Gen. Schwarzkopf's Famed News Conference

good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you for being here I promised some of you all a few days ago that as soon as the opportunity presented itself I would give you a complete rundown on what we were doing and more importantly why we were doing it the strategy behind what we were doing I've been asked by secretary Cheney to do that this evening and so if you will bear with me we're going to go through a briefing I apologize to the folks over here won't be able to see the charts but we're going to go through a complete briefing of the operation this goes back to 7 August to 17 January's you recall we started our deployment on the 7th of August basically what we started out against was a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis that were in the Kuwait theatres of operation I don't have to remind you all that we brought over initially defensive forces in the form of the hundred and first the 82nd the 24th mechanised infantry division a third Armored Cavalry and in essence we had them arrayed to the south behind the Saudi task force also there were Arab forces over here in this area arrayed in in defensive positions and that in essence is the way we started in the middle of November the decision was made to increase the force because by that time huge numbers of Iraqi forces had flowed into the area and generally in the disposition as they're shown right here and therefore we increase the forces and build up more forces I would tell you that at this time we made a very deliberate decision to align all of those forces within the boundary looking north towards Kuwait this being King Khalid military city over here so we aligned those forces so it very much looked like they were all aligned directly on the Iraqi positions we also at that time had a very active naval presence out in the Gulf and we made sure that everybody understood about that naval presence one of the reasons why we did that is because it became very apparent to us early on that the Iraqis were quite concerned about an amphibious operation across the shores to liberate Kuwait this being Kuwait City they put a variable a heavy barrier of infantry along here and they proceeded to build an extensive barrier that went all the way across the border down and around and up the side of Kuwait so basically the problem we were faced with was this when you looked at the troop numbers they really outnumbered us about three to two and if when you consider the number of combat service support people we have that's logisticians and that sort of thing in our armed forces as far as fighting troops we were really outnumbered two to one in addition to that they had 4700 Tanks versus our 3,500 when the buildup was complete and they had a great deal more artillery than we do I think any student of military strategy would tell you that in order to attack a position you should have a ratio of approximately three to one in favor of the attacker and in order to attack a position that is heavily dug yet and barricaded such as the one we had here you should have a ratio of five to one in the way of troops in favor of the attacker so you can see basically what our problem was at that time we were outnumbered as a minimum three to two as far as super concern we were outnumbered as far as tanks were concerned and we had to come up with some way to make up the difference next chart please I apologize for the busy nature of this chart but I think it's very important for you to understand exactly what our strategy was what you see here is a color coding where Green is a go sign or a good sign as far as our forces are concerned yellow would be a caution sign and red would be a stop sign green represents units that have Bennett written the yellow are units that are between 50 and 75 percent strength and of course the red are units that are over 75 percent strength what we did of course was started extensive air campaign and I briefed you in quite some detail on that in the past one of the purposes I told you at that time that extensive air campaign was to isolate the Kuwaiti theater of operation by taking out all the bridges and supply lines that ran between the north and the southern part of Iraq that was to prevent reinforcement and supply coming in to the southern part of Iraq and the Kuwaiti Theatre of operation we also conducted a very heavy bombing campaign and many people questioned why why the extensive bombing campaign this is the reason why it was necessary to reduce these forces down to a strength that was that made them weaker particularly along the frontline barrier that we had to go through we continued our heavy operations out in the sea because we wanted the Iraqis to continue to believe that we were going to conduct a massive and fibia operation in this area and I think many of you recall the number of amphibious rehearsals we had to include him and a thunder that was written about quite extensively for many reasons but we continue to have those operations because we wanted him to concentrate his forces what she did I think this is probably one of the most important parts of the entire briefing I could talk about as you know very early on we took out the iraqi air force we knew that he had very very limited reconnaissance means and therefore when we took out his air force for all intents and purposes we took out his ability to see what we were doing down here in Saudi rigid once we had taken out his eyes we did what could best be described as the Hail Mary play in football I think you recall when the quarterback is desperate for a touchdown at the very end what he does is he steps up behind the center and all of a sudden every single one of his receivers goes way out to the to one flank and they all run down the field as fast as they possibly can and into the end zone and he lobs the ball in essence that's what we did when we knew that he couldn't see us anymore we did a massive movement of troops all the way out to the west to the extreme west because at that time we knew that he was still fixed in this area with the vast majority of his forces and once the air campaign started he would be incapable of moving out to counter this move even if he knew we made it there were some addition of troops out in this area but they did not have the capability nor the time to put in the barrier that had been described by Saddam Hussein as an absolutely impenetrable tank barrier that no one would ever get true I believe those were his words so this was absolutely an extraordinary move I must tell you I can't recall any time in the annals of military history when this number of forces have moved over this distance to put themselves in a position to be able to to attack but what's more important and I think it's very very important I make this appoint and that's these logistics bases not only did we move the troops out there but we literally moved thousands and thousands of tons of Buhl of ammunition of spare parts of water and of food out here into this area because we wanted to have enough supplies on hand so that if we launched this and we got into a slugfest battle which we very easily could have gotten into we'd have enough supplies to last for 60 days it was an absolutely gigantic accomplishment