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CNN Live Sunday

War Games in Persian Gulf to Begin Monday

Aired December 08, 2002 - 16:18   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: In any showdown with Iraq, U.S. military officials would rely heavily on bases in the Persian Gulf region. Top American military commanders are in Qatar now for war games. CNN's John Vause is in Doha, Qatar, where battlefield planners are getting ready for anything.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. Well, we heard from Barbara Starr just a short time ago talking about business as usual at the Pentagon. Well, it's pretty much business as usual here in Doha, Qatar, where they've got that portable command center. It's all set up. Now just hours away before Operation Internal Look gets under way. That's that big computer simulated war game.

I'd like to bring in Major General Don Shepperd, and just ask you, general, what happens now where in those first few hours, when this war game begins, what actually goes on?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, first of all, General Franks has had what he called a rock drill, which is the old sandtable exercise where he moves rocks around for troop formation. He already met with his troops and told them about the importance of this exercise. Everybody is keyed up. And so when the exercise actually kicks off, there will be a lot of anticipation. And he's going to be testing some of the real scenarios that he might use. It will start off with the air campaign. It's going to be very exciting at first. And probably at the end of every day, they'll call a halt and have a debriefing, and then at the end of the exercise, they'll have another debriefing.

VAUSE: You say scenarios, you say that this could be very real. But there are no lives at stake here, no planes are going to come crashing down. This isn't real combat. This isn't the real thing. So how does that change things?

SHEPPERD: It does change things. It's testing the computer capabilities, the communications, the command and control. It's electrons flowing instead of airplanes moving, ships moving and troops moving. And so you're going to miss the sound of gunfire, you're going to miss airplanes taking off overhead. So it does lack some of the excitement of actual combat. But everybody here knows that this is really important. And this new deployable headquarters has got to work for General Franks and he's going to make it work.

VAUSE: But given the fact that lives aren't at risk, does that dull the responses in any way, make any decisions different? SHEPPERD: I'm not sure it makes any decisions different. But it sure, it dulls down. Everybody's waiting for the big event if it happens. And so it's much more dull when you have a computer exercise. But again, everybody truly understands that they're trying a new headquarters. And what they're trying to do is work out glitches, so when something really kicks off, these glitches don't happen.

In the military, everything that can happen, will, and it will happen at the worst possible time. That's kind of the rule we deal with.

VAUSE: OK, you talk about the main event. Let's talk about that for a moment. We have got this huge military buildup in the Persian Gulf. Let's turn the tables a little bit. What happens if Saddam Hussein takes some kind of a preemptive strike? Are there any precautions against that?

SHEPPERD: Yeah, I'm sure that's one of the things on General Franks' mind and the mind of his subordinate commanders. The security of your troops deployed to the region is uppermost in your mind. We've had the Beirut barracks, the Marine barracks in Beirut. We've had Khobar Towers, we've had recent incidents over here and the ongoing in Afghanistan. So that's very much on his mind.

VAUSE: OK, we've got bases here. There is a base here in Qatar, there are bases in Bahrain, there are bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Why do you need so many bases? Why couldn't they just launch an attack, say, from Kuwait?

SHEPPERD: It takes a lot of bases to house 350,000 troops, which is the number of troops being talked about to do what we have to do in Iraq. You don't want them all on one base in case that base is attacked and taken away. But even if you did want them on one base, if you could put them on one base, you would want to spread them around in the area. And the reason is, security, and ease of operations. You want many, many locations. But this size of force needs a lot of bases. And we don't have too many bases, John.

VAUSE: OK, the other issue here -- one of the huge problems that they had during the Gulf War was trying to find those mobile SCUD launchers. That's going to be crucial, obviously, if there is any attack on Iraq. Has there been any major changes in that area?

SHEPPERD: Well, the major change is, I'm sure, that one of our things we want to do is take western Iraq, to deprive Iraq of the launching places for SCUDS. But the ability to find SCUDS on radar -- excuse me -- we have some new systems, the joint stars and that type of thing. We can locate them on radar, but it's still a very tough problem.

VAUSE: Yeah. And the issue, they're obviously very crucial to Israel, to take these mobile SCUD launchers out.

SHEPPERD: Yeah, you don't want Israel involved in this conflict. Saddam Hussein would like them involved. He'd like to draw them into it. The U.S. will be doing everything they can to ensure Israel that it can protect its security and try to keep them out of the war.

VAUSE: OK, Major General Donald Shepperd, you go get some water, you can clear your throat. Thank you very much for bringing us up to speed, giving us some insight into that.

Fredricka, that's the latest from here. Operation Internal Look just a few hours away. Most people in this part of the world see it basically as a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iraq -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, John, fair enough. Thank you very much.

