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~arine Division COt0tjflUCS to be in ~ position were it biocrs any egress o~~ ~~ the
city of Kuwait, ~o no one can leave. To date, we i~~ve destroyed over 29 destroye~
or rendered inoperable. I don't like to say destroyed because that 9ives you vision
of absolutely killing everyone, and that's not what we're doing. But we have
rendered completely ineffective over 29 iraqi divisions. The gates are Closed.
There is no way out of here, there is no way out of here, and the enemy is fighting
us in this location right here.
We continue, of course, hi9h level air power. The air has done a t~rrific: job
from start to finish in supportin9 the ground forces, and we also have had great
support from the Navy -- both in the form of naval gunfire and in support of carrier
air.
That's the situation at the present time.
(Chart)
Peace is not without a cost. These have been the U.S 9asualties to date. As
you can seer these were the casualties we had in the air war; then of course, we~had.
the terrible misfortune of the SCUD attac~ the other night which1 again, because the
weapon ma~ functioned, ~it caused death, unfortunately, rather than in a proper
function. Then, of course1 these are the casualties in the ground war, the total
being as shown here.
(Chart)
I would jus~ like to coTiflent briefly abo~t that casualty chart. The loss of
one human lIfe is intolerable to any of us who are in the military. But I would tel
you that casualties of that order of raa9nitude considering the job˝hat's been done
and the n':imber of forces that were involved is almost miraculous, as far as the light
nurber of casualties. it will never be miraculous to the faflilies of those people,
but it is miraculous.
This is what's happened to date with the Iraqis. They started out with over
4,000 tanks. As of to date, we have over 3,000 confirmed destroyed -- and I do mean
destroyed or captured. As a matter of ~act, that number is low because you can add
~OO to that as a result of the battle that's going on right no~ with the Republican
Guard. So that number is very, very high, and we1ve~alrnost completely destroyed the
offensive capability of the Iraqi ~orces in the Kuwaiti theater of 6perations. The
armored vehicle count is also very very high, and of course, you can see we're doing
great damage to the artillery. The battle is still going on, and I suspect that
these numbers will mount rather considerably.
(Chart)
I wish I could give you a better number on this, to be very honest with you.
This is just a wild guess. It's an estimate that was sent to us by the field today
at noon time, but the prisoners out there are so heavy and so extensive, and
obviously, we're not in the business of going around and counting noses at this time
to deternine precisely what the exact number is. But we're very very confident that
we have well over S0,000 prisoners of war at this time, and that number is mounting
~? a Co~tinuinq basis.
1 would remind you that tie war is coI0tinuing to 90 on. Even a~ we speak rig.
now there is fighting going on out there. Even as we spe~k right now there are
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