Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Jack Liles

Aired December 07, 2002 - 16:49   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: As the American military gets ready for possible war with Iraq, another long-running U.S. mission continues over Iraq -- enforcement, of course, of the no-fly zones.
Here to talk about that former Navy pilot Jack Liles who flew and F-14 in Desert Storm and flew the no-fly zones mission over southern Iraq.

Good to have you with us.

JACK LILES, FORMER NAVY PILOT: Good to see you.

PHILLIPS: So do you miss being there? Do you wish you were there right now?

LILES: I do every now and then. I like comfortable Atlanta, Georgia but I miss the Gulf.

PHILLIPS: I can imagine. Well, tell be about when you were enforcing the no-fly zones. Do you remember getting shot at? Do you remember Saddam Hussein not complying with what he was supposed to do?

LILES: I must say that most of the missions I had while I was over there were rather calm and peaceful and there wasn't a lot of hostile activity going on.

I was there in the '93 -- '94 timeframe when the no-fly zones were still relatively new. But it was a great training environment. We had a -- the awesome opportunity to fly into -- deep into Iraq, see where different weapons sites were, get a lay of the land and get a real good feel for what southern Iraq was all about, how to fly from the Gulf from the carrier up into that area, just how all of the operations worked. So it was a lot about getting comfortable with that part of the world and comfortable flying there.

PHILLIPS: Yeah -- let's talk about that because you know I was over in the region for awhile and got a chance to talk with these fighter pilots and talk about if there was a possible war against Iraq if they were ready for it.

And they were saying what a difference from Afghanistan because they didn't know that terrain ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they didn't know how to get those bombs in the caves. There was a lot of learning going on.

But they've had 10 years to map Iraq ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they know it like the back of their hand.

LILES: Right. I think in both the Air Force and the Navy probably 75 percent of the pilots right now have had some type of experience in southern Iraq. And we really do know it like the back of our hand.

And northern Iraq, too -- let's not forget the northern no-fly zone.

PHILLIPS: Right.

LILES: There's -- we've just got an awful lot of experience there and there's an awful lot of -- I don't want to say a comfort level but there's a lot more awareness about where things are -- landmarks. There's something about flying in an area you're comfortable with that lets you take away some of those navigation problems -- some of those "Where are we now? What's that noise? What's that light?" And be more focused on your target, be more focused on enemy things you need to worry about.

And I think that's one of the big benefits of having done this no-fly zone for the past 10 years. Our pilots are very, very comfortable in that part of the world.

PHILLIPS: And you also said the containment strategy here ...

LILES: Yeah.

PHILLIPS: ... is very effective.

LILES: I think so. No matter what we do over the next six months or so -- 12 months -- 18 months out, this no-fly zone containment strategy, if you will, has worked well.

We've have been tasked approval. No one has really complained too much. You haven't heard the global community complaining about the fact that we're flying combat aircraft into dog gone near the southern suburbs of Baghdad keeping an eye on him.

We've kept him in check. He hasn't threatened any of his neighbors.

He's had a hard time and had to really hide moving his weapons systems around particularly above the 36th parallel and below the 33rd parallel.

So this is an interesting strategy that has worked to contain Saddam. Yes -- it's expensive, yes -- a lot of our service people are having to be deployed in an uncomfortable part of the world. But this is a strategy that's not new to us. As you know, we do this in South Korea, we've done this in Western Europe for a long time. Yes -- each one is a little different but this is I think just another version of our ability to watch a part of the world that we're threatened by that we want to stay peaceful and it's been very effective.

PHILLIPS: And it's been effective keeping Saddam Hussein out of all of these other countries you were saying.

LILES: Absolutely. He wouldn't dare amass troops on the Kuwaiti border again or the Saudi border or his northwestern neighbors without knowing that we'll see every move he's making, that we've got combat aircraft overhead that could interdict and stop any type of movement like that.

So in that sense he's behaved himself. Other than the stuff he's doing in these buildings and underground maybe he's more or less behaved himself at a tactical level due to our presence north and south of Baghdad.

PHILLIPS: Do you think he's getting a little more antsy now? Some of the guys were saying overseas -- that OK -- like you were saying when you were there -- it was pretty calm and ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... you weren't really getting shot at. Now they're saying it's happening almost on a regular basis ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they think that he's getting antsy and he's getting a little more aggressive in a few different ways.

LILES: I think so. We've heard that he's given a -- put out a $14,000 bounty to any gunner who can shoot down an American aircraft. That's pretty bold in itself.

PHILLIPS: Yeah.

LILES: But I think for our pilots and for the folks working the north and south no-fly zones it's really just been more experience. When he turns those radars on and when he starts to fire that anti- aircraft activity at us, fires missiles at us -- that's just that much more experience our pilots get because they've got the ability then to go in and strike those targets.

That's experience you can't get anywhere else. And it's -- it's a threat -- yes -- you're on the lookout but they're not very good at firing those missiles. They're not really good with their anti- aircraft artillery so it's pretty easy pickings to go in and take them out.

But it's great experience and it gives our pilots that much more of a feel for the type of threat they're going to be going up against. PHILLIPS: Former Navy pilot Jack Liles -- always a pleasure. Thank you.

