DoD News Briefing
Thursday, January 7, 1999, 1:45 p.m.
Presenter: Kenneth Bacon, ASD (PA)
Kenneth Bacon, ASD (PA)
..............
Q: Could you fill us in on the incident in the northern Iraq no-fly zone?
A: Sure. At 3:00 Eastern Standard Time this morning, a U.S. F-16CJ picked up indications as it was being tracked by the radar of Roland missile system. At 3:12, the F-16 and an accompanying EA-6B picked up the signal again. The F-16 launched a HARM high speed anti-radiation missile at the radar and immediately made a defensive maneuver away from the area. We do not have a picture of what happened to the Roland, but the radar stopped beaming at precisely the time the HARM was to impact the radar, so we assume that it was a hit. But as I say, we do not have a picture of it because of cloud cover in the area. And we have not seen what the results of this strike were.
As you know, a Roland is a mobile system on a tank chassis, essentially. It is a rocket and radars. And that's basically what happened in the northern no-fly zone early this morning.
Yes.
Q: So the radar that illuminated the second time stayed on from the time of the launch of the HARM --
A: According to our best information, it stayed on long enough for the HARM to go in and hit the target. As I say, we do not have a picture of that, so until we -- we'll still search aggressively to find out what the result was.
Q: Do you know exactly where it was?
A: It happened in an area called the Saddam Dam area. And it was about 20 miles northwest of Mosul.
Q: How long is the United States going to be content to simply respond to each one of these challenges, or are you considering taking any sort of action to put an end to this constant testing of the enforcement of the no-fly zone?
A: I think you could turn the question around and ask how long will Iraq be content to see its assets eliminated by our missiles, because that's exactly what's happening. We have fired missiles on several occasions at surface-to-air missile sites. As you know, we fired at Iraqi planes and they beat a hasty retreat out of the no-fly zone two days ago. And we will continue to protect our forces and to protect the no-fly zone by whatever means we feel are necessary.
Q: Is the U.S. considering any preemptive strikes at airfields or other targets that might deny Iraq the ability to violate the no-fly zone?
A: We've shown in December and before that we can strike with speed, force and surprise at the time of our choosing, and we have that ability today just as we had it in December. Should the circumstances arise, we can respond in a variety of ways.
Q: Are these -- the Joint Chiefs Chairman testified that these incursions and violations were militarily insignificant. What does he mean by they're militarily insignificant?
A: I think precisely that. They're basically cheat and retreat actions. They're timid for the most part. I'll give you an example. There were two violations of the southern no-fly zone this morning. One last seven minutes. One lasted four minutes. These basically were performed by two MIG-21s who darted into the no-fly zone for a very brief period of time and at a time when U.S. aircraft were not in the area. So, as I say, it was timid, cheat and retreat. And that's basically the pattern we're seeing day in and day out. There have been some longer violations. Typically, they take place when U.S. planes are not in the box, so to speak, not flying in the no-fly zone. I think these -- I don't know whether these are being done as a way to make Saddam's pilots feel good that they're able to tweak our nose or whether they're doing it to give them practice flying over areas they haven't been able to fly over since 1992. But the fact is they're militarily insignificant because they tend to be darting across the line and going back, for the most part.
They certainly do not represent any control over his air space. The air space is under coalition control. Sixty percent of Iraq's air space is under coalition control.
Q: Did the violations today occur while there were no coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone?
A: Coalition aircraft were just entering the no-fly zone, and they were a good distance away from where these violations took place.
Q: Did they attempt to give chase?
A: The distance was too far away. And as I said, the violations lasted -- one lasted seven minutes and one lasted four minutes.
Q: The other day when you were talking about the air to air, I guess you would call it an engagement, you said they were still gathering details. Have they gathered any more details on ranges or any of that on the two incidents the other day?
A: I don't have any more details. I'm sure that the Joint Staff has more, but I don't have them.
Q: Are the presence of air defense missiles in the no-fly zone, is that in itself a violation of the no-fly zone?