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 8, 2002 - 16:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: In any showdown with Iraq, U.S. military officials would rely heavily on bases in the Persian Gulf region. Top American military commanders are in Qatar now for war games. CNN's John Vause is in Doha, Qatar, where battlefield planners are getting ready for anything.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. Well, we heard from Barbara Starr just a short time ago talking about business as usual at the Pentagon. Well, it's pretty much business as usual here in Doha, Qatar, where they've got that portable command center. It's all set up. Now just hours away before Operation Internal Look gets under way. That's that big computer simulated war game.

I'd like to bring in Major General Don Shepperd, and just ask you, general, what happens now where in those first few hours, when this war game begins, what actually goes on?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, first of all, General Franks has had what he called a rock drill, which is the old sandtable exercise where he moves rocks around for troop formation. He already met with his troops and told them about the importance of this exercise. Everybody is keyed up. And so when the exercise actually kicks off, there will be a lot of anticipation. And he's going to be testing some of the real scenarios that he might use. It will start off with the air campaign. It's going to be very exciting at first. And probably at the end of every day, they'll call a halt and have a debriefing, and then at the end of the exercise, they'll have another debriefing.

VAUSE: You say scenarios, you say that this could be very real. But there are no lives at stake here, no planes are going to come crashing down. This isn't real combat. This isn't the real thing. So how does that change things?

SHEPPERD: It does change things. It's testing the computer capabilities, the communications, the command and control. It's electrons flowing instead of airplanes moving, ships moving and troops moving. And so you're going to miss the sound of gunfire, you're going to miss airplanes taking off overhead. So it does lack some of the excitement of actual combat. But everybody here knows that this is really important. And this new deployable headquarters has got to work for General Franks and he's going to make it work.

VAUSE: But given the fact that lives aren't at risk, does that dull the responses in any way, make any decisions different? SHEPPERD: I'm not sure it makes any decisions different. But it sure, it dulls down. Everybody's waiting for the big event if it happens. And so it's much more dull when you have a computer exercise. But again, everybody truly understands that they're trying a new headquarters. And what they're trying to do is work out glitches, so when something really kicks off, these glitches don't happen.

In the military, everything that can happen, will, and it will happen at the worst possible time. That's kind of the rule we deal with.

VAUSE: OK, you talk about the main event. Let's talk about that for a moment. We have got this huge military buildup in the Persian Gulf. Let's turn the tables a little bit. What happens if Saddam Hussein takes some kind of a preemptive strike? Are there any precautions against that?

SHEPPERD: Yeah, I'm sure that's one of the things on General Franks' mind and the mind of his subordinate commanders. The security of your troops deployed to the region is uppermost in your mind. We've had the Beirut barracks, the Marine barracks in Beirut. We've had Khobar Towers, we've had recent incidents over here and the ongoing in Afghanistan. So that's very much on his mind.

VAUSE: OK, we've got bases here. There is a base here in Qatar, there are bases in Bahrain, there are bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Why do you need so many bases? Why couldn't they just launch an attack, say, from Kuwait?

SHEPPERD: It takes a lot of bases to house 350,000 troops, which is the number of troops being talked about to do what we have to do in Iraq. You don't want them all on one base in case that base is attacked and taken away. But even if you did want them on one base, if you could put them on one base, you would want to spread them around in the area. And the reason is, security, and ease of operations. You want many, many locations. But this size of force needs a lot of bases. And we don't have too many bases, John.

VAUSE: OK, the other issue here -- one of the huge problems that they had during the Gulf War was trying to find those mobile SCUD launchers. That's going to be crucial, obviously, if there is any attack on Iraq. Has there been any major changes in that area?

SHEPPERD: Well, the major change is, I'm sure, that one of our things we want to do is take western Iraq, to deprive Iraq of the launching places for SCUDS. But the ability to find SCUDS on radar -- excuse me -- we have some new systems, the joint stars and that type of thing. We can locate them on radar, but it's still a very tough problem.

VAUSE: Yeah. And the issue, they're obviously very crucial to Israel, to take these mobile SCUD launchers out.

SHEPPERD: Yeah, you don't want Israel involved in this conflict. Saddam Hussein would like them involved. He'd like to draw them into it. The U.S. will be doing everything they can to ensure Israel that it can protect its security and try to keep them out of the war.

VAUSE: OK, Major General Donald Shepperd, you go get some water, you can clear your throat. Thank you very much for bringing us up to speed, giving us some insight into that.

Fredricka, that's the latest from here. Operation Internal Look just a few hours away. Most people in this part of the world see it basically as a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iraq -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, John, fair enough. Thank you very much.

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