The iraqi armie jammed this highway as Coalition Forces moved to kuwait. They were perfect targets. It became known as the highway of death. And a harsh example of allied air power during Operation Desert Storm. The coalition used overwhelming air power to defeat a brutal dictator and free a nation. In this program, the air commanders of desert storm talk about how they fought the war, focusing on the u. S. Air forces role. August 7, 1990, president bush responding to the iraqi invasion of kuwait orders American Forces to decoy to saudi arabia. Deploy to saudi arabia. U. S. Central command air forces had to move its forces several thousand miles quickly. Within days five u. S. Air force squadrons and two u. S. Carriers arrived in the gulf. Lieutenant general chuck horner recalls the deployment. Gen. Horner we had to get people here rapidly because of the threat of iraqi invasion. We brought over those kinds of airplanes you need to defend and deter air defense aircraft. And also the f15. In just five weeks, the Coalition Air force outnumbered the iraqi air force. When it became apparent we were successful in that initial effort, we fleshed out the air force with more aircraft, more f16s. The coalition organized its airpower with general horner as the single air commander, or air boss. Gen. Horner we created four divisions. One division handled the tankers and bomber aircraft. The second one handled the fighters and attack aircraft. A Division Associated with Electronic Warfare. And the airlift operations. We are able to define each air division by function, and that way we can provide the commandandcontrol needed to execute the war. As we began to get more operating locations, we moved tankers into location in the united arab emirates. The coalition would eventually have close to 3000 planes. These fighter and attack planes patrol the desert, providing cover for the Worlds Largest military airlift in history. Airlift, the hidden part of airpower. It was the fastest way to get enough men and material over to defend the desert kingdom. Brigadier general command of the coalitions airlift forces. And then that appointment, the craft aircraft, the kc tends the kc10s, very early on it was evident operation Desert Shield was going to surpass by far the strategic airlift we have had before. Military and civilian cargo airplanes delivered 72,000 tons of cargo in the month of august alone, to places like the early goings was walltowall planes. Planes would behold and until a plane took off so another plane could land. After the president decided we need more forces, we actually went into a second peak. We went through the same thing, using massive Strategic Forces to bring supplies into the theater. General Norman Schwarzkopf was chief of the allied forces. His concept for Operation Desert Storm caused for an intense massive air force campaign to prepare the way for an allied ground in festive ground offensive. It was the most Successful Air campaign in history. The general became air force chief of staff during operation Desert Shield. Our target was the field army. Our mission was to expel from kuwait. First of all, we knew we needed to operate in iraqi airspace. We had to penetrate into his territory. To do that we had to take apart and disrupt his ability to stop us from coming in. We had to disintegrate his integrated air defense set up. Director of campaign planned before the war and commanded fighter and attack aircraft during the war. Whether it be in the air or on the ground. We were obviously most concerned with taking it down from the air to start with. The coalition would have to overcome saddams integrated air defense systems. A basic iad is setup so that they have an envelope at medium and High Altitude you fly into. He puts his aaa up with the redundancy he had, so basically you are going to fly through. If you are going to force the aaa, his fighters will engage in the fire engagement zone. Thats the way its put together. What its made of is the systems itself, the acquisition radars, the fighter aircraft, and what i call the nervous system, the control system, where you have air force Operations Center, in bahgdad. A sector force Operations Center is spread out. And each one of those has interoperation centers. That is what the integrated system does. Which airplanes are going to be engaged with fighters and which airplanes are going to be engaged with missiles. As many as 17,000 purpose 17,000 surfacetoair missiles, on the order of 10,000 aircraft artillery pieces. Very modern radars, all lashed together with hightech equipment. It is an integrated system. Take away the nervous system, the control, and then start tearing down the pieces of it one by one. The Desert Storm Air campaign would have four faces. Face one would have three goals, gain air superiority, destroy saddams strategic capability, namely his long range to missiles, and disrupt his command and control. The allies estimated his first phase would last 25 days. Face to would be sure. Would be short. Phase two would be short. During phase three, allied airpower would continue to hit the targets of phase one, but they would shift their attack to the iraq he army to the iraqi army, killing close bringing close to half a million men. He called it shaping the