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United States Moving a Number of F-117's to South Korea

Aired March 12, 2003 - 15:08   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The United States is moving some stealth fighters in South Korea to participate in military maneuvers there. An Air Force official says there's no connection to the ongoing dispute with North Korea over the North's nuclear program, but his is bound to anger North Korea. Especially after the deployment of long ranged U.S. bombers into the Asia theater. And the announcment just a little while ago, Barbara Starr from the Pentagon telling us those surveillance flights which caused that intercept of North Korean fighters a little while ago, are set to resume. So things sort of being ratcheted up with some focus on North Korea.
First of all, let's tell you a little bit about these F-117s, the stealth fighter. About 59 of them in the fleet right now. $122 million a copy. Not the fast nest the fleet, 650 miles an hour, right around supersonic, just right around that range. A range of about 690 miles, but does have aerial refueling capability. Laser-guided bombs, not satilite guided, and can carry just two of them. It doesn't have a lot of payload capacity. It's about the size of an F-15 used to attack high priority targets.

It was used heavily during the Persian Gulf War. Even though it makes up only about 2 percent of the fighter fleet, it did more than 1250 sordies because of its stealth capability. Can't be seen well by radar. Let's give you a sense of where those stealth fighters are based and where they are headed. Holloman Air Force Base in the -- right near the White Sands missile test range in New Mexico is where they are from. They made their way across the Pacific, not sure of the exact route. We'll give you the basic approximation from, Holloman, all the way over to the base, Kunsan.

Kunsan is one of two key bases in South Korea used by the United States. We have about 30,000 servicemen and women there as we have been hearing a lot about throughout this tension on the Korean Peninsula. Kunsan already has F-16s there, A-10 attack planes there as well. Nearby base Kadena Japan has F-15s which are also in striking distance. This base -- everything on the Korean Peninsula is very close, as we have pointed out many times in the past. It's only a short artillery lob from the North Korean border to Seoul. And this is some recent space imaging, satellite imagery of that Kunsan Air Force Base. That's not what it looks like just today, but that is recent, and that's where we'll have a half dozen of these F-117 fighters.

Now, the F-117 you may recall in 1999, even though it is very stealthy, radar avoiding, was shot down during the Kosovo campaign, the spring of 1999. The pilot ejected and was rescued quickly. The reason it was shot down, as it turns out, was ppor mission planning. It was about the fourth time in a row an F-117 had flown that precise path in the Serbian defense apparatus, became wise to the whole plan and figured out how to spot it and more or less shot it down by eye. A little bit of luck and figuring out what the flight path was, allowed that F-117 to be shot down. A halfs dozen in South Korea. The Air Force says it's routine, but still in looking at the big picture, part of exerting some pressure on the North Korean regime.

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 12, 2003 - 15:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The United States is moving some stealth fighters in South Korea to participate in military maneuvers there. An Air Force official says there's no connection to the ongoing dispute with North Korea over the North's nuclear program, but his is bound to anger North Korea. Especially after the deployment of long ranged U.S. bombers into the Asia theater. And the announcment just a little while ago, Barbara Starr from the Pentagon telling us those surveillance flights which caused that intercept of North Korean fighters a little while ago, are set to resume. So things sort of being ratcheted up with some focus on North Korea.
First of all, let's tell you a little bit about these F-117s, the stealth fighter. About 59 of them in the fleet right now. $122 million a copy. Not the fast nest the fleet, 650 miles an hour, right around supersonic, just right around that range. A range of about 690 miles, but does have aerial refueling capability. Laser-guided bombs, not satilite guided, and can carry just two of them. It doesn't have a lot of payload capacity. It's about the size of an F-15 used to attack high priority targets.

It was used heavily during the Persian Gulf War. Even though it makes up only about 2 percent of the fighter fleet, it did more than 1250 sordies because of its stealth capability. Can't be seen well by radar. Let's give you a sense of where those stealth fighters are based and where they are headed. Holloman Air Force Base in the -- right near the White Sands missile test range in New Mexico is where they are from. They made their way across the Pacific, not sure of the exact route. We'll give you the basic approximation from, Holloman, all the way over to the base, Kunsan.

Kunsan is one of two key bases in South Korea used by the United States. We have about 30,000 servicemen and women there as we have been hearing a lot about throughout this tension on the Korean Peninsula. Kunsan already has F-16s there, A-10 attack planes there as well. Nearby base Kadena Japan has F-15s which are also in striking distance. This base -- everything on the Korean Peninsula is very close, as we have pointed out many times in the past. It's only a short artillery lob from the North Korean border to Seoul. And this is some recent space imaging, satellite imagery of that Kunsan Air Force Base. That's not what it looks like just today, but that is recent, and that's where we'll have a half dozen of these F-117 fighters.

Now, the F-117 you may recall in 1999, even though it is very stealthy, radar avoiding, was shot down during the Kosovo campaign, the spring of 1999. The pilot ejected and was rescued quickly. The reason it was shot down, as it turns out, was ppor mission planning. It was about the fourth time in a row an F-117 had flown that precise path in the Serbian defense apparatus, became wise to the whole plan and figured out how to spot it and more or less shot it down by eye. A little bit of luck and figuring out what the flight path was, allowed that F-117 to be shot down. A halfs dozen in South Korea. The Air Force says it's routine, but still in looking at the big picture, part of exerting some pressure on the North Korean regime.

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