US Recovery Plan

[stilleto69]

As always Chico, I love your work and can hardly wait for you guys to publish your next insatllment.

[Ed the Coastie]

Keep going...I love it.

[chico20854]

part 2...

Operation Omega

CENTCOM's naval and air forces went into action to support the other overseas commands. A small convoy, escorted by the frigate USS Jarrett, sailed through the Mediterranean and into the North Sea, where (in order to conceal the worldwide, coordinated nature of Operation Omega) a tanker with a full load of fuel oil was abandoned and subsequently "discovered adrift and abandoned" by a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft operating from northern Germany. The remaining elements of the convoy then sailed throughout the North and Norwegian Seas, recovering and refueling over a dozen modern merchant ships that had been abandoned due to lack of fuel and inviting Americans and other interested Westerners to evacuate Europe for the CENTCOM AOR. Over 6,000 soldiers volunteered to remain overseas and reinforce CENTCOM, while the remainder returned to the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts. German cooperation with the effort was secured by leaving EURCOM's vehicles to the German Army (and their evacuation would have been impossible given the shortage of suitable shipping, time and port facilities). However, CINCEUR ensured that important combat equipment accompanied the evacuated soldiers. All ground vehicles were to be left for the German Army; however heavy weapons (mortars, anti-tank missiles, howitzers, heavy machineguns and rocket launchers, along with their ammunition), classified by the Task Force Bremerhaven Provost Marshall as "military supplies", were collected from arriving troops and loaded aboard one of the evacuation ships (a coastal freighter) that evacuated the Provost Marshall's command of military policemen. A handful of helicopters (all that could be made airworthy with some aviation fuel left aboard the tanker by CENTCOM) also arrived in Bremerhaven; the largest, a CH-47D, was used to evacuate the last of the perimeter guards after the task force had set sail.

As the CENTCOM convoy sailed back through the Mediterranean side expeditions tried to locate stranded Americans and offer them the chance to evacuate either to CENTCOM or (with a pair of ships, recovered from Gibraltar) back to the U.S. Meanwhile, a flurry of C-130 and C-5 flights evacuated the remnants of the U.S. Air Force's 16th Air Force from Turkey, bringing along several F-16 fighters and spare parts for many other aircraft in addition to the nine nuclear-tipped ground launched cruise missiles from the 487th Missile Wing.

U.S. forces in Jugoslavia that had pledged loyalty to CIVGOV declined to evacuate, citing a lack of orders from Omaha. In reality, the military commanders were in favor of accepting the offer but were in fear of their lives from ruthless CIA monitors loyal to Vice President Cabot. U.S. commanders in Jugoslavia were also unsure of their ability to extricate their troops from the myriad cantonments in the mountains of Bosnia and Croatia without cooperation of the numerous feuding local factions. The U.S. Navy task force in Split (formed around the USS John F. Kennedy carrier battle group), Croatia remained in place in solidarity with its Army brothers ashore, although it did accept what limited fuel and logistic support the Omega task force offered as a sign of goodwill.

When completed, the CENTCOM European evacuation effort resulted in a gain of over 12,000 American and allied citizens (some 25 percent of which were civilians).

The winter of 2000-2001 in CENTCOM was spent absorbing the new arrivals, repairing the aircraft and ships that had been used in support of the European phase of Operation Omega and amassing supplies of food and fuel for the next phase of the operation. At the end of February it went into effect, with the CENTCOM fleet, this time reinforced with the USS Belleau Wood, two oil-field support tugs, several tankers and breakbulk dry cargo ships, a cruise liner and a pair of open-decked roll-on/roll-off ships in the convoy, sailing for Asia.

Staying well to sea to avoid pirates, the convoy made its first landfall in Darwin, Australia, where a liaison officer from the Australian Brigade in the CENTCOM AOR was quickly able to secure fresh water, use of port facilities and the airfield outside of town from the local Australian commander in exchange for diesel from CENTCOM (the fleet left a tanker of diesel and aviation fuel in the harbor to support the Australians and the airlift expected from the Far East) and a promise of future visits from the American fleet.

The fleet then sailed to Subic Bay, Philippines, where a landing force of U.S. Marines reinforced the remnants of the U.S. Navy base (and adjacent Cubi Point Naval Air Station) against local bandits and warlords. The CENTCOM task force then descended on the bases like locusts, stripping as much of the spare parts, tools, repair facilities and infrastructure from the bases as possible. (For example, the turbines on the power plant were carefully dismounted and towed on trailers down to the piers by a pair of bulldozers, where they were loaded onto LCU landing craft for transfer to the roll-on/roll-off ships.) Meanwhile, CH-53E heavy lift helicopters operating off the Belleau Wood flew inland to Clark Air Force Base. In a five-day operation, they were able to salvage ten complete F-16s, two F-15s, almost 100 tons of spare parts for aircraft, large stockpiles of guided munitions and evacuate 400 U.S. Air Force personnel and 150 civilians and dependents, in addition to dispatching a pair of recovered C-130s, a Boeing 767 and a KC-135 tanker to Darwin for later recovery.

The destroyer USS Ingersoll, in drydock at Subic with torpedo damage, had its hull quickly patched by a crew from one of the oilfield tugs, which began to tow the inoperable vessel to Bahrain and its CENTCOM-controlled ship repair yard. Resistance from local bandits and marauders was light after a flight of Harriers (also operating off the Belleau Wood) flattened a bandit heavy machinegun position with Rockeye cluster bombs. Much of the salvaged material was loaded aboard the dry cargo ships, one of which accompanied the Ingersoll, its deck guns adding to the small flotilla's firepower to deter pirates and other waterborne hazards.

The task force then moved on to the Korean peninsula, where the 8th Army command had been making plans for the evacuation in secret. En route to Korea, the fleet rendezvoused with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Stennis and its nuclear-powered escort, the cruiser USS Texas. The recovered fighter aircraft and many of the passengers were cross-loaded to the carrier to free up space in the Omega fleet, while aviation fuel transferred from the fleet's tankers allowed Stennis to resume limited flight operations.

