Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 11, 1991 TAG: 9102110343
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA LENGTH: Medium
U.S. officials, meanwhile, said Iraqi jets that fled to Iran pose little threat because their pilots are inexperienced and cannot be kept combat-ready.
In another indication of the war's toll on Iraq, Baghdad said today it will begin drafting all 17-year-old males. Last month, Iraq lowered the conscription age from 18 to 17, but exempted youths still in school.
Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or wounded by allied air raids, Iraqi Religious Affairs Minister Abdullah Fadel said today in Baghdad.
It was the first time a senior government official spoke of such high war casualties. Fadel said he could not give precise figures. Previous Iraqi government reports put civilian casualties at about 650 dead and 750 wounded.
In Riyadh, the Saudi capital, U.S. military officials said about half of Iraq's air force is believed out of commission, including the planes that have fled to Iran.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Iraq was playing a "shell game" with its remaining aircraft, putting some in hardened concrete shelters damaged in earlier air strikes, while hiding others in civilian and wooded areas.
No Iraqi planes are known to have escaped into Iran in the last few days, the officials said. They said 147 Iraqi planes were in Iran - including 121 combat planes, many of them among Saddam Hussein's best.
Baghdad was believed to have about 700 aircraft at the outset of the Persian Gulf War. The allies say they've downed 34 planes and confirmed the destruction of 99 on the ground.
Some fleeing planes were apparently flown by pilots so inexperienced that "they didn't know what to do when our radar was locked on, they didn't go into the proper evasive action strategy" to avoid being hit, the officials said.
The allied air onslaught pressed on today - aided by good visibility - amid signs that many military officials believe a major ground assault to recapture Kuwait is two or three weeks away.
One senior U.S. commander pointed Sunday to the need to move more soldiers and equipment into place along the front, saying it could take up to a month. Underscoring that, M1-A1 main battle tanks - a key weapon in any ground war - were being shipped north today along Saudi supply routes.
President Bush was conferring today with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who paid a weekend visit to the war zone. Cheney said Sunday that the non-stop allied air campaign has reduced the fighting power of some Iraqi divisions by as much as 40 percent. He did not say when a ground and amphibious assault might begin.
U.S. military officials in Riyadh cited pilot reports as saying three of the mobile Scud missile launchers believed destroyed in the past two days were in western Iraq, where they could be used to lob missiles on Israel.
The other two were in southern Iraq, a launching ground for rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia, said the officials.
The Pentagon confirmed today that Iraq apparently has moved two captured U.S. soldiers, including the only female American POW, to Basra - a southern city that has come under intense allied attack because it is Iraq's military headquarters for forces in Kuwait. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report broadcast by NBC-TV.
The descriptions given by an Iraqi POW appeared to match those of Army Spec. Melissa Rathbun-Nealy, 20, of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Spec. David Lockett, 23, of Fort Bliss, Texas, who disappeared in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 1. Early in the war, Iraq said American POWs were being moved to strategic sites likely to be hit by allied warplanes.
On the diplomatic front, the Soviet Union sent special envoy Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad in hope of discussing the gulf war with Saddam Hussein. Primakov carried no specific peace initiative, Soviet lawmaker Alexander Dzasokhov said, adding that the envoy would take up the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and other issues with Saddam.
by CNB