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CNN Live Saturday
A Look at Challenges Involved in Supporting Invasion
Aired March 08, 2003 - 15:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Wars are not fought with guns and ammunition alone. Convoys must carry everything from food and fuel to supplies for refugees. It takes intricate choreography to get the right supplies to the right places.
Joining us now with more on the challenges involved in supporting an invasion, CNN military analyst, retired Brigadier General David Grange. General, thanks for being with us today. We appreciate your time.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.
SAN MIGUEL: So we're not just talking about liberating Kuwait in this particular instance, unlike '91. We're talking about going from Kuwait, possibly traveling some 300 miles to Baghdad and encountering resistance along the way, right?
GRANGE: Along the way, and it may be more than 300 miles, depends how wide units swing out, let's say, to the west back into the north. Because of the Turkish situation, some forces may have to go north of Baghdad that are not flown in, that have to drive by track- and-wheel vehicles up to the north.
So yes, it's quite a distance, and some tough terrain in places and you have to supply that whole effort.
SAN MIGUEL: And what -- you mentioned some of the vehicles, but what kinds of vehicles overall are we talking about? Not just tanks and Bradleys and troop carriers, is it?
GRANGE: No, you have more support vehicles than you actually have fighting vehicles that are involved in this process. You've got to move thousands of gallons of fuel and water. You have to move ammunition. You have to move food for the fighting forces. And then you have to sustain them. And then you also have to take care of civilians that may have a problem along the way, though the fighters don't do that, units behind them must take care of the humanitarian assistance demands. And so it's quite an effort, and it's an old saying in the military that the tail wags the dog, and that's for sure. It sure does. It's quite a science.
SAN MIGUEL: The fuel issues involved here must be staggering as well, and when it comes to all of those vehicles, in the tanks in particular, you're talking gallons to the mile, not miles to the gallon. GRANGE: Yeah, two gallons a mile for the Abrams M-1, A-1 or A-2 tank. So you use up fuel quite rapidly, and not only for the ground vehicles, but also you've got to refuel helicopters all over the battlefield as well. So you're moving thousands of pounds, thousands of gallons of equipment on vehicles, by helicopter, air drop possibly, to supply these forces as they are employed throughout Iraq.
SAN MIGUEL: And obviously, we're talking water as well, because it's the desert, because of the temperatures rising and the deeper that we get into this, how difficult is it going to be to make sure that all those troops have water?
GRANGE: That's the only thing -- almost as important as ammunition. Number one, you've got to get the ammunition up there. Number two, water, food. That's a little lower priority.
SAN MIGUEL: We're talking in the range of a quarter of a million troops, materiel and personnel. How difficult to choreograph all of that from the Pentagon or from regions or from the region itself?
GRANGE: Well, they're going to study overhead imagery to look at the soil compositions, what they call the trafficability of the terrain. They color code maps, that for instance, go, no go, slow go, different categories for the different kinds of vehicles, track vehicles, wheel vehicles, and existing roads that will support these large trucks, carrying, you know, thousands of gallons of fuel and water. The type of berms that may be in the area, canals, rivers, the bridge classification, how much will a bridge actually hold. Will it hold an Abrams tank, for example? A bridge may not be constructed robust enough to do that.
The marshes, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), all these things are considered moving combat forces as well as the support forces to do this war.
SAN MIGUEL: And you mentioned this earlier, but you have to factor in the humanitarian support as well. We're not just talking about supporting troops, but civilians. And the refugee crisis from Kosovo kind of, you know, taught a lesson that doesn't need to be repeated in terms of this particular war.
GRANGE: Yes. Quite a tall order. And, you know, other units are designated to do that, besides the fighting units, but it does bog down the fighting units. And for instance, there may be one key road that you're trying to get combat supplies up to the fighting forces, but that same road may be just cluttered with civilians trying to escape, or to move, or wounded, or maybe it's a catastrophe from a chemical or biological strike by Saddam's forces.
So all those things are in equation on how to move around and how to supply and keep people alive during some very tense periods of time. And that all has to be prioritized into accomplishing the objective of the ground commanders. So very extensive coordination and support needed to do this fight.
SAN MIGUEL: And finally, we just showed briefly a map of some of the known roads in Iraq. You know, we're not talking about paved roads for a lot of these situations. They're going to have to be going kind of -- I don't want to be flip about it, but four-wheeling in some of these situations.
GRANGE: Yes, tough -- the roads are -- though there are paved, obviously, paved roads, some roads may not be accessible, maybe bridges are blown up, and they have to go around on the desert track to get to an objective. And again, careful study of the terrain on where you can move the fighting vehicles and support vehicles. And the support vehicles, of course, have a tougher go at it in rougher terrain.
So this drives -- if you go 100 miles and attack and you can't go any further because you need to get the supplies in, like fuel, very critical to continue onto your objectives, let's say, up towards Baghdad. So this is a -- this is the key aspect of the fight, is sustaining it, being able to get the fighters where they have to be, and keep them resupplied so they can continue with their mission.
SAN MIGUEL: A lot of focus is on the weapons and on the high tech weaponry and things like that, but it's the support that makes the military go.
Retired military -- retired Brigadier General David Grange, thanks for joining us. We appreciate your time.