battlefield. He had to defeat those elements of his Ground Forces capable of mass casualties, artillery, armor. An important target would be saddams crack troops, the Republican Guard. He was depending on them to drive back the coalition Ground Forces if they attacked his army. One of the centers of gravity is to destroy the Republican Guard and destroy a lot of the military support. Planners believed phase three would take about three weeks. The final days of the campaign was to supply the Ground Troops as they moved into kuwait. Now the 28 countries with forces in the gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution and have no choice but to drive saddam from kuwait by force. We will not fail. Their attacks are underway as military targets in iran. The coalition rated 48 hours as they began their attack. H power was zero 300 on january 17, 1991. That is when the first bomb would fall on baghdad. That is when operation shield would become Operation Desert Storm. Over 600 planes were launched that night in bases around the iranian peninsula, from carriers in the red sea and the persian gulf. From even as far as the united states. To give hes idea of the order of magnitude, within the first 34 through 30 hours, we launched over 300 tankers alone to support the strike package. There has been never any launch as big in the history of the air force. In their opening attack, the allies combined their stealth and Decision Technology and Electronic Warfare tactics and classical elements of mass and surprise. We have been here since august. He was used to seeing that every day, as well as most airplanes. That is what we wanted him to see. Just beyond the reader warnings, our attack aircraft would be forming up in orbits so they were able to top off their fuel at the last moment before heading into the target area. Holding less than 3 of the coalition fighters, the f117 struck almost one third of the targets on the first day. The stealth fighters led the attack, penetrating the iraqi i adds iraqi iads. One that cannot be stopped was at h minus one hour 60 minutes, a tomahawk land missile was launched. Over 50 cruise missiles were launched that night. They would arrive 10 minutes after the first f117 strike. The first thing was taken down the sites by the special ops forces. Eight apache gunships took out two iraqi reporting sites on the border. This helped clear the way for nonstealthy fighters heading toward western iraq. The first actual bomb to fall in iraq, that occurred around nine minutes after what we refer to as each hour. As h hour. We flew 32 f117s right down into baghdad in the first hour 20 minutes. Their next target was the principal Telephone Communication facility, also dubbed the at t building. It was there central, note in the whole country. Central comm node in the whole country. At h hour, f117s took out the adoc in baghdad. The ability to see airplanes coming out of the south was denigrated. The ability to communicate was taken down and the city went black. Having opened up the gateway, our other strike packages rushed through and we hit very hard. This is a massive attack at the beginning moments of the war. We attacked all the strategic targets i spoke of, the electric power, communication, defenses and so forth. Our goal was to put them in shock and destroy the ability to defend their homeland. We were able to do that with maximum with massive attacks across the spectrum of control. Also surfacetoair missiles. Once we took down intercept operating centers, then we fired hundreds of in the first 24 hours. Arms are highspeed antiradar missiles. These home and on their mission and destroy antiradar sites. One of the permanent scud launchers tf1 elevens the f1 elevens the f111 took out the power grids. As with the b52s in striking the southern airfields. Making sure that the tankards and the airplanes were protected. Iraqis never recovered from the allies first punch from that first night. We brought in the f16s and the f1 18s and the f118s. For all kinds of purposes there were absolutely no images. And that is a tribute to all the details being worked out and the numerous times we just flew to make sure there werent any more glitches. It was very thorough. We used a lot of airplanes and assets to do that. They were never able to recover from that first 24 hours. We seize control of the air in the initial moments of the air campaign and control it much more easier and much more efficient. The first bomb dropped and 18 hours later the longest continuous weather moved in. We fought weather for eight straight days. We intended in the first three days to take out all of the biological and chemical stories. The weather really hampered us in this area and that was our number one concern. Pamela coalition was able to destroy many nuclear, biological, and chemical story sites and cripple saddams kid ability produce and research saddams ability produce and research these weapons. He is never able to use these weapons against the allies during the war. We had to diver an inordinate amount of assets. Although Coalition Air power destroyed many permanent scud launchers, they did not destroy saddams mobile watchers. Saddam was still able to send scud towards israel and saudi arabia. In terms of psychological impact on