The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. At the end of the first week of the Gulf War, here are Wednesday's headlines. Defense Sec. Cheney said the military campaign is going well, but there may be surprises ahead from Iraq. Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell said that allied planes have gained air superiority and have destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactors. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we take a seventh day look at the Persian Gulf War with an extended excerpt from today's major briefing by Sec. Cheney and Gen. Powell, plus analysis by former defense and policy officials Harold Brown, Paul Nitze, William Odom, Gary Sick, and Donald McHenry, and Journalist Karen Elliott House. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: On the seventh day of war in the Persian Gulf, the United States claimed it has achieved air superiority over the Iraqis. Officials said the allied air forces have now flown about 12,000 sorties, 85 percent of them by Americans, and are starting in earnest to cut off the Iraqi force in Kuwait and kill it. But Defense Sec. Cheney cautioned reporters against over confidence.

SEC. CHENEY: I want to repeat what I told all of you last week at the beginning of this conflict. I urged caution in describing the events in the Persian Gulf, especially in claiming victory too soon. There may well be surprises ahead for us. No one should assume that Saddam Hussein does not have significant remaining military capability. We have to anticipate that he will try to use that against us and our allies. We have to assume that he may seek to launch air strikes and more Scuds or hit oil fields or general terrorist attacks. He is a man who will use any means at his disposal to break up the coalition and to avoid defeat, but he cannot change the basic course of the conflict. He will be defeated.

MR. MacNeil: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell, said about 41 Iraqi planes had been destroyed in the air and on the ground compared with 10 American and six allied aircraft. But Iraq still has about 750 planes left. He gave this appraisal of the war in the air at today's Pentagon briefing.

GEN. POWELL: We can conclude that allied air forces have achieved air superiority over not only the Kuwaiti theater of operations, but throughout the entire theater, if you include Iraq. When you can operate in an unhindered way, as we have been operating over an area like this against an air force that size, and with an air defense system that sophisticated, we have achieved air superiority.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Powell also said both of Iraq's nuclear reactors remaining nuclear reactors had been destroyed and its radar activity had dropped by 95 percent since the first day of the war. And Iraq said it was halting the sale of gasoline because of air raid damage to its refineries. A vital part of the air war against Iraq is the flying tankers that keep the fighter bombers in the air for long distance missions. We have a report from Jim Hickey, the television Pool reporter in Saudi Arabia.

MR. HICKEY: They are the life line for fighter pilots in around- the-clock bombing of Iraq. Gas stations in the sky, the 130s patiently orbit over the Persian Gulf, their droves extended offering the extra fuel that will carry the FA-18 Hornets, the A- 6 Intruders and other fighter bombers to Iraq and back. Without the refueling tankers, the jets would have to carry fewer bombs and missiles to accommodate the extra gas they'd need to make it to Iraq in one hop. Military officials say the bombing campaign has been stepped up. Out here at the refueling station, it shows. Besides these Marine tankers, Air Force KC-10s flew overhead. Other jet fighters waited on line to be refueled before they continued on to Iraq. The tankers carry hundreds of thousands of pounds of fuel, more than enough to accommodate the crowded sky and to make sure no late comers are left with an empty tank, the squadron commander tells two of his tankers to linger behind.

LT. CMDR. ARLEN RENS, U.S. Marine Corps: These guys are taking more gas and I have more receivers than I was expecting. I took a tally of how much fuel was remaining in the tankers and made a decision to leave two up here as opposed to strike just in case.

MR. HICKEY: The increased bombing campaign also shows up in the amount of fuel the KC-130s gave away, nearly 28,000 gallons in about two hours.

MR. MacNeil: The allied command reported no combat-related air losses in this last day, but several planes were lost to accidents. A Marine died when his Harrier jet crashed during a training flight yesterday. A Cobra helicopter also crashed, but there were no fatalities. Britain has lost five of its low flying Tornado jets. Four were shot down by ground fire from Iraq. A fifth developed mechanical problems shortly after take-off in the Saudi Desert. The wreckage of that plane was shown to Pool reporters today. The two man crew had safely ejected before the crash. Also in Saudi Arabia, the first fighting on the ground occurred when Americans skirmished with an Iraqi patrol near the frontier. Six Iraqis were captured and two Americans were treated for minor injuries, but were able to return to duty. Later, some of the Americans talked to reporters. Our story is from Alex Thompson.

MR. THOMPSON: As the first reports come, the skirmishing between allied and Iraqi ground forces in the region, the Americans who became the first ground troops to open fire have spoken about their actions.

SGT. EDDIE WILLIAMS, U.S. Marines: We fired 71 rounds of artillery onto an Iraqi artillery position inside Iraq. It took six minutes to fire it. As soon as we fired all of our rounds, we left the area and moved back with the rest of our unit.

MR. THOMPSON: The commanding officer of the Marines' company then described how American jets continued the attack on an Iraqi convoy across the border from the town of Kafji.

LT. COL. ROBERT RIVERS, U.S. Marines: After our attack on the artillery position, some fixed wing aircraft moved in to attack the convoy which had stopped considerably North of where our range was and the only estimation we got was they knocked out all 10 of the launchers and then they saw secondary explosions as they were flying away.

