Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991 TAG: 9102070152
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A8 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"We've not annihilated any of their primary war-fighting capabilities," says one senior officer. Because the 150,000-member Guard is Iraq's best-trained and best-equipped force - armed with updated Soviet T-72 tanks, multiple rocket launchers and long-range heavy artillery - they are a crucial target before any ground campaign is launched.
But assessments of the damage done by the air campaign to the units have been conflicting.
In Saudi Arabia, Gen. Michel Roquejeoffre, commander of French forces, was quoted as saying he believed allied air strikes had reduced Guard effectiveness overall by about 30 percent.
At the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly said, "There has been damage done to the Guard; we'd like to see more damage done to the Guard, and that is why the bombing campaign is proceeding."
On Capitol Hill, one lawmaker emerging from a closed-door briefing with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell said members of Congress were told one division of the Guard was estimated to be 40 percent to 50 percent disabled.
But any overall assessment of the force's condition is hampered by the fact that satellite reconnaissance, on which the United States relies for its intelligence, can't accurately picture dug-in troops, said the congressman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military officers at the Pentagon said that while hundreds of the Guard's tanks and artillery pieces had been hit during the past three weeks, the force was well dispersed over hundreds of square miles, had had six months to beef up its supplies and was in a complex system of concrete bunkers.
"The Guard has been seriously affected, but they remain an effective fighting force," said one senior officer with access to intelligence reports on the war's progress.
Air Force officers have said they hope to destroy 50 percent of Iraq's forces before a ground offensive is launched and pilots in Saudi Arabia have boasted of their many successes during the air campaign.
But officers from the Army and Marine Corps - those services destined to fight the Guard on the ground - have rejected as over-optimistic any assessments that bombing is forcing Iraq's top-line forces to wilt.
"A pilot may claim to have put a hole in a tank, but it's hard to assess exactly what damage has been done" by photos, said an Army officer familiar with such reports. "An antitank bullet of depleted uranium puts only a tiny hole in a tank, but it zooms around inside and cuts everybody up. On the other hand, damage could be done to the engine so that it looks like hell, but that can be easily replaced."
At the U.S. military briefing in Riyadh on Wednesday, Marine Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal said, "We're dropping a lot of ordnance on the Republican Guard, not just to lower their morale but also to destroy their tanks, their artillery, their logistical sustainment capability, their built-up areas. We're out there to destroy the Republican Guard."
But he declined to quantify the damage, saying only "I think we're experiencing good success."
by CNB