Ever since the July 15th conference, 8th Army had been gradually concentrating on the U.S. airbase in Kunsan. Under the guise of planning meetings, supply runs, training classes and medical calls, almost half of the troops which had the means to reach Kunsan (some 6,500 men from I and IX Corps, miscellaneous support units assigned to 8th Army HQ and U.S. Air Force personnel, with another 3,000 civilians and family members) had arrived there by the time the evacuation fleet appeared over the horizon. III MEF and other units along the east coast of the Korean peninsula and southeastern Korea concentrated on Pusan, where the U.S. Navy maintained a significant force built around the USS Des Moines and the remnants of her battle group, with a total force waiting there of 4,500 military personnel (2,200 sailors, 750 marines, 550 soldiers and 1,000 airmen) and 1,500 camp followers. In addition to the waiting personnel, 8th Army command had attempted to stockpile what limited spare parts, vehicles (both operable and not), aircraft and munitions it could at the evacuation ports. The 2nd Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 72nd Armor, for example, had one of its four operable tanks "Wild Thang" tow its inoperable sister "Terrible Two" to Kunsan for "repair."

With the appearance of the evacuation fleet the Korean military government raised a formal protest, requested that the 8th Army commander rescind the evacuation order, and forbade South Korean government and military personnel from assisting the evacuation in any way. Fighting immediately broke out along the Kunsan perimeter, while Pusan remained quiet under the lowered and very operable guns of the Des Moines. Scattered firefights broke out as U.S. units within 50 miles of the evacuation ports attempted to depart overland. Units farther than 50 miles from the ports were evacuated by the always-busy helicopters operating off the Belleau Wood and Stennis, with cover provided by Harriers and CVW-30, operating from the Stennis. Along the east coast of the peninsula, III MEF units were evacuated by sea, as regiments massed on the seashore. Security units from the fleet went ashore to bolster the defenses, and Kunsan was stripped bare in a manner identical to that used in Subic Bay just a few weeks before. After a few days Korean resistance slacked, but the environment remained tense and hostile. The Des Moines and its escorting destroyer USS John S. McCain were refueled from the last of the tankers accompanying the evacuation fleet. Fortunately, in 1998 7th Air Force had concentrated the remaining 110 operable tactical aircraft (a mix of F-4s, F-16s, A-10s, A-7s and OV-10s) at Kunsan to simplify command and control and logistics. Likewise, the Marine's 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had concentrated at Pusan's airport. These greatly simplified the evacuation of the aircraft - many were rolled onto the roll-on/roll-off ships or lifted aboard ship using dockside cranes. Many of the operable Marine Corps aircraft flew to the Stennis for transportation back to the CENTCOM AOR. After a week of furious activity CINCUSFK was able to report to General Cummings in Colorado Springs that 8th Army, 7th Air Force and their subordinate units had successfully evacuated Korea with losses of less than 300 men and with most of their heavy equipment, aircraft and spares accompanying them. CENTCOM was now stronger by some 5,000 marines, 17,500 soldiers, 15,000 airmen, 2,200 sailors and 10,000 civilians, along with 30 tanks and over 100 aircraft. Conditions on board the evacuation fleet were difficult with such a large number of passengers crammed aboard (the cruise ship, designed for 2,300 passengers, had over 10,000 aboard for the voyage), limited fresh water and monotonous food for the three weeks of creeping along at less than 12 knots to conserve fuel. Many of the evacuees were disheartened to discover that they were being evacuated not to the U.S. but to the Persian Gulf, but all accepted that the Operation Omega fleet was the only way out of Korea and that as members of a military still at war they would serve where ordered.

On their voyage back to the Persian Gulf, the Omega fleet sailed past Japan and Okinawa. The Jarrett diverted into Okinawa to assure the U.S. garrison there (Air Force, Navy, Marine and Army support and aviation units) that they were not forgotten and that they would be receiving support from CENTCOM and evacuated when resources were available.

Operation Omega was officially declared over on May 7, 2001, with the return of the evacuation fleet to the Persian Gulf. It increased the strength of I MEF by almost 50 percent, and XVIII Airborne Corps was transformed as new arrivals equaled the number "old Iran hands". With the influx of spare parts, aircraft and personnel, 9th Air Force tripled the number of aircraft available to become the world's second strongest air force (the French Air Force, of course, was still champion of the skies). The 5th Fleet, in the meantime, had gained an operable aircraft carrier with a nearly full strength air wing (after CVW-20 and the remnants of Independence's CVW-10 were combined), doubled its naval gunfire support capability by reuniting the Des Moines class sisters and strengthened its surface and transport fleets.

[Rainbow Six]

As others have said...this is great stuff...love it...

[chico20854]

The Persian Gulf Region Transformed

The arrival of 8th Army in the CENTCOM AOR was one of the two major changes to the strategic situation in May 2001. The other major change was the Transcaucasian Front's spring offensive and its aftermath.

While information from the Soviet perspective is sketchy, the impression among historians is that the remnants of the Soviet Politburo were exerting pressure on General Suryakin to undertake on offensive and seize one of the Persian Gulf ports. This pressure, combined with a sense of duty as a soldier, convinced General Suryakin to undertake one last offensive. He had received inconclusive and partial intelligence reports about the American withdrawal from Europe and that a similar withdrawal might be occurring from the CENTCOM AOR. He felt that if the Americans were withdrawing an offensive might succeed or that a Soviet offensive might convince General MacLean to follow CINCEUR's lead and withdraw American forces.