MR. THOMPSON: What was in that convoy?

LT. COL. RIVERS: As far as we know right now, there were some multiple rocket launchers and possibly some Scuds, and there may have been some chemical munitions mixed in with them.

MR. THOMPSON: Marines and other ground infantry units continued preparation for a land offensive, preparations which looked crude and basic after all the technology displayed as part of the aerial first phase of war.

SPOKESMAN: We try to take around six foot deep, six feet, that way if anything is coming, it'd be kind of hard to penetrate everything and get down to us.

CORRESPONDENT: Is this going to be where you do everything?

SPOKESMAN: That's where we sleep, covered just in case we get incoming, basically just about everything, yes. It's going to be our home.

MR. THOMPSON: Estimates vary as to when any full ground assault will begin, the poor weather hampering air strikes will have put it back. Meanwhile, the Marines dig in and they wait.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. officials denied an Iraqi charge that an infant formula factory had been destroyed in Baghdad. They said the place in question was actually a biological warfare plan. Fires in the Kuwaiti oil fields were reported still burning today. There were conflicting reports on whether oil tanks at two other locations were also still burning. Iranian news agencies said the fires caused what it described as a black rain falling in an Iranian province 170 miles away.

MR. LEHRER: Air raid alerts were sounded in Israel and in the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh and Dhahran again today. At Riyadh, one Scud missile was reported shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile with no damage done. When the sirens sounded over Dhahran, the television cameras were aimed towards the airport which has been the target of earlier attacks. The flashes told the story of Patriot missiles firing at Scuds. Two of the incoming missiles apparently were hit. Then there was loud explosion which was taken to be from missile debris hitting the ground. The Israeli army said two Patriot missiles destroyed an Iraqi Scud missile over Northern Israel. The Israelis said the incoming missile carried a conventional warhead and did no damage. Following last night's missile attack on Tel Aviv, Israelis were discussing whether or not the time has come to retaliate. We have a report from David Chater of Independent Television News.

MR. CHATER: Ministers and military chiefs were summoned to a crisis meeting at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv this morning. Afterwards, the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir issued a ban on any of his less senior members of cabinet talking to the press. Speculation is growing about what sort of deal America has proposed to keep Israel operating its policy of restraint. Before the meeting, the American deputy sec. of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, was invited to the prime minister's home in Jerusalem for private talks. He handed Mr. Shamir a telegram of sympathy from Pres. Bush. The two leaders talked on the phone. Pres. Bush expressed his outrage and sympathy of the casualties and his appreciation of Israel's policy of restraint. But says the leader of the Opposition Labor Party, Shimon Peres, toward the scene of the Scud attack today. Speculation grew that Pres. Bush had given Israel more than just those latest words of comfort to stay its hand this time. Financial aid alone though will not be enough.

JOSEPH ATLER, Tel Aviv University: I cannot conceive that beyond a certain point aid will somehow persuade Israel to avoid responding to these provocative attacks by the Iraqis when we're talking about Israeli lives.

MR. CHATER: A much more likely agreement is that the United States will open up a corridor of retaliation into Western Iraq for a strike by Israel's F-15 Interceptor forces after clearing the air space of their own fighters. This would mean America would not have to reveal its special air codes to Israel which its aircraft used to identify incoming planes as friends or foe and could display any prior knowledge of an attack, but what Israel and America clearly are talking about are targets and timing.

MR. MacNeil: In Washington today, Sec. of State Baker was asked if retaliation by Israel would cause a rift in the coalition against Iraq. He said it might not, but he went on to praise Israel for its restraint so far. He also said the United States government would consider any request from Israel for additional economic aid.

MR. LEHRER: There were two explosions at American facilities Istanbul, Turkey, today. The first was at the offices of an American missionary organization. The building was extensively damaged. One woman was injured. The second blast happened 10 minutes later at the office of an American shipping company. Hand bills left by the attacker said bombing was to protest Turkey's involvement in the Gulf War. Turkey has allowed U.S. planes to use an air base in the Southern part of the country. Bombs also exploded at two banks in Babek, Lebanon, today. One bank was partly French owned, the other partly owned by Saudi Arabia. One person was killed. There have been four other such attacks in Lebanon since the war began last Thursday.

MR. MacNeil: In other news today, U.S. Treas. Sec. Nicholas Brady told a congressional hearing that the agency overseeing the savings & loan bailout will have to close on March 1st unless more money is forthcoming. He asked Congress for an open ended appropriation for the Resolution Trust Corporation. He said short- term funding had slowed the process of closing and selling the insolvent thrifts and had cost taxpayers additional money. In New York City, fraud charges were brought today against 21 stockbrokers. They were accused of manipulating the prices of over- the-counter stocks by buying or selling them repeatedly within the group. Prosecutors said the scheme cost investors more than $10 million between late 1987 and early 1990.

