The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news from the Persian Gulf War this Wednesday, 12 U.S. Marines died in the war's first major ground battle and the U.S. commander said the allies had achieved their supremacy over Iraq. We'll have the details in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: On the NewsHour tonight, we have reports from the scene of the first major ground fighting, the briefing by the U.S. commander, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, an interview with British Defense Minister Tom King, and full analysis by critics and defenders of U.S. military strategy after two weeks of war. GULF NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Twelve U.S. Marines died today in the first major ground action of the Persian Gulf War. Two others were wounded. The fighting was described by one Marine as hellacious. It started last night in and near the Saudi Arabian town called Kafji and followed at least four separate attacks from across the border by Iraqi troops. Network Pool reporter Brad Willis was with the Marine unit when the attack started.

MR. WILLIS: This is January 29th, 11:15 PM, 11:15 PM, a major alert, just south of the border from Kuwait. This is the third time air raid sirens have gone off. It's getting late at night. All of the troops have been ordered to put on their masks for possible chemical attack. Toe vehicles, anti-tank vehicles, have moved out into position around the perimeter and there is a warning that could be tanks, Iraqi tanks, moving South into Saudi Arabia. [air raid sirens]

MARINE: Okay. Right now it's just a stand-by thing. Nothing seems to be going on or anything right now. Okay, well, nothing should be switched yet. I understand what you're talking about doing and we can do that if the re-trans has to go out. Right now it's just a stand-by thing, so nothing should have been changed or redone or anything, okay?

MARINE: Thanks for letting me know.

MR. WILLIS: It's now 1:30 in the morning on the 30th, and we've just been told that the Marines believe that tanks have rolled into Kafji, into Saudi Arabia, Iraqi tanks. Attack helicopters are starting to scramble from this base now to engage those tanks.

MR. WILLIS: It's shortly after 7 AM on January 30th. This is the first time since this conflict began that Iraqi military hardware has infiltrated the border of Saudi Arabia into a Saudi city. [SHELL FIRE IN BACKGROUND]

MR. WILLIS: Eight artillery guns, a battery, aimed towards the area of Kafji and the Kuwaiti border. These are the guns that just fired rounds five minutes ago, multiple rounds towards the Kafji area. How does it feel to finally be firing back at the enemy here?

MARINE: It feels good. It's been a while. We have been coming up here, standing by and stand by to stand by, you know, not actually shoot, you know. My section here has been pretty motivated. They've been lookin' forward to shooting these rounds and they're feeling good about it. You know, we're all motivated.

MR. WILLIS: 11:09 AM, major firing over the Kafji area, just north of Kafji. FOCUS - BATTLE READY?

MR. LEHRER: The commander of U.S. forces in the war, Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, spoke at the fighting at a press briefing later in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He described the ground battles that have been fought near the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: If you look at this position here yesterday evening we had an attack in that area by what was estimated to be an Iraqi mechanized battalion. It crossed the border. It was engaged by a Marine, light armored infantry battalion, and tactical air. Result: 10 Iraqi tanks destroyed, 4 enemy prisoners of W, POW, and the Marines lost 2 light armored vehicles. At Point No. 2, right here, later on that same evening, another Iraqi battalion came across the border. These were again engaged by AC-130s and Cobras. We destroyed four tanks and thirteen vehicles. We have had reports that the Iraqis did go into Al Kafji. Of course, as you know, Al Kafji has been abandoned and deserted since the very first day of Desert Storm so there was no one there. At Position No. 3 in the very early morning, Iraqi tanks again crossed the border. This time they were initially engaged by the Saudi Arabian National Guard, and then Marine attack air engaged them and the enemy withdrew. Early this morning, 40 more Iraqi tanks crossed the border again at the same place they came across before, right over here. They were once again engaged by the Marine light armored infantry. This time the results were 10 Iraqi tanks destroyed. They captured nine enemy prisoners of war. At the present time, we have reports that the Saudis are moving forces into Al Kafji to eject any Iraqi that may be in that area. We have confirmed figures of 24 Iraqi tanks destroyed and 13 other vehicles destroyed. The Marines lost two light armored vehicles. Unfortunately, I'm very sad that I have to report to you that they lost 12 KIA in that engagement of 2 WIA. These are the first casualties of any ground conflict, or first KIA of any ground conflict.