The Soviet offensive started at dawn on May 1 (in tribute to workers everywhere) with a desultory artillery barrage on 3rd Army and the IPA's forward outposts along the entire front south and east of Esfahan. The initial assault was by Tudeh troops from the forward garrisons, followed by Soviet motor-rifle troops probing for weaknesses in the NATO lines, to be exploited by concentrations of the few remaining Soviet tanks, supported by the carefully husbanded ground attack aircraft of the Soviet Transcaucasian Air Force. In the Zagros Mountains progress was limited as the Soviet troops faced difficult terrain and deep American and IPA defenses. Limited success was made southeast of Esfahan, enough to convince General Suryakin to concentrate the forces of 45th and First Armies to drive down Highway 7 towards Shiraz. The KGB's 74th Motor Rifle Regiment was identified as a key element of the breakthrough and exploitation force. However, a personal dispute between the commanders of the KGB regiment and the Tudeh brigade in the sector resulted in a firefight that resulted in the deaths of both men and the failure of the effort in that sector. The concentration of tanks waiting for the breakthrough was identified by Pasdaran rebels and bombed by a flight of F-16s equipped with cluster bombs (recently received from stocks in Turkey), ending the possibility of success in that sector. Upon news of the firefight between KGB and Tudeh units, scattered fighting broke out between KGB and Tudeh units throughout Iran. With the failure to break through NATO lines and with chaos in his rear areas, General Suryakin called a halt to the offensive. General Kurdakov, the KGB commander in the theater, was assassinated by a still unidentified hit team (rumors are that it was French, GRU or Israeli supported, but the truth has never emerged) while on his way to relieve General Suryakin.

Front line Soviet commanders began reporting NATO probing attacks, while unusually active American strike aircraft were roaming Soviet rear areas interdicting supply convoys and attacking artillery emplacements. At the same time, a GRU agent reported the arrival of a massive troop convoy (the Omega fleet) in Bandar Abbas. Faced with the failure of his offensive, a CENTCOM much stronger than anticipated and the chaos in the USSR, General Suryakin decided to end the Transcaucasian Front's war.

In their only face to face meeting, General Suryakin and General MacLean met in the village or Lordegan and agreed to the terms of the Transcaucasian Front's withdrawal. Soviet troops would be allowed to leave Iranian territory, with a series of phase lines and deadlines (generally 100 km a week), retaining all equipment and military supplies. NATO troops would remain no less than 5km from Soviet troops to prevent marauders from grabbing control of neutral territory and both armies would be responsible for maintaining order behind their lines. The forces of the Tudeh could evacuate with Soviet forces or remain in place to be dealt with by the Iran Nowin government; however Soviet support of any kind to Tudeh elements remaining behind was forbidden. Likewise, Soviet support to the Pro-Soviet government of Iraq was forbidden. Once Soviet forces were over the prewar Soviet-Iranian border active hostilities between NATO and Soviet forces in the CENTCOM AOR would cease, and General MacLean would encourage what American units he had contact with in Turkey to observe the ceasefire. Of course, if units from either nation crossed the border into Iran, the ceasefire would be void. Finally, the release of prisoners of war held in the areas under Transcaucasian Front and CENTCOM control was arranged.

Over the next three and a half months, a constant stream of vehicles flowed north through the Iranian countryside. IPA units took the lead in following the Soviet units, while American troops provided what logistic support they could and hunted down bands of marauders and deserters. The KGB Motor Rifle Regiments, bereft of the leadership of General Kurdakov and distrustful of the Red Army, retreated to Central Asia or Afghanistan to fight with "loyal" units there against the enemies of the Soviet Union. Most Tudeh units and supporters withdrew, some with the Soviet forces falling back on Baku, some to Central Asia or Afghanistan. In a few scattered Tudeh units the commanders were overthrown and reconciliation with the IPA accepted. Three Tudeh brigades attempted to form a nascent communist regime in the city of Tabriz prior to the Soviet withdrawal, but General Suryakin and his men followed the terms of the agreement with CENTCOM, providing no support to the Tudeh. Tabriz was retaken by PA troops after a short firefight scattered the demoralized Tudeh supporters, while the Tudeh politburo fled in a helicopter to Baku.

Elsewhere in the region, there were changes in the strategic situation. On May 15, General MacLean was summoned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi king congratulated him on his defeat of the Soviet Transcaucasian Front. In the subsequent discussion, the king also offered that with the Soviet threat gone he no longer felt the need for CENTCOM troops to be stationed in his kingdom and requested that all American military personnel be out of Saudi Arabia within one month. The French government, in return for priority of oil shipments, would provide for the security of the Saudi monarchy. The United States would still be able to purchase oil surplus to French and Saudi needs on a commercial basis, and American and other Western civilians working in the Saudi oil fields were guaranteed the protection of the Saudi state. Shocked, General MacLean remained calm and successfully negotiated a period of six months to effectuate the withdrawal and secured overflight rights for American aircraft for five years. Over the next several weeks General MacLean and Ambassador Thayer toured the capitals of other GCC nations (Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) and secured American access to those nations' (except for Kuwait, under French protection and with French troops occupying Kuwait City) facilities and markets. Meanwhile, American troops outside Iran remained in their garrisons in other areas of the CENTCOM AOR (Aden, Yemen, Diego Garcia and Mombassa, Kenya).

Negotiations were also opened with the Iran Nowin government on the American role and presence in Iran. The Iran Nowin government realized the challenge it faced in securing and rebuilding its war-torn country and unifying its divided, war-weary, depleted and impoverished society. Providing security for the entire country would require the full effort of the IPA, and at some point the Pasdaran would present its demands for compensation for its allegiance in the struggle against the Soviets. A continuing American military presence would be essential to ensuring stability in Iran.

General MacLean decided that the disposition of what was now America's greatest military force required consultation worldwide and convened another commander's conference call. During the call, all the joint commanders agreed that CENTCOM in its current situation was a priceless asset that needed to be harnessed to rebuild the United States. Its position in the oilfields of the Persian Gulf, even if not in Saudi Arabia, its functioning military structure, operational combat aircraft and fleet and transport network provided many of the tools that the U.S. needed to rebuild, if used wisely. It was decided that CENTCOM would remain in Iran, splitting its efforts between helping the Iran Nowin government rebuild and sending petroleum back to America.

