Its faded from memory but General Mattis made one mistake that I have difficulty forgiving him on.
He fired Colonel Dowdy during the invasion of Baghdad.
Officers get fired all the time. Alot more often than the general public would believe, but this one was unusual...and for a reason that will stun the uninitiated. He was fired because he cared about his men.
It was a hush-hush episode inside the Regiment...even inside the Marine Corps. Few people outside of the head shed knew the what's and the why's. Check out this old article from the Wall Street Journal...
It was presumed the Iraqis had chemical weapons, so the plan was to avoid engaging them directly. Col. Dowdy's unit was to act as a decoy, diverting Mr. Hussein's soldiers and allowing the other U.S. regiments to rush in from the northwest through a gap in Iraqi defenses to get to Baghdad.Its hard to explain, but for some unGodly reason the run into Baghdad seemed to turn into race.
Col. Dowdy's route would take him through the city of Nasiriyah. Another Marine unit, called Task Force Tarawa, was charged with keeping order there. Pentagon officials assumed the city would offer little resistance because it had long been oppressed by Mr. Hussein. That assumption turned out to be wrong.
The plan began to unravel in Nasiriyah. When Col. Dowdy and his men arrived outside the city, they found their passage blocked by a massive firefight. Word filtered back that Task Force Tarawa had suffered casualties, including 18 dead. Adding to the confusion was a U.S. Army supply unit, which had mistakenly stumbled into Nasiriyah. Several soldiers in that unit were dead. Others, including Pvt. Jessica Lynch, had been taken prisoner.
Outside the city, Col. Dowdy and his staff debated what to do. Several hundred trucks in Col. Dowdy's train lacked armor, and squeezing through a fierce battle zone would be complicated, especially on Nasiriyah's narrow streets.
A potential 150-mile bypass around Nasiriyah didn't seem feasible. Col. Dowdy wasn't sure he had enough fuel and didn't know what resistance he might face. The First Regiment was stuck.
The halt was anathema to Gen. Mattis, a devotee of a modern military doctrine known as "maneuver warfare." Though Marines have practiced the technique for years, the Iraqi war was its first large-scale test. Instead of following rigid battle plans and attacking on well-defined fronts, this tactic calls for smaller forces to move quickly over combat zones, exploiting opportunities and sowing confusion among the enemy. The technique is summed up in Gen. Mattis' radio call name: "Chaos."
Both the US Army and USMC had exposed supply lines.
Everyone involved was operating on ragged sleep, worries about being ambushed and the fear that chemical weapons would be used (that is stress on another level).
The USMC was not equipped for an extended assault deep into Iraq. Even the US Army, that is designed for these types of operations, had to call a halt to its advance.
In the fighting around Nasiriyah the Marine Corps lost 8 AAVs in heavy fighting. If you've seen pictures of AAV burned down to their treads it happened here.
But after the city was pacified the call to push forward at break neck pace went out. This is when Colonel Dowdy took what I consider an operational pause, Mattis took as command indecision and history seems to have forgotten about.
For a fuller telling of this tale, read the command history but even better just Google it and read the different accounts. My personal lesson learned from this?
* The Marine Corps is not equipped for extended land movement against opposition. Even in 2003 we were too lightly equipped. Today we're even lighter.
* Operational temp depends on conditions encountered by your forces. It can't come from higher headquarters.
* Concepts should be tested against worst case scenarios. Playing the game so that your ideas win will serve you badly in real world situations.
We're making the same mistake today that we did in 2003...the difference?. The USMC is HOPING that air power can make up for a lack of armored protection.
It can't and it won't.
Colonel Dowdy saved the lives of his men because he did not conduct hasty assault after hasty assault in the race to Baghdad. Will the next Regimental Commander be as brave?
