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American Morning
Navy Has Shot One Third of Inventory of Tomahawk Missiles
Aired March 31, 2003 - 9:20 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Twenty minutes after the hour.
Some news coming to the Pentagon that will be of interest to a lot of you out there. Let's go straight to Barbara Starr, who has that information for us now. Good morning, Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. This falls under the category of essential nuts and bolts. CNN has learned that in less than the first two weeks of this war the U.S. Navy has already shot one third of its Tomahawk missile inventory.
Now officials estimate the Navy has fired something more than 700 of these unmanned tomahawk cruise missiles, their premier precision weapon -- 700 of them. But the inventory is just something like 2,000 missiles. So they are beginning to do some shifting around on the battlefield to try and stretch the inventory a bit more.
What we have been told is that surface ships which fire these Tomahawk missiles that had been in the Red Sea are now moving around over to the Persian Gulf. Part of the reason, of course, Saudi Arabia has closed off the Tomahawk routes because a handful of missiles have fallen into Saudi airspace, as opposed to Iraq. But now those ships are moving around.
They will move some of their missiles back and forth to other ships in the Persian Gulf so they can stretch the inventory a bit. We are also told that some submarines which had been firing Tomahawk missiles from the Mediterranean, from the Red Sea, they are going home now, and they will be either replaced by other submarines, or some of them also will have to be re-supplied by Tomahawk missiles that have been with other parts of the U.S. Navy around the world.
The Navy also looking now at trying to get some urgent additional money funding in the supplemental so they can increase the production of Tomahawk missiles and bring the inventories back up. So in less than two weeks of war, the Navy has now shot through one third of its inventory of Tomahawk missiles -- Paula.
ZAHN: Barbara, based on your report, I guess my question is why? Is there any analysis? Was that always the expectation that they would be fired this quickly, or has it gone faster than the plan would have suggested?
STARR: The Tomahawk missile, of course, because it is an unmanned precision weapon, is the premier choice in the opening days of any war, when you are firing into enemy territory, when it is very heavily defended airspace. And one would not want to risk a pilot and an air crew because there is so much threat come up from the ground.
So it had been expected that they would be used in the opening days of the war. Hundreds and hundreds fired in the first several days. Officials telling us now that they are down to perhaps a couple of dozen a day being fired against key targets, underground targets, hardened bunkers, targets that they call on-call targets. In other words, if they get intelligence about some key target, and it is very rapid, they have to strike it very quickly before the target perhaps disappears on them, if it is a leadership target or something like that, Tomahawk is the weapon of choice, because it can be used so quickly without risking an air crew.
Are they going to run out? No. There is still something like 1,400 Tomahawks left. But it is interesting to note, under military procedure, there is a certain quantity of those missiles that have to be reserved for each area of operations around the world. For example, there is some certain classified number of Tomahawks that have to be in the Korean theater should hostilities of some sort break out there.
So there is some flexibility to move things around, but not total flexibility. They're going to have to take a hard look at the inventory. And the Navy does want to get some urgent supplemental money so they can boost production and start replenishing these inventories.
ZAHN: Barbara, you've got just five seconds left. How long would it take to boost the production? Are you talking about months?
STARR: It would take months to get it back up. Of course, they can produce several each month if they get the -- under current production lines. But, it is going to take them a while to get those 700 back.
Let me just add one other detail. We have done a little bit of additional reporting this morning on the Republican Guard, and we are now told, as this thrust continues against the Medina Republican Guard Division, the initial battle damage assessment now in some areas is that both the Medina Republican Guard Division and the Baghdad Republican Guard Division may now be at about 50 percent of their combat effectiveness.
This is a very key statistic that officials are looking at. They want to degrade the Republican Guard Division to a certain level before they begin to really move against them and then move on to Baghdad. So officials looking very closely at that. Initial battle damage assessment about 50 percent.
ZAHN: You have a lot of information for us in this hit. Barbara, thanks so much. I'm sure we will be getting back to you a number of times throughout the morning.
