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here building up,  and we didn't have very tnuch on the ground, you all had given us
credit for a whole lot more over here.  As a result, that gave me quite a feeling of
confidence that we :night not be attacked quite as quickly as ~ thought we were going
to be attacked.  Other than that, I would not like to get into the remainder of your
queStion.

      Q:   What kind of fi9ht is going on with the Republican Guard?   And is there any
more fighting going on in Kuwait, or is ~uwait essentially out of the action?
      A:   No.  The fight that's going on with the Republican Guard right now is just
a classic tank battle.  you've got fire and maneuver, they are continuing to fight
and shoot at us as our forces move forward, and our forces are in the business of
outfianking them, taking them to the rear, using our attack helicopter,    using our
advanced technology.   I would tell you that one of the things that has prevailed,
particularly i:~ this battle out here, is our techttology.  We had great weather for
tbe air war, but right now,  and for the last three days, it's been raining out there,
it's been dusty out there, there's black smoke and haze in the air.    It's an
infantryman's weather -- ~od loves the infantryman, and that's just the kind of
weather the infantryman likes to tight in.  But I would also tell you that our Sights
have worked fantastically well in their ability to acquire, through that kind of dust
and haze, the enemy targets.  The enemy sights have not worked that well.    As a
~atter of fact, we've had several anecdotal reports today of enemy who were saying to
us that t~ey couldn't see anything through their ~ights and all of a sudden, their
tank exploded when their tank was hit by our sights.  So that's one of the indica-
tions (we look for).

      Q:  Are you saying - -      environment1 obviously, as this box gets smaller and
      A:  A very, ~ery tough air
smaller, and the bad weatfler, it gets tougher and tougher to use the air, and
therefore, the air is acting more in an interdiction role than any other

     Q:   Can you tell us why the French, who went very fast in the dcsert in the
first day,  stopped (inaudible) and were invited to stop fighting after 36 hours?
     ~:   That's not exactly a correct statement.  The French mission on the first
day was to protect our left flank.  What we were interested in was making sure we
confined this battlefield -- both on the right and the left -- and we didn't want
anyone coming in and attacking these forces, which was the main attack, coming in
from tbeir left flank.  So the French taission was to go out and not only seize Al
Salman, but to set up a screen across our left flank, which was absolutely vital to
ensure that we weren't surprised.  So they definitely did not stop fighting.  They
continued to perform their mission, and they performed it extraordinarily well.

     ~:   The Iraqi Air Force disappeared very early in the air war.  There was
~peculation they might return and provide cover during the ground war.  Were you
suspecting that?  Were you surprised they never showed themselves again?
     A:   I was not expecting it.  ~e were not expecting it, but I would tell you
that we never discounted it, and we ~ere totally prepared in the event it happened.

     Q:   ?iave they been completely destroyed?  Where are they?
     A-.  There's not an airplane flown.  A lot of them are dispersed throughout
civilian communities in Iraq.  We have proof of that

)

      Q:  )iow ~E~any divisions of the Republican Guard now are you fightinq, an~ any
idea how long that will take?
      A:  We're probably fighting on the order of~     There were a total of five of
thern up here.  One of them we have probably destroyed yesterday.  We probably

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