and I can't give credit enough to the logisticians and the transporters who were able to pull this off to the superb support we had from the Saudi government the the literally thousands and thousands of drivers really of every every national origin who helped us in this move out here and of course great credit goes to the commanders of these units who were also able to maneuver their forces out here and put them in this position but as a result by the 23rd of February what you found is this situation the front lines had been at RIT down to a point where all of these units were at 50% or below the second level basically that we had to face and these were the real tough fighters that we were worried about right here we retreated to someplace between 50 and 75 percent although we still had the Republican Guard located here and here and part of the Republican Guard in this area that were very strong and the Republican Guard up in this area strong and we continued to hit the bridges all across this area to make absolutely sure that no more reinforcements came into the battle this was a situation on the 23rd of February experts oh wait I should I'm sorry I shouldn't forget these fellows that SF stands for special forces we put special forces deep into the enemy territory they went out on strategic reconnaissance for us and they let us know what was going on there they were the eyes that were out there and very important that I not forget those folks next please this then was the morning of the 24th our plan initially had been to start over here in this area and do exactly what the Iraqis thought we were going to do and that's take them on head-on into their most heavily defended area also at the same time we launched amphibious feints and naval gunfire in this area so that they continue to think that we were going to be attacking along this coast and therefore fix their forces in this position our hope was that by fixing the forces in this position and with this attack through here in this position we would basically keep the forces here and they wouldn't know what was going on out in this area and I believe we succeeded not very well at four o'clock in the morning the Marines the 1st Marine Division of the 2nd Marine Division launched attacks through the barrier system they were accompanied by the second the tiger brigade a US Army Tiger Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division at the same time over here to Saudi task forces also launched a penetration through this barrier but while they were doing that at 4 o'clock in the morning over here the 6th french Armored Division accompanied by a brigade of the 82nd airborne also launched an overland attack to their objective up in this area also Amman airfield and we were held up a little bit by the weather but by 8 o'clock in the morning the 101st airborne Air Assault launched an air assault deep in the enemy territory to establish a Forward Operating Base in this location right here let me talk about each one of those those moves first of all the Saudis over here on East Coast did a terrific job they went up against a very very tough barrier system they breach the barrier very very effectively they moved out aggressively and continued their attack up the coast I can't say enough about the two marine divisions I if I use words like brilliant it would really be an under description of the absolutely superb job that they did in breaching the so-called impenetrable barrier it was a classic absolutely classic military breaching of a very very tough minefield of barbed wire fire trenches tight barrier they went through the first barrier like it was water they went across into the second barrier line even though they were under artillery fire at the time they continued to open up that breach and then they brought both divisions streaming through that breach absolutely superb operation a textbook and I think it will be studied for many many years to come as the way to do it I would also like to say that the French did an absolutely superb job of moving out rapidly to take their objective out here and they were very very successful as was one hundred and first and again we still had the Special Forces located in this area what we found was as soon as we breached these obstacles here and started bringing pressure we started getting a large number of surrenders and I think I talked to some of you all about that this evening when we when I briefed you on the evening of the 24 we finally got a large number of surrenders we also found that these forces right here we're getting a large number of surrenders and we're meeting with a great deal of success we were worried about the weather the weather turned out was going to get pretty bad the next day and we were worried about launching this air assault and we also started to have a huge number of atrocities of really the most unspeakable type committed in downtown Kuwait City to include reports that the desalinization plant had been destroyed and when we heard that we were quite concerned about what might be going on based upon that and the situation as it was developing we made a decision that rather than wait the following morning to launch the remainder of these forces that we would go ahead and launch those forces that afternoon next so this was a situation you saw the afternoon of the 24th the Marines continued to make great progress going through the breach in this area and we're moving rapidly north the saudi task force on the east coast was also moving rapidly to the north and making very very good progress we launched another egyptian arab force in this location and another saudi force in this location again to penetrate the barrier but once again to make the enemy continue to think that we're doing exactly what he wanted to do and that's make a headlong assault into a very very tough barrier system a very very tough mission for these folks here but at the same time what we did is continued to attack with the French we continued we launched an attack on the part of the entire seventh Corps where the 1st Infantry Division went through breached an obstacle and minefield barrier here established quite a large breach through which we passed the first British armored division at the same time we launched the 1st Armored Division the 3rd Armored Division and because of our deception plan of the way it worked we didn't even have to worry about a barrier we just went right around the enemy and we're behind him in no time at all at the 2nd Armored Cavalry Division and I ought to talk and the 24th mech division also launched out here in the Far West and I ought to talk about the hundred first because this is an important point once the hundred and first had their Forward Operating Base established here they then went ahead and launched into the tigris and euphrates valley there's a lot of people who are still saying that the object of the United States of America was to capture Iraq and caused a downfall the entire country of Iraq ladies and gentlemen well we were here we were 150 miles away from Baghdad and there was nobody between us and Baghdad if it had been our intention to take Iraq if it had been our attention to destroy the country if it I'd been our intention to overrun the country we could