MR. LEHRER: Soviet troops seized a news print warehouse in the capital of Lithuania today. The republic's president said it was an attempt to hamper the press and will increase tension with the Moscow government. Soviet troops already control the main printing plant in the city. In neighboring Latvia, the president today rejected a call by Soviet Pres. Gorbachev. He wanted Latvia to repeal its declaration of independence and return to the Soviet constitution. The Latvian president said his republic cannot accept those Soviet laws.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the day's news. Just ahead, where the war stands one week later. FOCUS - WEEK ONE - GULF WAR

MR. LEHRER: It was a week ago tonight that U.S. and allied forces launched their military assault on Iraq. After seven days, how has it gone is the question of the day and of ours tonight. The first series of answers come from Sec. of Defense Cheney and Gen. Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They gave their first week assessment at a Pentagon briefing this afternoon. Here's an extended excerpt.

DICK CHENEY, Secretary of Defense: The Iraqis, Saddam Hussein have a very large military force, depending upon what criteria you use, certainly one of the largest world, some have said the fourth largest in the world. In the last decade, he spent over $50 billion on armaments. The force possesses thousands of tanks, hundreds of aircraft, over a million men in uniform, missiles, et cetera. In the Kuwaiti theater of operations in Kuwait and Southern Iraq, there are over 120 brigades, some 30 plus divisions dug in in that area. I don't think anyone here expected that we would get rid of all that capability within the first week of the operation. Based on the reports we're getting from pilots and the evidence of gun camera recordings, many of which you've seen, the bombing missions are going well. The missions are based on the target list drawn up before the operation started. At the same time, we've been eager to know about the kind of damage which we've been able to cause. I want to caution you again that a military operation of this intensity and complexity cannot be scored every evening like a college track meet or a basketball tournament.

COL. POWELL: The campaign plan has executed so far pretty much as we have expected with a few exceptions. The weather turned more severe after two and a half days of operations than we had expected. We knew we were going to have two and a half days and we thought we'd lose a day or two to weather conditions, but those weather conditions were more severe than we expected when t" 7F hey finally hit, when the front came in, and lasted a little bit longer than we expected. As a result, the number of planned missions had to be aborted. Mobile Scuds were the problem that we had anticipated they would be and now that we are into it, and I'll say more about Scuds later, we are finding that it's taken more of an effort on our part to go after those Scuds than we had anticipated, but notwithstanding these sorts of problems, we're pleased with week one. The real measure off effectiveness is what has the Iraqi air force been able to do to interfere with Operation Desert Storm? And the fact of the matter is that after one week period of time, no Iraqi airplane has conducted a single ground attack against any coalition target and with the one exception, there was perhaps one airplane that may have been down, the Iraqi air force has not been able to interfere with our air operations. We can conclude that allied air forces have achieved air superiority over not only the Kuwaiti theater of operations, but throughout the entire theater to include Iraq. When you can operate in an unhindered way, as we have been operating, over an area like this against an air force that size and with an air defense system that sophisticated, we have achieved air superiority. That is not to say that a young pilot who is taking off will say, Powell says we have air superiority, I've got nothing to worry about, not at all. We're dealing with an enemy that is resourceful, an enemy that knows how to work around problems, an enemy that is a genius. You can be sure that while we're here today, they're in Baghdad trying to figure out work around us, trying to determine where the weaknesses are and see if they have capability to fix those weaknesses. And every pilot that goes against this environment still has to be concerned that he is going against an environment that has a potential of taking down his airplane. As the secretary pointed out, this is a large combined arms army. It has tanks, it has very redundant resilient communications between the different operating echelons of the army. It has stockages, food ammunition, and parts with the army and theater and they have a very elaborate supply system coming down in the interior of the country to sustain that army. Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. First, we're going to cut it off and then we're going to kill it. I'm telegraphing anything. I just want everybody to know that we have a tool box that's full of lots of tools and I brought them all to the party. Gen. Schwarzkopf has them all at the party.

REPORTER: Do you feel that possibly you could be overly predicting a rosy type of outcome on a lot of this?

SEC. CHENEY: No. I tried in my remarks towards the close to focus on the fact that we have to anticipate that there will be additional surprises, that you can by no means count the amount yet given the size force he has, that he could try to find some way to surge his air force all at once or go after targets that he's not gone after yet. As the chairman mentioned, we haven't really seen any aggressive military response by him to date. He's basically gone to ground and hunkered down and the only safe assumption for us to make, especially when we're talking with the press, is, you know, be cautious here. We're trying to be cautious. No one wants to declare that he no longer constitute a threat. That would be a very serious mistake.

REPORTER: Gen. Powell implied that we hope not to have to use ground force at the same time he said the Republican Guards will lie low and that the only way they may determine if they survived attack is if they're forced to move. Does that mean we'll have to bring in our ground forces in order to determine whether we've knocked them out?

GEN. POWELL: Don't know yet. The strategy right now, it seems to me, they are hunkering down. I mean, that's obvious. They, I suspect, and not being an Iraqi general, I don't have complete insight into what they may be doing, but I would suspect right now they are hunkering down and they probably are questioning whether we can keep this up for an extended period of time and whether or not the political will and public support will be there to keep this up for an extended period of time, and I'm sure they're making an assessment day by day on what their losses are and making wrong judgment as to how long they can sustain this kind of punishment. I would be the happiest guy in the world if one day one bomb goes in on a Republican Guard unit and they say that's it, we break, can't take any more, we're heading home, and they leave. But I can't plan on that, and so what I'm putting in place and what Gen. Schwarzkopf is putting in place and the campaign plan that Gen. Schwarzkopf worked out is to anticipate that at the end of the day, when they are so weakened that we believe the time is right and air power alone won't do it, we're prepared to take this to a successful conclusion using other means of combat power besides air power. That's been a consistent --

REPORTER: Are there any specific losses you anticipate in planning your campaign by the Iraqi --

GEN. POWELL: I would rather than say what I anticipated because it might give Mr. Hussein some insight to what I'm anticipating now.

