vice Admiral Keating: Very little. We saw the same pictures you
saw from the embedded reporters about the horrible conditions those
poor guys and gals on the ground were enduring. But we did not dramatically
decrease the total airborne sortie rate during the bad sandstorm in
late March. We had sensors to which weather is irrelevant and weapons
that don't care about the weather. That does not mean that it didn't
impact us at all, but we were still flying more than 2,000 sorties
a day.
Proceedings: There were a couple of reports of some exciting
landings on the carriers with very little visibility.
Vice Admiral Keating: The weather was challenging at times, but
we were still able to find and kill the Republican Guard.
I'm not aware of the intel yet that tells us why their aircraft didn't
fly. We were sure ready for them. And that was a very high priority
for General Franks himself to the air component commander. Do not
let them fly. If they do, you have to kill them. So that requires
a certain apportionment of airborne assets. We had fighters in the
air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We targeted the airfields very
heavily, cutting the runways, making sure they couldn't take off.
And we continued to retarget them.
Proceedings: After you cut the runways on the first sweep,
were any attempts made to reconstitute them?
Vice Admiral Keating: If we thought they'd try to fill in a
runway, we'd put another bomb in the same crater. When I got to go
to Baghdad I saw a crater on the main runway about 10 meters wide.
The water in the bottom was 14 feet deep. It was the result of two
2,000-pound JDAMs
[joint direct attack munitions]. The first one gets through the
concrete, the second one goes in deeper and blows up. You're not going
to fill that hole overnight. There is a picture of it that'll water
your eyes.
Proceedings: We understand tankers were at a premium. What
should the Navy do to address this issue in the future?
Vice Admiral Keating: The Navy is addressing it. The CNO has his
S-3 Sundown program. The S-3s were very important to our organic tanking
capability. But with the F/A-18-E/F,
the Super Hornets, we have an organic tanking capability that is better
suited to our mission than is the S-3. The Hornet can do mission tanking.
It's the same jet. It can carry five tanks of gas with a buddy store
for the old tanking mission that some of us grew up doing. So these
jets flew right up into Iraq with four Hornets with them, gave them
each gas, flying the same profile. It's the same airplane. And they
can carry ordnance.
Proceedings: How many F/A-18s did you have to divert to support
that kind of mission?
Vice Admiral Keating: I don't know how many F/A-18s we had to
divert. In the early days of the war, there were some tanker challenges
that led to some jets not prosecuting their targets in a few cases.
The only ones of which I am aware, guys had to go in and get a squirt
of gas in one of the Kuwaiti bases to go back to the ship. But those
I think were very limited. The CAOC got a lot better at the tanker
management plan after the first few days of the war. Early on, we
also brought some F/A-18s from the USS
Nimitz [CVN-68], which was headed to the Gulf. We flew them off
Diego Garcia to the USS
Abraham Lincoln [CVN-72] and got to where we were passing about
a half-million pounds of gas organically a day in addition to the
five million we were getting from big-wing tankers.
U.S. NAVY (J. HAMPSHIRE)
The oiler USS
Seattle (AOE-3) receives fuel from the Japanese fleet support
ship Tokiwa in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. "The Japanese
are helping us in the north Arabian Sea," says Admiral Keating.
"They have an oiler that is giving gasoline free to the Coalition."
The tanker issue has sparked a lot of controversy. The differences
between Desert Storm and this operation were significant. In Desert
Storm, we had 346 tankers at five bases, the best tanker bases in
the world. They were all filled with large pipelines to sustain those
tankers. At the start of this war we only had 160 tankers at 15 bases
and the infrastructure to feed them was by trucks. So we eventually
ramped up to 200 tankers.
Everybody asked, "Where are all the tankers?" Quite frankly, there
was a dramatic difference from how we remembered it in the past to
the challenges that confronted us here. And that's the tanker story
that people tend to forget. It was basing and infrastructure to feed
the tankers that drove the air war, and we had to apportion appropriately.
