Pentagon Spokesman's Briefing

DoD News Briefing - Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, DASD PA

Q: Craig, two questions. Why weren't British jets involved in the
raids in the northern no-fly zone today? And number two, what's being
done to find out why so many of those expensive JSOWs [joint standoff
weapons] missed targets in Iraq near Baghdad last week?

Quigley: I don't know the answer to the first part of your question.
Let me see if I can find that out - as to whether or not British jets
were involved.

Q: Well, they said they weren't. London said British jets were not
involved.

Quigley: Oh --

Q: I was just wondering if that was a coincidence or --

Quigley: Well, no. I mean - no, it's my understanding they don't fly
-- the Brits do not fly every mission that coalition aircraft fly in
either the northern or southern no-fly zone - frequent contributors,
but not 100 percent of the time. I mean, I can double-check on that,
Charlie, if you want, but I - and my initial reaction would be to
take them at their word.

(Cross talk.)

Q: Well, I was not denying that; I was just wondering why that - it's
because they weren't along today or --

Quigley: Yeah, let me see if I can get some more information that.

Q: And - (to colleague) - did you want to --

Q: I just wanted some clarity on what did happen in the northern
no-fly zone, by your account.

Quigley: The coalition aircraft that did fly - and I'll see if I can
get some more clarity on that - were fired at by elements of the
Iraqi air defense system in the northern no-fly zone, and coalition
aircraft returned fire and engaged those antiaircraft systems there
and have --

Q: In other words, they retaliated against what was fired at them? Is
that what you're saying, or --

Quigley: Correct. Correct. And it was - both AAA and surface-to-air
missiles [SAMs] were used today. Coalition aircraft were not hit, but
they did return fire and safely returned to their bases.

Q: Are you sure about the SAMs?

Quigley: Yes.

....

Q: When you say two of the - two radars, of how many? And was it
customary in the past for those radars to be - as long-range
surveillance radars, were they on all the time in the past, and now
they're not?

Quigley: Well, again, we've seen - keep in mind from our descriptions
on Friday that these very large, very long-range air defense and
surveillance radars. Not particularly new radars, but still, effective
and very long range.

What we saw was an improvement in the quality and quantity of the
anti-aircraft systems in place in the southern no-fly zone to engage
coalition aircraft - quite an increase in that since the first of the
year. And we looked about and we said why is that so? And we
attributed the capability of these systems that were struck, both the
radars and the command and control and communication facilities that
all helped to knit them together as a coherent whole, that that
contributed to the overall effectiveness of the planes south of 33
[degrees latitude]. And so that's why those particular targets were
engaged.

Is it permanent? No. You can replace or repair systems such as these
that have been damaged. But if it disrupts and degrades and always
keeps that air defense system either ducking or looking or somehow
operating at less than peak effectiveness, and it goes to safeguard
our coalition air crews while they're flying in those no-fly zones, we
consider that a mark of success.

Q: I don't think you ever said two of how many.

Quigley: Because we never have quantified the number.

Jim?

Q: Was one of the purposes of the strike also to disrupt air defenses
in the north or are those radars not --

Quigley: No, they are not --

Q: - not used?

Quigley: Correct; they are not situated as such that they would
contribute to the Iraqi air defenses in the north.

Q: Are there corresponding ones in the north that do the same thing?

Quigley: I don't know.

Yeah?

Q: Craig, was this the first time that the United States and its
allies struck a connecting network, as opposed to retaliating for when
a fire-control radar was turned on, which, as I remember, provoked a
bombing, but not a search-control radar.

Quigley: No, I don't think so, George. I can't give you a date, but
over the months, I seem to recall that it isn't always fire-control
radars that have been engaged. If any element - and that could
include any of the command-and-control communication nodes that are
the brains of it and that help knit it all together, as well as some
of the search radars that contribute to - particularly the long-range
air picture - if we feel those have had an effect both north and
south, those are fair game.

Q: Well, then, looking through Iraq's end of the telescope, if they
turn on the search radar, which could be benign, could be for just
seeing who's up there and traffic control, does that mean that's a
no-no they'll likely get bombed, or is it strictly if you turn on --
if you paint me with a fire-control radar, then you take the
consequences?

Quigley: We have a variety of means of ascertaining the role that a
radar would play, and when you have a radar such as the Tall King or
the Volex, which were the ones that General Newbold showed up here on
Friday which were two of the types that were struck, their
capabilities are of long-range surveillance and contributing to the
early warning of coalition aircraft being in the southern no-fly zone.
You take their pure mechanical and electronic capabilities as only one
factor as to whether or not they contribute to that picture. There are
other means that we then piece together to ascertain their greater
role in contributing to that air defense picture. And we looked at the
totality in choosing the particular sites that we chose for Friday.

Yes, sir?

Q: What U.K. aircraft were used in this raid?

Quigley: I'm sorry?

Q: U.K. aircraft?

Quigley: U.K. aircraft were used in Friday's strike, yes.

Q: Which were they?

Quigley: I don't know. You'd need to check with the Brits on that.