LILES: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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 December 7, 2002 - 16:49   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: As the American military gets ready for possible war with Iraq, another long-running U.S. mission continues over Iraq -- enforcement, of course, of the no-fly zones.
Here to talk about that former Navy pilot Jack Liles who flew and F-14 in Desert Storm and flew the no-fly zones mission over southern Iraq.

Good to have you with us.

JACK LILES, FORMER NAVY PILOT: Good to see you.

PHILLIPS: So do you miss being there? Do you wish you were there right now?

LILES: I do every now and then. I like comfortable Atlanta, Georgia but I miss the Gulf.

PHILLIPS: I can imagine. Well, tell be about when you were enforcing the no-fly zones. Do you remember getting shot at? Do you remember Saddam Hussein not complying with what he was supposed to do?

LILES: I must say that most of the missions I had while I was over there were rather calm and peaceful and there wasn't a lot of hostile activity going on.

I was there in the '93 -- '94 timeframe when the no-fly zones were still relatively new. But it was a great training environment. We had a -- the awesome opportunity to fly into -- deep into Iraq, see where different weapons sites were, get a lay of the land and get a real good feel for what southern Iraq was all about, how to fly from the Gulf from the carrier up into that area, just how all of the operations worked. So it was a lot about getting comfortable with that part of the world and comfortable flying there.

PHILLIPS: Yeah -- let's talk about that because you know I was over in the region for awhile and got a chance to talk with these fighter pilots and talk about if there was a possible war against Iraq if they were ready for it.

And they were saying what a difference from Afghanistan because they didn't know that terrain ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they didn't know how to get those bombs in the caves. There was a lot of learning going on.

But they've had 10 years to map Iraq ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they know it like the back of their hand.

LILES: Right. I think in both the Air Force and the Navy probably 75 percent of the pilots right now have had some type of experience in southern Iraq. And we really do know it like the back of our hand.

And northern Iraq, too -- let's not forget the northern no-fly zone.

PHILLIPS: Right.

LILES: There's -- we've just got an awful lot of experience there and there's an awful lot of -- I don't want to say a comfort level but there's a lot more awareness about where things are -- landmarks. There's something about flying in an area you're comfortable with that lets you take away some of those navigation problems -- some of those "Where are we now? What's that noise? What's that light?" And be more focused on your target, be more focused on enemy things you need to worry about.

And I think that's one of the big benefits of having done this no-fly zone for the past 10 years. Our pilots are very, very comfortable in that part of the world.

PHILLIPS: And you also said the containment strategy here ...

LILES: Yeah.

PHILLIPS: ... is very effective.

LILES: I think so. No matter what we do over the next six months or so -- 12 months -- 18 months out, this no-fly zone containment strategy, if you will, has worked well.

We've have been tasked approval. No one has really complained too much. You haven't heard the global community complaining about the fact that we're flying combat aircraft into dog gone near the southern suburbs of Baghdad keeping an eye on him.

We've kept him in check. He hasn't threatened any of his neighbors.

He's had a hard time and had to really hide moving his weapons systems around particularly above the 36th parallel and below the 33rd parallel.

So this is an interesting strategy that has worked to contain Saddam. Yes -- it's expensive, yes -- a lot of our service people are having to be deployed in an uncomfortable part of the world. But this is a strategy that's not new to us. As you know, we do this in South Korea, we've done this in Western Europe for a long time. Yes -- each one is a little different but this is I think just another version of our ability to watch a part of the world that we're threatened by that we want to stay peaceful and it's been very effective.

PHILLIPS: And it's been effective keeping Saddam Hussein out of all of these other countries you were saying.

LILES: Absolutely. He wouldn't dare amass troops on the Kuwaiti border again or the Saudi border or his northwestern neighbors without knowing that we'll see every move he's making, that we've got combat aircraft overhead that could interdict and stop any type of movement like that.

So in that sense he's behaved himself. Other than the stuff he's doing in these buildings and underground maybe he's more or less behaved himself at a tactical level due to our presence north and south of Baghdad.

PHILLIPS: Do you think he's getting a little more antsy now? Some of the guys were saying overseas -- that OK -- like you were saying when you were there -- it was pretty calm and ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... you weren't really getting shot at. Now they're saying it's happening almost on a regular basis ...

LILES: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... and they think that he's getting antsy and he's getting a little more aggressive in a few different ways.

LILES: I think so. We've heard that he's given a -- put out a $14,000 bounty to any gunner who can shoot down an American aircraft. That's pretty bold in itself.

PHILLIPS: Yeah.

LILES: But I think for our pilots and for the folks working the north and south no-fly zones it's really just been more experience. When he turns those radars on and when he starts to fire that anti- aircraft activity at us, fires missiles at us -- that's just that much more experience our pilots get because they've got the ability then to go in and strike those targets.

That's experience you can't get anywhere else. And it's -- it's a threat -- yes -- you're on the lookout but they're not very good at firing those missiles. They're not really good with their anti- aircraft artillery so it's pretty easy pickings to go in and take them out.

But it's great experience and it gives our pilots that much more of a feel for the type of threat they're going to be going up against. PHILLIPS: Former Navy pilot Jack Liles -- always a pleasure. Thank you.

LILES: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com