VIII. How MC 02 actually played out for the OPFOR

The OPFOR was led by retired Marine Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper. Van Riper has been a frequent participant in war games and is an expert at playing the leader of the Red force. [45] In contrast to Gen. Kernan's statement about free play, Van Riper said, “Instead of a free-play, two-sided game as the Joint Forces commander advertised it was going to be, it simply became a scripted exercise. They had a predetermined end, and they scripted the exercise to that end.” [46]

In a nutshell, Van Riper used unconventional tactics and was surprising and beating the Blue force. Retired Ambassador Robert Oakley was the OPFOR's civilian leader, and he said Van Riper was out thinking the Blue Force from the first day of the exercise. [47]

Naylor's article from The Army Times described in general the problems Van Riper faced.

Exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue, and on several occasions directed the [Red] Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue. It even ordered him to reveal the location of Red units, [Van Riper] said.

“We were directed … to move air defenses so that the Army and Marine units could successfully land,” he said. “We were simply directed to turn [the air-defense systems] off or move them. … So it was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be.” [48]

When the game started, Van Riper figured that, in light of the Bush administration's new policy of pre-emption, the Blue force might launch a surprise attack, so he decided that instead he would attack first. [49] As part of his “arsenal” Van Riper had small boats and planes. [50] He had them in and above the Persian Gulf traveling in circles and seeming harmless. [51] Once the Blue naval fleet sailed into the Persian Gulf and demanded that Red surrender or face destruction, Van Riper signaled the small boats and planes to attack. [52] He did so not by using radio transmissions which could have been intercepted by high-tech equipment. Instead, he used coded messages proclaimed through the calls to prayer from the minarets of mosques. [53] Once the signal was given, the boats and planes drove into Blue ships and airfields along the Gulf in suicide attacks. [54] Some of the small boats also launched Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles. [55] The Blue fleet did not have time to intercept these attacks, and, as a result, almost all of the fleet--including the only aircraft carrier and two Marine helicopter carriers--was sunk. [56]

At that point, USJFCOM officials stopped the game and refloated the fleet. [57] Van Riper was not pleased: "A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened.' And I said 'nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Center'... but nobody seemed interested." [58]

Next, Van Riper was informed that his microwave communications systems had been neutralized and that he would have to rely on cell phones and satellite phones. [59] Van Riper had other ideas. He wanted to continue to use announcements from the mosques, and he also wanted to utilize motorcycle messengers. [60] In this way, Van Riper would neutralize Blue's ability to intercept electronic communications. Van Riper was instead told he could not do that. As he said, "But they refused to accept that we'd do anything they wouldn't do in the west." [61]

Van Riper also wanted to use chemical weapons, but that request was refused. [62] And then when the OPFOR figured out a way to move its chemical weapons so they could not be found by Blue force, Van Riper was told that he had to hand over the weapons so they could be destroyed. [63]

Hmm....use of chemical weapons was not allowed. Of course, it turned out that the Iraqis did not use any chemical weapons in the war. Could it be that USJFCOM knew at that time that the Iraqis would not use chemical weapons? One has to wonder given the fact that still no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. This question will be examined further.

Van Riper continued to try to be creative and unorthodox, but then he encountered other problems. Sean Naylor's Army Times article describes what happened:

Van Riper said he became so frustrated during the game that he quit his position as Opposing Force commander halfway through.

He did so, he said, to avoid presenting one of his Opposing Force subordinates with a moral dilemma. That subordinate was retired Army Col. George Utter, a full-time Joint Forces Command employee who, as the Opposing Force chief of staff, was responsible for taking Van Riper’s commands and making them happen in the simulation.

But several days into the exercise, Van Riper realized his orders weren’t being followed.

“I was giving him directions on how I thought the OPFOR ought to perform, and those directions were being countermanded by the exercise director,” Van Riper said. The exercise director was Air Force Brig. Gen. Jim Smith, Utter’s real-life boss at Joint Forces Command.

Matters came to a head July 29. “That morning I’d given my guidance for what was to happen, and I found that [Utter] had assembled the staff and was giving them a different set [of instructions] based on the exercise director’s instructions to him.”

To save Utter from having to choose between following the orders of his commander in the war game and obeying those of Smith, Van Riper stepped down as the Opposing Force commander. However, the retired Marine, who was participating in the exercise on a contract with defense giant TRW, stayed on at the war game as an adviser.

Van Riper said that when he discovered Smith was countermanding his orders July 29, he immediately raised objections with both Smith and retired Army Gen. Gary Luck, a senior adviser to Joint Forces Command who was serving as the Blue Force commander. Van Riper said they told him they would meet with him later that day to discuss the issue, but then failed to follow through. “They never met with me at any time in the exercise,” he said.

So Van Riper said he told his Opposing Force staff that from now on they were to take their orders from Utter, not from him.

Carman said Joint Forces Command had no record of Van Riper having quit as Opposing Force commander. But Van Riper said that in addition to announcing it to his staff, he had made it very clear in a 20-page report he submitted to the command. [64]

In the end, the Blue force vanquished the forces of the evil dictator/rogue commander, and the official word from USJFCOM, via Navy Captain John Carman, was that MC 02 validated all the major concepts. [65] This proclamation will be examined in detail, but before that, let's look more closely at the official responses to Van Riper's complaints.
____________________________________________

45. Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

46. Id.

47. Id.

48. Id.

49. Borger, "Wake-up call."

50. Borger, "Wake-up call;" Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

51. Id.

52. Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

53. Borger, "Wake-up call;" Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

54. Id.

55. Borger, "Wake-up call."

56. Borger, "Wake-up call;" Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

57. Id.

58. Borger, "Wake-up call."

59. Id.

60. Borger, "Wake-up call;" Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

61. Borger, "Wake-up call."

62. Kristof, "How We Won the War."

63. Id.

64. Naylor, "War Games Rigged?"

65. Id.