REPORTER: General, you described having B-52 bombardment of troop positions in Kuwait. You described intercepting supply lines, troops that are giving you anecdotal evidence about one meal a day and body lice, and these same troops it seems made it 12 miles into Saudi territory last night. Was there any degree to which coalition troops might have been taken by surprise?

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, U.S. Army: No, I don't think they were taken by surprise. As I said, there was nobody, Kafji had been abandoned, okay? We had outposts in this area. The outposts reported actually what we expected them to report. They made into Al Kafji, twelve miles, six miles. It's irrelevant how far it was because it was considered militarily -- the reason why it was abandoned by the Saudis very early on was because it's, of course, in direct artillery range of the artillery right out here in Kuwait, and they didn't want to have bombardments going down on any troops that they had in this position, so in essence, Iraqis that went into this area went unopposed. The Iraqis that went into these other areas were opposed and, in fact, were turned back. I would tell you I don't think that battle's over by a long shot. I expect a lot more fighting will probably occur tonight and I would tell you that, you know, obviously we've been talking and we're ready for whatever comes in there, but I don't think we were surprised.

REPORTER: You mentioned the Marine casualties of twelve dead and two wounded. In your estimation, is that unusually high for an encounter of that size?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: No, particularly when you consider the number of tanks that were involved, the number of tanks that were knocked out and that sort of thing, twelve is not unusually high. Listen, any is unusually high -- I mean, any is intolerably high as far as I'm concerned, but unfortunately, that's going to happen.

REPORTER: I think to many civilian minds the idea of the Iraqi ground forces going over to the offensive, as the probingattacks would appear to indicate, would seem very strange after such an intense aerial campaign. Could you enlighten --

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Sure, sure. Let me give you some -- first of all, we haven't hit this area very hard. We haven't hit this area anywhere near as hard as we hit the Republican Guards in some of the other areas. So this one hasn't been hit very hard. We may change our mind now, obviously. Secondly, there is an old saying, the best defense is a good offense, and sometimes, believe me, when people have been sitting in a hole, being hit day after day after day by air, they decide that rather than sit around and take this anymore why don't we get up and so something else about it, and it could be that. Thirdly, as I say, the Marines have been conducting very effective artillery raids in this area for about three nights in a row. It's entirely possible that these folks, based upon the severe damage that they had the night before, knew about the -- all the artillery raids have been about the same time. This may have been a preemptive attack to try and get after those forces that have been attacking them three nights beforehand.

REPORTER: I want to see if I got this right. I get the impression that the Iraqi troops have seized Kafji. It's a little border town, I know, and we've all been up there, and that not American troops, per se, but the Saudi National Guard troops, which I don't remember if they have that much armor, are trying to retake that city. Is that accurate?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: I think -- I'd really rather leave a question like that to the Saudis, because they can give you a lot more details on that. We work very closely together. The Saudis have reported to me that they're mounting an operation to go back into Kafji. I wouldn't really say the Iraqis have seized Kafji. You know, when you walk into an uninhabited place, it's really not much of a seizure.

REPORTER: Are they occupying it? They're occupying Kafji?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: The last I heard there were some there, okay, but again I have no confirmed evidence that they're still there and let's wait and see what happens. We'll let the Saudis brief you on that because I think they can give you better information.

REPORTER: General, without revealing any military secrets, can you tell me what will be the factors or the criterias for you to decide if to begin the ground attack and when to begin the ground attack?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: First of all, I did not make that decision. The President of the United States in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will make that decision. The second answer is no.

MR. MacNeil: During the battle, a Marine officer described an unsuccessful attempt to rescue two American soldiers.

MAJ. CRAIG HUDDLESTON, U.S. Marine Corps: Apparently, two soldiers made a wrong turn coming this way and got themselves up into Kafji, and there were two vehicles with four soldiers. The one vehicle began taking -- both vehicles began taking small arms fire and one escaped. On our trip up there, it appeared the one vehicle crashed into a wall. The two soldiers that were in that vehicle, we could not find them. The vehicle was there, the doors were open, their individual equipment was there. Their weapons were gone but we saw no blood stains or sign of anything. The staff sergeant that went up, ran around the vehicle looking for them, hollering, "U.S. Marines, U.S. Marines!" We got no response and then we had to get out of there. The two BMPs were several hundred meters away and I think theywere surprised to see us so we had to get away.

