How a Marine Lost His Command In Race to Baghdad

[Sparrowhawk]

This is a good read

Cook Barela


How a Marine Lost His Command
In Race to Baghdad


Col. Joe Dowdy's 'Tempo'
Displeased Superiors;
Balance of Mission, Men
General's Call Name: 'Chaos'


By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 5, 2004; Page A1

Two weeks into the war in Iraq, Marine Col. Joe D. Dowdy concluded the crowning military maneuver of his life, attacking an elite band of Iraqi troops and then shepherding 6,000 men on an 18-hour, high-speed race toward Baghdad.

But no praise awaited the First Marine regimental commander as he pushed into the tent of his superior, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, on April 4, 2003. Instead, Col. Dowdy was stripped of his command, which effectively ended his 24-year Marine career. In a final blow, Col. Dowdy says, the general asked him to empty his sidearm and turn over the ammunition. "He thought I was going to try to kill myself," the colonel says.

Assuming a battlefield command is the pinnacle of a Marine's career. Being removed is near the nadir, exceeded only by a court martial. It's extremely rare for the modern U.S. military to relieve a top commander of duty, especially during combat. Col. Dowdy, 47 years old, was the only senior officer in any of the military services to be dismissed in Iraq. He says he would rather have taken an enemy bullet.

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Col. Dowdy's firing was even more unusual because he didn't commit any of the acts that normally precipitate a dismissal: failing to complete a mission, disobeying a direct order, breaking the rules of war. "It was a decision based on operating tempo," says Lt. Eric Knapp, a spokesman for the First Marine Division. He wouldn't elaborate.

The colonel's removal sparked media coverage and intense speculation in the Marine Corps. The reasons for his firing weren't clear, mainly because the colonel and his superiors refused to talk about it. Now, interviews with Col. Dowdy and a score of officers and enlisted men show the colonel was doomed partly by an age-old wartime tension: Men versus mission -- in which he favored his men.

Gen. Mattis and Col. Dowdy personify all that is celebrated in Marine Corps culture. Gen. Mattis, 53, is a "warrior monk," as some of his men put it, a lifelong bachelor consumed with the study and practice of battle tactics. Col. Dowdy is beloved for the attention he pays to his men, from the grunts on up.

The qualities of these two Marines eventually tore them apart. Gen. Mattis, a Marine for 33 years, saw speed as paramount in the Iraq war plan. Col. Dowdy thought sacrificing everything for speed imperiled the welfare of his men.

The dispute was stoked by widespread but mistaken assumptions about how the Iraqis would fight. The desire for speed stemmed from the Pentagon's expectation of a fierce, protracted battle in Baghdad, with far less resistance in other areas. But it turned out that Baghdad fell easily, while the countryside continued to seethe with resistance.

Today, as U.S. forces tangle with an enemy they clearly underestimated, the military still is debating whether speeding to the Iraqi capital was the best way to proceed.


Gen. Mattis declined to be interviewed for this story. His chief of staff, Col. Joe Dunford, says a decision made during combat is impossible to explain now. "It's just one of those things when you try to put the pieces back together, there's no way you can."

Over a plate of chicken quesadillas near his home in Carlsbad, Calif., Col. Dowdy admits to making mistakes. But he doesn't believe any of them warranted his removal. He's proud that only one Marine died under his command. "At least I don't have a butcher bill to pay," he says.

[Sparrowhawk]

Dust caked the 900 trucks and tanks in Col. Dowdy's regiment when they emerged from the desert March 22, 2003. Two days into the war, the regiment was headed to Nasiriyah, a sprawl of slums and...

[Sparrowhawk]

Col. Dowdy's regiment was camped about 50 miles southeast of Kut. He had his men capture a nearby airfield so supplies could be airlifted in. The next day, Gen. Mattis dropped by to check on his men -- and was infuriated by what he saw: A cratered runway and a Marine captain sitting on a bulldozer reading a paperback book. The captain said he hadn't been given an order to fix the runway.

