Throughout late 2002 and early 2003, SOCOM Commander Air Force Gen. Charles Holland and his Army, Navy, and Air Force component commanders trained and packaged SOF units for delivery to CENTCOM. The largest of these, whole Special Forces (SF) battalions, were trained for tasks in wide areas of operations like western or southern Iraq. Smaller units, like detachments of SOF aviation helicopters, gunships, and tanker/transports also made their way toward Southwest Asia and Europe to be ready for the war, which came in mid-March.

Armed with new Javelin anti-tank missiles and “cab rank” close air support (CAS) from “Mulholland’s Air Force,” the mounted SOF teams seemed to vaporize any Iraqi unit unfortunate enough to be in their path. So successful were these screening operations that Mulholland directed the teams to begin occupying some of the fixed military installations such as airfields and even small towns. By the end of major combat, not one TBM had been fired from western Iraq, and his forces were ready to turn over control of the region to conventional force units moving up from Kuwait.

 

The Wild, Wild West

From the beginning, the most strategically important SOF task was to prevent Iraqi missiles armed with WMDs from being launched from western Iraq into Israel and other nations. This vital role, and command of all the SOF forces south of the Iraqi/Kurdish “Green Line,” fell to then-Col. John F. Mulholland Jr., commanding officer of the 5th Special Forces Group (SFG). In the fall of 2001, Mulholland had brilliantly commanded the Northern SOF element of OEF-A, mostly formed from his own unit. By early 2003, Mulholland had assembled an amazing array of military muscle to accomplish the counter Theater Ballistic Missile (TBM)/WMD mission in western Iraq.

Mulholland’s basic scheme of operations broke the region into four sectors, each patrolled by a company/squadron-sized SOF element mounted on long-range desert patrol vehicles. These were drawn from the 1st Battalion of his own 5th SFG (1/5th SFG), along with the British and Australian Special Air Service (SAS). Supporting these ground forces was a multinational array of SOF aviation, including helicopters, gunships, and tanker/transports from U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), and SOF helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), Royal Air Force (RAF), and Royal Australian Air Force. To round things out, and taking advantage of Rumsfeld’s decree from January, Mulholland had at his disposal a number of conventional force units. These included two squadrons of Air National Guard F-16s and another of A-10s. For force protection, there were elements of the Florida National Guard, Patriot missile batteries, and even a battery of the new High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).

Beginning on the morning of March 20, 2003, Mulholland’s mounted SOF teams flooded into western Iraq, quickly overrunning the entire area. Within days, the teams had every suspected TBM/WMD launch/storage site under observation and were beginning to roll back the Iraq security forces. Armed with new Javelin anti-tank missiles and “cab rank” close air support (CAS) from “Mulholland’s Air Force,” the mounted SOF teams seemed to vaporize any Iraqi unit unfortunate enough to be in their path. So successful were these screening operations that Mulholland directed the teams to begin occupying some of the fixed military installations such as airfields and even small towns. By the end of major combat, not one TBM had been fired from western Iraq, and his forces were ready to turn over control of the region to conventional force units moving up from Kuwait.

 

The Southern Battle

To support the drive by the units of V Corps, I MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force), and British 1st Armored Division up from Kuwait toward Baghdad, Mulholland set up three SOF Task Forces (TFs) based at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. Drawn from 5th SFG and stateside AFSOC units, these powerful SOF units had practiced their tasks since the previous fall, and were some of the best-trained troops to go into combat during OIF. They broke down as follows:

• TF-52 – Composed of the reinforced 2/5th SFG, TF-52 was assigned missions in direct support of the conventional force drive up through south central Iraq to Baghdad.

• TF-53 – Made up of elements from the 3/5th SFG, TF-53 was the SOCCENT “reserve” SOF force that would stand by to dash into Baghdad when allied forces reached the Iraqi capital.

• Air Force Special Operations Detachment-South (AFSOD-S) – Composed of aircraft and crews from the 16th Special Operations Wing, AFSOD-S provided helicopter and tanker/transport services for TF-52 and TF-53, along with the maritime elements of SOCCENT.