26                                   U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 1990.1991


logistical bases. By the end of January 1991 the Direct Support Command and
the naval construction battalions completed the first base at Kibrit allowing more
units to move north.47

                              The War Be gins
          The Fight for Observation Point 4, 29-30 January 1991

    In late January, after the Direct Support Command declared its base at Kibrit
to be ready, elements of both the 1st and 2d Marine Divisions began moving to
the border assembly area. Actually getting them there, however, was not easy,
as shortages of heavy equipment transporters (HETs) prolong&l the relocation
of the mechanized task forces.~ The division G-4 staff coordinated among the
task forces on the use of what was available to the division, but there were
insufficient HETs to accomplish the redeployment in one movement.     The
establishment of Kibrit had exhausted the assets of Marine truck companies in
I MEF. The Army was engaged in relocating the entire VII Corps to the
northwestern   Saudi-Kuwaiti  border, which  further strained transportation
resources. The movement of allied forces changed the complexion of northern
Saudi Arabia. Highways filled with long, slow-moving columns running night
and day. Soon the litter of wrecked and broken-down equipment began to mark
the path to the forward logistics bases. On 29 January 1991, there still was no
sizable combat force between Kibrit and the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border. Only
Task Force Shepherd--one company from the 2d Light Armored Infantry
Battalion, 5th Battalion,  11th Marines, and a few   platoons from the 1st
Reconnaissance Battalion, as well as an enemy prisoner of war detachment from
1st Battalion, 25th Marines--was in that area.
    The border sectors hosted many artillery raids, or so-called "ambiguity
operations," designed as part of a CentCoin and I MEF deception effort aimed


                                                  Photograph by author, January 1991
Supplies I?ioVC ,iorth along coastal highway dunng build-up of Kibrit. The ha~ conditions
were typical for later afteu~oon at that llme.