REPORTER: You've outlined some goals that look like they might last long, but you said you want to rip up the air force, yet, they still have some 750 planes, and you said you wanted to shut up the army with cutting off its communications, which is still very resilient, a very large army, the chemical weapon threat is still a threat to the allied and the Scud is still a weapon of terror for the allies. Does that not sound like it's going to last some time?

SEC. CHENEY: Well, we've avoided consistently putting any artificial deadline out there by which this whole operation had to be completed. We do not know how long it will last. Those are -- the kinds of things you mentioned are specific objectives. We will operate until we've achieved those objectives, and I simply wouldn't want to put a time frame on it. I can't do that. I don't know how long it will take, although I'm inclined to think, given the size of the force we've deployed and success we've enjoyed to date, that it will -- it won't take that long.

REPORTER: But is the allied force patience going to out last the patience of Saddam Hussein and his hunkering down? Which patience is going to out last?

SEC. CHENEY: There's no doubt in my mind that what the United States and our allies in this venture have the staying power to see to it that the job gets done, that he will quit long before we will.

REPORTER: What is your view of the argument that, in fact, if Saddam Hussein's strategy is simply to stretch this war out as long as possible forcing the allied troops into a long, bloody ground war, how do you view that and is there anything you can really do if he continues to husband his resources, as he's been doing?

SEC. CHENEY: I'm not a military strategist to the extent that my colleague, Gen. Powell, might be, but looking at it from the perspective of U.S. forces versus Iraqi forces, he really hasn't got much choice at this point. He is pursuing a strategy perhaps of necessity, and I think the reason he will not be successful with a waited out strategy is that as long as he is sitting there waiting, we are steadily and progressively destroying his unconventional warfare capability, finding and destroying his Scuds, taking out his air force piece by piece, and now, as the Chairman pointed out, aggressively working over his ground forces in Kuwait. I think time is clearly on our side and that given our dominance in the air and our capability to do significant damage to his ground forces, that each day, each week that goes by, he gets weaker and we get stronger.

REPORTER: You stated your goal is to get his troops out of Kuwait and, in fact, while this pummeling continues, his troops remain still reasonably intact. I would suggest that it's inevitable that he will draw the allies into a ground war.

SEC. CHENEY: Well, we may eventually, and I'll refer to Gen. Powell and Gen. Schwarzkopf, they'll have to go back and advise me and the President on when various pieces of the campaign kick in, but if we do have to go to using our ground forces to push him out of Kuwait, it will be after we've done enormous damages to his ground forces, and after they've been significantly weakened, and I think our people have the same capability on the ground to display the kind of mastery over Iraqi forces that they've displayed to date.

MR. LEHRER: Now six further seven day assessments. They come from former Sec. of Defense Harold Brown, former National Security Agency Director Gen. William Odom, former Arms Negotiator, Diplomat Paul Nitze, former National Security Council Middle East expert Gary Sick, former United Nations Amb. Donald McHenry, and Karen Elliott House of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Sec. Brown, Sec. Cheney and Gen. Powell, their words and their actions seem to exude confidence and satisfaction over how the war has gone these first seven days. Do you share that?

SEC. BROWN: I think so far things have gone really quite well, but it's still early days yet, as they were also getting across, and those of who counseled patience before the war started, whether ourselves or the media, should now also counsel patience. Let's continue down this line -- I think that's the intention -- to get air superiority, which they have done in the sense of being able to go where we want, when we want, we have to escort, because they might bring up fighter planes. Every time they do, they get shot down, then proceeding, after taking out the command control, damaging the air fields, you have to go back and re-strike and keep doing that, and they're very resilient, then go on to a massive attack from the air on the ground troops and see whether that breaks their morale. And if not, it may at some point become necessary to have a ground attack, but why the impatience for a ground attack on the part of questioners I don't understand.

MR. LEHRER: Gen. Odom, how does it look to you after seven days?

GEN. ODOM: Well, I share some of the same views Sec. Brown does. I am a little more pessimistic about winning it by air power alone. It seems to me that what Gen. Powell said toward the end, he brought all of the instruments to the table, he may not want to use the ground forces, but I think eventually he will probably have to do that.

MR. LEHRER: Based on what's happened this -- what is there that Saddam Hussein has done or not done that causes you to believe that eventually we're going to have to go to the ground?

GEN. ODOM: He still has some command and control intact and his forces are still in position deep in Kuwait along the Iraqi-Kuwait border and in well prepared defensive positions along the Kuwait- Saudi border, and we have no indication whatsoever that those forces are breaking. There have been a few factors, deserters come across, but those forces are well positioned, and I would be surprised if we did not in the early days of February or the middle of February see a ground offensive which penetrates first the defensive positions in the South, and then opens into mobile, high speed armor warfare, moving on up and destroying the residual forces in the middle of Kuwait and Southern Iraq.