have done it unopposed for all intents and purposes from this position at that time but that was not our attention we had never said it was our intention our intention was purely to eject the Iraqis out of Kuwait and destroy the military power that had come in here so this was a situation at the end of February the 24th and the afternoon next please the next two days went exactly like we thought they would go the Saudis continued to make great progress up on the eastern flank keeping the pressure off the Marines on the flank here the Special Forces won out and started operating small boat operations out in this area to help clear mines but also to threaten the flanks here and to continue to make them think that we were in fact going to conduct amphibious operations the saudi forces that came in and took the and Arab forces that came in and took these two initial objectives turned to come in on the fly heading towards Kuwait City located right in this area here the British UK passed through and continued to attack up this flank and of course the 7th Corps came in and attacked in this direction I shown here the 24th Infantry Division made an unbelievable move all the way across into the Tigris and Euphrates valley and proceeded in blocking this Avenue of egress out which was the only avenue of egress left because we continued to make sure that the bridges stayed down so there was no way out once the 24th was in this area and the hundred and first continue to operate in here the French having succeeded in achieving all their objectives then set up a flanking position a flank guard position here to make sure that no forces come in and get us from the flank by this time we had destroyed or rendered completely ineffective over 21 Iraqi divisions next please and of course that then brings us to today where we are today is we now have a solid wall across the north of the 18th Airborne Corps consisting of the unit's shown right here attacking straight to the east we have a solid wall here again of the 7th Corps also attacking straight to the east the forces that they are fighting right now are the forces the Republican Guard again today we had a very significant day when the Arab forces coming from both the west and the East closed in and moved into Kuwait City where they are now in the process of clearing Kuwait City entirely and assuring that us absolutely secure the 1st Marine Division continues to hold Kuwaiti international airport the 2nd Marine Division continues to be in a position where it blocks any egress out of the city of Kuwait so no one can leave to date we have destroyed over 29 destroyed or rendered inoperable I don't like to say destroyed because that gives you the visions of absolutely killing everyone and that's not what we're doing but we have rendered completely ineffective over 29 Iraqi divisions and the gates are closed there was 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 have overwhelming air power the air is done a terrific big job from start to finish and supporting the ground forces and we also have had great support from the Navy both in the form of naval gunfire and in the support of carrier error that's the situation at the present time next please peace is not without a cost these have been the u.s. casualties to date as you can see these were the casualties that we had in the air war then of course we had the terrible misfortune of the Scud attack the other night which again because the weapon malfunctioned it caused death unfortunately rather than a proper function and then of course these are the casualties in the ground war to death the total being as shown here next hold it hold it hold on for one second one second is up next place we'll put all these charts that have available for you afterwards now I would just like to comment briefly about that casualty chart the loss of one human life is intolerable to any of us were in the military but I would tell you that casualties of that order of magnitude considering the job that's been done in the number of forces that are involved is it is almost miraculous as far as the late number of casualties it'll never be with Moroccan us to the families of those people but it is miraculous anyhow this is what's happened to date with the Iraqis they start out with over 4,000 tanks as of today we have over 3,000 confirmed destroyed and I do mean destroyed or captured and as a matter of fact that number is low because you can add 700 to that as a result of the battle that's going on right now with Republican Guard so that number is very very high and we've almost completely destroyed the offensive capability of the Iraqi forces among the Kuwaiti theater of operation 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 I suspect that these numbers will mount rather considerably next 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 noontime but the prisoners out there are so heavy and so extensive and obviously we're not in the business of going around counting noses at this time to determine precisely exactly of what the exact number is but we're very very confident that we have well over fifty thousand prisoners of war at this time and that number is mounting on a continuing basis I would remind you that the war is continuing to go on even as we speak right now there's fighting going on out there even as we speak right now they're incredible acts of bravery going on this afternoon we had an f-16 pilot shot down we had contact with him he had a broken leg on the ground two helicopters from the hundred and first they didn't have to do it but they went in to try and pull that pilot out one of them was shot down and we're still in the process of working through that but that's the kind of thing that's going on out on that battlefield right now it is not an attending it is a tough battlefield where people are risking their lives at all time and and they're great heroes out there and we all be very very proud of that's the campaign to date that's the strategy to date and now I'd now be very happy to take any questions anyone might have yes sir the chart you showed there with the attrition rates of the various forces was almost the exact reverse of what what most of us thought was happening it showed the frontline troops are treated to 75% or more and the Republican Guards which a lot of public focus was on when we were covering the air war I treated it less than 75 why why is that I mean how did it come to pass look that's the chart up again Roger we please let me let me tell you how we did this we started off of course against the strategic targets i briefed you on that before at the same time we were hitting the Republican Guard but the Republican Guard you must remember is a mechanized armored force for the most part that is very very well dug in and very very well spread out so in initial stages of the game we were hitting the Republican Guard heavily but we were hitting them with strategic type bombers rather than pinpoint precision bombers for lack of a better word what happened is the air campaign shifted from the strategic phase into the theater and we knew all along that this was the important area the nightmare scenario the nightmare scenario for all of us would have been to go through get hung up in this breach right