CENTCOM offered to remain in Iran, securing and rebuilding the area that had been under NATO control prior to the Soviet withdrawal. In exchange, the United States would receive half of all industrial and oil production in that zone and one third of all agricultural production. CENTCOM would be available to assist the Iran Nowin government in other areas, and if American reconstruction aid in the reconquered areas was needed it would be made available in exchange for half of its production. The Iran Nowin government generally accepted the terms, although the city of Shiraz was excluded from the American Zone. (While the Iran Nowin government relocated to Tehran as soon as the city was evacuated by Soviet troops, much of the civil bureaucracy remained in Shiraz until Tehran was sufficiently rebuilt to support it.)

[kato13]

Very nice as always.

Originally Posted by chico20854

The Soviet offensive started at dawn on May 1 (in tribute to workers everywhere)

This gave me a chuckle. A Zampolit was still gumming up the works even near the end.

[chico20854]

CENTCOM Transformed and Iran Rebuilt

As the Soviet withdrawal was occurring and in light of America's ejection from Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM was undergoing a massive reorganization to absorb the reinforcements and to adapt to the new strategic situation and mission. Each branch handled the reorganization differently.

Navy and Marine Corps units of III MEF were disbanded and used to bring the equivalent units of I MEF up to strength. In that transition, small units were, to the maximum extent possible, kept intact to preserve the trust, teamwork and esprit de corps that had been developed over the years of operations in Korea. Those small units (fire teams, squads and platoons) were then fed into existing units in I MEF.

Likewise, Army units from I and IX Corps were disbanded and used to bring XVIII Airborne Corps up to strength. By the time the reorganization was finished, divisions in XVIII Airborne Corps ranged in strength from 4,600 to 7,250 soldiers, and they received massively more support as 1st Corps Support Command and 3rd Army's 22nd Theater Army Area Command (TAACOM) had absorbed over 6,000 reinforcing soldiers and hundreds of civilian augmentees.

The Navy assigned ships to early-war style task groups and organized excess personnel into shoreside support units, providing everything from technical expertise (ranging from welding, shoreside construction and machine shop operations to aircraft ordnance and electronics maintenance and repair) to reconstruction support (labor, truck transport and coastal transportation). In this role, the SeeBee's First Naval Construction Regiment was augmented by the remnants of the 31st Naval Construction Regiment, arriving from Korea and brought up to strength with personnel assigned from damaged or sunken ships or disbanded organizations. In addition, CINCNAVCENT organized the civilian merchant ships into a pool from which sailing orders were drawn to support CENTCOM and the United States worldwide. Quickly the mission of transporting personnel and supplies fell to civilian merchant ships, which required much smaller crews and less fuel than Navy transport or support ships. Naval signal and guard parties were formed to serve aboard all CENTCOM controlled merchantmen, and convoys were formed for vessels sailing outside the Persian Gulf and Northern Arabian Sea.

The 9th Air Force absorbed the personnel and equipment that had arrived from Europe, Turkey, the Philippines and Korea into its existing structure. Simultaneously, CVW-10 was released from 9th Air Force control and returned to Navy control as it integrated into CVW-20 aboard Stennis. During the years of war the wing and squadron structures of 9th Air Force had been depleted of excess personnel as aircraft counts decreased; now those structures were built back up using many of the reinforcing airmen. The support units in Iran, however, were not forgotten, as the 915th Construction Engineer Squadron was reinforced in order to prepare airfields in Iran to host units displaced from Saudi Arabia, and as the 619th Security Group's area of responsibility expanded to include areas recently vacated by the advancing IPA. The 53rd Mobile Aerial Port Squadron was tripled in size as it adapted for its new task - to open an air bridge back to the United States through Diego Garcia, Darwin, Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. With all this activity, however, the air operations tempo decreased dramatically for many reasons. First, except for engagements against marauders, pirates and deserters, there was little demand for sorties. Second, commands were busy integrating new arrivals into their structure (it was decided not to reverse the wartime personnel transfers to support units due to the importance of the duties they were performing in Iran). Third, maintenance personnel were overwhelmed by relative masses of aircraft and spare parts from around the world - it would take months just to organize the parts, assess the condition of the aircraft that were received from other theaters (the computerized records lost since lost or destroyed) and bring them back to operational condition (or consign them to the cannibalization heap). 9th Air Force headquarters determined that launching more than a minimal number of sorties during this time would place an excessive burden on its structure (and, soldiers in Iran joked, endanger the weekly Friday night barbeques enjoyed by the Air Force throughout the war).

Operationally, the Army and Marine Corps units ashore started carrying out a vastly different mission than their previous one of closing with and destroying the enemy. One third of troops, on a rotating basis, were assigned to conduct security operations, hunting down brigands, deserters and marauders and patrolling the countryside. One major civil support task was identifying unexploded ordnance and minefields, so that civilians could travel through the countryside safely. (As part of the withdrawal, Soviet commanders were required to turn over any information they had regarding minefields emplaced by either side). The remaining two thirds of troops were assigned more direct reconstruction missions, repairing roads and bridges, building schools, clinics and industrial facilities. The power plants dismantled in Kunsan and Subic Bay were brought on line in Bushehr and Bandar-e-Khomeini to provide reconstruction power. Sewage and water treatment plants were rehabilitated and brought into operation. In many of these operations, advisers from the SeeBee battalions of the 1st and 31st Regiments, who were engaged in similar reconstruction tasks, provided vital guidance.