A: Well, there have been air defense missiles in the no-fly zone for some time. We deal with those, we follow them very closely. We have, as I said, attacked those surface-to-air missile sites from time to time. It's something we live with.
Q: The no-fly zone, it's not something that Iraq ever agreed to. Has there ever been a condition that they not put mobile SAMs down in the no-fly zone?
A: SAMs have been there for years. We have had disputes with them over moving SAMs into the no-fly zones. We've demarched them about them, and we've attacked their surface-to-air missile sites. And we will continue to do that.
Q: They moved them in the last couple of weeks into --
A: They have moved some more in there. I think they know what our position is. We know what their position is. And we're taking military action against these SAM sites as appropriate.
Q: Is there any consideration of issuing a demarch to Iraq to remove some of these missiles that have been moved in recently?
A: We have recently been speaking with missiles, not demarches. And I think they're getting the message.
Q: Can you quantify in any way to what extent since, for instance, the end of DESERT FOX, that Iraq has increased the number of missile batteries in the no-fly zone --
A: There has been an increase. I can't quantify it.
Q: Different subject?
..................Q: Can I go back to Iraq for a moment?
A: Please.
Q: In his testimony on the Hill the other day, Gen. Shelton provided the first casualty estimate as a result of the strikes on the Republican Guard barracks and facilities. Can you clarify when he talked about the numbers of casualties, was he referring to estimated troops killed or killed and wounded? And can you give us any context of how the Pentagon arrived at those estimates?
A: I think those are great questions to ask Gen. Zinni tomorrow when he appears he. And he will be prepared to answer questions like that.
Q: When he said casualties, are those estimated deaths, or are those killed and wounded, those numbers that he gave?
A: I believe those are fatalities, but I'd have to go back and check on that. And those are just raw estimates. It's very difficult to make such an analysis. And so those were estimates.
Q: Can you say whether they were in line with the results the Pentagon was expecting as a result --
A: Well, without commenting specifically on those figures, I can tell you that the impact of the strikes, the results of the strikes during DESERT FOX have, we believe, been extremely successful. And as we have continued our analysis, we have found more success rather than less success. And I think Gen. Zinni will be prepared to discuss that with you tomorrow.
Q: Ken, DESERT FOX was primarily almost exclusively an air operation, although there are unconfirmed reports constantly coming out of the area that some U.S. troops actually penetrated the Iraqi border on the ground at least during the initial 24 to 48 hours. Is there anything to that?
A: Not that I'm aware of, no. It was an air operation.
.....................
Q: Different subject. Over the last two days, various news accounts have charged that the United States has intelligence officers among the UNSCOM inspectors. My question is are any of the UNSCOM inspectors on the Pentagon's payroll, and are any of them on the Defense Intelligence Agency payroll? Or the CIA for that matter, since I can't ask at the CIA briefing since they don't have briefings.
A: Well, you could still ask them. Let me explain how UNSCOM worked. UNSCOM --
Q: Worked?
A: Well, it's not working now. We hope it will work in the future. That does raise a very important point. The reason we have UNSCOM and the reason UNSCOM did work for eight years was because the Iraqis, through a combination of delay and deceit, prevented UNSCOM from finding out the extent of its weapons of mass destruction program by consistently violating U.N. Security Council mandates. Iraq refused to comply, refused to cooperate, always chose confrontation over cooperation. And therefore, UNSCOM had to become increasingly aggressive about its own monitoring and information gathering techniques. In order to do its job, UNSCOM, which is a disarmament and a monitoring agency, not an intelligence agency, about 40 different countries at various times to support its mission. And it would requisition people from various countries, experts in various fields that it felt would enable it to do its work. And these countries, including the U.S. and China, France and Russia, would put forward people who met the UNSCOM requirements, and then UNSCOM would pick and choose among those people to put together missions that could go out and do the job of inspecting for chemical or biological weapons. Nuclear weapons, of course, have been handled by another agency. And also to look at the missiles and other vehicles needed to deliver those weapons. So we responded to UNSCOM's requests. The American contribution to UNSCOM's missions involved experts from a variety of agencies. And UNSCOM would choose them as necessary.