A few hours later, Col. Dowdy says, he got an earful from Gen. Mattis, who said he should have made sure the job of fixing the runway was done. Col. Dowdy now says he should have issued a written order. He considered stripping the bulldozer operator of his command, but thought better of it. "If you fire everyone who makes a mistake, pretty soon you're standing there all by yourself," he says.

Despite the misstep, Col. Dowdy was receiving daily praise from Gen. Mattis's staff, according to Col. John Toolan, who was then the general's chief of staff. Intelligence reports suggested that capturing the airport had drawn the attention of Mr. Hussein's Republican Guard soldiers. The Iraqis soon announced their presence by lobbing artillery shells at Col. Dowdy's regiment.

The decoy ploy was working. The other Marine regiments sped on the Iraqis' untended western flank, toward Baghdad, according to plan.

At this point, it could be argued that Col. Dowdy had fulfilled his mission. The war plan called for him to retreat and take a bypass around Kut. Gen. Kelly acknowledges this was the original plan.

But after seeing villagers in the area waving and cheering at the Marines, Gen. Kelly believed an enemy collapse was imminent. "There was so little resistance," he says. "I figured they either deserted or were so far into their holes that they didn't want to fight." On April 1, 2003, the Fifth Regiment seized a bridge near Kut. At that point, Gen. Kelly says, Hussein's once-feared Baghdad Division became "irrelevant."

In an unexpected move, Gen. Kelly ordered Col. Dowdy to head to Kut on a "limited objective" mission. Once Col. Dowdy got there, he was to decide if his regiment should go through the city, which could trim several hours of travel time.

Col. Dowdy didn't think pushing through Kut would be wise. It would be a quicker route to Baghdad, but he thought it would be dangerous. His men had seen fortified foxholes, sandbagged buildings, mines along road shoulders and several thousand Iraqi fighters. With its narrow bridges and urban tangle, Kut looked even more perilous than Nasiriyah. Was saving a few hours worth the risk?

"In war, you have competing demands between men and mission," Col. Dowdy says. "Which one wins out? There's no easy answer."

His superiors confirm that he wasn't ordered to take his regiment through the city. But an aggressive Marine could have chosen to plow through to get to Baghdad faster.

The generals were growing impatient. The U.S. Army had reached the outskirts of Baghdad. On the morning of April 3, 2003, the 15th day of the war, Gen. Kelly called Col. Dowdy to say he wanted the assault on Kut to begin immediately. Col. Dowdy said he was awaiting fresh ammunition and checking a report that the road to Kut was mined.

Gen. Kelly was furious, according to Col. Dowdy. "Those aren't considerations, they're excuses," Col. Dowdy recalls the general saying.

Col. Dowdy says the general continued: "Why aren't you driving through al Kut right now? You know what? I'm going to recommend that you be relieved of command. Maybe Gen. Mattis won't do it. Maybe he'll decide he can get along with a regiment that isn't worth a s-. But that's what I'm going to recommend."

Gen. Kelly says he doesn't recall that specific conversation. He says he appreciated the potential risk to life that driving through Kut would pose. In a recent e-mail from Iraq, where he is serving a second tour, he wrote, "The choice between mission and men ... is never an either-or, but always a balance."

Within an hour or so, Col. Dowdy and two of his battalions moved into Kut. They immediately met resistance, they say, with fighters popping out of doorways and alleys. "My machine gun was going crazy," says Warrant Officer Thomas Parks, a gunner riding in the lead.

The battalions ground to a halt in front of an Iraqi tank, which Gunner Parks hit with a rocket, prompting return fire from the two-story mud huts lining the road. The door of Gunner Parks' Humvee was blasted off its hinges, while lead filled the door of Col. Dowdy's vehicle, according to both men.

Moments later, Gunner Parks glanced back and saw Col. Dowdy sprinting toward a family of Iraqi civilians. The colonel swept up two children and shoved the family into a bomb crater for cover, Gunner Parks says. An Iraqi fighter moving up an alley aimed a machine gun at Col. Dowdy. Gunner Parks shot him in the head. "It took me three tries," he says.


