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File: doc71_07.txt
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turns out that those trucks were Army vehicles, not weapon systems. They were not part of a unit
equipment' they were reserve vehicle~ The Army has located ten. and the senior Anny commander,
(Lieutenant) General (John J.) Yeosock1 suspects that the Marines borrowed the other 35. (Laugliter)
~o it is not a problem, they a?~ flOt In enemy hands. 1 can guarantee you.
Q; A great deal has been asked about die ftont lines. Do you lcnow exactly what's ~oing on,
for instance, in Kuwait City? Is there any great buildup or retrenching go'i£ig on there that gives the
appearance that there might be a very tough fight there?
A: I think there's evidence across the battlefield, as we've discussed before, that they are
digging in to try to protect themselves against army air attacks. 13ut in terms of any rcpositioning,
no evidence of that. They1re simply in place. digging in1 and try to protect thcir assets.
Q: With reference to the battleship sailing fairly close to the coastline,~wo~ci the same be
true of the mine threat7 Aft you reasonably confident that the thr~at from the inLnes has been swept
away?
A: 1 didn't say the baWeship wU necessarily closc to the coastline1 but if you draw a 25 mIle
arc you p,robably could draw some conclusions. But In terms of the mine threat, up to (his point I
think we ve uncovered about 40, and they tend to be in a random pattern -* some of diem floating1
some perhaps have become disconnected from their moorings. We have destroyed those, and the few
that we have recovered to exploit, to find out where they1re being made and what kind of a mine it
is. But at (his point, certainly no threat to a battleship which, as I say, the botto(ii part of the hull
is the most reinforced anywhere up to 17 inches of rein~forced steel. So a pretty invuIncrable
target in terms of the kind of mines we've bccn secing in the Persian Gult.
Q; There's been a lot of talk in recent days of tl~ successful cutting off of supplies going
Into Kuwait. Can one assume, then, that there's also been a cutoff of food supplies to the civilians
n Kuwait -- that there perhaps are food shortages among civilians as well?
A: I would not doubt that there's been some r~ducdo~ In the supply to the civilian
population, but we do have report, that the food is still there The prices may have gone up a little
bit, but there1s no indication that the Kuwaiti people are suffering enormously because of lack of
food supply, but J couldn't give you order of magnitude.
Q: Where would the food that they're getting be coming from, if it's not coining from Iraq?
A: I don't have perfect insight, but of course they had a good deal stored in the r~£t place.
Pius in the early stases It was clear that there was still some coming into Kuwait through different
means -~ (lirough Iraq. So I don't thLnk we have shut o~f the supply of civilian food into Kuwait,
perhaps until the more recent past when we started the air campaign. I think they have fairly good
supplies currently in Kuwait city.
Q: How significant is tills movement of command and control a?~ military ~quipment into
civilian areas? How serious a military problem will that be for the allies?
A: I~thirk it will be a concern to us, but there are other ways to cut off his command and
control. it doesn't have to be the radio that happens to be now in a schoo~ area. We have already
accomplished an enormous amount of degradation of his communication capability - both on the
leadership level, and even on a tactical level. So I would not view that as being a war stopper, that
we somehow lost a target that is key to the success of our campaign.
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