United States Central Command | |
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Emblem of the United States Central Command.
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Active | 1983–present |
Country | United States of America |
Type | Unified Combatant Command |
Headquarters | MacDill Air Force Base Tampa, Florida, U.S. |
Nickname | CENTCOM |
Engagements | Persian Gulf War Iraq War War in Afghanistan |
Commanders | |
Combatant Commander | General Lloyd Austin, USA |
Deputy Commander | Vice Admiral Mark Fox, USN [1] |
Notable commanders |
General David Petraeus Admiral William Fallon General John Abizaid General Tommy Franks General Anthony Zinni General James Mattis General Norman Schwarzkopf |
Insignia | |
Shoulder sleeve insignia (US Army only) |
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is a theater-level Unified Combatant Command of the U.S. Department of Defense, established in 1983, taking over the 1980 Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) responsibilities.
The CENTCOM Area of Responsibility (AOR) includes countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq. CENTCOM has been the main American presence in many military operations, including the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), and the Iraq War. As of 2015 CENTCOM forces are deployed primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat roles and have support roles at bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, and central Asia. CENTCOM forces have also been deployed in Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in the past, with a small presence remaining there.as of 2009.
As of 22 March 2013 CENTCOM's commander is General Lloyd J. Austin, U.S. Army.
Of all 6 American regional unified combatant commands CENTCOM is among the three with headquarters outside its area of operations. CENTCOM's main headquarters is located at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida. A forward headquarters was established in 2002 at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar, which in 2009 transitioned to a forward headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to serve American strategic interests. On 12 January, 2015, CENTCOM's Twitter and YouTube accounts were hacked.[2]
Contents
History
In 1983, U.S. Central Command was established to succeed the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, formed at MacDill AFB, Florida on 1 March 1980, to handle US national security interests in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.[3]
On 17 May 1987, the USS Stark (FFG-31), conducting operations in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, was struck by Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi aircraft, resulting in 37 casualties. Soon afterward, as part of what became known as the "Tanker War", the Federal government of the United States reflagged and renamed 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers. In Operation Earnest Will, these tankers were escorted by USCENTCOM’s Middle East Force through the Persian Gulf to Kuwait and back through the Strait of Hormuz.[3]
With the 1990 Invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Operation Desert Shield, hundreds of thousands of troops were transferred to Saudi Arabia. Islamists objected to non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia, and their use in Operation Desert Storm; this with other attacks on Iraq became a key rallying cry for opposition movements in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. By the late 1990s, Central Command gradually moved troops to other countries, particularly Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.[citation needed]
Exercise Internal Look has been one of CENTCOM's primary planning events. It had frequently been used to train CENTCOM to be ready to defend the Zagros Mountains from a Soviet attack and was held annually.[4] In autumn 1989, the main CENTCOM contingency plan, OPLAN 1002-88, assumed a Soviet attack through Iran to the Persian Gulf. The plan called for five and two-thirds US divisions to deploy, mostly light and heavy forces at something less than full strength (apportioned to it by the Joint Strategic Capability Plan [JSCAP]). The strategy of the original plan called for these five and two-thirds divisions to march from the Persian Gulf to the Zagros Mountains and prevent the Soviet Ground Forces from seizing the Iranian oil fields.[5] After 1990 Norman Schwarzkopf reoriented CENTCOM's planning to fend off a threat from Iraq and the exercise moved to a biennial schedule. The exercise has been employed for explicit war planning on at least two occasions: Internal Look '90, which dealt with a threat from Iraq,[4] and Internal Look '03, which was used to plan what became Operation Iraqi Freedom.[citation needed]
From April to July 1999 CENTCOM conducted Exercise Desert Crossing 1999 centered on the scenario of Saddam Hussein being ousted as Iraq’s dictator. It was held in the McLean, Virginia, offices of Booz Allen.[6]:6-7 The exercise concluded that unless measures were taken, “fragmentation and chaos” would ensue after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
In January 2015, CENTCOM's Twitter feed was reported to have been hacked on 11 January by ISIS sympathizers.[7] for less than one hour. No classified information was posted and “none of the information posted came from CENTCOM’s server or social media sites",[8] however, some of the slides came from federally funded Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.[7]
Structure
CENTCOM headquarters staff directorates include personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, plans & policy, information systems, training & exercises, and resources, and other functions. The intelligence section is known as Joint Intelligence Center, Central Command, or JICCENT, which serves as a Joint Intelligence Center for the co-ordination of intelligence. Under the intelligence directorate, there are several divisions including the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence.