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The decision on whether to push through Kut was ultimately up to Col. Dowdy. But in the hours up to and during the fight, he and his staff say they received conflicting guidance. On the field telephone, Gen. Kelly was telling him to push through Kut. But on the radio, division command was urging withdrawal. "There was a lot of confusion," Col. Dowdy says. "Go. Don't go." Gen. Kelly agrees there was discussion about what the regiment should do.

So Col. Dowdy made a crucial decision: He decided not to go through the city. Getting to Baghdad early wasn't worth the risk, he says.

"At that point, maybe you're damned if you do and damned if you don't," says Sgt. Maj. Gregory Leal, the top enlisted man in Col. Dowdy's regiment. "There's no book out there that says, 'This is how you liberate and occupy a country.' "

Around sunset, the First Regiment started moving to rendezvous with the rest of the division via a 170-mile bypass around Kut. Col. Dowdy's men had collected 30 prisoners and, the colonel says, "I felt like taking them up to division and saying, 'Look, g-ddamn it, we hit resistance in Kut, and here's your proof.' "

Headlights on and ducking intermittent fire from Iraqi peasants, the regiment covered the miles in about half the 36 hours it was supposed to have taken. On April 4, 2003, the regiment rolled into Numaniyah, where the Marines had planned to meet. The regiment had completed its mission with ample time to join the assault on Baghdad.

But Col. Dowdy's career was dead.

A helicopter awaited when Col. Dowdy arrived in Numaniyah. Col. Dowdy and Sgt. Maj. Leal climbed aboard. Gen. Mattis had asked to see them. They were flown to the general's camp, about 50 miles away.

When they arrived, Sgt. Maj. Leal says Gen. Mattis took him aside. "How's your boss doing?" the sergeant-major recalls him saying. "I said, 'He's doing fine, sir.' " Then, according to Sgt. Maj. Leal, the general snapped: "You're not engaged enough. You've got four battalions and you're not pressing the attack.' "

"I told the general not to fire him," Sgt. Maj. Leal recalls. "I said, 'Tell me what we need to do and we'll do it.' "

Men under Gen. Mattis's command say he makes decisions quickly and never looks back. Sgt. Maj. Leal says he believes Gen. Mattis had already made up his mind.

Artillery shells screamed overhead and the tanks and trucks of the Fifth Regiment rumbled past as Col. Dowdy made his way to Gen. Mattis's tent. Inside, the colonel sat facing Gens. Mattis and Kelly as an aide served hot tea. The colonel says he knew in his gut that he was about to be fired. "It's like I'm someplace I've never been before," he recalls. "I'm failing miserably and I don't know why."

He says Gen. Mattis began with a sympathetic tone: "We're going to get you some rest." Gen. Mattis brought up the bulldozer incident. Then, according to Col. Dowdy, the general said Col. Dowdy worried too much about enemy resistance and noted his lack of battle experience.

[Sparrowhawk]

Col. Dowdy says he replied: "I've been fighting my way up this m-f-ing road for the past two weeks." He recalls pleading with Gen. Mattis to reconsider. "Think of my family, my unit," he recalls saying.

It was not to be. When Gen. Mattis requested his ammunition, Col. Dowdy assured him that he still considered himself a Marine. The general relented. Soon Col. Dowdy got on a helicopter to Kuwait. He called his wife, Priscilla. She'd already seen the news on CNN.

Word of his dismissal quickly filtered back to his men. Marines who were there say there was fleeting talk of a mutiny. "I wanted to go with him," says Gunnery Sgt. Kane. "A lot of guys felt that way. If Col. Dowdy said, 'Get your gear, you're coming with me,' I would've gone, even if it meant the end of my career."

In ensuing days, media outlets and Marine Internet chat rooms speculated about the colonel's defrocking. A day or so after his dismissal, Col. Dowdy wrote a letter that was posted on a Web site catering to families of the First Marine Division.

"As all of you are aware ... I am no longer a member of the Regiment," the letter said. "Rest assured, no one, except me is responsible for the reassignment. Priscilla and I will remain loyal to the Marine Corps and to our Division and its very capable leaders." Col. Toolan, Gen. Mattis's chief of staff, took over the command. The regiment went on to Baghdad, setting up in a slum once known as Saddam City.

