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the active and reserve components would remain an important aspect ofArmy deliberations throughout the 1990s and beyond.A major consideration with respect to strategic mobility was thelogistical footprint of forces once deployed. American heavy divisionshad gotten into the habit of accumulating huge depots, called ironmountains, of spare parts and supplies of all types in their immediate rear“just in case” they might need it. Without reliable means for preciselytracking and quickly delivering specific repair parts, they had no otheroptions. During the 1990s, information technology advanced to the pointthat it seemed possible to radically reduce the need for these stockpiles.Required materials might be delivered “just in time” as they wereneeded rather than hoarded in advance. Emerging technologies offeredthe promise of helping to provide visibility of supplies and repair partsas they moved through the supply and transportation networks withthe use of bar coding, satellite communications, and GPS monitoring.Other technical advances, including embedded vehicle diagnostics,greater fuel efficiency, and on-board water-generation systems, held outfuture hope of further reducing the amount of supplies needed on hand.The expectation of rapid deployment would become a way of life forthousands of servicemen and women in the United States and overseas;and the material means to support that way of life became increasinglyavailable as the decade progressed.The experience of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm wasto prove a harbinger of an active decade ahead of deployments to northernIraq to rescue the Kurds, to Somalia to attempt to rescue the starvingfrom their own corrupt warlords, to Haiti, and to Bosnia. Meanwhile,those same forces regularly redeployed to Kuwait in a series of rapidresponseexercises (nicknamed by some commuter containment) tomaintain a watch on the resilient and dangerous Saddam Hussein. Thosedeployments were to be followed in the first year of the new millenniumby the start of a series of global operations against a new enemy: theshadowy terrorists of al-Qaeda and fellow extremists. Operations were tobe launched to a number of regions and nations across the globe againstthose who supported the use of terrorism in general and not just thosewho harbored al-Qaeda. One of those operations, starting in March 2003,was to return to the Persian Gulf region in force to settle, once and forall, with Hussein.<strong>70</strong>
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