REPORTER: It's got to be disappointing not to be able to find those men.

MAJ. HUDDLESTON: Yeah. It's -- we wanted to get 'em pretty badly.

MR. MacNeil: It is believed that some Iraqi troops are still holding out tonight in a portion of Kafji. Iraqi Radio said Saddam Hussein took part in planning last night's attack on Saudi Arabia and personally gave the order to carry it out. The Iraqis claim their forces drove 12 miles into Saudi territory and were leveling allied positions. They also claimed three more allied aircraft were shot down overnight. News agencies quoted Kurdish rebels as saying Iraq has moved several missile launchers to its frontier with Turkey, which has allowed the U.S. to use its bases for air raids.

MR. LEHRER: Gen. Schwarzkopf also gave his overall assessments of how the war was going after two weeks. He said the allies have achieved air supremacy over Iraq, a step above last week's claim of air superiority.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: In our first phase what we wanted to do was to disrupt leadership command and control, destroy centralized air defense command and control, attack combat aircraft in the air and on the ground to achieve air superiority, damage nuclear, biological, and chemical storage and production capability and commence attack on the Republican Guards. Once we had that done, we planned to go into a second phase, which was to destroy the air defense radars and missiles in the Kuwaiti theater of operation to achieve undisputed control of the air, some people call that air supremacy, and finally to sever supply lines in the Kuwaiti theater of operation. And once that phase was completed, we planned then to isolate the Kuwaiti theater of operations, continue our attacks on Republican Guards, and we have other objectives, which I will not discuss further. As you know, we've flown more than 30,000 sorties and we've lost only 19 aircraft. In the last five days, we've lost only one aircraft to the hostile ground fire. We've attacked 38 air fields and we've flown over 1300 sorties against these air fields. The 38 air fields have all been struck at least once and many of them have been struck at least four times. At least nine of them are non-operational. Now as a result of this type of operation, they decided to put all other aircraft in hardened structures. They tried to hide their aircraft. Therefore, we commenced a systematic destruction of those hardened shelters. At this time, I would like to introduce Brig. Gen. Glosson.

BRIG.

GEN. BUSTER GLOSSON, U.S. Air Force: What you're about to see are the hardened aircraft shelters at three installations, the first installation being one of his primary MiG 21 bases of the Iraqi air force. That shelter was destroyed by an F-117 as are many of the other in this type. Each and every hardened aircraft shelter obviously does not have an airplane in it, as you can see by the explosion and the degree of explosion. However, there are a significant number of them that do and have other things stored in them, that being the case in point.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: The result to date of this type of attack is we have destroyed more than 70 of these hardened shelters and quite frankly, the Iraqi aircraft are running out of places to hide. I'd like to talk a little bit about the isolation in the Kuwaiti theater of operations. One of the ways we do this is by destroying the bridges that lead into the Kuwaiti theater of operations area. Next chart please. We've destroyed -- we've targeted a total of 36 bridges. Out of those 36 bridges, we have attacked 33 of them, with over 790 sorties. Obviously, by shutting off the bridges, we shut off the supply lines that supply the forces in Southern Iraq and in the Kuwaiti theater of operation. The first video is a railroad bridge and obviously they have very limited rail lines and when you take a railroad bridge out, it makes a big difference. We try and hit right near the shore, I've been told, because that's the most difficult to repair and does the most damage if you get in at that point. That's one end of the bridge. You will now see the same bridge again. Notice that's where we hit before, this end is gone - - we're now hitting the other end of that railroad bridge. I'm now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq on this particular day. Keep your eye on the cross hairs. Look at here. Right through the cross hairs. And now in his rear view mirror. Okay, stop the tape, please. Now I want to turn finally to Scuds, another subject that's been prominent in everyone's mind. As I told you before, I think Scuds are militarily insignificant, but it is a terror weapon. It's a terror weapons that's been targeted against civilian population centers and that makes it important. So let's talk about Scuds for a moment.