A few weeks later, Col. Dowdy ran into Warrant Officer Parks, who was heading back to the U.S. like most of the First Division. The colonel arranged for his subordinate to get civilian clothes so he could take a commercial airline and meet his wife in New York. "He called down to command for me and said, 'I got a hero coming, take care of him,' " Gunner Parks says. "Then he got a little choked up, I got a little choked up and I got on a helicopter and left."

Col. Dowdy says he took no joy in his next assignment, as head of personnel at the Marine Air Station in Miramar, Calif. In June, the First Division gave him a performance evaluation. It faulted him for "being fatigued beyond normal" and "not employing the regiment to its full combat potential," he says, quoting from the document. It also said he was "overly concerned about the welfare" of his Marines, according to Col. Dowdy. By policy, the Marines don't comment on performance evaluations.

Last November, for the first time in 25 years, Col. Dowdy and his wife skipped the Marine Corps Ball. The First Division returned to Iraq this spring. Col. Dowdy received permission to retire early, and left the Marines last month. "I think I'm a guy they probably didn't know what to do with," he says.

The issue of speed in Iraq remains in debate. Last fall, the Army War College, a Pentagon-financed school where officers analyze tactics, released a study saying there was little evidence that speed affected the outcome of the war. The stiff resistance outside Baghdad suggests U.S. forces may have done better by moving at a more measured pace, entering more cities, rooting out fighters and leaving more troops in the provinces to enforce order, the report said.

However, in another study yet to be finalized, the military's Joint Center for Lessons Learned says speed was integral to U.S. military success in Iraq. In a speech in February, Adm. E.P. Giambastiani, commander of the Joint Forces, said speed "reduces decision and execution cycles, creates opportunities, denies an enemy options and speeds his collapse."

Retired Gen. Zinni says that, for Col. Dowdy, speed was academic. "The boss is the boss," he says. "If Gen. Mattis feels you need to move faster, then you move faster." Still, he says Col. Dowdy's firing could haunt Gen. Mattis too. "This is not going to add to Jim Mattis's luster."

Sgt. Leal, now stationed in Texas, often tells Col. Dowdy that his reputation will be cleared one day. "I think he'll always be known as the guy who chose men over mission," Sgt. Leal says. "If that's how he's remembered, it's OK."

Write to Christopher Cooper at christopher.cooper@wsj.com3

URL for this article:
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Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://wsj.com/iraq
(2) http://wsj.com/iraq
(3) mailto:christopher.cooper@wsj.com

[MillRatUSMC]

Having been a member of the 2/1..."The Professionals"
We have to look at all this with an open mind.
It's a war of wills by two Marine Corps Commanders, one on the Regimental Level and the other on the Divison Level.
Col Dowdy was looking out for the members of RCT 1 and General Mattis was looking out for RCT 1, 5 and 7.
General Mattis concern was on the safety of RCT 5 and 7 on their push toward Baghdad.
Col Dowdy's miision was to act as a decoy and to draw some of the Iraqi's away from our plan of attack.
But in war there's always some "fog" things go wrong and some unexpected things pop-up to render your plans.
Other generals have fire Commanders for not attacking fast enough, General George Patton US Army comes to mind.
Than we have the case of Major General O. P Smith USMC, who did not carry out some orders of General Almond US Army because to have done so, would have place the 1st Marine Division in moral danger.
Major General O.P Smith was proven correct because the 1st Marine Division was able to "Breakout" of the strangle hold by the Chinese Army.
In Col Dowdy words;
"You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't"
So what's the answer to this moral?
It's the decision of the senior commander that counts...
General Mattis desicion hard this old jarhead hard because my old unit in Nam was involved...