here and then have the enemy artillery rain chemical weapons down on troops there were that were in a gaggle in the breach right there that was the nightmare scenario so one of the things that we felt we must have established is an absolute as much destruction as we could possibly get of the artery the direct support artillery that would be firing on that wire that's why we shifted it in a very latter days we absolutely punished this area very heavily because that was the first challenge once we got through this and we're moving then it's a different war then we're fighting our kind of war before we get through that we're fighting their kind of war and that's what we didn't want to have to do at the same time we continued to @rit the Republican Guard and that's why I would tell you that that again the figures that were giving you're conservative they always have been conservative but we promise you at the outset we weren't going to give you anything inflated we're going to give you the best we had yes sir oh you seem to have about he'd see he seems to have about five or six hundred tanks left out of more than 4,000 as just an example I wonder if in an overview despite these enormous Lee illustrative pictures you could you could say what's left of the Iraqi army in terms of how long could it be before he could ever be a regional threat or a threat to the region again well there's not enough left at all for him to be a regional threat to the regional offensive regional threat as you know he's got a very large army but most of the army that has left north of the Tigris Euphrates valley is an infantry army it's not an armored army it's not an armored heavy army which means it really isn't an offensive army so it doesn't have enough left unless someone chooses to rearm them in the future you said you've got these all these divisions along the border which were seriously at writted it figures to be about 200,000 troops maybe we're there you've got 50,000 prisoners where's the rest of them there was there was a very very large number of dead in these units a very very large number of dead we even found them when we went into the unit's ourselves and found them in the trench lines there were very heavy desertions at one point we had reports of desertion rates of more than 30 percent of the units that were along the front here as you know we had quite a large number of POWs that came across and so it was I think it's a combination of desertions there's a combination of people that were killed there's a combination of the people that we've captured and there's a combination of some other people who are just flat still running yes sir it seems that you've done so much the job is effectively done can I ask you what do you think really needs to more to be done because the forces are his forces are if not destroyed certainly no longer capable of posing a threat to the region they seem to want to go home what more has to be done put the last chart up please the last arrow the large arrow if I'm to accomplish the mission that I was given and that's to make sure that the Republican Guard is rendered incapable of conducting the type of heinous act that they've conducted so often in the past what has to be done is these forces continue to attack across here and put the Republican Guard out of business we're not the business of killing them we have psyops aircraft up we're telling them over and over again all you got to do is get out of your tanks and move off and you will not be killed but they're continuing to fight and as long as they continue to fight we're going to continue the fight with them that's back you that move on the extreme left which got within 150 miles of Baghdad was it also part of the plan that the Iraqis might have thought that it was going to Baghdad and would that have contributed to the deception I wouldn't mind it at all if they've gotten a little bit nervous about it I really and I and I and I mean that very sincerely I would have been delighted if they've gotten very very nervous about it frankly I don't think they ever knew it was there I think they never knew it was there until the door had already been closed on them yeah right there I'm wondering how much resistance there still is in Kuwait and I'm wondering what you would say to people who would say the purpose of this war was to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait and they're now out what would you say to that public that is thinking that right now I would say that there was a lot more purpose of this war than just get the Iraqis out of Kuwait the purpose of this war was to enforce the resolutions of the United Nations are some 12 different resolutions in the United Nations not all of which have been accepted by Iraq to date that I as I understand it okay but I got to tell you that in the business of the military of a military commander my job is not to go ahead and at some point say well that's great they've just now pulled out of Kuwait even though they're still shooting at us they're moving backwards and therefore I've accomplished my mission that's not the way you fight it and that's not the way I would ever fight it back in the back please yes so you talked about heavy press coverage of imminent Thunder early on and how it helped fool the Iraqis into thinking that it was a serious operation I wonder if you could talk about other ways in which the press contributed to the to the campaign I I don't want it I would rather not first of all I don't want to characterize even a thunder as being only a only a deception because it wasn't we had every intention of conducting and fibia operations if they were necessary and that was a very very real rehearsal as were the other rehearsals I I guess I would the one thing I would say to the press that I was delighted with is in the very very early stages of this operation when we were over here building up and we didn't have very much on the ground you all were given us a credit for a whole lot more over here and and as a result that gave me quite a feeling of confidence that we might not be attacked quite as quickly as I thought we were going to be attacked other than that I would not like to get into the remainder of the question over here yes sir what kind of fight is going on with the Republican Guard and is there any more fighting going on in Kuwait as Kuwait essentially out of the action no the type of fight that's going on with Republican Guard right now is just a classic tank battle you've got the fire and maneuver you've got they are continuing to fight and shoot shoot at us as our forces move forward and our forces are under in the business without flanking them taking them from the rear using our attack helicopters 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 there it's been dusty out there there's black smoke and haze in the air it's an infantryman's weather God loves the infantryman and that's just the kind of whether the infantryman 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 and 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 couldn'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 indications what story or jar you saying though very tough a very very tough air environment obviously as this box gets smaller and smaller okay in 