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 31, 2003 - 9:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Twenty minutes after the hour.
Some news coming to the Pentagon that will be of interest to a lot of you out there. Let's go straight to Barbara Starr, who has that information for us now. Good morning, Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. This falls under the category of essential nuts and bolts. CNN has learned that in less than the first two weeks of this war the U.S. Navy has already shot one third of its Tomahawk missile inventory.
Now officials estimate the Navy has fired something more than 700 of these unmanned tomahawk cruise missiles, their premier precision weapon -- 700 of them. But the inventory is just something like 2,000 missiles. So they are beginning to do some shifting around on the battlefield to try and stretch the inventory a bit more.
What we have been told is that surface ships which fire these Tomahawk missiles that had been in the Red Sea are now moving around over to the Persian Gulf. Part of the reason, of course, Saudi Arabia has closed off the Tomahawk routes because a handful of missiles have fallen into Saudi airspace, as opposed to Iraq. But now those ships are moving around.
They will move some of their missiles back and forth to other ships in the Persian Gulf so they can stretch the inventory a bit. We are also told that some submarines which had been firing Tomahawk missiles from the Mediterranean, from the Red Sea, they are going home now, and they will be either replaced by other submarines, or some of them also will have to be re-supplied by Tomahawk missiles that have been with other parts of the U.S. Navy around the world.
The Navy also looking now at trying to get some urgent additional money funding in the supplemental so they can increase the production of Tomahawk missiles and bring the inventories back up. So in less than two weeks of war, the Navy has now shot through one third of its inventory of Tomahawk missiles -- Paula.
ZAHN: Barbara, based on your report, I guess my question is why? Is there any analysis? Was that always the expectation that they would be fired this quickly, or has it gone faster than the plan would have suggested?
STARR: The Tomahawk missile, of course, because it is an unmanned precision weapon, is the premier choice in the opening days of any war, when you are firing into enemy territory, when it is very heavily defended airspace. And one would not want to risk a pilot and an air crew because there is so much threat come up from the ground.
So it had been expected that they would be used in the opening days of the war. Hundreds and hundreds fired in the first several days. Officials telling us now that they are down to perhaps a couple of dozen a day being fired against key targets, underground targets, hardened bunkers, targets that they call on-call targets. In other words, if they get intelligence about some key target, and it is very rapid, they have to strike it very quickly before the target perhaps disappears on them, if it is a leadership target or something like that, Tomahawk is the weapon of choice, because it can be used so quickly without risking an air crew.
Are they going to run out? No. There is still something like 1,400 Tomahawks left. But it is interesting to note, under military procedure, there is a certain quantity of those missiles that have to be reserved for each area of operations around the world. For example, there is some certain classified number of Tomahawks that have to be in the Korean theater should hostilities of some sort break out there.
So there is some flexibility to move things around, but not total flexibility. They're going to have to take a hard look at the inventory. And the Navy does want to get some urgent supplemental money so they can boost production and start replenishing these inventories.
ZAHN: Barbara, you've got just five seconds left. How long would it take to boost the production? Are you talking about months?
STARR: It would take months to get it back up. Of course, they can produce several each month if they get the -- under current production lines. But, it is going to take them a while to get those 700 back.
Let me just add one other detail. We have done a little bit of additional reporting this morning on the Republican Guard, and we are now told, as this thrust continues against the Medina Republican Guard Division, the initial battle damage assessment now in some areas is that both the Medina Republican Guard Division and the Baghdad Republican Guard Division may now be at about 50 percent of their combat effectiveness.
This is a very key statistic that officials are looking at. They want to degrade the Republican Guard Division to a certain level before they begin to really move against them and then move on to Baghdad. So officials looking very closely at that. Initial battle damage assessment about 50 percent.
ZAHN: You have a lot of information for us in this hit. Barbara, thanks so much. I'm sure we will be getting back to you a number of times throughout the morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
