Word: schwarzkopf
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American A-10 attack planes and Cobra and Apache helicopters and infantry weapons appeared to be quite as deadly as advertised against Iraqi armor. General Schwarzkopf would confirm only 24 Iraqi tanks definitely destroyed, but other counts for the border battles as a whole ran as high as 80 vehicles. Correspondents who were allowed into Khafji Thursday afternoon reported that the streets were littered with the burning hulks of Soviet-made armored personnel carriers, knocked out by American TOW missiles fired by Saudi and Qatari infantrymen. U.S. Marines lost three light armored vehicles (LAVs) in the fighting around Umm Hujul...
Perhaps the most prominent lesson of Khafji is also the simplest: the Iraqis, in General Schwarzkopf's words, "certainly have a lot of fight left in them." That is hardly surprising. Early predictions of quick and low-cost victory came mainly from U.S. politicians and Arab diplomats, while the professional military has been cautious in warning against any such assumptions. Nonetheless, the question arises as to whether the air campaign has been quite as successful, and proceeding as close to schedule, as is generally believed...
Bush lieutenants admit to two other mild disappointments. Scud missile launchers in Iraq have taken a longer time to find and destroy than expected. General Schwarzkopf reported that 35 Scuds were lobbed against Israel or Saudi Arabia in the first seven days of the war, only 18 in the second seven days. And in the first half of the war's third week only four launchings were recorded: three warheads fell on or near the Israeli-occupied West Bank, causing no reported casualties, and another aimed at Riyadh was destroyed by a Patriot missile. But 1,500 sorties have been...
...Schwarzkopf reeled off impressive figures last week: 33 of 36 bridges hit on the supply lines between Iraq and Kuwait; truck traffic on the main Baghdad- to-Kuwait City road reduced to 10% of normal. But one or two of his claims might raise a skeptical eyebrow. The number of sorties flown against bridges divided by the number of bridges hit works out to almost 24 sorties per damaged bridge, which seems to indicate that a lot of "precision-guided" bombs and missiles are missing. Again, Schwarzkopf's estimate that the quantity of supplies reaching the Iraqi troops in Kuwait...
...that losses have been so low. White House officials had braced themselves for the destruction of 100 or more American planes in the first few days: the actual figure lost in combat through the first 17 days was 15, plus seven allied craft. The principal reason, according to Schwarzkopf, is that the allies have so seriously crippled the Iraqi air-defense system that Baghdad has given up all attempts to exercise central control: every antiaircraft and missile battery is on its own trying to track and intercept allied raiders. Then there is the virtual disappearance of the Iraqi air force...