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American Morning
War in Iraq Appears to Have Entered Final Stage
Aired April 06, 2003 - 11:49 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The war with Iraq began from the air with bombs and missiles raining down on the capital two-and-a-half weeks ago.
Now it appears to be entering its final stage, a key role, again, will come from overhead in the form of close air support, but now it will be urban close air support.
Let's turn now to the expert on this, George Harrison, retired major general for the U.S. Air Force, now serving as a CNN military analyst.
Good to see you again.
MAJ. GEN. GEORGE HARRISON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Good to be here.
HARRIS: Let's talk about this new face now. Urban air support. What's different about that?
HARRISON: Well, the different part about that is the target development is crucial. You absolutely have to develop the kinds of targets and be sure that you've got exactly what you want before you drop. There's no open desert that accommodates errors. So we have to really be precise in the way that the coalition targets and the way the coalition drops.
HARRIS: OK. We prepared some animation to here to show -- to give people a good feel for exactly what it would be like to go into Baghdad. Let's take a look at that.
You walk us through what we're watching here.
HARRISON: OK. We see Baghdad, and we see the armored thrust coming in from the south. The small arrows in the middle around Highway 8 reflect the reconnaissance in force that came up from the south and then headed back out west toward Iraq International or Baghdad International Airport.
That reconnaissance in force was an important element which I think has also been repeated today, by the way. It's an element that gives us an idea about how this is going to be conducted.
There's not a ring of steel around Baghdad that we have to penetrate. WE have to -- The forces have to go in and work this problem bit by bit. And we'll see more and more of this kind of reconnaissance in force, find the enemy, fix the enemy with constant air support overhead, to take out particular targets that are beyond the reach or beyond the feasible reach of the armor and mechanized infantry that's going in.
HARRIS: OK. Let's go to the map table here and walk through it, the different elements. And again, we've been talking about, in the last couple of days, about how the air is going to be divided up into sectors, as well. Do you know more about how that's going to work out?
HARRISON: Sure. We see on the map that we've just notionally depicted a B-52, an A-10 and an F-18, sitting around the area, waiting for targets, waiting for the forces to develop targets.
We have red forces, or Iraqi forces, on the inside of the city, but their positions are not clear. So, again, we have to reconnoiter in force, fix those positions and develop ways in which we can find them.
But we do have forces all around the area. I think Reuters reported this morning that Highway 5 and Highway 2 have both been isolated so that reinforcement in is not possible, as well as escape out for these various forces.
HARRIS: Speaking of escape out, we also heard this morning that Iraqi officials have announced a curfew of their own. They're going to lock down the city between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., meaning that at those times civilians who may be in the city will not be able to leave. Is that going to be a big concern?
HARRISON: Well, of course it's a big concern because this is a city of about four or five million people. It's about 225 square miles, 15 miles north and south, and 15 miles east and west. So as those folks are concentrated, as we see the kinds of things going on where we have large mixtures of civilians, that's going to create quite an issue.
HARRIS: Let's walk through at least a rundown of the different kinds of terrain. You've been telling me off camera here that Baghdad presents a bit of a challenge because it's a city that has a multi -- a variety, a multiple of terrain types there. What do you mean by that?
HARRISON: Right. Well, we tend to think of cities, urban warfare as being in the urban canyon with a lot of vertical development, a lot of huge buildings, New York City, that kind of a thing.
HARRIS: Right.
HARRISON: Baghdad -- and I think we've got an animation coming up in just a minute -- Baghdad is a city that has a variety of terrain. You can see in the overhead here and as we come on down we see smaller buildings, two and three story, we see some open territory. And then we see, of course, the industrial areas, which are not concentrated in the downtown area. This varying terrain means that the troops have to have support both from the armor behind them and here we see in an Apache helicopter supporting an armored column. This kind of thing is notional as to how it might play out as we go through the operation.
HARRIS: Does this also mean you have to recalibrate the size of munitions that you use if you're going to be going to close air support in a situation like this to limit civilian casualties or damage to the infrastructure? Would you have to use smaller munitions?
HARRISON: Certainly, and I think 500-pounders will see a lot more use than the 2,000-pounders as we go through this operation, as we go through the penetration in there.
It's not going to be the kind of movement in from a great circle, and taking great, huge casualties as we saw in Stalingrad, for instance, or Berlin. It's going to be a lot more localized conflict in specific areas to do specific things.
HARRIS: General, we'll have to have you along to analyze it all the way through, too.
HARRISON: Thank you.
HARRIS: General Harrison, thank you very much. All right.