both saudi arabia and israel. We locate these very time sensitive fleeting targets. We wound up using 24 airplanes continuously and supplement those airplanes with strikes. We are using almost 100 airplanes per day. We use a variety of intelligence sources and put the airplanes over the target at the right time. The coalition knew that mobile launchers had to come out of hiding and drive certain areas. These launch areas were called scud boxes. During the day a tens were on the roadway looking for them. By night, f16s circled overhead. U. S. And British Special forces use laser designators to target scud missiles for Coalition Air crews in western iraq. In eastern iraq the new experimental stars aircraft successfully directed severals several strikes. They were able to locate mobile watchers, which can track movement on the ground. Many mobile watchers were hunted down and destroyed. We were at day 4. 5 in the war. And then in the first 11 days we had only accomplished three days of what we intended to accomplish. Although they were never fully suppressed, air power greatly reduced to their chances of hitting their targets and dramatically reduced scud launches from five a day to three per week. Although the coalition struggled with whether, they had little difficulty with the iraqi air force. They were no match for coalition pilots. Flash coming out of westbound. It was decimating more emotionally and psychologically. They cannot complete intercepts, they cannot even get close to airplanes. That had to be very demoralizing for them. Since they couldnt survive in the air, the iraqis began hiding their aircraft in shelters. 4, 3, 2, one, impact. There is a hit. Secondary. Bigtime secondary. Allies concentrated their attacks in these shelters. Laserguided bombs penetrated and destroyed over 300 of them. Since they couldnt survive in the air or on the ground, iraqi aircraft could begin to run toward iran in mass by day nine. It has changed mass precision. Precision guided munitions are fitted with a laser or optical guidance system. Only 7 was precision. But some estimate that these destroyed 80 of the procedure of the strategic targets during the war. With a combination of stealth and precision, we were able to attack targets very discreetly. We did not carpet bomb downtown baghdad, we took special care to make sure we only attacked military targets and attacked them quite precisely. With precision munitions, the coalition could have avoided civilian areas and hit leadership targets instead. They went after their minister of defense facilities and after the security facilities, after the headquarter facilities. Those are the areas where the most barbaric acts in supporting those were made and executed. It was critical to be able to take that element out of that society. It is also critical to let the populace see that that segment of their society was as vulnerable as anyone else. This is an electronic war like no one else in history. Anytime we send a package where we have jammers, the ef 1 11 in a particular spot, we have them sitting back anytime the radar did come up. And because of that, fear of that ability, they were very reluctant to have their radars up at the time. If your radar is up for a. Of time up for a period of time and you are being jammed, you cant break out of that target. They are able to get good pk shots and not us. They started ballistic firing missiles. That is just like shooting a rifle. As you can imagine, that is why they had zero effectiveness. Another danger was antiaircraft fire. If you have many gun sites, you can take them all out. What you have to do is with tactics. The basic tactic we use for that we use medium and highaltitude. The accommodation of suppressing and not using fire effectively meant from the very beginning we essentially had air superiority. That counts for the very good on our side. We had lost 22 airplanes. I think it speaks for himself. Itself. Bombing the iraqi field army did not come after phase one and two as originally planned. It happened at the same time. We simply diverted it to begin on phase three. There was no time that the iraqi Ground Forces were not under antiair attack. The allies used rescission weapons to take down iraqi bridges, cutting down the army from kuwait of reinforcements and supplies. I put 11 f117s and four and we put seven bridges in the water first night. Iraqi engineers built bridges to replace the destroyed once. Allies returned and took them out as well. Other aircraft trolled for convoys. The resupply of the iraqi armie flowed from 20,000 tons per day to 2000 tons. From the start of the war, b52s hammered airfields, plants like petroleum supplies, and military centers. Very early on we were providing three b52s every hour and half over a Republican Guard target, or target that had to do with the theater operation. A b52 struck regardless what kind of whether there was. We struck all day and all night without warning, without their ability to effectively mass a counter air offensive. As such it was very effective putting firepower on their equipment, troop location, artillery, tanks, and they can do nothing about it. And it was extremely demoralizing. Behind the planes that deliver them were sentry claims. Sentry planes. Please controllers