MR. LEHRER: Karen Elliott House, what's your overview after the first week?

MS. HOUSE: It seems to me that it's gone rather well, and that the important thing is exactly what Sec. Brown said, all of the people who had patience to wait one, two, three years for economic sanctions to work suddenly don't have patience to wait two or three weeks or two or three months for air bombardment to work. And I would just like to reiterate what he said, let's have a little patience, there's no rush to go in on the ground.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Nitze.

AMB. NITZE: I was encouraged by what Gen. Powell said, that he didn't intend really to enter into a ground battle until he'd had an opportunity really to isolate Saddam Hussein's ground forces and really to weaken, but I think over time we can weaken them. I think they can be isolated and they can be subjected to very serious damage. But it takes time to do that. I'm glad to see that the administration's now talking about taking the necessary time.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. McHenry, you were one of those who counseled patience going into this before the military action. How do you feel about the war up to this point?

AMB. McHENRY: Well, I accept both signs of what I take to be the message of Gen. Powell and Sec. Cheney. On the one hand, we have made considerable progress, things have gone remarkably well in this campaign so far. On the other hand, there are some things, many things, which have yet to be done, where we haven't done as well as we would like either because of weather or other factors. It seems to me that it would be wrong to concentrate on the negative side to the extent that I hear a lot of people doing at this stage.

MR. LEHRER: Like what?

AMB. McHENRY: Oh, that we haven't taken out the Scuds, a number of Scuds that aren't there, or that there are still Iraqi aircraft or that runways can be repaired, a whole series of things which I think are repeated I think too frequently in the discussion. In my view, there is now the kind of possibility of combining the sanctions, which are after all still in place and still a considerable force in terms of Iraq, with the effectiveness of the air campaign. And it seems to me that we should continue along the process that we have started and if at some later time it becomes necessary to use ground forces, it will surely be a weakened opposition which will go after those ground forces.

MR. LEHRER: Gary Sick, how does it look to you?

MR. SICK: It seems to me, not to repeat everything that everybody's already said, that one of the key factors that I think I wouldn't have predicted at the beginning that we have had and which nobody has mentioned is the fact that it's now a two front war, that I would never have anticipated Turkey, in effect, coming in and making its bases available for strikes. That creates a remarkable new dimension to the battle which I think is not to be taken lightly. It's very very important. I think we should not, however, everybody's talking about patience and one must talk about patience in this case, remember that this is a country that for eight to ten years was involved in a war of bombardment and they have been living underground in bunkers, taking very heavy bombardment, nothing like what they're getting now, but, nevertheless, very heavy bombardment by the Iranians through artillery and very steady and very constant and with mass attacks at the same time. They've had time to think through their defenses, and I think that's why we're discovering that their defense system, although it's gone, their command and communications for their forces still remains to a rather substantial degree. And I think the fact that they were able to launch six missiles, six Scuds in a coordinated fashion obviously from six different launchers at approximately the same time to try to flood the defenses in Saudi Arabia is an indication that the command and control is not gone yet and that it is going to be a long slog and that really we have just begun that process.

MR. LEHRER: A long slog, Sec. Brown?

SEC. BROWN: One can't say how long. One can't say whether it'll be weeks or months. There have already been several surprises. Gary Sick mentioned one political surprise, the ability to operate from Turkish bases. Another is the fact that the Israelis so far have been able to restrain themselves from retaliating. On the military side, there have been to me at least three surprises. One, the very low rate of attrition of our attacking aircraft, which is one thing that allows us to have more patience for that phase of the attack to go on. Second --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me, not only through enemy attack and anti- aircraft fire, but just the normal accidents too, you mean?

SEC. BROWN: There are always going to be those.

MR. LEHRER: Sure. The second less than you would expect?

SEC. BROWN: No. I'm really speaking of the attrition, the accident rate.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

SEC. BROWN: I don't think it's a big surprise that it's so low, but I think one would have expected maybe 1 percent attrition in attacks, and it's been 1/10 or 2/10 of that. Every loss is tragic. The second surprise was an unpleasant one, namely their ability to continue operating mobile Scuds, and that's had a political effect as well. The third one rather counteracted the second one to some degree, and that was the ability of the Patriots to shoot down some Scuds in their first use in combat and with crews many of which I believe had never even fired them in practice, so those were surprises. The accuracy of our smart weapons and Cruise missiles and the workings of the Stealth, that wasn't a surprise, at least not to me. Where we go from here and how long it takes, we don't know. I think Saddam has some more surprises for us. I hope we have some more for him. I mean, I think, for example, if we engage, act in massive ground combat, he may very well be able, he may very well use chemical warfare. He hasn't been able to in the strategic phase of the war or at least has chosen not to -- perhaps he hasn't been able to have them on his missiles, and he can't fly aircraft. He may try some surprise suicide attacks. I don't think that the Iraqi troops in the Iran-Iraq War were subjected, and GarySick agreed to this, to anything like what they're going to get from B- 52s or from tactical aircraft, and certainly the industrial infrastructure, to military production infrastructure of Iraq, experienced nothing like what it's already had from the air. The fact that Saddam Hussein has moved all the correspondence out suggests that there's something there that he doesn't want us to be able to show has happened to his country.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Gen. Odom, that brings me to a point. There's been much talk already about the fact that this, that after seven days that this has been a rather antiseptic type war, we have yet to see the first dead body on television. We've seen remote pictures and maps and all of that. And is that -- those shocks -- that jarring experience still to come and what do you think the effect of that's going to be when it does, whether they're in Baghdad, or whether they're American?