Q: Were they doing air to - were they doing fighter CAP [combat air
patrol] or were they doing air-to-ground as well?

Quigley: Again, I'd prefer to have you check with the British and let
them talk about their planes.

Q: One final question. Why not identify the types of weapons we used
at this time? Why are you not?

Quigley: Because you choose a weapon quite specifically to go after a
particular type of target. Now, you could choose different types of
weapons to go after a particular target, but there is a very exact
process that goes into the weaponeering and the choice of weapon that
you choose to go after a particular target. There are other factors of
just the weapon and the target - what is the weather, what is the
terrain, what are my launch platforms? And you put all those parts
together, and if you put all those parts together, you could be
helpful in predicting what sort of a system would be used against a
similar target set in the future. And I'm not going to help the Iraqis
and put together the parts of that puzzle.

....

Q: Two questions. Along those lines, the first one - I know you don't
have the BDA [battle damage assessment] complete yet, but you have
said twice now that you know it wasn't perfect. Can you elaborate on
that? What wasn't perfect? Those were fired, they missed their target
-- what part of that equation was not perfect?

Quigley: We know that every weapon used in the raid did not perform
100 percent. Rarely is that the case.

Q: Okay. The second part is, does the Pentagon have an estimate of how
many threat radars have been degraded because of coalition airstrikes
over the whole --

Quigley: No, not that I know of. And the number would be very
transient, too. I mean, if I have attacked a radar in a strike and I
have damaged it, so for that day and maybe for three weeks or some
number of weeks afterwards it's out of commission, but ultimately it
is repaired and returned to service, I have only taken it out of
circulation for that period of time. During that period of time, it no
longer contributes to the effectiveness of the Iraqi air defense
system, but it may not be permanent. If I blow it to smithereens,
that's a different issue and you can pretty much write it off. But I
don't know of any overall tally that's been done over time.

Q: Any estimate on how many have been blown to smithereens?

Quigley: No, I'm sorry. Not that I've ever seen, no.

Yes?

Q: Do you have any - you said that you had seen only two radars come
back online. Any indication whether the strikes have in fact degraded
the command-and-control network, which you were really going after, or
not at this point?

Quigley: No, not yet. Not this quickly after the fact. But we know,
again, we had good effectiveness overall on the strike, and we know
that several of those command-and-control sites were indeed damaged --
at least several. Again, our BDA is still imperfect here. And whatever
is not functioning according to its design specifications is going to
be a degradation and a disruption in the capability of the overall
system.

....

Q: I'm still confused about Iraq, because you say, on the one hand,
that, you know, two radars back up, 18 not, you don't know --

Quigley: I didn't say that. Those are your words.

Q: Fine. But basically, many of the radars have not come back up, and
I believe you said you don't know why, whether they've been damaged or
whether or not the Iraqis are simply stepping back and not turning
them on, and that your BDA is ongoing, so it's very difficult to judge
the effectiveness of one of the weapons that you said - although you
didn't name it - had gone astray.

Having said all of that, how, on the other hand, can both you and
General Newbold repeatedly say the strike had good effectiveness?

Quigley: Because we think that it was successful in at least to a
certain degree disrupting and degrading the capability of that
integrated air defense system. If I have fewer systems to use, I'm
going to be less capable.

Q: But you don't - I mean, where I guess I'm still confused is you
don't really know whether it was disrupted or degraded; all you know
is, at the moment, some certain number of Iraqi radars have not come
back online.

Quigley: We don't have zero BDA. We don't have perfect BDA. Our
knowledge is somewhere between the two. We know that we had some
effectiveness in hitting the targets that we shot at. And we know that
many of them were indeed damaged, some of them considerably. There's
no way you could have a system be as completely operational and
helpful to the contribution of the air defense picture in the South if
it is no longer operational.

Q: What is your feeling about comparing the effectiveness of the
strike against the radar targets versus the command-and-control nodes?
Where do you think you did better?

Quigley: I don't know if we're looking at it that way, as a scorecard
sort of a circumstance. We tried to look across at all of the targets
and learn what we can about what went right, what could have been done
better; and if it's over here, we're happy, if it's over here and it
needs to be improved, we'll do what we can to try to improve the
performance.

Q: My last question. What do you think could have been done better?

Quigley: We don't know that yet. We're still getting back information
from the systems that were used. And the BDA will take a while. That's
in large part a measure of your success. It isn't a hundred percent of
the measurements that you use. But I could hit a target, but if the
Iraqis are able to repair it fairly quickly, I've had a relatively
temporary effect. If I've really knocked it out and I'm going to take
weeks or months or maybe not ever to reconstitute that element, then
I've had a more permanent effect. So I'm not sure how to give a good
answer to your question.

Q: Of the two radars that have come back up, are they up continuously,
intermittently? And do the Iraqis have other long-range radars or are
they, in effect, with the exception of those two, blind from looking
south?

Quigley: No, there are other long-range radars that the Iraqis have at
their disposal, certainly. And in the first part of your question,
we've only seen them on just a little bit. "Intermittently" might even
be a little strong. But they have been turned on, so it hasn't been
zero.