GRANGE: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 8, 2003 - 15:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Wars are not fought with guns and ammunition alone. Convoys must carry everything from food and fuel to supplies for refugees. It takes intricate choreography to get the right supplies to the right places.
Joining us now with more on the challenges involved in supporting an invasion, CNN military analyst, retired Brigadier General David Grange. General, thanks for being with us today. We appreciate your time.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.
SAN MIGUEL: So we're not just talking about liberating Kuwait in this particular instance, unlike '91. We're talking about going from Kuwait, possibly traveling some 300 miles to Baghdad and encountering resistance along the way, right?
GRANGE: Along the way, and it may be more than 300 miles, depends how wide units swing out, let's say, to the west back into the north. Because of the Turkish situation, some forces may have to go north of Baghdad that are not flown in, that have to drive by track- and-wheel vehicles up to the north.
So yes, it's quite a distance, and some tough terrain in places and you have to supply that whole effort.
SAN MIGUEL: And what -- you mentioned some of the vehicles, but what kinds of vehicles overall are we talking about? Not just tanks and Bradleys and troop carriers, is it?
GRANGE: No, you have more support vehicles than you actually have fighting vehicles that are involved in this process. You've got to move thousands of gallons of fuel and water. You have to move ammunition. You have to move food for the fighting forces. And then you have to sustain them. And then you also have to take care of civilians that may have a problem along the way, though the fighters don't do that, units behind them must take care of the humanitarian assistance demands. And so it's quite an effort, and it's an old saying in the military that the tail wags the dog, and that's for sure. It sure does. It's quite a science.
SAN MIGUEL: The fuel issues involved here must be staggering as well, and when it comes to all of those vehicles, in the tanks in particular, you're talking gallons to the mile, not miles to the gallon. GRANGE: Yeah, two gallons a mile for the Abrams M-1, A-1 or A-2 tank. So you use up fuel quite rapidly, and not only for the ground vehicles, but also you've got to refuel helicopters all over the battlefield as well. So you're moving thousands of pounds, thousands of gallons of equipment on vehicles, by helicopter, air drop possibly, to supply these forces as they are employed throughout Iraq.
SAN MIGUEL: And obviously, we're talking water as well, because it's the desert, because of the temperatures rising and the deeper that we get into this, how difficult is it going to be to make sure that all those troops have water?
GRANGE: That's the only thing -- almost as important as ammunition. Number one, you've got to get the ammunition up there. Number two, water, food. That's a little lower priority.
SAN MIGUEL: We're talking in the range of a quarter of a million troops, materiel and personnel. How difficult to choreograph all of that from the Pentagon or from regions or from the region itself?
GRANGE: Well, they're going to study overhead imagery to look at the soil compositions, what they call the trafficability of the terrain. They color code maps, that for instance, go, no go, slow go, different categories for the different kinds of vehicles, track vehicles, wheel vehicles, and existing roads that will support these large trucks, carrying, you know, thousands of gallons of fuel and water. The type of berms that may be in the area, canals, rivers, the bridge classification, how much will a bridge actually hold. Will it hold an Abrams tank, for example? A bridge may not be constructed robust enough to do that.
The marshes, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), all these things are considered moving combat forces as well as the support forces to do this war.
SAN MIGUEL: And you mentioned this earlier, but you have to factor in the humanitarian support as well. We're not just talking about supporting troops, but civilians. And the refugee crisis from Kosovo kind of, you know, taught a lesson that doesn't need to be repeated in terms of this particular war.
GRANGE: Yes. Quite a tall order. And, you know, other units are designated to do that, besides the fighting units, but it does bog down the fighting units. And for instance, there may be one key road that you're trying to get combat supplies up to the fighting forces, but that same road may be just cluttered with civilians trying to escape, or to move, or wounded, or maybe it's a catastrophe from a chemical or biological strike by Saddam's forces.
So all those things are in equation on how to move around and how to supply and keep people alive during some very tense periods of time. And that all has to be prioritized into accomplishing the objective of the ground commanders. So very extensive coordination and support needed to do this fight.
SAN MIGUEL: And finally, we just showed briefly a map of some of the known roads in Iraq. You know, we're not talking about paved roads for a lot of these situations. They're going to have to be going kind of -- I don't want to be flip about it, but four-wheeling in some of these situations.
GRANGE: Yes, tough -- the roads are -- though there are paved, obviously, paved roads, some roads may not be accessible, maybe bridges are blown up, and they have to go around on the desert track to get to an objective. And again, careful study of the terrain on where you can move the fighting vehicles and support vehicles. And the support vehicles, of course, have a tougher go at it in rougher terrain.
So this drives -- if you go 100 miles and attack and you can't go any further because you need to get the supplies in, like fuel, very critical to continue onto your objectives, let's say, up towards Baghdad. So this is a -- this is the key aspect of the fight, is sustaining it, being able to get the fighters where they have to be, and keep them resupplied so they can continue with their mission.
SAN MIGUEL: A lot of focus is on the weapons and on the high tech weaponry and things like that, but it's the support that makes the military go.
Retired military -- retired Brigadier General David Grange, thanks for joining us. We appreciate your time.
GRANGE: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
