DoD News Briefing
Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
Tuesday, September 12, 2000 - 2:41 p.m.EDT
Q: Can you explain what the Air Force is doing on the swap-out of an AEF [Aerospace Expeditionary Force] in the Gulf, and specifically, whether this represents an increase in the Air Force's presence in the Gulf?
Bacon: AEFs go to the Gulf approximately every 90 days, so every three months there's a replacement of one with another. During the replacement period, there's an overlap of several days. And currently we are replacing one AEF with another, so for several days there are more planes there than normal; it's temporary and of short- term duration.
Q: There's no intended increase in Air Force airpower in the Gulf other than the normal switch-out? And is it a scheduled swap-out or is it early?
Bacon: My understanding is it's a scheduled swap-out. And -- I mean, we have a force of between 20,000 and 25,000 people there at any given time. We've got a carrier battlegroup, the George Washington, is there. We have an AEF there. That's standard. We also have, at any given time, an Intrinsic Action rotation from the Army doing maneuvers in Kuwait, using the pre-positioned equipment, some of the pre-positioned equipment we have in the Gulf. So this is fairly standard.
Now, I will tell you that we obviously watch Iraq very, very closely, but particularly at this time of year, because August, September and October tend to be the times when Saddam Hussein historically has either decided to attack his neighbors or attack his own people.
In 1980, during this period, he launched his war against Iran. In 1990, he attacked Kuwait. In 1994 he began moving some divisions toward Kuwait, and we responded with a fairly rapid and large build-up in the Gulf. In 1996 he attacked Kurds in the North. So, this period of time is one when he has acted in the past. It also is a period of time when he tends to be exercising his military. So they are engaged in a normal training cycle at the end of the summer, early fall, and that training cycle means that there are some movements of troops, and it also can be used to disguise movements that he might make toward either his own people or toward neighboring states. So we watch him closely all the time; we watch him with particular care and closeness during this period of the year.
We have not made any increases in our force sizes in the area. We've maintained, on a daily basis, a very strong, well-trained and active force, both -- from all services. And that's what we're doing now where it's just a standard rotation of the aerospace expeditionary force.
Q: Where are they situated? What country are they in?
Bacon: Well, they divide themselves, generally, between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Q: What kind of movements are you seeing? You talked about Iraqi troop movements. Are there any build-up or any kind of movement of that would cause --
Bacon: We haven't seen any unusual buildups. The type of thing we see -- last week we saw some aircraft dispersion, but the aircraft were returned to their bases. They could have -- we don't know exactly why these things happen. One explanation is that they're practicing defensive maneuvers. But that's they type of thing we've been seeing.
Q: Could you update us on Operation Northern and Southern Watch? Have there been any hostile acts in recent days?
Bacon: They continue to fly, obviously, and they respond to attacks against them. Actually, there has not been -- there has been some diminution in the level of Iraqi opposition or action against Operation Northern Watch and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Southern Watch in recent days. But these things, you know, they go up and down and it's very hard to make a trend out of something that happens over a couple of days, or even a week or two.
Q: Ken, how formidable is Saddam's force today? How much has he been able to rebuild over the past nine years, and how is his command-and-control, as far as our intel is concerned?
Bacon: Well, he suffered dramatically as a result of two things. First of all, Desert Storm -- three things -- Desert Storm; the embargo that followed Desert Storm, and -- which has made it very difficult for him to -- not impossible, but it has complicated and slowed down his ability to rebuild, because he can't -- it's difficult for him to buy from other countries; and our continued vigilance under Operation Southern Watch and Northern Watch. So we continue to, as appropriate, in response to attacks against the policing of the no-fly zones, we do attack his anti-aircraft installations.
He does have massive numbers of anti-aircraft guns. He's been somewhat reluctant to fire missiles and doesn't do that often, now, but he does from time to time. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but his air force is severely degraded from what it was in 1990. Many of the planes he has don't fly or can't fly because of absence of spare parts and poor maintenance, et cetera. Clearly, he lost a lot of armored equipment that has been difficult to replace; artillery and other things. So I think his force is severely degraded.
Nonetheless, he continues to try to shoot down American and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones. He has offered a reward, a bounty, for shooting down Allied planes, and we take very seriously his attacks against our patrols.
Q: Well, what about ground forces, Republican Guard? I mean, does he have the ability now, as far as we can determine, to wage war on his neighbors again?
Bacon: The main difficulty he would have in waging war against his neighbors is the continued and vigorous presence of Allied forces in the area. We have completely changed our readiness posture in the Gulf from 10 years ago, in that we have forces on patrol all the time; a carrier there 100 percent of the time, a carrier battle group; the Aerospace Expeditionary Forces and Army troops exercising. We have pre-positioned equipment there, significant amounts, a division's worth of pre-positioned armor equipment. So -- in 1990, it took us a long while to build up our forces in the Gulf. Our forces are there, on station, ready all the time now. That is the biggest difference.
Second, a number of our friendly, or Allied, countries in the region have improved their own defenses. A notable example is Kuwait, which has worked very hard and successfully to improve its military capability. Saudi Arabia and other countries have done the same thing. We work continually with these countries, as do other allied countries, to help them improve their forces.
And I think the third factor is that he did suffer heavy losses during Desert Storm, and the embargo, the United Nations embargo, has made it difficult for him to rebuild his forces.
...
Q: -- along the same lines, you talk about the embargo having an impact. Can you give us an update on the illegal smuggling activity, the oil smuggling activity?
Bacon: I don't have those figures. I'll get them for you. I just haven't looked at the smuggling recently. I mean, typically, the smuggling goes up as oil prices go up. Oil prices are high. I would anticipate that smuggling has gone up, because it's more profitable.
Q: It's been up for a while --
Bacon: It tends to follow oil prices. And when oil prices are low, smuggling drops off. When oil prices are high, it increases, because there's a greater profit margin for all the cast of characters involved in smuggling. And that includes the payments that are made to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces.
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