GEN. ODOM: Well, I think it's going to come. I don't share the optimism here that air power alone is going to win the war. I won't rule it out, because the unexpected can happen. It's never happened before, and everything we've learned this past week is that past experience is a good guide to what to expect now. I think when the ground campaign starts, you will see some unhappy bloody events which will be disturbing. I think the impact of those events will be somewhat mitigating if the ground offensive moves swiftly and is successfully begins to wrap up the Iraqi forces fairly quickly. To your earlier question about how long the war is going to last, I don't think we're going to have a good idea about this until we see the ground campaign open. The air war, success in the air war in the kind that's been discussed here, depends on Saddam and some his command changing their mind. If you go in with the ground forces and take away his weapons and his unit, his mind, the state of mind won't make any difference. You'll own Kuwait and parts of Iraq if you invade it. And that will objectively change the conditions and we can then determine when that campaign starts whether it's going to be a long one or a short one, depending on the success for the early and the middle stages of it.

MR. LEHRER: Karen Elliott House, do you think our officials and the press have prepared the American people properly, or do you think that there's now an expectation after seven days that this is what this war's going to be like from this point on, that there will be briefings and there will be photographs and drawings and that's all it's going to be? Do you think that people are really prepared for what could happen next, and then after that and after that?

MS. HOUSE: I think the American public in general is smarter than the press and public officials on the whole so that I suspect the American public understands that, you know, that there is certainly a chance that blood will get spilled. But thus far the pessimists, it seems to me, have been wrong on most things. We -- everybody in the press really went after this like crazy, oh, the coalition's going to fall apart, the Israelis are going to strike, you know, we're going to lose 20,000 people in a ground war. The coalition didn't fall apart and it won't fall apart because everybody wants to be on the winning side, and we are the winning side. So the Syrians and Egyptians and all of them will stick with us. The Israelis may strike because -- but they can't do anything that we can't do, and that's to me going to be the tragedy of this. We're going to pay Israel money not to do what it doesn't want to doany way and can't effectively do. They're going to hold us up and that's going to be the kind of thing that causes us problems after this war is over.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Gary Sick, they're going to hold us up, the Israelis?

MR. SICK: The bill came in today for $13 billion. It's what Israel is asking for to do precisely what Karen is saying, but to do something that they really have, that they can't do anyway. There is no target that they can strike that we can't strike. There is nothing that they can do over there. Granted, I mean, any country wants to demonstrate that it's able to defend itself and protect itself and to respond to an attack, but I think the price tag is a little bit high.

MS. HOUSE: We shouldn't pay the bill.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Nitze, some people would argue that 13 billion dollars is cheap at the price. Would you?

AMB. NITZE: Not I, no. I tend to be conservative about things that cost money.

MR. LEHRER: So you agree with Gary Sick and with Karen Elliott House that we didn't have to do this?

AMB. NITZE: I agree with that. We haven't done it yet.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, if Israel had retaliated, you agree with Karen that it wouldn't have affected the coalition any how, that we could have just gone about our business?

AMB. NITZE: Not much. I think it would have had some effect, but I don't think any real effect. I don't believe the alliance would have fallen apart. I don't think it would change anything.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. McHenry.

AMB. McHENRY: Well, I think if Israel had gotten involved before the attacks on Israel, that would have had one effect on the coalition. Now that you've had the attacks, the indiscriminate terrorist type attacks of the Scud on Israel, it seems to me that it's even less likely the coalition is going to be that effective. I frankly don't believe that it would have been seriously affected in the first place. I think Syria and Egypt have their own reasons, for example, for being in this conflict. My own feeling is that unless the Israelis know something that we don't know, their becoming involved in this conflict has no positives in it. It has negatives in it. They can't do any more than we are currently doing. What it will do --

MR. LEHRER: Militarily?

AMB. McHENRY: Militarily. What it will do for them perhaps is satisfy emotional and political pressures in their own society. In fact, I am positive that that's not the basis for participation in this kind of conflict.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Odom, listening to the briefing by Powell and Cheney, did you detect a little bit of revision at least rhetoric? Do you feel that either they've been under estimating Saddam, we weren't hearing words before pushed very much like resourceful, ingenious, resilient a week ago or in the first couple of days, and then they criticized the press for sounding over optimistic, all those very optimistic judgments from the press usually quoted someone in the Pentagon -- I'm just wondering after a week of facing Saddam Hussein, are they changing their minds, he's tougher than they thought, or are the more realistic or more pessimistic assessors in the Pentagon coming out with their rhetoric? Now just how did you read the change in rhetoric?