Q: When you say variety of agencies, would that include the CIA, the DIA and the NSA?
A: It includes a variety of agencies where experts work.
Q: In that long explanation of what UNSCOM did, did you or did you not say that UNSCOM, in fact, spied on Iraq?
A: I did not say that. I said UNSCOM was not an intelligence agency. It was a disarmament agency. It is a disarmament agency. I think Ambassador Richard Butler, the director of UNSCOM, made that very clear in his comments yesterday at the U.N. And I'm sure if you were to call him and ask him about UNSCOM's purpose or to go onto the web page and get a description from UNSCOM of its purpose, it would tell you that it's a disarmament agency.
Q: So despite the fact that you said that UNSCOM had to be increasingly aggressive about its job, as you pointed out, that increasing aggression did not include spying.
A: It had to work hard to gather information. And as you know, it worked very hard to try to send teams out on inspection missions to look for weapons at places it believes they existed.
Q: Where do you draw the line between spying and just gathering information?
A: I don't. There's no need to. UNSCOM was a disarmament agency, not a spy agency. That's what Richard Butler said.
Q: So this was open and above board, not clandestine.
A: I'm saying that's what Richard Butler said about UNSCOM, and I agree.
Q: So it would not be inconsistent, though, if the United States were contributing experts with particular expertise for some of those experts to come from U.S. intelligence agencies?
A: Without getting into specifics, we provided experts for UNSCOM to choose to support its mission.
Q: Was data collected by UNSCOM used for planning of say, Operation DESERT FOX?
A: Much of UNSCOM's information was made public. They issued lengthy reports, many of which are available on the Internet, to anybody who wants to read them. Anybody who got those reports and read them, could use the information in any way they wanted to.
Q: Did the assistance the U.S. provided to UNSCOM have a dual purpose, dual military purpose?
A: The -- we helped UNSCOM gather information that UNSCOM used for its own purposes. Obviously -- let me give you an example. We helped UNSCOM gather information by flying U-2s over Iraq. UNSCOM would specify the route the U-2s were to take. The U-2s would go over, and this was no secret to the Iraqis because we notified the Iraqis about U-2 flights within certain window of days. And the U-2 would fly over and take pictures. That's what U-2s do. And we would give the pictures of the sites to UNSCOM, and of course, we could keep copies of the pictures, the sites. And we did that. This information is fungible. So, to the extent that that was collecting information, we had the benefit of that information we also provided to UNSCOM. Many other countries did the same thing. The French flew planes over Iraq in support of UNSCOM, and I'm sure they kept the photographic products of those flights. The Russians, I don't know whether they ever did, but [they] talked about joining the overhead observation mission and I'm sure they kept the product of what their planes photographed as well, if in fact they flew. I just can't recall.
Q: Did the U.S. provide signal collection capability to UNSCOM?
A: UNSCOM had a -- we provided help that UNSCOM requested. And I don't want to go beyond that.
Q: Did we use our signal collection capability on UNSCOM?
A: We provided -- our job -- when UNSCOM asked us to support them, we supported them.
Q: When UNSCOM selected from these various experts that were offered by different countries, were any people picked Pentagon employees, either military or civilian?
A: Isn't this a variation of a question you asked me earlier?
Q: I don't think I got an answer earlier.
A: Right.
Q: So you're not going to answer that question?
A: We put up [a list of] experts, and UNSCOM chose the experts that they needed.
Q: Did any of them work for the Pentagon?
A: I'm saying we put [up] a list of experts, and UNSCOM chose the ones they felt help them do their job.
Q: When you say we, do you mean DoD?
A: We would put up the experts. UNSCOM would chose them. It was we, the U.S. government, who would put up people in response to an UNSCOM request. UNSCOM would choose the people it needed to do its job.
Press: Thank you.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan1999/t01071999_t0107asd.html
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