During these reconstruction tasks maintenance units of all branches of service played a very special role. As any sort of machinery was being serviced, the maintenance units would use their machine shops (augmented by tools removed during Operation Omega) to make three copies of each part. One copy would be assembled somewhere in Iran, to assist in the recovery, and the other two copies would be placed in storage for shipment to the United States. (When CENTCOM's Judge Advocate General became aware of the scheme in a staff briefing he objected vigorously to the willful violation of intellectual property, whereupon his Chief of Staff escorted him out before other members of the CENTCOM staff attacked him.) Using this technique recovery in both Iran and the U.S. was sped up considerably. (The technique had its limits, of course. It did not help to replicate inoperable equipment, and materials supply and quality control was spotty. And upon to the U.S., it was discovered that some of the equipment was incompatible with North American standards and required adjustment if it was to be brought into operation at all.)

Throughout the war, CENTCOM's logistic support organization, the 22nd TAACOM, had gradually built up an independent support and supply organization from rear areas of the CENTCOM area of operations. This was a natural result of the always tenuous support from the continental United States, as CENTCOM was forced to procure the food, fuel and other vital supplies from wherever possible. In general, fuel was the least problematic to provide, given the massive amount of refining and production capacity in the Persian Gulf region. Nonetheless, CENTCOM also controlled refineries in Aden, South Yemen and Mombassa, Kenya, which provided refined products and were safe from Soviet air raids and were never targeted by Soviet ballistic missiles. CENTCOM's food was mostly provided locally from farms in Iran south of the Zagros Mountains, but additional food came from farms under contract to CENTCOM in Tanzania and Kenya. As the war ran down, 22nd TAACOM had the luxury of procuring food more familiar to American soldiers, so that Operation Omega evacuees were uniformly welcomed to CENTCOM with a hot dog, hamburger and cold beer cookout upon debarkation in Iran. The entrepreneurial metalworkers of East Africa were engaged to provide spare parts for vehicles and weapons systems, while uniforms were sown from African cotton in sweatshops in Dar-es-Salaam and Mombassa. These products were transported to the fighting troops by the dhows that had sailed for centuries between East Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. 5th Fleet maintained anti-piracy patrols in the western Indian Ocean, and the refineries in Aden and Mombassa (and surround areas) were protected by the 29th Infantry Division (Light) and 173rd Airborne Brigade, respectively. Ammunition and electronic spares were more difficult to obtain, however. Small arms ammunition was provided by local workshops that reloaded spent cartridges. For large caliber and artillery ammunition, CENTCOM had to trade with Israel and South Africa and, as the war went on, it received unmarked ammunition from France. CENTCOM paid for these services in the currency of the early 21st Century - oil, both crude and refined.

As time went on, a key aspect of the reconstruction of Iran (and the U.S.) was CENTCOM's alliance with Israel. Israel and France were exceptional in that they both avoided direct involvement in the war and, while receiving what would in pre-war times be considered catastrophic damage, emerged from the war with their governments, militaries and economies intact. Israel, due to its small size and limited natural resources, was much less able to survive on its own than France, and hence struck an alliance with the U.S. in the Middle East. In early 1999, Israel provided troops to CENTCOM in exchange for a trickle of oil from the Persian Gulf region. With the end of the war, this partnership broadened in scope, so that CENTCOM provided much of the raw materials Israel needed in exchange for Israeli manufactured goods. 22nd TAACOM and 5th Fleet worked to obtain raw materials from East Africa and South Africa, which traded not only ammunition but also strategic minerals for oil, and transport them to Israel. Oil from CENTCOM kept the lights on in Israeli high-tech labs, factories and the steel mill at Ashdod, while Israeli Military Industries and the Israeli high-tech industry were able to craft a trickle of spare parts for fire control systems, radars and communications equipment as those systems went offline in the rest of the world. The output of the Israeli electronics industry leapt in the late summer of 2000, when the DIA recovered the plans and prototype for a Polish-developed system to bring EMP-damaged computers and electronics back online. U.S. military personnel assigned to the DIA's Krakow station finished the mission started by the 20th Special Forces Group, and shortly thereafter Shabak, an Israeli intelligence agency, obtained copies of the plans and rushed them home. CENTCOM was aware of the development and insisted that American forces in the Persian Gulf, as brothers-in-arms of the soldiers who recovered the plans, benefit from Israel's use of the plans. Israeli computer engineers quickly reengineered the Reset Device, as it was called, into a unit that was about the size of a hardcover book. The device was configured using a functioning computer (which itself could have a Reset Device) to replace a damaged or destroyed computer chip, in a process which required about four hours of work by a skilled electronics technician, programmer or engineer. Once configured, the Reset Device replaced the damaged chip's function in whatever device it was attached to. The use of the Reset Device in this manner was key to the reconstruction effort, since it avoided the need to make a custom replacement of every one of thousands of different chips used in infrastructure, industry, communications network and military equipment.

Fuelling the reconstruction was the Iranian oilfields. While heavily damaged by the war, production in early 2001 was approximately 10 percent of the 1996 level - 370,000 barrels a day, two thirds of which was concentrated in the southwestern Khuzestan province north of Bandar-e-Khomeini or offshore in the Persian Gulf. The large refinery in Adaban, destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and only partially operational in 1996, was once again destroyed. The refinery in Shiraz, damaged in the 1997 fighting, had been repaired by the end of the war and refined 30,000 barrels a day. (The facility did not operate at full capacity due to the disappearance of many of the sophisticated catalytic chemicals required to operate fully, the loss of many of the highly skilled refinery staff due to war, hunger and disease and the limited electrical power available to operate the plant). I MEF was furiously working on reopening part of the Bandar Abbas refinery, open for just a few weeks before it was captured by the Soviet 103rd Guards Airborne Division and flattened in the weeks of fighting that followed. The major source in Iran of refined petroleum for CENTCOM was the Lavan Island refinery, which produced 20,000 barrels a day and survived the war unharmed. The refinery was defended by the guided missile frigate USS Samuel Eliot Morison, damaged by a Soviet ASM in 1997 and ran aground on the west coast of the island. It has remained there, its missile battery having protected the island from numerous air raids and its gun deterring the waterborne marauders that prey upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, while its engineering department has become adept at operation of the refinery along with the pipeline and offshore production equipment that provide it with crude oil. The remainder of Iran's refineries (which even before the war were incapable of producing enough gasoline to meet Iran's domestic needs) were captured by Soviet forces and in most cases damaged or destroyed in the fighting. CENTCOM set a recovery goal of 20,000 barrels a day of refining capacity each year, split between bringing the Adaban and Bandar Abbas refineries back online, increasing the output of the Lavan and Shiraz refineries, and establishing small "teapot" refineries (ones that basically just distill crude oil and turn out rough diesel fuel, benzene and kerosene) which could support divisions in the field and be disassembled and brought back to the U.S. Likewise, increasing crude oil production was given a high priority.

