Operation Desert Storm

Support forces were critical to the success of Operations Desert Shield and Storm. However, unreliable data on unit readiness, the unanticipated extended period that the limited reserve call-up remained in effect, and the incremental way in which the Defense Department ran the call-up created an extensive force selection process that might have posed problems had there been less time to prepare for combat. The Army lacked specific plans for correcting personnel and equipment shortages under a limited call-up and had to extensively transfer resources among units. The long lead time for the buildup, modern ports and airstrips, host nation support, and the war's short duration allowed the Army to provide most needed support forces. Despite these favorable conditions, the Army ran out of some types of units and had no contingency plans for creating new ones when shortages were forecast. Ad hoc measures filled some gaps, but remaining deficiencies could have had serious consequences had events unfolded differently. In revising its force structure, the Army is adding some active support forces for its contingency force and is considering substituting additional active support forces for reserves in this force. GAO believes that the Army needs to examine and address the factors that led reserves to be excluded from this war to preserve as many roles as possible. Improved mobilization procedures might make it feasible for more reserve support forces to participate in the contingency force.

GAO found that: (1) an incomplete operational plan and troop list, limited reserve call-up, the incremental way the Department of Defense (DOD) implemented the call-up, and obscured unit status reports impeded the Army's selection of support forces for the war; (2) because the Army lacked plans for conducting an operation under an extended limited call-up, it had to engage in ad hoc, nonuniform procedures to ready forces for deployment; (3) to supply reserve support units with the additional people, equipment, and training needed before they could deploy, the Army extensively transferred people and equipment from non-activated Army units into activated units because of the limited call-up; (4) such transfers degraded unit capability and resulted in units whose personnel had not trained together or on the equipment they were provided; (5) the Army set a lower standard of readiness for support units than for combat units; (6) the types and amounts of training units received varied because deployment dates dictated the amount of time units spent at their mobilization sites; (7) the Army lacked standards for validating proficiency and could not ensure that similar units mobilized at different locations achieved similar levels of proficiency; (8) the Army provided most needed support forces through the reserve call-up, compensating actions, and host nation support, but could not initially provide some critically needed forces that were in the reserves before the call-up was in effect; (9) over the course the Army sent virtually all of some types of troops, leaving few to reinforce operations; and (10) the Army is restructuring its forces to achieve more rapid deployment.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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