This is going to wrap things up for us this hour.
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 April 6, 2003 - 11:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The war with Iraq began from the air with bombs and missiles raining down on the capital two-and-a-half weeks ago.
Now it appears to be entering its final stage, a key role, again, will come from overhead in the form of close air support, but now it will be urban close air support.
Let's turn now to the expert on this, George Harrison, retired major general for the U.S. Air Force, now serving as a CNN military analyst.
Good to see you again.
MAJ. GEN. GEORGE HARRISON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Good to be here.
HARRIS: Let's talk about this new face now. Urban air support. What's different about that?
HARRISON: Well, the different part about that is the target development is crucial. You absolutely have to develop the kinds of targets and be sure that you've got exactly what you want before you drop. There's no open desert that accommodates errors. So we have to really be precise in the way that the coalition targets and the way the coalition drops.
HARRIS: OK. We prepared some animation to here to show -- to give people a good feel for exactly what it would be like to go into Baghdad. Let's take a look at that.
You walk us through what we're watching here.
HARRISON: OK. We see Baghdad, and we see the armored thrust coming in from the south. The small arrows in the middle around Highway 8 reflect the reconnaissance in force that came up from the south and then headed back out west toward Iraq International or Baghdad International Airport.
That reconnaissance in force was an important element which I think has also been repeated today, by the way. It's an element that gives us an idea about how this is going to be conducted.
There's not a ring of steel around Baghdad that we have to penetrate. WE have to -- The forces have to go in and work this problem bit by bit. And we'll see more and more of this kind of reconnaissance in force, find the enemy, fix the enemy with constant air support overhead, to take out particular targets that are beyond the reach or beyond the feasible reach of the armor and mechanized infantry that's going in.
HARRIS: OK. Let's go to the map table here and walk through it, the different elements. And again, we've been talking about, in the last couple of days, about how the air is going to be divided up into sectors, as well. Do you know more about how that's going to work out?
HARRISON: Sure. We see on the map that we've just notionally depicted a B-52, an A-10 and an F-18, sitting around the area, waiting for targets, waiting for the forces to develop targets.
We have red forces, or Iraqi forces, on the inside of the city, but their positions are not clear. So, again, we have to reconnoiter in force, fix those positions and develop ways in which we can find them.
But we do have forces all around the area. I think Reuters reported this morning that Highway 5 and Highway 2 have both been isolated so that reinforcement in is not possible, as well as escape out for these various forces.
HARRIS: Speaking of escape out, we also heard this morning that Iraqi officials have announced a curfew of their own. They're going to lock down the city between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., meaning that at those times civilians who may be in the city will not be able to leave. Is that going to be a big concern?
HARRISON: Well, of course it's a big concern because this is a city of about four or five million people. It's about 225 square miles, 15 miles north and south, and 15 miles east and west. So as those folks are concentrated, as we see the kinds of things going on where we have large mixtures of civilians, that's going to create quite an issue.
HARRIS: Let's walk through at least a rundown of the different kinds of terrain. You've been telling me off camera here that Baghdad presents a bit of a challenge because it's a city that has a multi -- a variety, a multiple of terrain types there. What do you mean by that?
HARRISON: Right. Well, we tend to think of cities, urban warfare as being in the urban canyon with a lot of vertical development, a lot of huge buildings, New York City, that kind of a thing.
HARRIS: Right.
HARRISON: Baghdad -- and I think we've got an animation coming up in just a minute -- Baghdad is a city that has a variety of terrain. You can see in the overhead here and as we come on down we see smaller buildings, two and three story, we see some open territory. And then we see, of course, the industrial areas, which are not concentrated in the downtown area. This varying terrain means that the troops have to have support both from the armor behind them and here we see in an Apache helicopter supporting an armored column. This kind of thing is notional as to how it might play out as we go through the operation.
HARRIS: Does this also mean you have to recalibrate the size of munitions that you use if you're going to be going to close air support in a situation like this to limit civilian casualties or damage to the infrastructure? Would you have to use smaller munitions?
HARRISON: Certainly, and I think 500-pounders will see a lot more use than the 2,000-pounders as we go through this operation, as we go through the penetration in there.
It's not going to be the kind of movement in from a great circle, and taking great, huge casualties as we saw in Stalingrad, for instance, or Berlin. It's going to be a lot more localized conflict in specific areas to do specific things.
HARRIS: General, we'll have to have you along to analyze it all the way through, too.
HARRISON: Thank you.
HARRIS: General Harrison, thank you very much. All right.
This is going to wrap things up for us this hour.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