Additional refinery capacity came from American allies in the GCC, from the remnants of Saudi Arabia's massive Jubail, Yanbu and Dharan refinery complexes, which were damaged or destroyed by Soviet missile strikes and bomb raids, and from CENTCOM-controlled refineries in Mombassa, Kenya and Aden, Yemen, which were each capable of refining 75,000 barrels per day. Following the ejection of CENTCOM from Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Thayer encouraged all American citizens working for Saudi Aramco to leave the company (ELF of France was more than happy to provide replacement technicians to the Saudis) and work for CENTCOM. Almost all of the American experts did so, further boosting both production and refining capacity in the American zone of Iran. However, increasing production was difficult, as essential oilfield equipment had been damaged or destroyed during the conflict and could not be replaced.

With that, fuel consumption for U.S. forces in the Gulf averaged less than 18,000 barrels per day (plus another 2,750 per day if 9th Air Force was operational with two sorties a day and whatever fuel was used by the Navy, typically another 1,500 barrels a day). The excess refinery production was used for essential civilian recovery or stockpiled for CENTCOM essential missions. Storage facilities, established ashore in Iran during the war, were located at Bandar Abbas, Bandar-e-Khomeini, Lavan Island and Bushehr, while an emergency reserve of diesel and JP-4 (one million barrels in total) was maintained aboard a tanker anchored at Diego Garcia.

In the reconstruction effort a limiting factor was the availability of materials and electronics. CENTCOM machinists (and East African metalworkers) could replicate almost any metal part if they had appropriate base stock. There were no functioning metal forging facilities in Iran, and the output of Israel's steel mill in Ashdod was limited by the supply of fuel. (A Soviet IRBM destroyed the steel mill in Haifa in late 1997 in the sole nuclear attack on Israel - the rapid destruction of the Soviet metalworking complex in Rustavi, and the port and refinery of Batumi, both in Georgia, by nuclear-tipped Jericho II missiles ended the Soviet-Israeli nuclear exchange.) If production was to be sped up, or steel of the requisite strength or size was unavailable from Israel, CENTCOM was forced to bargain with the French, who overall preferred a weak United States, especially after the defeat and withdrawal of Transcaucasian Front. The overall effect, however, was to severely limit the rate of recovery as CENTCOM faced a spiral of needs - increasing oil production required steel from Israel, which needed to be transported aboard the ships (which required steel parts and oil) that also brought the iron ore from South Africa (which was paid for in oil), all of which were worked by scarce skilled people who needed food, clean water, health care and protection, also all paid for (indirectly) in oil. The continuing wear and tear on machinery, vehicles and equipment as time went on added to this burden. However, with the end of the fighting in Iran, CENTCOM was gradually able to pull out of the downward spiral and produce a small surplus.

CENTCOM Transformed and Iran Rebuilt

As the Soviet withdrawal was occurring and in light of America's ejection from Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM was undergoing a massive reorganization to absorb the reinforcements and to adapt to the new strategic situation and mission. Each branch handled the reorganization differently.

Navy and Marine Corps units of III MEF were disbanded and used to bring the equivalent units of I MEF up to strength. In that transition, small units were, to the maximum extent possible, kept intact to preserve the trust, teamwork and esprit de corps that had been developed over the years of operations in Korea. Those small units (fire teams, squads and platoons) were then fed into existing units in I MEF.

Likewise, Army units from I and IX Corps were disbanded and used to bring XVIII Airborne Corps up to strength. By the time the reorganization was finished, divisions in XVIII Airborne Corps ranged in strength from 4,600 to 7,250 soldiers, and they received massively more support as 1st Corps Support Command and 3rd Army's 22nd Theater Army Area Command (TAACOM) had absorbed over 6,000 reinforcing soldiers and hundreds of civilian augmentees.

The Navy assigned ships to early-war style task groups and organized excess personnel into shoreside support units, providing everything from technical expertise (ranging from welding, shoreside construction and machine shop operations to aircraft ordnance and electronics maintenance and repair) to reconstruction support (labor, truck transport and coastal transportation). In this role, the SeeBee's First Naval Construction Regiment was augmented by the remnants of the 31st Naval Construction Regiment, arriving from Korea and brought up to strength with personnel assigned from damaged or sunken ships or disbanded organizations. In addition, CINCNAVCENT organized the civilian merchant ships into a pool from which sailing orders were drawn to support CENTCOM and the United States worldwide. Quickly the mission of transporting personnel and supplies fell to civilian merchant ships, which required much smaller crews and less fuel than Navy transport or support ships. Naval signal and guard parties were formed to serve aboard all CENTCOM controlled merchantmen, and convoys were formed for vessels sailing outside the Persian Gulf and Northern Arabian Sea.