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 back in the back yes the general French French journalist could you tell us why the French went very fast in the desert the first day stopped in Salman and when we are invited to stop fighting after 36 hours well that's not exactly a correct statement the French mission okay on the first day was to protect our left flank what we were interested in is making sure we can find this battlefield both on the right and the left and we didn't want anyone coming in and attacking these forces which was the main attack coming in from their left flank so the French mission was to go out and not only sees our Salmaan but to set up a screen across all 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 performed it extraordinarily well yes sir air force disappeared very early in the air war there was speculation they might return to provide cover during the groundwork were you expecting that are you surprised they never showed themselves again we I was not expecting it we were not expecting it but I would tell you that we never discounted it and we were totally prepared in the event it happened honey I have you have they been completely destroyed where I there's not an airplane has flown I'll tell you where there are a lot of them are dispersed throughout civilian communities in Iraq where you have a lot of indicates we have proof of that the [ __ ] yeah right here how many divisions of the Republican Guard now are you fighting and an idea how long that will take we're probably fighting on the order of we fought there were a total of five of them up here okay one of them we had probably destroyed yesterday we probably destroyed two more today and I would say that that leaves us a couple that we're in the process of fighting right now yeah did I ask you two questions first did you think that this would turn out I realize a great deal of strategy and planning went into it but when it took place did you think this would turn out to be such an easy cakewalk as it seems and and secondly what are your impressions of Saddam Hussein as a military strategist yeah first of all if we thought it would have been such an easy easy fight we definitely would not have stocked 60 days worth of supplies on these log bases so it as I told as I told you all for a very very long time it is very very important for a military commander never to assume away the capabilities of his enemy and when you're facing an enemy that is over 500,000 strong has a reputation that they've had of fighting for eight years being combat hardened veterans had the number of tanks and the type of equipment they had you don't assume or anything so we certainly did not expect it to go this way as far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist he is neither a strategist nor is he schooled in the operational art nor is he a tactician nor is he a general nor is he as a soldier other than that he's a great military man I want you know back here I wonder if you could tell us anything more about Iraqi casualties in the battle that you said there were large numbers are we talking thousands tens of thousands of you anymore scale that you know I wish I could answer that question as you can imagine this has been a very fast-moving battle as is desert warfare and as a result even today when I was asking for estimates every commander out there said we just can't give you an estimate it went too fast we've gone bye-bye too quickly yes we're very quickly the Special Operations folks could you tell us what their role was we don't like to talk a lot about what the Special Operations do as you're well aware but in this case let me let me just cover some of the things I did first of all with every single Arab unit that went into battle we had we had Special Forces troops with them the job of those Special Forces was to travel and live right down at the battalion level with all those people to make sure that they could act as the communicators with friendly english-speaking units that were on their flanks and they could also call in airstrikes as necessary they could coordinate helicopter strikes and that sort of thing that's one of the principal roles that they played and was a very very important role secondly they did a great job in strategic reconnaissance for us thirdly the Special Forces were 100% in charge of the combat search and rescue and that's the tough mission when a pilot gets shot down out there in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the enemy and you're the folks that are required to go in and go after them that is a very tough mission and that was one of their missions and finally they also did some direct-action missions period as general there been reports that when the Iraqis left Kuwait City they took with them a number of the Kuwaiti people as hostages what can you tell us about this we've heard that they took up to 40,000 I think that you've probably heard the Kuwaiti themselves who were who are left in the city state that they were taking people and that they have taken them so I don't think there's any question about the fact that there was a very very large number of young Kuwaiti x' males taken out of that city within the last week or two but that pales that pales to insignificance compared to the absolutely unspeakable atrocities that occurred in kuwait in the last week it is they're not a part of the same human race the people that did that that the rest of us are I got it I've got the prey that that's the case yes sir no sir I wouldn't want to talk could you give us some indication of the what's happening to the forces left in Kuwait what kind of forces are they the size and are they engaged at the moment they three symbols any of these up here I know the ones in Kuwait the three symbols to the right these right here yeah I don't I'm not even sure they're here okay I think they're probably gone okay because we had a lot picked up a lot of signals with people there's a road that goes right around here and goes out that way and I think they probably more than likely are gone so what you're really based with is you're ending up fighting these Republican guards heavy mekin armored units there that are there and basically what we want to do is capture their equipment see ways then so in fact they are they are all I can't wait and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they're not pockets of people all around here who are just waiting to surrender as soon as somebody uncovers them comes to them but we're certainly not getting any internal fighting going on across our lines of communication or any that sort of thing right general not taking any away from the Army and the Marines and reaching maneuver house you don't but but many of the reports and the pools have got from your field commanders and the soldiers were indicating that these fortifications were not as in intense or sophisticated as they were led to believe is this a result the pounding that they took that you described earlier or is it they were perhaps overrated in the first place you ever been in the minefield no there's all there's got to be is one mind and that's intense okay there were plenty of minds out there were plenty of barbed wire there were fire trenches that we most of which we set off ahead