Schwarzkopf Details Strategy

ON BATTLEFIELD PREPARATION:

. . . As you recall, we started our deployment on the 7th of August. Basically what we started out against was a couple hundred thousand Iraqis that were in the Kuwait theater of operation. . . .

Basically, the problem we were faced with was this: . . . As far as fighting troops, we were really outnumbered 2 to 1. In addition to that, they had about 4,700 tanks vs. 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 3 to 1 in favor of the attacker. And in order to attack a position that is heavily dug in and barricaded, such as the one we had here, you should have a ratio of 5 to 1, in the way of troops, in favor of the attacker. . . .

What we did, of course, was start an extensive air campaign. . . . One of the purposes of 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. We also conducted a very heavy bombing campaign. . . . It was necessary to reduce these forces down to a strength that . . . made them weaker, particularly on the front-line barrier that we had to go through. . . .

Once we had taken out his eyes, we did what could best be described as the “Hail Mary” play in football. . . . 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 (along the Saudi-Iraq border), because at that time we knew that he was still fixed in this area (the Saudi-Kuwait border and throughout Kuwait) 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. . . .

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 out there. They were the eyes that were out there, and it’s very important that I not forget those folks. . . .

ON THE GROUND WAR:

What we found was as soon as (two Marine divisions) breached these obstacles (at the Kuwait border) and started bringing pressure, we started getting a large number of surrenders. . . .

Once the 101st had their forward operating base established (in southeastern Iraq), 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 cause a downfall of the entire country of Iraq.

Ladies and gentlemen . . . 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 intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed, for all intents and purposes. . . .

The next two days went exactly like we thought they would go. . . .

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 is no way out. . . . That’s the situation at the present time. . . .

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, there are 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 101st--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 a Nintendo game. It is a tough battlefield where people are risking their lives at all time, and there are great heroes out there and we all ought to be very, very proud of them.

Excerpts of answers from the question-and-answer session with reporters follow.

ON IRAQI CASUALTIES:

There’s a very large number of dead in these units--a very, very large number of dead. We even found them when we went into the units 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% of the units that were along the front here. . . .

And so 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 the combination of some other people who are just flat still running. . . .

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 (of casualties), every commander out there said, “We just can’t give you an estimate. It went too fast. We’ve gone by too quickly.”

. . . I don’t think there’s ever been--ever in the history of warfare been--a successful count of dead. And one of the reasons is for the reason that you cite, and that’s because it’s necessary to lay those people to rest, for a lot of reasons, and that happens. So I would say that no, there will never been an exact count. You know, probably in the days to come you’re going to hear many, many stories, either over-inflated or under-inflated, depending upon who you hear them from. The people who will know best, unfortunately, are the families that won’t see their loved ones come home. . . .

ON LACK OF IRAQI AIR SUPPORT:

We were not expecting it (during the ground war), but I would tell you that we never discounted it, and we were totally prepared in the event it happened . . . . There’s not an airplane that’s flown. I’ll tell you where -- there are a lot of them . . . dispersed throughout civilian communities in Iraq. We have proof of that, as a matter of fact.

ON SADDAM HUSSEIN AS STRATEGIST:

Ha! (Laughter.) First of all, if we’d thought it (ground war) would have been such an easy fight, we definitely would not have stocked 60 days’ worth of supplies on these logistics bases. So, as I’ve 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 the 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 away 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 a soldier. Other than that, he’s a great military man, I want you to know that.

ON THE QUALITY OF THE IRAQI ARMY:

Rating an army is a tough thing to do. A great deal of the capability of an army is its dedication to its cause and its will to fight. You can have the best equipment in the world, you can have the largest numbers in the world, but if you’re not dedicated to your cause, if you don’t have a will to fight, then you’re not going to have a very good army.

One of the things that we learned prior 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 . . . in the front lines. I’ve got to tell you what: A soldier doesn’t fight very hard for a leader who is going to shoot him . . . on his own whim. That’s not what military leadership is all about.

And so I attribute a great deal of the failure of the Iraqi army to fight to their own leadership. They committed 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 . . . that they didn’t properly feed them, they didn’t properly give them water, and in the end, they kept them there only at the point of a gun. . . .

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, OK? So they could be the first ones to bug out . . . when the battlefield started folding, while these poor fellows up here (at the front lines) who didn’t want to be here in the first place bore the brunt of the attack. But it didn’t happen.

ON THE LACK OF CHEMICAL WARFARE:

We’ve had a lot of questions about why the Iraqis didn’t use chemical weapons, and I don’t know the answer. I just thank God that they didn’t.

You want me to speculate? I’ll be delighted to speculate. Nobody can ever pin you down when you speculate. No. 1, we destroyed their artillery. We went after their artillery big time. They had major desertions in their artillery and the artillery that would have been . . . how they would have delivered their chemical weapons. Either that or by air, and we all know what happened to the air.

So we went after the artillery big time, and I think we were probably highly, highly effective in going after their artillery. There’s other people who are speculating that the reason why they didn’t use chemical weapons is because they’re afraid that if they used chemical weapons there’d be nuclear retaliation.

There’s other people that speculate that they didn’t use chemical weapons because their chemical weapons degraded, and (that) 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--why we went after their chemical production facilities early on in the strategic campaign. . . .

ON BATTLING THE REPUBLICAN GUARD:

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 . . . put the Republican Guard out of business.

We’re not in the business of killing them. We have PSYOPS (psychological operations) aircraft up. We’re telling them over and over again: “All you’ve 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 to fight with them.

ON A POLITICAL END TO THE WAR:

Do I fear a cease-fire? . . . I think I’ve made it very clear to everybody that I’d just as soon the war had never started, and I’d just as soon 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 cease-fire, nobody will be happier than me. . . .

I’m very thankful for the fact that the President of the United States 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 guidance and our recommendations to heart and has acted superbly as the commander in chief of the United States. Thank you very much.