The 9th Air Force absorbed the personnel and equipment that had arrived from Europe, Turkey, the Philippines and Korea into its existing structure. Simultaneously, CVW-10 was released from 9th Air Force control and returned to Navy control as it integrated into CVW-20 aboard Stennis. During the years of war the wing and squadron structures of 9th Air Force had been depleted of excess personnel as aircraft counts decreased; now those structures were built back up using many of the reinforcing airmen. The support units in Iran, however, were not forgotten, as the 915th Construction Engineer Squadron was reinforced in order to prepare airfields in Iran to host units displaced from Saudi Arabia, and as the 619th Security Group's area of responsibility expanded to include areas recently vacated by the advancing IPA. The 53rd Mobile Aerial Port Squadron was tripled in size as it adapted for its new task - to open an air bridge back to the United States through Diego Garcia, Darwin, Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. With all this activity, however, the air operations tempo decreased dramatically for many reasons. First, except for engagements against marauders, pirates and deserters, there was little demand for sorties. Second, commands were busy integrating new arrivals into their structure (it was decided not to reverse the wartime personnel transfers to support units due to the importance of the duties they were performing in Iran). Third, maintenance personnel were overwhelmed by relative masses of aircraft and spare parts from around the world - it would take months just to organize the parts, assess the condition of the aircraft that were received from other theaters (the computerized records lost since lost or destroyed) and bring them back to operational condition (or consign them to the cannibalization heap). 9th Air Force headquarters determined that launching more than a minimal number of sorties during this time would place an excessive burden on its structure (and, soldiers in Iran joked, endanger the weekly Friday night barbeques enjoyed by the Air Force throughout the war).

Operationally, the Army and Marine Corps units ashore started carrying out a vastly different mission than their previous one of closing with and destroying the enemy. One third of troops, on a rotating basis, were assigned to conduct security operations, hunting down brigands, deserters and marauders and patrolling the countryside. One major civil support task was identifying unexploded ordnance and minefields, so that civilians could travel through the countryside safely. (As part of the withdrawal, Soviet commanders were required to turn over any information they had regarding minefields emplaced by either side). The remaining two thirds of troops were assigned more direct reconstruction missions, repairing roads and bridges, building schools, clinics and industrial facilities. The power plants dismantled in Kunsan and Subic Bay were brought on line in Bushehr and Bandar-e-Khomeini to provide reconstruction power. Sewage and water treatment plants were rehabilitated and brought into operation. In many of these operations, advisers from the SeeBee battalions of the 1st and 31st Regiments, who were engaged in similar reconstruction tasks, provided vital guidance.

During these reconstruction tasks maintenance units of all branches of service played a very special role. As any sort of machinery was being serviced, the maintenance units would use their machine shops (augmented by tools removed during Operation Omega) to make three copies of each part. One copy would be assembled somewhere in Iran, to assist in the recovery, and the other two copies would be placed in storage for shipment to the United States. (When CENTCOM's Judge Advocate General became aware of the scheme in a staff briefing he objected vigorously to the willful violation of intellectual property, whereupon his Chief of Staff escorted him out before other members of the CENTCOM staff attacked him.) Using this technique recovery in both Iran and the U.S. was sped up considerably. (The technique had its limits, of course. It did not help to replicate inoperable equipment, and materials supply and quality control was spotty. And upon to the U.S., it was discovered that some of the equipment was incompatible with North American standards and required adjustment if it was to be brought into operation at all.)

Throughout the war, CENTCOM's logistic support organization, the 22nd TAACOM, had gradually built up an independent support and supply organization from rear areas of the CENTCOM area of operations. This was a natural result of the always tenuous support from the continental United States, as CENTCOM was forced to procure the food, fuel and other vital supplies from wherever possible. In general, fuel was the least problematic to provide, given the massive amount of refining and production capacity in the Persian Gulf region. Nonetheless, CENTCOM also controlled refineries in Aden, South Yemen and Mombassa, Kenya, which provided refined products and were safe from Soviet air raids and were never targeted by Soviet ballistic missiles. CENTCOM's food was mostly provided locally from farms in Iran south of the Zagros Mountains, but additional food came from farms under contract to CENTCOM in Tanzania and Kenya. As the war ran down, 22nd TAACOM had the luxury of procuring food more familiar to American soldiers, so that Operation Omega evacuees were uniformly welcomed to CENTCOM with a hot dog, hamburger and cold beer cookout upon debarkation in Iran. The entrepreneurial metalworkers of East Africa were engaged to provide spare parts for vehicles and weapons systems, while uniforms were sown from African cotton in sweatshops in Dar-es-Salaam and Mombassa. These products were transported to the fighting troops by the dhows that had sailed for centuries between East Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. 5th Fleet maintained anti-piracy patrols in the western Indian Ocean, and the refineries in Aden and Mombassa (and surround areas) were protected by the 29th Infantry Division (Light) and 173rd Airborne Brigade, respectively. Ammunition and electronic spares were more difficult to obtain, however. Small arms ammunition was provided by local workshops that reloaded spent cartridges. For large caliber and artillery ammunition, CENTCOM had to trade with Israel and South Africa and, as the war went on, it received unmarked ammunition from France. CENTCOM paid for these services in the currency of the early 21st Century - oil, both crude and refined.