of time but there are still some that were out there the Egyptian forces had to go through fire trenches there were a lot of booby traps a lot of barbed wire and not a fun place to be I got to tell you the probably one of the toughest things that anyone ever has to do is to go up there and walk into something like that and go through it and consider that while you're going through it and clearing it at the same time you're probably under fire by the enemy artillery that's all I can say was was it was it less was less severe than you had even expected I mean when you're effecting even worse it was less severe than we expected and but one of the things I attribute that to is the fact that we went through extensive measures to try and make it less severe okay and we really did that's I'm I didn't mean to be facetious with my answer I just got to tell you that that is a very tough mission for any any person to do particularly in a minefield yes sir your role is the Republican Guard your only remaining military objective in Iraq and I gather there have been some heavy engagements how would you rate this army you've faced from the Republican Guard on down look reading an army is a tough thing to do a great deal of the of the capability of the orman army is its dedication to its cause and its will to fight you can have the best equipment of the world you can have the largest numbers in the world but but if you're not dedicated to your cause if you don't have a will to fight then then you're not going to have a very good army one of the things that we learned is towards right fire to the initiation of the campaign that of course contributed as a matter of fact to the timing of the ground campaign is that so many people were deserting and I think you've heard this that the Iraqis brought down execution squads whose job was to shoot people okay in the front lines I got to tell you what the soldier doesn't fight very hard for a leader who is going to shoot him okay on his own whim that's not what military leadership is all about and so I attributed a great deal of the failure of the Iraqi army to fight to their own leadership they committed to them to a cause that they did not believe in they all are saying that they didn't want to be there they didn't want to fight their fellow Arab they were lied to they were deceived and when they went into Kuwait they didn't believe in the cause and then after they got there they had a leadership that was so uncaring for them okay that they didn't properly feed them they didn't properly give them water and in the end they kept him there only at the point of a gun so I can't now the Republican Guard is entirely different the Republican Guard are the ones that went into Kuwait in the first place they get paid more they get treated better and oh by the way they also were well to the rear here okay so they could be the first ones to bug out okay when when the battlefield started folding while these poor fellows up here who didn't want to be here the first place for the brunt of the attack well I didn't happen would you tell us something about the British involvement and perhaps comment on today's report of ten dead through fire yeah the British I've got to tell you have been absolutely superb members of this coalition from the outset I have a great deal of admiration respect for all the British that are out there and particularly General Sir Peter de la ba who is not only a great general but he's also become a very close personal friend of mine they played a very very key role in the movement of the main attack I will tell you that what they had to do is go through this breach in one of the tougher areas because because I told you they had reinforced here there were a lot of forces here and what the Brits had to do was go through the breach and then set up the block so that the main attack could continue on without forces over here the mechanized forces over here attacking that main attack in the flank and that was a principal role the British they did it absolutely magnificently and then they immediately followed up in the main attack and they're still up there fighting right now so they just did did a great job Yeah right here these forty thousand Kuwaiti hostages taken by the Iraqis where are they right now that's quite a few people are they in the line of fire do we know whether oh no we were told and again and this is a lot of this as anecdotal okay we were told that they were taken back to to Basra we were also told that that some of them were taken all the way back to Baghdad we were told a hundred different reasons why they would take a number one to be a bargaining chip if the time came when bargaining chips were needed another one was for retribution because of course at that time Iraq was saying that these people were not Kuwait ease these were citizens of Iraq and therefore they could do anything they wanted to do with them so I just pray that they'll all be returned safely before long yes sir right no uh the other day on television the deputy Soviet foreign minister said that they were talking again about already about rearming the Iraqis and there's some indication that the United States as well believes that Iraq needs to have a certain amount of armament to retain the balance of power do you feel that your troops are in jeopardy finishing this off when already the politicians are talking about rearming the Iraqis how do you feel about that well I certainly don't want to discuss you know what the deputy foreign minister of the Soviet Union says that's way out of my field I would tell you that I'm one of the first people that said at the outset that it's not in the best interest of peace in this part of the world to destroy Iraq and I think the president nine states has made it very clear from the outset that our intention is not to destroy Iraq or the Iraqi people I think that everyone has has every right to legitimately defend themselves but the one thing that's come through loud and clear over and over and over again to the people that have flown over Iraq to the pilots that have gone in against our military installations when you look at the war machine that they built that war machine definitely was not a defensive war machine and they demonstrated that more than adequately when they overran Kuwait and then called it a great military victory yeah before starting the the land phase how much were you concerned by the Iraqi planes coming back from Iran and do we know what happened to the Iraqi helicopter ISM no that as I said before we were we were very concerned about the return of the Iraqi planes from Iran but we were prepared for we've been completely prepared for any type of air attack that the Iraqis might throw against us and oh by the way we're still prepared for it we're not going to let down our guard for one instant so long as we know that capability is there until we're sure that this whole thing is over the helicopters are another very interesting story and that's we we know where the helicopters were they traditionally put their helicopters near some of their other outfits and we track them very carefully but what happened is despite the fact that the Iraqis claimed that we indiscriminately bomb civilian targets they took their helicopters and to