CENTCOM directs four "service component commands" and one subordinate unified command and no fighting units directly subordinate to it:
The United States Army Central (USARCENT), and the United States Air Forces Central Command (USAFCENT), both headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, the U.S. Marine Forces Central Command (USMARCENT), headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida and the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (USNAVCENT), headquartered at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in the Kingdom of Bahrain. MacDill Air Force Base also hosts a Sub-unified command called the Special Operations Command Central (USSOCCENT).[citation needed]
Two major subordinate multi-service commands reporting to Central Command were responsible for Afghanistan: Combined Joint Task Force 180 and Combined Forces Command Afghanistan (CFC-A). CFC-A was disestablished in February 2007.[9] From that point onward, the International Security Assistance Force directed most U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and a U.S. general, General Dan K. McNeill, assumed command of ISAF that same month.[10]
Temporary task forces include the Central Command Forward - Jordan (CF-J), established in Jordan after 2011.[citation needed] The reason for its establishment has been reported as to seize Syrian WMD if necessary.[11][better source needed]
On 1 October 2008 Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti was transferred to United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM).[12] The United States Forces – Iraq or USF-I, was a major subordinate multi-service command during the Iraq War order of battle until it was disestablished in 2011.[citation needed]
Elements of other Unified Combatant Commands, especially United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), operate in the CENTCOM area. It appears that SOCCENT does not direct the secretive Task Force 77, the ad-hoc grouping of Joint Special Operations Command 'black' units such as Delta Force and Army Rangers, which is tasked to pursue the most sensitive high value targets such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership since 11 September 2001. Rather TF 77, which started out as Task Force 11 and has gone through a number of name/number changes, reports directly to Joint Special Operations Command, part of USSOCOM.[citation needed]
War planning
The following code names are known to have been associated with war planning per William Arkin:[13]:46
- CENTCOM OPORDER 01-97, Force Protection
- SOCEUR SUPPLAN 1001-90, 9 May 1989
- CENTCOM CONPLAN 1010, July 2003
- CENTCOM CONPLAN 1015-98, possibly support to OPLAN 5027 for Korea, 15 March 1991
- CENTCOM 1017, 1999
- CONPLAN 1020
- CONPLAN 1067, for possible Biological Warfare response
- CENTCOM CONPLAN 1100-95, 31 March 1992
Globalsecurity.org also lists OPLAN 1002 (Defense of the Arabian Peninsula).[better source needed]
Geographic scope
With the 1983 establishment of CENTCOM Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti came within the area of responsibility (AOR). Thus CENTCOM directed the 'Natural Bond' exercises with Sudan, the 'Eastern Wind' exercises with Somalia, and the 'Jade Tiger' exercises with Oman, Somalia, and Sudan. Exercise Jade Tiger involved the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit with Oman from 29 November 82-8 Dec 82.[13]:404
The Area of Responsibility extends to 27 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uzbekistan, and Yemen. International waters included are the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and western portions of the Indian Ocean.[14][better source needed] Syria and Lebanon were transferred from the United States European Command on 10 March 2004.[citation needed]
Israel is surrounded by CENTCOM countries but remains in United States European Command (EUCOM). General Norman Schwarzkopf expressed the position over Israel frankly in his 1992 autobiography: 'European Command also kept Israel, which from my viewpoint was a help: I'd have had difficulty impressing the Arabs with Central Command's grasp of geopolitical nuance if one of the stops on my itinerary had been Tel Aviv.'[4]:318
On 7 February 2007, plans were announced for the creation of a United States Africa Command which transferred strategic interest responsibility for all of Africa to the new USAFRICOM, except for Egypt. On 1 October 2008, the Africa Command became operational and Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, the primary CENTCOM force on the continent, started reporting to AFRICOM at Stuttgart instead of CENTCOM in Tampa.
The U.S. armed forces use a variable number of base locations depending on its level of operations. With ongoing warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, the United States Air Force used 35 bases, while in 2006 it used 14, including four in Iraq. The United States Navy maintains one major base and one smaller installation, with extensive deployments afloat and ashore by U.S. Navy, U.S Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard ships, aviation units and ground units.
Commanders
As of March 2013, GEN Lloyd Austin is commander. He took command from General James Mattis, USMC. Mattis took command from [15][16][17] Lieutenant General John R. Allen, USMC, the deputy commander since July 2008, who took temporary command when the previous commander, General David Petraeus, USA, left to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan on 23 June 2010.[18]
No. | Image | Name | Service | Start | End | Time in office |
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1. | GEN Robert Kingston | United States Army | 1 January 1983 | 27 November 1985 | 1,061 days | |
2. | Gen George B. Crist | United States Marine Corps | 27 November 1985 | 23 November 1988 | 1,092 days | |
3. | GEN H. Norman Schwarzkopf | United States Army | 23 November 1988 | 9 August 1991 | 989 days | |
4. | Gen Joseph P. Hoar | United States Marine Corps | 9 August 1991 | 5 August 1994 | 1,092 days | |
5. | GEN J. H. Binford Peay III | United States Army | 5 August 1994 | 13 August 1997 | 1,104 days | |
6. | Gen Anthony Zinni | United States Marine Corps | 13 August 1997 | 6 July 2000 | 1,058 days | |
7. | GEN Tommy Franks | United States Army | 6 July 2000 | 7 July 2003 | 1,096 days | |
8. | GEN John Abizaid | United States Army | 7 July 2003 | 16 March 2007 | 1,348 days | |
9. | ADM William J. Fallon | United States Navy | 16 March 2007 | 28 March 2008 | 378 days | |
(Acting) | LTG Martin E. Dempsey | United States Army | 28 March 2008 | 31 October 2008 | 217 days | |
10. | GEN David H. Petraeus | United States Army | 31 October 2008 | 30 June 2010 | 607 days | |
(Acting) | LtGen John R. Allen | United States Marine Corps | 30 June 2010 | 11 August 2010 | 42 days | |
11. | Gen James Mattis | United States Marine Corps | 11 August 2010 | 22 March 2013 | 954 days | |
12. | GEN Lloyd Austin | United States Army | 22 March 2013 | Incumbent | Expression error: Unexpected number. days |
Unit decorations
The unit awards depicted below are for Headquarters, US Central Command at MacDill AFB. Award for unit decorations do not apply to any subordinate organization such as the service component commands or any other activities unless the orders specifically address them.