GEN. ODOM: I read a little surprise, as you did, but I have to say that if you look back at Gen. Powell's behavior over the fall, he's the one who demanded the big forces out there. So I think he has been fully prepared for less favorable scenarios, therefore, I really wouldn't pin that wrap on him as a result of this. Ialso think that he did an extraordinarily good job in an earlier part of the show which wasn't shown tonight in explaining what the bomb damage assessment is in explaining a number of technical factors which I think have caused confusion about success and more or less of it. The surprise to me is the residual anticipation that they'll get through this without a ground campaign. I found both the Secretary and Gen. Powell still hopeful that they might see a conclusion short of a fairly significant ground operation. I hope that's the case. I really would like to see that. Myself personally I'm inclined to be pessimistic about it and I see that Saddam Hussein has shown no signs of yielding anything thus far, therefore, I would be very surprised if he didn't waste every soldier in Southern Kuwait to try to create as many casualties for us as possible.

MR. MacNeil: I notice, Karen Elliott House, following up on that, Saddam said on Sunday, "When the deaths and dead mount on them, the infidels will leave and the flag of Alla Hu Akbar will fly over the mother of all battles." And he isn't making much secret of what his strategy is in this, is he?

MS. HOUSE: No. I think, however, that he has continually miscalculated and that one can only hope that we do have the patience to stick with it. I mean, I don't believe he ever thought we'd really go to war, and that's why he persisted to the point that we were forced to go to war. I think he's miscalculating now that we can't hang in there until he's finished.

MR. MacNeil: Come back to that in a moment. What is your reading on the sort of slight change in rhetoric? Is it that the -- we heard the politicians before the fighting began and now a week later, we're hearing the military analysts -- what is it?

MS. HOUSE: Well, I think --

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree we weren't hearing words like "resilient, resourceful, ingenious" very much before?

MS. HOUSE: I didn't see that big a change in the rhetoric because Powell on the first day and Cheney cautioned that they were clearly pleased at the lack of losses and the number of sorties they've been able to fly without any opposition, but I didn't -- I think they've tried to be cautious from the beginning, because it's always easier to have people pleasantly surprised than negatively surprised.

MR. MacNeil: How do you read that, Harold Brown?

SEC. BROWN: I read it the same way. I thought -- I mean, I know that Gen. Powell and Sec. Cheney said this is a formidable adversary. There were a lot of background statements taken by the press or given by the press, but you know, when a misreading by the press or even a made up statement turns out to be wrong, it then becomes a government lie, and that's a problem. That's an overstatement of the same kind, but that is a problem. I think that there was an understanding that this would be a very tough opponent. I think that the first couple of days' success in terms of low attrition and accuracy of the weapons produced a degree of euphoria which failed to understand that that is just the first step. And I think the same thing may well continue to be the case and we can be disappointed if we indulge in that euphoria and I think we will be -- we could well be disappointed if instead of saying we have to count on the possibility, some probability of a necessity for a bloody land battle, we say, gee, maybe we could do without a land battle. I think the way you put it is a very important condition of attitudes and of subsequent disappointment.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about surprises. Gary Sick, Sec. Cheney said Saddam could well spring some surprises. What are the kinds of surprises, nasty surprises he could pull, given the resources he has, which would really make things difficult?

MR. SICK: He can't pull many surprises in the air and with his air defense system. The only surprise that he can probably pull is if he waits until the ground campaign comes along, and that comes at the point when we either decide that we've done everything we can from the air and we're ready -- and so there's really nothing more to be accomplished, so we're gong to go in on the ground and finish it off. Whether we calculate correctly or incorrectly about his remaining forces, they may come out of the bunkers and surprise us with a blow. I think what Saddam Hussein would like to have is the classic sort of Tete offensive thing, where you feel that you're winning, that you've carried the day, and suddenly they hit you with a lot more than you anticipated and everybody --

MR. MacNeil: And then the public anticipated.

MR. SICK: The public then recoils and says wait a minute, this is not what we expected. The other thing that I would just like to toss out, which is a surprise that I think is coming, is that I really think our war aims are changing. We talked very much about getting Saddam out of Kuwait. That's what we continue to talk about. We're really talking about the collapse of a country and something is going to have to replace it. There is not going to be a new government just appear as if by magic in Iraq, so assuming we are successful in this, we are going to have to deal with Iraq as a country and think about what comes after that in the way of constructing a government, and I think our aims really have changed though we haven't said it.

MR. MacNeil: Amb. Nitze, what kind of surprise could Saddam Hussein pull militarily or politically on us which would be very negative for the allies?

AMB. NITZE: I think the main surprise would be if he could get us into a situation where our casualties went way up. That's clearly what he's trying to plan for. The one thing that could bring him out ahead in this game is if the casualties were higher than public opinion here will take.

MR. MacNeil: By what means could he do that, given that he has maybe 600 planes or 700 planes, most of them hidden up here in the North of Iraq, a lot of them in heavy shelters and so on, and he has those troops down in Kuwait and near Kuwait, what could he do suddenly to inflict a lot of casualties?

AMB. NITZE: I think the main thing he could do is to -- if we make a mistake and go in too early, before the criteria that Gen. Powell outlined had been met, he said that he didn't intend he'd get into a ground war until he'd isolated those forces of Saddam Hussein's in the desert and cut their communications with Iraq and then pounded them to a point where they would not be in a position really to resist, if that's what I understood his objective to be. But supposing, you know, we can't do that, that we attack too soon, then there could be heavy casualties, therefore, I was very much pleased to see that Gen. Powell was talking about taking the time necessary to do this. I thought this question of taking more time was a note that hadn't been stressed before and which I welcomed.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Odom, any surprises that haven't been mentioned?