disperse them all over the place in civilian residential areas just as fast as they possibly could so but quite a few of them were damaged on airfields those that we could take on airfields but the rest of them were dispersed back here I'd like to ask you you mentioned about the Saudi Army forces could you elaborate about the role in the first day I mean about what I'm sorry for the role of Saudi army and then the role from from the first day yeah the Saudi army as I said the first thing they did was they we had this marine attack that was going to hear it of course we were concerned about the forces over here again hitting the flanks that's one of the things you just don't want to have happen to you're advancing forces so this force over here the eastern task force had to attack up the coast to pin these enemies in this location the forces again the saudi forces over in this area were attacked through here again to pin all the forces in this area because we didn't want those forces moving in this direction and we didn't want those forces moving in that direction that's a tough mission okay because these people were being required to fight the kind of fight that the Iraqis wanted them to fight it's a very very tough mission I would point out it wasn't only the Saudis I have to I tell you it was the Saudis that was the Kuwait ease it was the Egyptians it was the Syrians it was the Emir ease from the united arab emirate it was the bahrain ease it was a country and it was the oman ease and i apologize if I have left anybody out but it was a great coalition of people all of whom did a fine job back anything left of the Scud or chemical capability I don't know I don't know but we're sure going to find out if there's anything you know the scuds that were being fired against Saudi Arabia came from right here okay so obviously one of the things we're going to check on when we finally get to that location is what's left yeah right yeah please general um could you tell us in terms of the air war of how effective you think it was in speeding up the ground campaign because obviously it's gone much faster than you ever expected and as the second part of that how effective do you think the air land battle campaign has been the the air war obviously was very very effective you just can't predict about things like that you can make your best estimates at the outset as to how quickly you will accomplish certain objectives but of course a lot of that depends upon the enemy and how resilient the enemy is how tough they are how well dug in they are in the earlier stages we made great progress in the air war in the latter stages we didn't make a lot of progress because frankly they the enemy had burrowed down into the ground as a result of the air war now that of course made the air war little bit tougher but when you dig your tanks in and bury them they're no longer tanks there now pill boxes and that then makes a difference in the contribution and in the ground campaign when you don't run them for a long time they have seals problems they have a lot of maintenance problems and this sort of thing so the the air care campaign was very very successful and contributed a great deal how effective was the air ground campaign I think it's pretty effective myself I don't know what you all think what you think as you look down the road would be a reasonable size for the Iraqi army and can you tell us roughly what the size is now if the ward were to stop this evening I would regard to the size right now at one time Saddam Hussein was claiming that he had a seven million man army there's a seven billion man army they still got a pretty big army out there how effective that army is is an entirely different question with regard to the size of the army he should have I don't think that's my job to decide that I think that there's an awful lot of people that live in this part of the world and I would hope that that is a decision that's arrived at mutually by all the people in this part of the world to contribute to peace and stability in this part of the world I think that that's the best time so I can give right there I'm sorry I get you all a minute yeah you said the gate was closed have you have you got ground forces blocking the roads to Basra I know there is there any way that they can get out that way no that's why the gates closed right here yeah military or political explanation as to why the Iraqis did not use chemical weapons we've got a lot of questions about why the Iraqis did use chemical weapons and and I don't know the answer but I just thank God that they didn't didn't use them because they didn't have time to react and I okay you want me to speculate I'll be delighted to speculate nobody could ever pin you down when you speculate number one we destroy their artillery we went after their artillery big time they had major desertions in artillery and the are toy that would have been that's where how they would have delivered their chemical weapons either battle by air we all know what happen to the air so we went out there it's already big time and I think we were probably highly highly effective and going after their artillery there are other people who are speculating that the reason why they didn't do weapons is because they're afraid that if they use chemical weapons would be nuclear retaliation there's other people that speculate that they didn't use their chemical weapons because their chemical weapons degraded and and because of the damage that we did to their chemical production facilities they were unable to upgrade the chemicals within their weapons as a result of that degradation that was one of the reasons among others while we went after their chemical production facilities early on in the strategic campaign I'll never know the answer to that question but as I say thank God that they didn't all the way back in the back are you still bombing in northern Iraq and if you are what's the purpose of it now ah yes I'm sorry what's being achieved now military purposes that we is exactly the same things we're trying to achieve before ok the war is not over and you've got to remember people are still dying out there ok and those people that are dying are my troops and I'm going to continue to protect those troops in every way I possibly can until the war is over that's all right here how soon after you finally beaten those double guards and yellow forces who threatened you will you move your troops out of Iraq either into Kuwait or back into Saudi that's not my decision to make what are you doing to try and bring to justice the people responsible for the atrocities in Kuwait City and also could you comment on the friendly fire incident in which nine Britons were killed yeah I'm sorry that was asked earlier and I failed to do that first of all on the first question we have as much information as possible on those people that were committing the atrocities and of course we're going through a screening purpose and whenever we find those people that did in fact commit those atrocities we try and separate them out we treat them no differently than any other prisoner of war but the ultimate disposition of those people of course might be quite different than the way we would treat any other prisoner of war with regard to