Press Briefing 27 FEB 91

File: doc53_09.txt
Page: 09
Total Pages: 17

?ierc bui~djn~ u.,, ~nd w. didn't )~av~ ve~y muci~ on t}ic qic~.i;~d, you 11 lt~L(i Yiv~n u
credit for a whole lot more over here. As a result, t?~at g~ve re quite d feelin9 of
confidence th~t wc. rnight not be attacked quite as c~ickly as I ti~ouqht we were going
to be attac~ed. Other than that, I would not like to get into thc-. remainder of Your
~estion.

Q: What kind of fight is going on with the ~epublican Guard? And is there any
more fighting going on in Kuwait, or i~ Kuwait essentially out of the action?
A: t4o. The fight that's going on with the Republican Guard right now is just
a classic tan}: battle. You've got fire and maneuver, they ~~~ continuing to fight.
and shoot at us as our forces rnove forward, and our forces are in the business of
outfianking them, taking them to the rear, using our attack helicopter, using our
advanced technology. I would tell you that one of the things that has prevailed,
particularly in this battle out here, is our technology. We had great weather for
the air war, but right now, and for the last three days, it's been raining out th~re,
it's been dusty out there, there's black smoke and haze in the a~r. 1t's~an
infantryman's weather -~ God loves the infantryrnan, and that's just the kind of
weather the infantryTnan likes to fight in. But I would also tell you that our sights
have worked fantastically well in their ability to acquire, through that. kind of dust
and haze, the enemy targets. The enemy sights have not worked that well. As a
matter of fact, we've had several anecdotal reports today of enemy who were saying to
us that they coul~i't see anything through their sights and all of a sudden, their
tank exploded when their tank was hit by our sights. So that's one of the indica-
tions [we look forj.

Q: Are you sayin9...
A: A very, ~ery tough air environment, ob~iously, as this box ~ets sr'.aller and
smaller, and the bad weather, it gets tougher and tougher to use the air, and
therefore, the air is acting more in an interdiction role than any other.

Q: Can you tell us why the ~rench, who went very fast in the desert in the
first day, stopped (inaudible) and were invited to stop fighting after 36 hours?
A: That's not exactly a correct staternent. The French ~i55ion on the first
day was to protect our left flank. What we were interested in was making sure we
confined this battlefield -- both on the right and the left -- and we didn't want
anyone coir:ing in and attacking these forces, which was the main attack, coming in
from their left flank. So the French raission was to go out and not only seize Al
Salman, but to set up a screen across our left flank, which was absolutely vital to
ensure that we weren't surprised. So they definitely did not stop fighting. They
continued to'perform their mission, and they performtd it e>:traordinarily woll.

Q: The Iraqi Air ~orce disappeared very early in the air war. There was
speculation they might return and provide cover during the ground war. Were you
suspecting that? Were yob surprised they never showed themselves again?
A: I was not expecting it. We were not expecting it, but I would tell you
that we never dircounted it, and we were totally prepared in the event it happened.

Q: 1(ave they been completely destroyed? Where are they?
A: There's not an airplane flown. A lot of thern are dispersed throughout
civili~n communities in Iraq. We have proof of that.

Q: ~~ow many divisions of the Republican Guard now are you fighting, ~nd any
idea how long `that will take?
A: We' re `probably fighting on the order of... There were a total of five of
thcr~ up here. One of the.~~~ we have probably destroyed yesterd~y. We probably