choreograph these controllers choreographed as they delivered. The coalition average one Bombing Mission per minute against iraq. The focus became destroying equipment as opposed to destroying troops. Our initial intelligence was poor, and we were sending aircraft to destroy armor units, and one way they would drive to a location where they thought they would be there, they were not there. One thing we did was put f16s over the battlefield. Scout, andhem killer their job was to patrol a 20 by 20 mile box, find allied bombing was relentless. The last 11 days of the air campaign before the Ground Campaign started, with precision weapons, we destroyed and assessed a thousand thanks. We destroyed 300 artillery pieces. On day three, the general give this assessment. We have had tough times in 30 days, particularly unusual weather in january. It was only because we were doing so well in our campaign, taking down airfields, that we were able to maintain a schedule in spite of the weather. Having more importantly, we have demonstrated that we were able to date out forces in the field in kuwait. We had good luck with our systems at night. In fact, i think theyre bombing is absolutely phenomenal. Done andhe work being bring large amounts of ammunition, i think that is beginning to pay off. It has to be very difficult to be in iraqi soldier and sit their night after night and day after day and endure the pounding. As was miserably vividly described, visit mostly at the front lines. Their accuracy, they never missed. And when you were in a tank or with a group, you do not know if you are being picked out. It was a very unnerving situation to experience. It had a tremendous psychological impact. Despite saddams fortifications around kuwait, his plank in iraq was an exposed. He had their lifters position thousands of troops and equipment from massive allies through iraq. One of our biggest jobs that we had over your was to move major elements of the airborne course starting on the day after bombing started. For the first 14 days, we had a schedule every 10 minutes 24 hours a day. That ability to move that fast amount of people and a lot of vehicles that quickly, in my mind, Saddam Hussein never caught on until much later on in the ground war that there was anybody even if there. The Ground Troops make their final preparations. Strikest massive b52 to bond through those areas so they could be a clear path so that when the troops went through, there would be a ines in theared of m wire would be called cut. They enter the battlefield and took out the points of the entire system he had developed, that he was counting on to fuel trenches and set them on fire to make the breaching more difficult. It was time for the Ground Troops to liberate kuwait. The general lunch a ground war daysary 24, 1991, 31 from the start of the campaign. The original allied plan was only nine days on schedule. Roger that. Allied air power interface for, providing close air support. For thery difficult army to know when and where they are going to need close air support. We created a system where we pushed them over to the battlefield every minute of the hour and we were able to diverge them to whether arming it at them for emergency situations or if there was no need from the army, we would send them to another target beyond the fire support launch. Briefed all of the Division Commanders before the war started and i said, we would destroy 50 of the armor and artillery before you cross the boundary. Based on what they found, i think there was no doubt in their mind that we exceeded 50 very significantly. That theem told me majority of the tanks shot, i shot at a radiator, which means the tanks were running. Iraqis surrendered. One of the capture Division Commanders asked, how can you do not use your artillery . Waseplied my artillery destroyed in the air before the Ground Campaign started. In fact, i called for artillery support from the Division Next to mine in their artillery was destroyed 100 in transit to support my division. I would tell you that this was the first time in history that a field army has been defeated by the air campaign. Airpower truly was the win they carried Operation Desert Storm. If there is one thing that this war validated, it is the expert of our training in the quality of our people. I say that not as an advertisement or bombastic statement, it is absolutely true. The people that put this whole thing together are absolutely brilliant from aircraft mechanics to communications, to pallets andoks and intelligence there so of you but i worked day and now that would work day and night and would sleep only two hours. The dedication was beyond belief and they deserve more and my hats are off to them. On railamerica this weekend, from februarygs 1966, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gives equal time to critics of the war and members of the Johnson Administration and hearings of a televised live to the nation. Heres a preview. 