Proceedings: Did you preposition any carrier aircraft in Kuwait?
Vice Admiral Keating: No. But we had P-3
maritime aircraft in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Proceedings: And the P-3, as it did in Afghanistan, played a big
role?
Vice Admiral Keating: Huge. Major General Jim Mattis, U.S.
Marine Corps, [Commanding General, 1st Marine Division] will tell
you that he had P-3s overhead his Marines at all times as they were
going from Basra to Baghdad, and he regarded that as essential to
his ability to prosecute his campaign. And P-3s in other parts of
the country were helping special operations forces.
Proceedings: How did you integrate the E-2Cs
[Navy electronic reconnaissance aircraft] with AWACs [Air Force air
warning and control systems] and JSTARS [joint surveillance/target
attack radar systems]?
Vice Admiral Keating: Very effectively. There were times when
so many airplanes were in the battle space that there were just too
many jets for those normal missions handled by AWACs. So, almost on
the fly-no pun intended-the role of some forward airborne command
and control just migrated to the E-2 guys, a role for which they are
well suited. But in joint warfare, that mission is typically fulfilled
by AWACs. But there was absolutely no degradation in mission effectiveness,
and in fact, it was an improvement, because it allowed us to get more
jets into a power projection role instead of holding south or north
of the fight, waiting for a particular target.
Proceedings: How concerned were you about mines, and how would
you rate our mine countermeasure operations?
Vice Admiral Keating: Very concerned, and big success. This
is another of those things that didn't happen. It was a very close
thing, though. In the hours leading to the commencement of offensive
operations, Coalition assets in the North Arabian Gulf found commercial
tugboats carrying mines. They were about ready, we think, to begin
seeding the water in the North Arabian Gulf with mines. When we found
these boats we thought maybe our worst fears were likely to materialize
now.
We had four minesweepers that are permanently employed in Bahrain,
and the British had given us four or five assets, so we had a fairly
comprehensive surface mine warfare capability. We also brought over
the dolphins, the marine mammals that are the best systems known to
man for finding mines submerged in the silt on the bottom. So we had
our triad, and we had trained extensively. We worried a lot, and it
turns out we did find some mines in the water. We were able to clear
the waterway to Umm Qasr in about 72 hours to our satisfaction. We
were prepared for a number of eventualities.
Proceedings: How can you relate recent and current operations
to the CNO's "Sea Power 21"?
Vice Admiral Keating: About 62,000 sailors ended up in our
AOR. They were ready, and they could project sustainable power at
long range. We used sea basing extensively for amphibious operations.
We ended up with more than 20 amphibious ships. That's how almost
16,000 Marines got to the AOR. We also had broad communication capability
and full integration of Coalition ships. I think this operation completely
validated his strategy, and it certainly did nothing to run contrary
to his investment strategy.
Proceedings: How will the success in Iraq affect future basing
flexibility for the 5th Fleet?
Vice Admiral Keating: There has been a naval presence in Bahrain for
more than 50 years. As you know, we are not a sea-based numbered fleet.
We are shore-based in Bahrain. It is obvious when we deploy, because
we go away. We also have a fairly small staff at 5th Fleet headquarters.
We come and we go; we don't have to ask permission for basing, we
don't have to ask permission for overflight, necessarily; we don't
have to ask for much in terms of shore-based resources. That's the
beauty of sea power. That's "Sea Power 21"-capability and capacity-two
things not lost on our Gulf Coast Council allies.
Proceedings: So you don't see a bigger footprint in the region
with the less hostile environment in Iraq?
Vice Admiral Keating: Smaller. Much smaller. Again, this is
one of the wonderful things about seaborne capability. We had five
carrier battle groups, and then the Nimitz joined us, so we ended
up with six, four in the Gulf and two in the eastern Mediterranean.