Award streamer | Award | Dates | Notes |
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Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 2 August 1990 – 21 April 1991 | Department of the Army General Order (DAGO) 1991-22 & 1992-34[19] | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 1 August 1992 – 4 May 1993 | DAGO 1994-12 & 1996-01 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 8 October 1994 – 16 March 1995 | DAGO 2001–25 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 1 September 1996 – 6 January 1997 | Joint Staff Permanent Order (JSPO) J-ISO-0012-97 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 1 October 1997 – 15 July 1998 | JSPO J-ISO-0241-98 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 16 July 1998 – 1 November 1999 | JSPO J-ISO-0330-99 / DAGO 2001–25 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 2 November 1999 – 15 March 2001 | ||
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 11 September 2001 – 1 May 2003 | DAGO 2005–09 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 2 May 2003 – 31 December 2005 | ||
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 1 January 2006 – 1 March 2008 | JSPO J-ISO-0061-08 | |
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 2 March 2008 – 1 July 2010 | ||
Joint Meritorious Unit Award | 2 July 2010 – 31 July 2012 |
See also
References
- ^ http://www.centcom.mil/en/about-centcom-en/leadership-en
- ^ "Centcom hacked: This was no more harmful than a teenager's prank". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ a b Anthony Cordesman, USCENTCOM Mission and History, Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 1998
- ^ a b c Norman Schwarzkopf (1993). It Doesn't Take a Hero. Bantam Books paperback edition. pp. 331–2,335–6. ISBN 0-553-56338-6.Harold Coyle's novel Sword Point gives an impression of what such planning envisaged, by a U.S. Army officer who would have had some idea of the general planning approach.
- ^ Richard Moody Swain, Lucky War: Third Army in Desert Storm, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press via Google Books, 6.
- ^ Michael R. Gordon, Bernard E. Trainor(2012). The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-307-37722-7.
- ^ a b "U.S. Central Command Twitter feed appears hacked by Islamic State sympathizers". Reuters. 12 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ CHRIS GOOD, JOSHUA COHAN and LEE FERRAN (12 January 2015). "Home> International ‘Cybervandalism’: ISIS Supporters Hijack US Military Social Media Accounts". ABC (ABC news Internet Venture). Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- ^ Jan Goldman Ph.D., The War on Terror Encyclopedia: From the Rise of Al-Qaeda to 9/11 and Beyond, 100-101.
- ^ Auerswald and Saideman, 2014, 96f
- ^ Nicola Nasser (5 September 2013). "Jordan Invites US Targets for Syrian Retaliation". Centre for Research on Globalization.
- ^ "Africans Fear Hidden U.S. Agenda in New Approach to Africom". Associated Press. 2008-09-30. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- ^ a b Arkin, William (25 January 2005). Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World (First ed.). Steerforth. ISBN 1586420836.
- ^ "Central Command". Global Security.org. n.d. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
- ^ "Mattis takes over Central Command, vows to work with Mideast allies in Afghanistan, Iraq". Fox News Channel. Associated Press. 11 August 2010. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
- ^ Mitchell, Robbyn (12 August 2010). "Mattis takes over as CentCom chief". St. Petersburg Times. p. 1. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
- ^ "Mattis assumes command of CENTCOM". U.S. Central Command. 11 August 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
- ^ "Lt. Gen. Allen named CENTCOM acting commander" (Press release). U.S. Central Command. 30 June 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
- ^ "Department of the Army General Orders". United States Army Publications Directorate. Retrieved 30 April 2011. (Army Knowledge Online account may be required.)
External links
- U.S. Central Command official website
- Multi-National Force – Iraq.com mnf-iraq.com (English)
- Multi-National Force – Iraq shurakaal-iraq.com (Arabic)
- Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africae official site
- Spiegel, Peter (5 January 2007). "Naming New Generals A Key Step In Shift On Iraq". Los Angeles Times.
- Foreign Policy, Pentagon Ups the Ante in Syria Fight
- http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2014/12/30/iraq-1st-infantry-funk/21062071/ - Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command - Iraq
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