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

[bobpage]

Having been in RCT 1, I will always hold the Colonel in the highest esteem. Decoy or not, we fought. Guess next time all Marine commanders should check with the Army to see if they plan to deem a town "secured" before we step off. Nasiriya will live in my mind forever. TF Tarawa was ambushed and RCT 1 fought through and forward to get north. As for the decoy bit, guess the Iraqi's did not get the memo. Speed belonged to the Army. Baghdad in 3 days, we'll just skip the fighting to be first. Marines died because of that crap. And a good Marine Officer lost a stellar career because we were under their direction at CFLCC. Col. Dowdy is a Marine I am glad I had the pleasure to serve under. Semper Fi.

[GySgtRet]

bobpage,

I have heard the same reflections about Col Dowdy, not personally but in the Marine Corps Times article this week and in other sources.

Semper Fidelis

[25snakeman02]

Thanks Sparrowhawk.

Snake out

[mrbsox]

Good post Cook, thanks. And thanks 'bobpage'.

When this 'fog' comes out, I'm always reminded of a leadership class I was in, by a Navy (full) Lieutenant.

THE3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS A LEADER CAN DO

1- TAKE CARE OF THE TROOPS

2- TAKE CARE OF THE TROOPS

3- TAKE CARE OF THE TROOPS

While the Mission MUST be a paramount concern, how can you complete a mission without... that's right..

TROOPS

Alive, ready, willing, armed, motivated.

I'll back the Colonels' decision, and I wasn't there. How many of his Marines were alive to FINISH the job ??

Col. Dowdy;

Hand Salute. Semper Fi.

Terry

[Osotogary]

Thanks, Sparrowhawk.
This article was also posted in the Wall Sreet Journal.

[kentmitchell]

Sparrowhawk,
Chesty would have fired Dowdy, too.

[d c taveapont]

I do believe to much personal views were involved, in nam i was with lima.co 3/1..

[bobpage]

I don't think Chesty would have fired Dowdy. I think Chesty had the balls to tell the Army they screwed us at Nasiriya, so sit tight while we work through. It is easy to call shots from the sidelines. All of us have opinions. Orders are orders. But I am living because of his reluctance to sacrifice men for the cause, ala Patton and others.

[MillRatUSMC]

The last part should read;
General Mattis hard decision was hard on this old jarhead, because my old unit (1st Marines) in Nam was involved.
Golf Company 2nd Battalion 1st Marines (1967).
Our Battalion Commander, Lt. Col. Archie Van Winkle USMC relieved from duty, because a lot of our supplies got damaged because there wasn't enough or any waterproofing.
We had just moved north, so this was about middle October.
Because I remember him, coming up to my position during Operatiom Medina.
He asked me, were was Company CP.
I than took him up to were my Company Commander had setup his CP.
That was the last time I saw my Battalion Commander in Vietnam.
I later learned that he was given Command of 1st. Battalion 1st. Marines, about the time of Tet of 1968.
Lt. Col. Archie Van Winkle was the only Officer of his grade that I saw out in the bush with us grunts.
I recall being taught that the "mission" was the most important thing.
Carrying out was mission was more important thing of all.
From the above, we sense that the Executive Officer of the Division was responsibile for relieving Col. Dowdy of his command.
My hope would be that it could have been done different or not so much in the public view...

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

PS
General Mattis is now back in Iraq, the loss of 12 Marines are now his responsibilty.
Numbers just keep increasing...But Lord, were do we fight these people that want to kill Americans?
In Iraq and Afghanistan or here in America.

[kentmitchell]

MillRat.
Awesome!!! Van Winkle won the Congressional in Korea as a staff sgt.

Re Dowdy
Look at Peleliu and tell me again that Chesy didn't push the troops and wouldn't have fired Dowdy. He just didn't move fast enough. In a war of movement, you MOVE, or get your ass handed to you.

[25snakeman02]

MillRat, Thanks for the gouge, it needed to be said.

Snake out.

[arnoldyG/2/5]

kentmitchell

Chesty also had significantly higher casualty rates than the 5th and 7th Marine Regiments on Pelelieu while being bogged down longer....while Chesty is no doubt a Marine legend, his success rests on the souls of a lot of dead Marines

[kentmitchell]

So does the success of every commander.
That's not the point.
By moving too slowly, Dowdy put the whole operation at risk. He didn't get the concept.