Fw: Russian Military Expert Predicts the Course of Gulf War II

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

> Source - Rossiyskaya Gazeta in Russian, 22 Feb 2003 (Translation below)
>
> Interview with military analyst Vladimir Slipchenko by Aleksandr Khokhlov;
>
> Vladimir Slipchenko, military analyst, doctor of military sciences,
> professor, and major general of reserves, is a major Russian specialist on
> future wars. His predictions of the course of US military operations in
> Iraq (1991, 1996, and 1998), Yugoslavia (1999), and Afghanistan (2001)
> coincided almost 100% with what subsequently happened in reality. Today
> the military analyst predicts the course and outcome of the next US war
> against Iraq, which the American military themselves have already dubbed
> Operation "Shock And Awe."
>
> [Khokhlov] Vladimir Ivanovich, so much has already been said about the
> reasons and causes of the new war in Iraq, but I cannot get rid of the
> feeling that they are either talking about something entirely different,
> or not telling the full story...
>
> [Slipchenko] The main purpose of the war is indeed being left out of the
> picture and nobody is saying anything about it. I see the main purpose of
> the war as being the large-scale real-life testing by the United States of
> sophisticated models of precision weapons. That is the objective that they
> place first. All the other aims are either incidental, or outright
> disinformation.
>
> For more than 10 years now the United States has conducted exclusively
> no-contact wars. In May 2001 George Bush Jr., delivering his first
> presidential speech to students at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, spoke
> of the need for accelerated preparation of the US Armed Forces for future
> wars.  He emphasized that they should be high-tech Armed Forces capable of
> conducting hostilities throughout the world by the no-contact method. This
> task is now being carried out very consistently.
>
> It should be observed that the Pentagon buys from the military-industrial
> complex only those weapons that have been tested in conditions of real
> warfare and received a certificate of quality on the battlefield. After a
> series of live experiments -- the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and
> Afghanistan -- many corporations in the US military-industrial complex
> have been granted the right to sell their precision weapons to the
> Pentagon. They include Martin Lockheed, General Electric, and Loral. But
> many other well-known companies are as yet without orders from the
> military department.
>
> The bottom line is $50-60 billion a year. Who would want to miss out on
> that kind of money? But the present suppliers of precision weapons to the
> Pentagon are also constantly developing new types of arms and they must
> also be tested The US military-industrial complex demands testbed wars
> from its country's political leadership. And it gets them.
>
> And that is the main aim of the new war in Iraq.
>
> [Khokhlov] How will this war differ from the no-contact wars previously
> waged by the United States?
>
> [Slipchenko] First, in terms of its political objectives. For the first
> time since 1991 the United States sets the goal of changing the political
> system in the enemy state and removing or physically eliminating the
> country's leadership.
>
> They have not previously succeeded in this. Remember, the Americans did
> not previously try to remove Saddam Hussein from politics, and even
> Milosevic was not removed from the post of Yugoslav leader by military
> means. The US Armed Forces carried out their required tests of new weapons
> and then packed up their guns and went home. Now they face a very
> difficult mission.
>
> Therefore, second, because of the change of objective the strategy of the
> war also changes radically For the first time the war aims mean that the
> United States must without fail achieve total victory. To that end it is
> necessary to achieve three objectives: rout the enemy's Armed Forces,
> destroy his economy, and change the political system.
>
> The Iraqi army will be subjected to very powerful blows. It will be
> physically annihilated. In order to impose a new puppet government in the
> country (and I am sure the Americans have already formed that government)
> and to give that government the opportunity to get on with its work, the
> United States will be forced actually to occupy Iraq. The occupation of
> territory within which seats of organized resistance could persist would
> lead to large losses among US Army personnel. Guerrillas, and in the
> context of the Arab world also shahid martyrs wearing explosive belts --
> naturally the Americans do not need this. Therefore they will totally
> annihilate the Iraqi army. Practically all Iraq servicemen will die. There
> will be terrible carnage.
>
> Khokhlov] Does Iraq have any chance of offering resistance to the United
> States?
>
> Slipchenko] In Iraq we will once again see a situation where two
> generations of warfare meet. Iraq is strong and prepared for a war of the
> last generation -- on land and for land, for every target. But 600,000
> soldiers, 220 military aircraft, something like 2,200 tanks, 1,900
> artillery guns, around 500 multiple rocket launchers, 6 SCUD missile
> launchers, 110 surface-to-air missile systems, and 700 anti-aircraft
> installations will prove useless when they meet the aggressor.
>
> In fact, there will not be a meeting on the battlefield as such. The
> Americans, waging a no-contact war, will methodically use precision
> missile strikes to destroy all the key facilities of Iraq's state and
> military infrastructure, and will then wipe out enemy manpower with
missile
> and
> bombing raids.
>
> [Khokhlov] How will the Americans begin hostilities?
>
> [Slipchenko] First of all there will be precision strikes against bunkers
> and command posts where Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leaders might be
> hiding, against Army headquarters and troop positions, and against
> components of the air defense system. Sophisticated ground-penetrating
> vacuum-type precision munitions will be used to destroy buried targets.
> Even if one of these weapons explodes not exactly inside, say, an
> underground bunker, in any case the exits from the shelter will be
> blocked. The bunker will become a mass grave for everyone who is
> unfortunate enough to be in it.
>
> To destroy armored equipment, in the very first days the Americans will
> use cluster aviation bombs with self-guided munitions. The
> "mother"-cluster bomb gives "birth" to several tens or hundreds of "baby"
> bombs, each of which independently chooses its own target to destroy on
> the ground.