BRIG. GEN. GLOSSON: I'll put in the cockpit of an F-15-E for an air to ground sortie and through the help of a targeting pod and a pod on the F-15-E let you look into the night sky of Iraq as we are attacking mobile Scuds, and you'll see on the clear pod that three erector launchers are mobile Scuds, are turning into the storage area to join four others. And then when you notice black indicates cold and you'll see these get darker as this film goes on, and now the pilot is maneuvering to drop laser-guided bombs on this target. There are a total of 11 vehicles in this area and all these are already loaded with Scud missiles, as you can see. And now we will show you a slow motion so you can actually see the bombs impact. The flight lead now clears his No. 2 man in to drop an aerial denial munition to take care of the remainder of the four vehicles that were on this side of the road.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Now I certainly can't say there will be no more Scud launchers. You can never say that. But I have a high degree of confidence that we're getting better and better at our ability to find them and I think this tape speaks for itself and our ability to find them and destroy them, and I assure you we're going to continue to pursue those launchers. One last announcement, today we went over 500,000 troops in the theater.

REPORTER: Given this entire presentation tonight about the effectiveness of the coalition air forces, is there a chance that there won't need to be a ground war?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: There's always a chance of that, but certainly, you know, as a military planner, you always plan for the worst case rather than the best, but I'm certainly not going to assimilate the capabilities of the enemy at all and the mere fact that they launched this faulty attack or whatever it might be indicates that, you know, they certainly have a lot of fight left in 'em, so I'm not discounting that.

REPORTER: General, if you're unwilling to discuss Iraqi casualties amongst the Republican Guard, could you perhaps give us an estimate of the degree to which you reduced the effectiveness of the fighting force?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: No, because all it would be was a rough estimate, and I don't like dealing in rough estimates when you start talking about enemy casualties. I told you -- I'm anti-body count. Body count means nothing, absolutely nothing, and all it is a wild guess that tends to mislead people what's going on, and that's not the way we do business by wild guessing so I just don't think it's -- I personally don't like the idea of issuing body counts on a comparative basis. I just think it puts undue pressure on commanders that come up with numbers that are unreal. Yes, sir, back in the back.

REPORTER: Is it possible that the enemy could shift to secondary supply routes effectively, pick up trucks, jeeps, mule trains, et cetera?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: There's always that possibility. That's pretty rough to do. They have very limited road maps and of course with the Tigress and Euphrates being where it is, you know, you got to go across the Tigress and Euphrates. I would expect to see pontoon bridges being put up. Pontoon bridges are pretty easy to find and they're even easier to take out, but I would --

REPORTER: As a follow up, sir, certainly in the Indochina War, the enemy did do exactly that and their supplies continued to roll South. Granted, there's no triple canopy forest here and we have better night sighting capabilities, but do you anticipate the possibility of an extended supply effort down to the more primitive level?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: I would imagine that they will try and I can assure you that we will also continue to do what we've been doing. There's a big difference between here and Vietnam as far as the air operations and the ability to interdict supply lines.

REPORTER: If you go into Kuwait, expel the Iraqis, are you going to stop at the border, or are you going to pursue them into Iraq?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Let's wait and see. Okay. You know, this campaign has many different phases to it. There are certain determinations that happen in each one and I'm not going to telegraph any of our punches, but I will say, repeat once again what the President of the United States has said all along, that's our argument is not with the Iraqi people, our intention is not to conquer Iraq in any way or reduce Iraq to a non-country. It never has been. With regard to Saddam Hussein saying that he has met the best that the coalition has to offer, I would only say the best is yet to come. Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: A new oil slick was reported in the Persian Gulf today. The BBC, AP, and Reuters News Agencies quoted British military officials, saying Iraq began deliberately pumping the oil out of one of its own offshore terminals yesterday. The report said the slick was located in the Northern tip of the Gulf. Gen. Schwarzkopf said allied forces might bomb the Iraqi terminal to cut off the spill.

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, the man in charge of the 40,000 British forces in the Persian Gulf, Defense Minister Tom King. British air, land and naval units are serving in the coalition forces under overall American command. The Royal Air Force has proportionately suffered the highest losses of all the allies. Seven Tornado planes have been downed, five of them in combat. Two British airmen are known to prisoners of war and another eight are listed as missing in action. I spoke with the defense minister this afternoon. Mr. King, thank you very much for joining us. Does Gen. Schzwarkopf's upbeat sounding briefing mean that the air war has been won?

MR. KING: No. I think he emphasized at the end the scale of the Iraqi military machine that still exists, we don't know enough yet and we don't care. The difficulty of assessing just what the capability still is of their ground forces, I thought that was a very shrewd and a very wise warning, and I very much agreed with it.

