There's a very extensive security apparatus which Baghdad has used to try to protect it's weapons of mass destruction program, to move these things, hide these things from UNSCOM, as you indicated earlier in this press conference. One of the goals was to degrade in particular the special Republican Guard which is integral to helping move those systems around and keep the Iraqi apparatus one step ahead of UNSCOM as they've tried to conduct, in particular, the interference of inspections which are so important to validating where they actually stand in their WMD development programs.
We've also hit a number of WMD industry, weapons of mass destruction industry and production programs, primarily oriented at the missile programs, the research and development capability that will allow Iraq to develop these systems for the future and to make and improve upon the systems that he currently has, especially to give them more accuracy, longer range, better electronics, and things like that.
We're targeting Republican Guard facilities, especially the division and corps headquarters. The Republican Guard is the element of the Iraqi armed forces that creates or presents the greatest threat to his neighbors, and is also important for the security operations around Baghdad and to go against, for example UNSCOM and help this hide mechanism.
Certain airfields have been attacked, primarily ones that have attack helicopters which he uses to go after the Kurdish and Shia minorities in the north and south respectively, and we've already discussed the single economic target that was attacked, which was the Basrah POL facility, which is important to his illegal export of gas and oil.
Q: What is POL? That's not a refinery.
Admiral Wilson: Petroleum oil lubricant. It is a refinery from which they put stuff out via the Shatt al Arab.
I'd like to go on and finish the briefing before we take your questions.
This just goes through the target sets to date. As I indicated, we still have a lot of assessment in progress. Some of the SAMs are very mobile, even the strategic SAMs have been relocated frequently, so we certainly have not hit all of them. We're assessing the damage. Some have been destroyed; there's been moderate damage and severe damage to others. As I've indicated or said earlier, the southern sector certainly has been degraded and we have created the access for the pilots flying to the north, and also in addition to the damage to the SA-2 and SA-3 sites, which I mentioned earlier, we did significant damage to a very large missile repair facility. It was hit by CALCMs from B-52s last night.
Q: Where was that?
Admiral Wilson: At Taji.
Eighteen command and control facilities have been hit to date, or have been attacked to date. You can see we are halfway through the assessment process. We mentioned earlier the radio and TV transmitters and jammers. Clearly we've gone after the security apparatus in Baghdad, the special security organization and intelligence facilities which conduct collection and repressive operations against the people, as well as cuing the SRG, the Special Republican Guard about how they can avoid UNSCOM inspectors. And we believe we've had a fair degree of success; in fact, you saw the military intelligence headquarters yesterday.
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We've attacked to date 19 weapons of mass destruction security details. These are largely the Special Republican Guard headquarters buildings and the barracks buildings for the various brigades and battalions. It's a 30,000 strong organization. They operate throughout the country. We've attacked primarily in the Baghdad and Tikrit areas.
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Eleven WMD industry and production facilities have been attacked. We have information on Al Kindi, Al Karama, and even Al Hatham. Moderate to light damage, but we did go after key aim points that we think were important to the long term research and development of the missile industry. We have a lot more assessment work to do on this particular target set. At this time we're concentrating on the military targets because of force protection.
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Eight Republican Guard facilities have been hit. We've only assessed on four of them. You can see the damage reports. Imagery does confirm severe and moderate damage on both Republican Guard corps headquarters and a couple of division headquarters.
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And we've attacked five airfields looking primarily to go after attack helos, helicopters, as well as the L-29 aircraft which we have reports are being converted to unmanned aerial vehicles that could potentially be used to conduct reconnaissance operations or even delivery of weapons of mass destruction.
Now I'd like to go into just a few of the images.
This is Al Sava airfield up north of Baghdad. It's an L-29 base. You can see the aircraft were disbursed away from the parking aprons. The maintenance hangars were targeted -- very good precision ordnance delivery here. TLAMs through the roof of both of the hangars. Didn't collapse the buildings but we believe severely damaged or destroyed all the equipment that was inside.
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This is a Special Republican Guard barracks facility in the city of Tikrit in north central Iraq. You saw some other Special Republican Guard facilities yesterday. These are, as I said, very key elements that have been used to thwart UNSCOM and protect these weapons of mass destruction -- hide them, move them, deny access to the records.
We attacked the headquarters building which is right here. There were four barracks buildings here, four barracks buildings right here. Most of those have been destroyed or damaged. One is left standing. Another barracks over here which was attacked by Tomahawk land attack missiles .
Q: How many were killed, if you know?
Admiral Wilson: We do not have casualty estimates or any precise casualty figures for any of the barracks or the headquarters elements that were attacked.
This is a before and after photograph of the Saddam International Military Barracks North which is in the Baghdad area. These are very similar to the ones I just showed you. Here is the headquarters building and some barracks buildings shown right here.
This shows where we had mixed success. This barracks was fairly well destroyed and damaged. The headquarters building, you can see the crater for the Tomahawk land attack missile right here, destroyed half the building.
We have another crater here which did not destroy this building, and all of the facilities which were targeted, for example, were not successfully targeted in this particular photograph.
Q: Where is that?
Admiral Wilson: This is in the Baghdad area.
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Finally, I'd like to go into a little bit more detail on this Ibn al Haytham missile research and development center which General Shelton was discussing.
This is a facility which manufactures a shorter range and allowed ballistic missile, but all the technology which is in this facility is useful in developing the longer range versions that could be used to conduct longer range attacks against Saddam's neighbors.
These buildings right here were welding, final fabrication and important buildings for the manufacture of these weapons and the equipment, as well as the building right here which is associated with the missile development. You can see it has been fairly well destroyed, all three of these buildings, and damage to this one right here.
Q: Where is that again? Is that...
Admiral Wilson: It's north of Baghdad. We can get you maps of these facilities later.
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Another blowup of the Ibn al Haytham missile R&D center. General Shelton mentioned this very large final assembly building here. It was a critical aim point, and essentially there's not much left standing. That entire building has been destroyed. As well, there was light damage to the computer center which they use for research, development, modeling, simulations, things like that.
Q:...did it take to take out that facility?
Admiral Wilson: We're not going to discuss aim points or the number of missiles that were used on these facilities.
Q: Do they have some supercomputers in the computer center there?
Admiral Wilson: I would like to now turn the briefing over to the J-3, Vice Admiral Fry, who will give the operational aspects. Thank you.
Admiral Fry: In the Chairman's remarks he introduced me as the new J-3. I'd like to underscore that. I've had the job for a week. (Laughter) Until a month ago I had command of the EISENHOWER battle group which was also in the Gulf last November.
As you know, there was a decision made earlier that we would have sufficient force in the theater to conduct significant strikes when required. On the first night of the operation that fell to the ENTERPRISE battle group who remains in the theater with her Aegis destroyers and other escorts.
The CARL VINCENT battle group is closing on the Straits of Hormuz as we speak, and will begin her transit this evening. She is bringing two additional cruisers and more destroyers. |