>
> I am confident that in the very first hours of the war the United States
> will also use new pulse bombs They are also called microwave bombs. The
> principle by which these weapons operate is as follows: an instantaneous
> discharge of electromagnetic radiation on the order of two megawatts. At a
> distance of 2-2.5 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion the
> "microwaves" instantly put out of action all radio electronic systems,
> communications and radar systems, all computers, radio receivers, and even
> hearing aids and heart pacemakers. All these things are destroyed by the
> meltdown method. Just imagine, a person's heart explodes!...
>
> As a result of the use of these weapons Iraqi systems for command and
> control of the state and troops will be destroyed practically
> instantaneously.
>
> [Khokhlov] What other new types of arms could be tested?
>
> [Slipchenko] Since this war will be experimental for the United States,
> several new types of precision cruise missiles will be tested with a view
> to obtaining quality certificates. I believe attention will be devoted
> first and foremost to missile launches from submarines. The Americans are
> planning to make their submarine fleet the main launch pad.
>
> The Pentagon will continue to perfect the mechanism for targeting
> precision weapons. In 2000 with the help of the space shuttle Endeavor,
> the United States scanned around 80% of the surface of the Earth and
> created an electronic map of the planet in three-dimensional coordinates.
> The level of detail of objects on this map is down to the size of a
> window. That is to say, you could train a lens -- installed in a military
> satellite -- first on Baghdad, then on the city center, then on Saddam's
> palace, and on his bedroom window. You give the command -- and in a few
> minutes' time a targeted cruise missile flies into that window...
>
> [Khokhlov] How long will this war go on?
>
> [Slipchenko] I predict that Operation Shock And Awe will last not more
> than six weeks. The first period of the war -- the "shock" -- will last
> around 30 days. Some 400-500 sea- and air-based precision cruise missiles
> will be launched against targets in Iraq every 24 hours. During that month
> Iraq's troops and its economic potential will be annihilated. Anything
> that survives for any reason will be guaranteed destruction in the next
> two weeks. In the second stage -- "awe" -- the Americans will conduct a
> piloted version of a total cleanup of the territory. To this end the
> United States will use B-52 and B-2 Stealth bombers. In four hours of
> flight one Stealth is capable of detecting and destroying as many as 200
> stationary or moving targets on the ground. The United States intends to
> use at least 16 B-2 bombers The Stealths will be in the air constantly,
> one replacing the other.
>
> [Khokhlov] Will the Iraqi air defense system be able to counter the
> American planes and cruise missiles?
>
> Slipchenko] Iraq already has no air defense facilities in the north and
> south of the country -- US aviation is constantly bombing these areas.
> What remains in the center of the country will be destroyed in the first
> 10 minutes of the war. Iraq's anti-aircraft system is based on the
> classical active radar detection system: emit -- detect -- illuminate --
> destroy. The Americans will exploit this for their own purposes. As soon
> as an Iraqi radar reveals itself by emitting electromagnetic energy, a
> precision cruise missile will be dispatched against the "revealed" air
> defense facility using this same beam. Iraq has no chance of countering
> this.
>
> [Khokhlov] How much will this war cost?
>
> [Slipchenko] According to my estimates, $80 billion. But the total sum
> spent could rise to 100 billion. We will never know the exact figure of
> expenditure, if only because the war will be partly funded by private
> companies offering the Pentagon their experimental models of precision
> weapons for free in the hope of future dividends. The program for rearming
> the US Armed Forces is about $600 billion Therefore today the
> military-industrial complex need not stint, it can give weapons to the
> Army for free.
>
> Khokhlov] What human losses could Iraq suffer?
>
> [Slipchenko] Very considerable ones. Since the Americans are planning to
> physically annihilate the Iraqi army, I reckon that at least 500,000
> people will be killed. This will be a very bloody war.
>
> [Khokhlov] What will come after the war?
>
> [Slipchenko] The Americans will have to occupy Iraq. The occupation corps
> will apparently consist of four mechanized and armored divisions, one
> parachute division, and one division of the British Armed Forces. All
> these troops will not fight. There will be no ground operations in Iraq!
> The US Army will enter a burning desert -- the Iraqis will certainly set
> fire to the oilfields -- without a single shot being fired. There will
> simply be nobody to shoot at them.
>
> Khokhlov] How long will the direct occupation last? Will the Americans
> stay in Iraq forever?
>
> [Slipchenko] They will certainly leave Iraq. There is no point in their
> staying there. The occupation will last one and a half, two, or at the
> most three years and will cost American taxpayers a further $80-100
> billion to maintain the troops in Iraq. Then the United States may enlist
> in an operation that they will undoubtedly call "peacekeeping"; the Poles,
> Czechs, and other "new recruits" to NATO, the Estonians, but they
> themselves will leave. The "peacekeepers" will stay a further one to one
> and a half years in Iraq.
>
> During this time major investments will be made in the country with a
> regime friendly to the United States, and in two years' time Iraq's oil
> sector will reach a level of oil extraction of 2-2.4 million barrels a
> day.
> In five years they will be extracting up to 5 million barrels of oil a
day.
> The world oil price will fall to $12-15 a barrel. The currently stagnant
> US economy will soar.
>
> [Khokhlov] And what will happen to Russia's economy, which is currently
> supported exclusively by "petrodollars"?
>
> [Slipchenko] I have no answer to that question. I am an expert in wars.
>
> Copyright Rossiyskaya Gazeta 2003. For fair use only
>