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File: 082696_d50025_006.txt
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flown.  This is comparable to moving the entire city of Richmond, Virginia,

8,000 miles to the Saudi desert.


      By the sixth week of Operation Desert Shield, we had already moved

by air the equivalent of the entire Berlin Airlift--an operation which had

taken place over 65 weeks.  As of today, we have airlifted enough cargo to

equal 2 1/2 Berlin Airlifts.


      To  provide another comparison,   more personnel and equipment were

moved in the first three weeks of Operation Desert Shield than were

moved in the first three months of the Korean conflict.


      The sealift portion of the deployment has been equally as

impressive.   Over 150 ships are committed and are currently loading,

unloading, or en route to the Persian Gulf region.   Over 2.3 million

measurement tons of equipment have been shipped to Saudi Arabia.


      Over 260,000 GIs are now deployed as part of Operation Desert

Shield.  Additional units ordered by the President are just completing or

getting ready to begin the long journey.   The- additional M-lAl tanks we

had ordered from Europe' prior to the President's 8 November decision,

have now all arrived in theater to supplement our other tanks already

there.  M-1A1   tanks accompanying the units in the Phase II deployments

are en route.


      Let me digress a moment to give you a sense of the enormity of

Desert Shield.  On a typical day, up to 90 different aircraft land and unload


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