I called Buzz Moseley and said, "It looks to me like the requirement
for all these power projection assets is gone as the war is in its
final hours and minutes," and he said, "I agree." So I called General
Franks, after checking with the CNO, and said, "I believe we can let
these carrier battle groups go home," and he said, "I agree." We had
submarines that came into the AOR, shot their Tomahawk cruise missiles,
and left. Nobody knew. So the naval footprint in the AOR is now decreasing
dramatically, all of it without fanfare or commotion.
Proceedings: What if you would have had the littoral combat
ship? How would you have employed it?
Vice Admiral Keating: We would have used it probably in the
same ways we used our frigates. In parts of the Gulf the water is
not so deep, so on some missions the bigger Aegis platforms simply
could not get in close enough. We also did some escorting of ships
in fairly shallow waters, which a littoral combat ship could have
done.
Proceedings: Some of the Coalition forces are concerned about
their ability to keep up with U.S. technology. What is being done
about that?
Vice Admiral Keating: Well, they can't, in a lot of areas. Nobody
else is flying as many fixed-wing aircraft. The French, the Italians,
and the Spanish have carriers, but they just don't have the capability
of our big decks, nor do their jets have the capability. The British
are shooting Tomahawks.
I think in that respect they are right with us, but they just don't
have the volume of fire that we can bring.
Communication is a challenge. We are very good at communicating around
the world instantaneously on secure nets. Our allies just don't have
that same capability. We are working hard to bring them along through
the Coalition-Wide Area Network, but it's a challenge, because the
networks are not cheap to install and they're not cheap to maintain.
So we're giving them as much as we are able. But their aggressiveness
and their capability help offset these shortfalls.
For example, the Japanese are helping us in the north Arabian Sea.
They have cruisers, and they have an oiler that is giving gasoline
free to the Coalition. We've taken $60-70 million of gasoline from
our Japanese allies. So in ways that are not so technologically attractive
but are fundamental to the way we fight, the Coalition forces are
helping us in a very big way.
Proceedings: How would you rate the success of the Department
of Defense's embedded journalists on the battlefield and on board
ships?
Vice Admiral Keating: On board ships I can tell you it was great.
The reasons are several. It gave the journalists an opportunity to
spend some time with U.S. sailors, certainly our best assets. And
it gave those journalists an opportunity to develop a very deep understanding
of how good these kids are. For the shore-based group, it gave these
folks, men and women alike, a very real taste of life as an Army or
Marine infantryman. It also gave us good real-time intelligence, which
was helpful.
Proceedings: What were the challenges attendant to this?
Vice Admiral Keating: Certainly, we worked hard under General
Franks's direct guidance to make sure these folks understood the rules
going in. To my knowledge, at least from the naval side, the rules
were observed, and it was a helpful situation for us.
Proceedings: How well did the major news outlets tell the naval
story?
Vice Admiral Keating: I think very well. I'm not aware of anything
that was said or captured on film where we went, "Oh man, that's way
off!" or "It's just flat wrong!"
Proceedings: What aspects might they have missed, if any?
Vice Admiral Keating: After a while you can only show so many
catapult shots. You can only show so many Tomahawks coming out of
the tubes. Naval forces can sustain that volume. All five carrier
groups sustained a very high tempo of operations, without a single
day off for maintenance from the 20 days leading up to the war and
the 25 days of the war-about a 45-day stretch at a high tempo rate.
That's a difficult thing for the media to capture. But eventually,
it gets to be not such a hot story anymore. And then there's the very
precise nature of this particular war. An F-14
going off the catapult is one thing. The ability to put its ordnance-three
different bombs onto three different targets, three different aim
points widely separated, miles and miles apart-that's a difficult
thing to capture with just a picture of an F-14 launching.
Proceedings: Have we missed anything that you would like to
communicate to the readers of Proceedings?
Vice Admiral Keating: Just one comment. If I had to characterize
the planning and execution of this operation in one word, the word
would be speed. I've been at this for decades, and I have never imagined
an ability to do so many things so rapidly. The land forces moved
so forward so fast that in one day we had to do six different versions
of the air tasking order. This was over in less than four weeks!
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