As time went on, a key aspect of the reconstruction of Iran (and the U.S.) was CENTCOM's alliance with Israel. Israel and France were exceptional in that they both avoided direct involvement in the war and, while receiving what would in pre-war times be considered catastrophic damage, emerged from the war with their governments, militaries and economies intact. Israel, due to its small size and limited natural resources, was much less able to survive on its own than France, and hence struck an alliance with the U.S. in the Middle East. In early 1999, Israel provided troops to CENTCOM in exchange for a trickle of oil from the Persian Gulf region. With the end of the war, this partnership broadened in scope, so that CENTCOM provided much of the raw materials Israel needed in exchange for Israeli manufactured goods. 22nd TAACOM and 5th Fleet worked to obtain raw materials from East Africa and South Africa, which traded not only ammunition but also strategic minerals for oil, and transport them to Israel. Oil from CENTCOM kept the lights on in Israeli high-tech labs, factories and the steel mill at Ashdod, while Israeli Military Industries and the Israeli high-tech industry were able to craft a trickle of spare parts for fire control systems, radars and communications equipment as those systems went offline in the rest of the world. The output of the Israeli electronics industry leapt in the late summer of 2000, when the DIA recovered the plans and prototype for a Polish-developed system to bring EMP-damaged computers and electronics back online. U.S. military personnel assigned to the DIA's Krakow station finished the mission started by the 20th Special Forces Group, and shortly thereafter Shabak, an Israeli intelligence agency, obtained copies of the plans and rushed them home. CENTCOM was aware of the development and insisted that American forces in the Persian Gulf, as brothers-in-arms of the soldiers who recovered the plans, benefit from Israel's use of the plans. Israeli computer engineers quickly reengineered the Reset Device, as it was called, into a unit that was about the size of a hardcover book. The device was configured using a functioning computer (which itself could have a Reset Device) to replace a damaged or destroyed computer chip, in a process which required about four hours of work by a skilled electronics technician, programmer or engineer. Once configured, the Reset Device replaced the damaged chip's function in whatever device it was attached to. The use of the Reset Device in this manner was key to the reconstruction effort, since it avoided the need to make a custom replacement of every one of thousands of different chips used in infrastructure, industry, communications network and military equipment.

Fuelling the reconstruction was the Iranian oilfields. While heavily damaged by the war, production in early 2001 was approximately 10 percent of the 1996 level - 370,000 barrels a day, two thirds of which was concentrated in the southwestern Khuzestan province north of Bandar-e-Khomeini or offshore in the Persian Gulf. The large refinery in Adaban, destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and only partially operational in 1996, was once again destroyed. The refinery in Shiraz, damaged in the 1997 fighting, had been repaired by the end of the war and refined 30,000 barrels a day. (The facility did not operate at full capacity due to the disappearance of many of the sophisticated catalytic chemicals required to operate fully, the loss of many of the highly skilled refinery staff due to war, hunger and disease and the limited electrical power available to operate the plant). I MEF was furiously working on reopening part of the Bandar Abbas refinery, open for just a few weeks before it was captured by the Soviet 103rd Guards Airborne Division and flattened in the weeks of fighting that followed. The major source in Iran of refined petroleum for CENTCOM was the Lavan Island refinery, which produced 20,000 barrels a day and survived the war unharmed. The refinery was defended by the guided missile frigate USS Samuel Eliot Morison, damaged by a Soviet ASM in 1997 and ran aground on the west coast of the island. It has remained there, its missile battery having protected the island from numerous air raids and its gun deterring the waterborne marauders that prey upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, while its engineering department has become adept at operation of the refinery along with the pipeline and offshore production equipment that provide it with crude oil. The remainder of Iran's refineries (which even before the war were incapable of producing enough gasoline to meet Iran's domestic needs) were captured by Soviet forces and in most cases damaged or destroyed in the fighting. CENTCOM set a recovery goal of 20,000 barrels a day of refining capacity each year, split between bringing the Adaban and Bandar Abbas refineries back online, increasing the output of the Lavan and Shiraz refineries, and establishing small "teapot" refineries (ones that basically just distill crude oil and turn out rough diesel fuel, benzene and kerosene) which could support divisions in the field and be disassembled and brought back to the U.S. Likewise, increasing crude oil production was given a high priority.

Additional refinery capacity came from American allies in the GCC, from the remnants of Saudi Arabia's massive Jubail, Yanbu and Dharan refinery complexes, which were damaged or destroyed by Soviet missile strikes and bomb raids, and from CENTCOM-controlled refineries in Mombassa, Kenya and Aden, Yemen, which were each capable of refining 75,000 barrels per day. Following the ejection of CENTCOM from Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Thayer encouraged all American citizens working for Saudi Aramco to leave the company (ELF of France was more than happy to provide replacement technicians to the Saudis) and work for CENTCOM. Almost all of the American experts did so, further boosting both production and refining capacity in the American zone of Iran. However, increasing production was difficult, as essential oilfield equipment had been damaged or destroyed during the conflict and could not be replaced.

With that, fuel consumption for U.S. forces in the Gulf averaged less than 18,000 barrels per day (plus another 2,750 per day if 9th Air Force was operational with two sorties a day and whatever fuel was used by the Navy, typically another 1,500 barrels a day). The excess refinery production was used for essential civilian recovery or stockpiled for CENTCOM essential missions. Storage facilities, established ashore in Iran during the war, were located at Bandar Abbas, Bandar-e-Khomeini, Lavan Island and Bushehr, while an emergency reserve of diesel and JP-4 (one million barrels in total) was maintained aboard a tanker anchored at Diego Garcia.

In the reconstruction effort a limiting factor was the availability of materials and electronics. CENTCOM machinists (and East African metalworkers) could replicate almost any metal part if they had appropriate base stock. There were no functioning metal forging facilities in Iran, and the output of Israel's steel mill in Ashdod was limited by the supply of fuel. (A Soviet IRBM destroyed the steel mill in Haifa in late 1997 in the sole nuclear attack on Israel - the rapid destruction of the Soviet metalworking complex in Rustavi, and the port and refinery of Batumi, both in Georgia, by nuclear-tipped Jericho II missiles ended the Soviet-Israeli nuclear exchange.) If production was to be sped up, or steel of the requisite strength or size was unavailable from Israel, CENTCOM was forced to bargain with the French, who overall preferred a weak United States, especially after the defeat and withdrawal of Transcaucasian Front. The overall effect, however, was to severely limit the rate of recovery as CENTCOM faced a spiral of needs - increasing oil production required steel from Israel, which needed to be transported aboard the ships (which required steel parts and oil) that also brought the iron ore from South Africa (which was paid for in oil), all of which were worked by scarce skilled people who needed food, clean water, health care and protection, also all paid for (indirectly) in oil. The continuing wear and tear on machinery, vehicles and equipment as time went on added to this burden. However, with the end of the fighting in Iran, CENTCOM was gradually able to pull out of the downward spiral and produce a small surplus.