the the the unfortunate incident yesterday the only report we have is that two eight ten aircraft came in and they attacked two Scout cars British armored cars and that's what caused the casualties over 9ki a we deeply regret that there's no excuse for it I'm not going to apologize for it I am going to say that that our experience has been that based upon the extremely complicated number of a number of different maneuvers that were being accomplished out here according to extreme diversity of the number of forces that were out here according to this extreme differences in languages of the forces that are out here and and the weather conditions and everything else I feel that we were quite lucky that we did not have more of this type of incident I would also tell you that because we had a few earlier that you know about that we went to extraordinary lengths to try and prevent that type of thing from happening it's a terrible tragedy and I'm sorry that it happened I I don't know I'm sorry I can I don't believe so because I believe the information I had that a forward air controller was involved and can in and directing that and that would indicate that it was probably during the afternoon but it was when there was a very very close combat going on out there in that area in the United Nations General Assembly is talking about peace and as a military man do you you look at your challenge and you get some satisfaction out of having achieved it is there some fear on your part that there will be a ceasefire that will keep you from fulfilling the assignment that you have your assignment as a military man is your assignment as a military man separate from the political goals that the do I fear of ceasefire you fear that you will not people accomplish your ends that there will be some political pressure brought on the campaign I think I've made it very clear to everybody that I just assumed the war never started and I just assumed never have lost a single life out there that was not our choice we've accomplished our mission and when the decision makers come to the decision that there should be a ceasefire nobody will be happier than me all the way back in the back but take a couple more questions and I have to go general we were told today that an a-10 returning from a mission discovered and destroyed 16 scuds is that in fact and where they located most of those scuds were located in western Iraq I would tell you that we went into this with some intelligence estimates that I think I have I have since come to believe we're either grossly inaccurate or our pilots are lying through their teeth and I choose to think the former rather than the latter particularly since many of the pilots have backed up what they've been saying by film and that sort of thing but we went in with a very very low number of these mobile erector launchers that we thought the enemy had however at one point we had a report that they may have had ten times as many I would tell you though that last night the pilots had a very very successful afternoon and night as far as the mobile record launchers most of them western Iraq which would have been used against Israel one question here yes sir general you've said many times in the past that you do not like body counts you've also told us tonight that they were enemy casualties were very very large I'm I'm wondering with the coalition forces already burying the dead on the battlefield will there ever be any sort of accounting or headcounts made or anything like that I don't think there's ever been ever in the history of warfare been on a successful count of dead and one of the reasons for the reason you say and that's because it's necessary to to lay those people to rest for a lot of reasons and that happens so I would say that no there will never be an exact count you know but probably in the days to come you're going to hear many many stories either overinflated or under and plated depending upon here who you hear them from the people who will know best unfortunately are the families that will won't see their loved ones come home one more question right here yes sir if the gate is indeed closed as you've said several times and the theories about where these Kuwaiti hostages are perhaps Basra perhaps Baghdad where could they be and a quick second question was the timing for the start of the ground campaign a purely military choice or it was a military choice with political influence on the right choice of date that's right let me when I say the gate is closed I don't want to give you the impression that absolutely nothing is escaping quite the contrary what isn't escaping is heavy tanks what isn't escaping is artillery pieces what isn't escaping is that sort of thing that doesn't mean that that civilian vehicles aren't escaping that doesn't mean that innocent civilians aren't escaping that doesn't mean that unarmed Iraqis are escaping and that's not the gate I'm talking about I'm talking about the gate that is closed on the war machine that is out there now your other question was for the beginning of the ground timing for the beginning of the ground campaign we made military analysis of when that ground campaign should should be conducted I gave my recommendation to the Secretary of Defense and General Colin Powell they passed that recommendation on to the president the president acted upon that recommendation why do you think we did it at the wrong time I'm wondering if your recommendation and analysis was accepted without change my I'm very thankful for the fact that the president has allowed the United States military and the coalition military to fight this war exactly as it should have been fought and the president in every case has taken our our guidance and our recommendations to heart and and has has acted superbly as a commander-in-chief of the United States thank you very much you

Channel: Richard Mackenzie

Views: 2,086,169

Rating: 4.8523612 out of 5

Keywords: News TV, Schwarzkopf, Desert Storm, Persian Gulf War, Iraq, Kuwait, Saddam Hussein, Gulf War, President Bush, Press Conference, News Conference, Richard Mackenzie

Id: wKi3NwLFkX4

Length: 57min 44sec (3464 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 29 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/the_georgetown_elite]

This is one of the most famous military briefings of the 20th century. When the title here says "immediately after", it means immediately after—the ground campaign of Desert Storm had both commenced and finished that very same week. GEN Schwarzkopf covers not only the military strategy and the battles and events, but also fields questions that dip into the political realm as well.

You will be fascinated enough that you will probably watch the entire video. I wish they still did these kind of military/political briefings today.

[u/jl2l]

What I find fascinating is this is big army at its apex, I love the causal mention of SF forces as a near afterthought its crazy how much the army has shifted from this mindset.

[u/[deleted]]

God, Stormin' Norman was up there with Hulk Hogan and my dad as far as super heroes went in 1991.

One of the things that impresses me the most with hindsight is the job he had to do keeping the coalition functioning with what I'm sure were some vociferous leaders.