GEN. ODOM: I think we will be surprised at the chemicals. I'm not sure that they're going to have a major effect on the way the campaign goes, but I think just the psychological impact of seeing them used the first time will be a bit of a surprise for the public, not so much for the forces out there. Then I think we ought to at least think about some of the diplomatic surprises we could see. We've heard everyone around the table tonight say that the coalition will hold together. Well, I'm inclined to agree with that. I think it is fairly solid, but that's an area in which one cannot I think rule out a surprise and finally I would like to underscore Gary Sick's point. I think that some of the most disturbing surprises are going to come at the end of the campaign when it becomes more clear that the mess we have on our hands putting things back together afterwards is a little different from what was anticipated initially.

MR. MacNeil: Amb. McHenry, what surprises do you see?

AMB. McHENRY: Robin, I don't want to predict this, but I think we ought to nevertheless keep it in mind. Saddam Hussein doesn't have to simply leave his forces in the desert. They are in a defensive posture waiting for us to grind them down. He may not leave the initiative in terms of the ground conflict to the United States and himself come out of there and initiate it.

MR. MacNeil: Does that make sense to you, Karen House?

MS. HOUSE: That would surprise me. I mean, I think he has played his zionist card and that hasn't worked, that he also has what I would call an Islamic card. He can bomb the holy places in Iraq and claim we did it and try to arouse Iranians and Pakistanis Muslims all over the world to burn American embassies, to take up arms against America with the case of the Iranians or something like that and I guess I'd put a higher probability on that, been attacking with his forces.

MR. MacNeil: Hal Brown.

SEC. BROWN: He may not have finished his array of anti-Israeli cards, he could move troops into Jordan in a further attempt to bring Israel into a war for example.

MR. MacNeil: How would that work? Spell that out.

SEC. BROWN: Well, he'll have to do his own planning, but my thought was that if he moves troops into Jordan in order to, as he would say, protect it, the Israelis will feel an even stronger incentive to do something and that would reopen the whole question of the nature of the war.

MR. MacNeil: Is that something that would be possible to you?

MR. SICK: Well, I think it's a possibility. This is one that's been talked about over time and the Jordanians are the man in the middle in this thing. And it's a very uncomfortable position to be in because if, in fact, a third front opens up, and that is the Israeli front, they will be the territory that gets trampled on. The one that I think nobody has mentioned that obviously should be mentioned is terrorism and in terms of the tricks that one can pull --

MR. MacNeil: The three things he has promised to do, as Mr. Zakheim said on this program last night, the three things he promised to do, two of them he's already done and terrorism is the one he hasn't done yet.

MR. SICK: And it's been remarkably quiet so far. We've had a few explosions in the Philippines, Turkey, elsewhere. I think there could be terrorist groups in Baghdad that have had their communications disrupted and that may, in fact, have had some effect on whether they could go into action. We haven't seen the kind of spontaneous uprising, little groups going off on their own to do things that one might have anticipated, so maybe one can take some optimistic heart from that, but my guess is it's coming and that we will see a great deal more of this and people will be forced to stop and think again about the costs involved.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go --ask you about the -- starting with you, Karen House, Sec. Cheney was very confident that our patience would out last his patience. Reading American public opinion and the sort of subtle changes before and since the actions started, is he right about that?

MS. HOUSE: I strongly believe so. I think that the public and the Congress did learn something from Vietnam and now that we have Congress on record as supporting this that we are not going to undercut the troops out there, we'll stick with it.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Odom, what do you think about that?

GEN. ODOM: I think that's true, but you know, I don't think that Saddam Hussein has much choice to be anything but patient. After I watched Teraq Aziz in Geneva and the press conference, it became clear to me that he was speaking for Saddam, that there is no give. He's in this right to the end. And I've heard other Middle Eastern spokesmen say that Saddam loses either way, whether he concedes and moves out or whether he stays in and is destroyed. Therefore, I think the issue of patience is strictly one of ours and the variable that's most critical there is early military success in destroying his forces.

MR. MacNeil: How do you read the ability of the American people, Donald McHenry, to stay patient through this?

AMB. McHENRY: Well, I think they have shown that they evaluate this conflict in longer terms than they may have initially. Wall Street went wild the first day and there were all kinds of -- there was all kinds of speculation about how quickly this campaign was going to end, but if you look at some of the later polls, the public seems to be expecting that this is going to last a little while.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Well, Donald McHenry, Harold Brown, Gen. Odom, Paul Nitze, Karen Elliott House, and Gary Sick, thank you all for joining us. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, the main stories about the Gulf War, the United States claimed it has achieved air superiority over the Iraqis, but Defense Sec. Cheney cautioned that there may be surprises ahead. A U.S. Patriot missile shot down an Iraqi missile over Israel for the first time. Three more Iraqi missiles were shot down over Saudi Arabia. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with full coverage of the events in the Persian Gulf War. I'm Jim. Lehrer. Thank you and good night.