18, 1966, secretary of state dean rusk testifies the the and on hearings. Set the stage for us. Secretary of state dean rest have been secretary since 1961, john f. Kennedy appointed him. When kennedy was assassinated, president johnson kept him on his initiation and relied on him even more than kennedy had. Kennedy himself was very interested in Foreign Affairs and wanted to be his own secretary of state essentially. Specialized in Domestic Affairs and leaned heavily on foreignpolicy advisers. Particularly rusk and secretary of defense robert, who also carried over from the kennedy demonstration. Rusk came one of the great loyalist. He defended the vietnam war to his dying day. He believed that the vietnam war was right and it was a continuation of american policy since world war ii. The new perspective as a historian with the value in someone watching these 50 euros 50 your oldnk hearings, we live history from the beginning forward to the end. We read history to the end back. We know how the vietnam war ended. We presented the features of americans being evacuated into helicopters from the roof of the embassy. We know vietnam we know North Vietnam took over south vietnam. We know that everything we fought the war for, just the opposite happened. We also know that we recognize the and on. We have ambassadors there and president clinton got huge crowds cheering for him when he went to vietnam. It is a very different country. In fact, the majority of vietnamese were born after the war, they call it the american war and we caught the vietnam war. It is because of the history. They fought with china more than when they fought with us. It is a very different situation. Yet, we hear the testimony that was given in 1966 and none of those people knew how was going to end. They all project the end it and hope with it would invite. Risk things that the vietnamese will give up and decide that it is not worth the fight and they will go back to their own country and live in North Vietnam and that the south vietnamese live by themselves. But the communist disappear. That was his vision. Kennedy was saying that we have to get out of there and the most safe way possible. Needeneral was saying we to send more to the country that we can still control and not take back everything in the process. General taylor was talking about the realities about the government and south vietnam. None of them know what we know. In fact, and some of the books written by diplomatic historians , then note the end. Even mcnamara who went back in the 1990s to meet with people would been his opponent, he had to confront many issues can have to rethink his policies and came to the conclusion that the war had been a mistake. Thattakes us back to period and gives us a chance to see the people who were involved as they tried to grapple with creating the policy and senators who had to decide whether or not they should support or oppose. Vietnam hearings, 50 years later, watch for on real american. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3 American History tv. Americanweekend on history tv on cspan3, we feature programs that tell the american story. There are some of the highlights for this president s day weekend. Today at 5 00 eastern, Arthur Margaret talks about her book who was born into poverty and became one of the richest women in the 19th century new york. Her unusual life including a second marriage the former Vice President ehrenberg. Aaron burr. What brought these two celebrities together . The attraction was her money. And money to eliza would give her a big him a big pot of money to spend. On the one hand, she would soon have to begin settling her first husbands estate. Burr, with his knowledge of law would help her protector assets. The Main Attraction of the marriage of her was the opportunity to enter social circles that had been previously close to her. War, 6 00, on the civil the reactions of both southerners cant northerners to john brown 1859 rate on the federal armory and his subsequent execution and the nation divided sentiment as americans headed towards the 1860 election. Sunday afternoon at 2 00, historians its worth the history of the Death Penalty in 1976ca, including the Supreme Court case that confirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment. Monday afternoon at 3 30 eastern , jane swanson compares the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and john f. Kennedy. The personal similarities and differences in their terms in office, the backgrounds of the assassins in the state of the country at the time. He also talks about the expansion reactions of the two widows carry very legally and Jacqueline Kennedy mary lincoln and Jacqueline Kennedy. Jfk was very interested in Abraham Lincoln and jackie had the link in for the federal. For the computer complete schedule, go to www. Cspan. Org. Of American History tv, Brooklyn Law School professor christopher book,amp talks about his Alexander Graham bell and the patent that change the law. He is mainly remembered for being the inventor of the telephone because of a lawyer. Although many others contributed to the convention, christopher says bell went out because of americas patent laws. The New York Public Library posted this one hour and 15 minutes event. Thank you for coming to tonights program. Can you hear me . Now . Thank you for coming tonight out of courtesy to the speaker. Please turn off Electronic Devices because even though we are talking about telephones, we do not want to actually hear them during the program
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