VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)
VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)
VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 297<br />
Viking Hammer (and the Ugly Baby)<br />
close U.S. ally and opponent of Saddam, had not yet agreed to allow its<br />
territory to be used to invade a fellow Muslim country. Its greatest fear<br />
was that the Kurds in northern Iraq would rise up and declare statehood,<br />
and ignite Turkey’s own restive Kurdish population. U.S. officials<br />
were convinced that their ally would bend if enough aid was offered and<br />
pressure applied. But as Cleveland and other officers shuttled to and<br />
from Turkey for closed-door meetings with its generals and special<br />
forces, he saw how high sensitivities were running in the country’s<br />
unsettled electoral climate.<br />
If Turkey did not budge, then the entire conventional plan for the<br />
north would collapse. There was no other way to get heavy armored<br />
forces into northern Iraq. If conventional forces could not make it in,<br />
then the Special Forces would have to handle the theater on their own.<br />
Few people believed that it was even possible for a Special Forces task<br />
force to do the job of some 60,000 U.S. troops—the size of the entire 4th<br />
Infantry Division that was slated for the north. The colonel, a curious<br />
blend of personal modesty and intellectual boldness, might blush at the<br />
drop of a hat, but he never doubted that he could find a way to do it—<br />
just as he had as a young captain when entrusted with planning the Special<br />
Forces’ missions in Panama.<br />
Cleveland’s first task was to figure out how to get his troops into<br />
Iraq. He drew a circle around Iraq that represented the range of the U.S.<br />
MC–130 Combat Talon planes; somewhere within that circle he needed<br />
a staging base.<br />
By February, Cleveland had moved to Constanta, Romania, and set<br />
up the joint special operations task force. His staff chose the name Task<br />
Force Viking to reflect 10th Group’s European roots. As the clock ticked<br />
down toward war, the 4th Infantry Division and its state-of-the-art digitized<br />
tanks bobbed offshore in the Mediterranean, waiting for a vote in<br />
the Turkish parliament. Policymakers in Washington were still banking<br />
on a yes vote. But even if approval finally came, Cleveland knew the<br />
poor condition of the road that spanned the length of Turkey, and that<br />
the tanks and armored vehicles could not traverse it in time.<br />
In the end, the parliament voted no. Even permission for troops to<br />
297