Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991 TAG: 9102050298
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
The Iraqi tactic is working, said Maj. Gen. Robert B. Johnston, chief Death-row inmate volunteers to fight. B1 War brings gender gap to the forefront. Extra of staff for the U.S. Central Command. But he said that the allied command in the Persian Gulf war will not change its bombing policy. "We'll continue to scrupulously adhere to our policy that we will not target civilian areas," Johnston said.
Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the top U.S. commander, stood firmly against civilian targeting. "It gives them [the Iraqis] an advantage," he said. "But we are not going to reduce ourselves to that level of moral conduct just to even the score. . . . Guys in white hats don't do that."
In other developments Monday:
The U.S. battleship Missouri opened up its 16-inch guns. It demolished prefabricated bunkers that the Iraqis were moving into place in Kuwait. It was the first time the Missouri has fired its big guns in anger since the Korean War.
Possible terrorism began behind allied lines. In Jidda, Saudi Arabia, hundreds of miles from the battlefront, a sniper with a 9-millimeter pistol or rifle fired at a shuttle bus carrying three U.S. soldiers. Two were slightly hurt by flying glass. Johnston said that no serviceman is ever "totally safe."
No Iraqi forces crossed from occupied Kuwait into Saudi Arabia on Monday, officials said.
Instead, Johnston said, Iraqi officers tried to hide their headquarters as well as some of their planes in civilian areas.
"We find they are moving into residential neighborhoods," he said. "I think they are simply trying to protect their assets." He cited intelligence reports noting that the hiding places included both mosques and schools. Asked if the tactic was working at mosques, Johnston replied:
"Yes. We have avoided anything that has any religious significance, and we'll continue to do so."
Schwarzkopf said that the Iraqi tactic was working at schools and other civilian sites, as well. "They know," he said, "we're not going to attack civilian targets."
The Missouri, which last fired its guns in combat in 1953, joined the battle shortly before midnight Sunday, firing its massive 2,000-pound shells at concrete reinforced Iraqi bunkers. Johnston would not pinpoint their locations, but he said they were in Kuwait and that the shells destroyed some of them.
On the ground, 25 Iraqi tanks were reported damaged or destroyed and front-line U.S. Marines traded fire with Iraqis across the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.
The tanks were hit by four AV-8 Harriers - vertical takeoff "jump jets" flown by Marine pilots who struck with Rockeye anti-tank bombs. The pilots had spotted between 25 and 30 Iraqi tanks moving on the Kuwaiti side of the border before they attacked.
"The results," Johnston said, "were 25 Iraqi tanks destroyed, or at least burning."
Marine officers also reported that two of their Hornet fighter-bombers destroyed an Iraqi rocket site that had fired on allied positions.
In one cross-border exchange, a battalion-size Marine task force opened up with 155-millimeter artillery on Iraqi ground radar and infantry positions near the Umm Gudair oil field in southwestern Kuwait.
by CNB