The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

106 The Road to Safwan
Command. The heart of this force consisted of three heavy divisions:
the Medina and Hammurabi Armored Divisions and
the Tawakalna Mechanized Division. These units were the
linchpin of the entire Iraqi defense in Kuwait and perhaps Saddam
Hussein’s entire regime. 3
On the ground, the allied coalition arrayed essentially five
corps with over 472,000 soldiers against the Iraqi Army. In the
east, two small Arab corps and a two-division Marine expeditionary
force attacked into Kuwait with the intent of focusing
the Iraqi commander’s attention to the south. In the far western
portion of the sector, the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, reinforced
by the 6th French Light Armored Division, had the mission of
attacking toward the Euphrates River to secure the coalition’s
left flank. The U.S. VII Corps, reinforced by the 1st British Armoured
Division, was to conduct the main attack in the center
of the line. 4
The VII Corps’s chain of command now began executing its
war plan: Operation Desert Saber. 5 LTG Frederick Franks organized
the VII Corps attack as two operations. In the western
portion of the sector, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment
would lead the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions in an envelopment
of the exposed flank of the enemy army and drive deep
into Iraq in search of the heavy divisions of the Republican
Guard Forces Command. In the eastern portion of the corps
area, the 1st Infantry Division would attack, or “breach,” the
defenses of the Iraqi 26th Infantry Division, opening up a direct
supply route to the corps troops moving into Iraq, and pass the
1st British Armoured Division through the lanes it cleared. The
British mission was to attack to the east to clear out the Iraqi
forces defending along the border and defeat the expected
counterattack of the Iraqi 52nd Armored Division. The Big Red
One would then, if able, join the remainder of the corps in its
battle with the Republican Guards. 6
The Iraqi 26th Infantry Division defended a sector of approximately
thirty-five kilometers directly opposite the U. S. 1st
Infantry Division. Only two of its brigades were on line. Its
third was almost fifty kilometers to the rear, arrayed to prevent
a coalition flanking movement. The front-line brigades were
weak, with probably less then fifty percent of their authorized