Pat Asked Me to Scribble Something Down About Land Lines of Communications (LLOC) Based

Note on sources: All sources of information in this essay are available in open public sources. Use Google to duplicate the sources and find more. I searched for OIF AND Sustainment to get most of them. I also used the CIA World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/)

Pat asked me to scribble something down about land lines of communications (LLOC) based on How Bad Could it Get? by brother Erasmus. After I re-read the article I wondered “why?” Throughout the essay are sprinkled very cogent references to the problems with supply, mobility, and distribution operations. The effect of insurgent and Iranian forces on the LLOC is evident in his writings.

So if I can contribute anything it has to be about the intermediate levels of supply. That is the question of “How do we get the essentials of warfare to our forces from outside of Iraq?”

First there is the political question, “Will any of our allies or associates that surround Iraq provide us access?” I think this is a major topic for this discussion group. As for me, I was stationed in Germany during one of France’s denial of airspace use during a crisis. The denial of air transit rights over France and Switzerland made use of the closest forces to the contingency plan area infeasible.

Assume a “flat-footed” attack by US Forces using surgical strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities happened. Erasmus’ article graphically describes the worst case scenario within Iraq. Now address the issue of will our allies still be our allies? Look at the CIA’s World Factbook’s description of the borders of Iraq.

border countries / Iran 1,458 km, Jordan 181 km, Kuwait 240 km, Saudi Arabia 814 km, Syria 605 km, Turkey 352 km

We follow that dreary list wit a map of Iraq’s infrastructure which I lifted from a CENTCOM briefing created November 2000. I got the map by Googling “OIF” and Sustainment. I’m sure that things are much better but the LLOC constraints can be reasonably ascertained from the map.

So here’s the lineup of people who own the LLOC’s entry points into Iraq.

Country / Will they help? / Comment
Iran / No / We bombed them in the worse case scenario remember?
Kuwait / Yes / Reduced capability due to constraints in the Straits of Homuz
Saudi Arabia / Maybe / If the mullahs let them
Syria / No / Why should they. They get more credit from the Muslim world by saying no.
Turkey / Probably not / They didn’t let us transit during OIF. Why should they now
Jordan / Maybe / Depending on how much risk the Crown Prince is willing to take. We are a fickle ally and they are in the neighborhood – we are not.

Now look at the roads coming out of the maybe’s. One road out of Jordan and three out of Saudi. The one out of Jordan and one of the ones out of Saudi transits Anbar province – the heart of the insurgency. They make great IADs and we provide targets.

The other two out of Saudi transit or are near the Shiite south. Remember we hit Iran – their cultural homeland?

I couldn’t find the tonnage of sustainment required to support Erasmus’ war nor could I find the road capacity of the road network in Iraq. All I know is that Erasmus’ scenario would be a logistics nightmare from both the tactical and intermediate levels of supply. I’m glad I don’t have to try to figure it out.