MR. MacNeil: What do you see as the chief task remaining in the air assault?

MR. KING: Well, I think it undoubtedly is to make sure that we diminish the capability of their ground forces. He's referred to the Republican Guard. He also made the point that very little attention has yet been paid to the forces in the more forward parts of the Kuwait theater of operations. That's obviously got to be done as well. We have these limited attacks at the moment which show that they still have a capability and they're not in the subdued condition that one might hope to see after effective air offenses.

MR. MacNeil: Can the air assault yet make a ground war unnecessary?

MR. KING: Well, I'd very much bow to the judgment of Gen. Schwarzkopf and Gen. DuBilier, who's our commander, in the theater as well on that. We have to plan, as we have, on having an effective ground force able and ready to carry forward the ground force operation. Obviously, everybody would hope that the liberation of Kuwait, the United Nations resolution objectives can be achieved with a minimum of conflict, and we'd much rather that those forces Iraq left Kuwait now and didn't quite make a ground battle necessary, but we've obviously got a plan on the basis that it will be necessary.

MR. MacNeil: Doesn't the fact that 12 U.S. Marines die mean that Saddam Hussein has succeeded in engaging the coalition forces in a ground war already?

MR. KING: Oh, no. I mean, obviously, I very much regret the news of the loss of the American Marine lives, but I think you'll understand why that isn't the -- can't be the case when you actually saw if the ground war does start, then you'll see that it bears very little comparison to what is a very limited encounter even though sadly it has incurred these casualties.

MR. MacNeil: How long can the coalition avoid the ground war? It's a question that is asked very much here.

MR. KING: Well, I don't think it's a question of avoiding the ground war. I think it's a question of making sure that when it is decided to launch the ground campaign that the best possible conditions have been established for it, that the strength of the coalition position is good, and that we have undermined the Iraqi opposition as much as we can. That's been the plan. That's been the plan, as you know, right behind the air campaign which we've been strong supporters and which we have great admiration for the leadership of Gen. Schwarzkopf and Gen. Horner in the work that they've done in planning that campaign.

MR. MacNeil: Would Britain think it reasonable to continue the air campaign for weeks and weeks if it were necessary to bring about those conditions?

MR. KING: We've got to continue the air campaign until we've achieved the right conditions. I wouldn't second guess here from London how long that should be. We keep in close touch. Obviously we take a keen interest indeed. The British Joint Commander of our joint forces who's based here in the UK is out with Gen. Schwarzkopf and visiting the British forces at this moment, but I won't second guess for them when the right moment is to launch that campaign.

MR. MacNeil: What does Britain consider the right conditions into which you'd be willing to commit British forces in ground battle?

MR. KING: The conditions in which we have the best chance of the speediest outcome, the quickest possible liberation of Kuwait, with the minimum of casualties on the allied coalition side and also by the shortness of the campaign obviously limiting the risk of civilian casualties inKuwait as well.

MR. MacNeil: With the Iraqi forces very heavily and securely dug in, both in Kuwait and Iraq, will the coalition be able to fight a ground battle not on Saddam Hussein's terms?

MR. KING: Yes. I think that the pressure on the logistic chain, Gen. Schwarzkopf had a very vivid picture today of the reduction to I think a tenth the normal logistics supply. The impact of what that must be having, in terms of whether they have ammunition, whether they have fuel, whether they have food and water, these are all going to be pressures on them and the condition of the forces if this continues, and if progressively the air campaign switches to the ground force close to the front line in the Kuwait theater, that's going to have its impact. And all those are going to contribute to making more quick the achievement of the liberation of Kuwait and the effective victory for the coalition.

MR. MacNeil: How strong is the certainty in Britain's mind that Saddam will resort to chemical weapons if it comes to direct ground engagement?

MR. KING: I think very likely. And that's why we've taken the level of prevention that we have. I think that we have to be conscious that at any time he might decide to do that. I think that one's been almost able to measure the way in which he's sought to turn to yet another nasty arrow in his quiver. Whether it was the turn to Scud missiles, whether it was turning to the showing of captured allied airmen on television, whether it used that force of propaganda or whether it was the oil slicks, and I shouldn't be at all surprised that he may resort to chemical weapons, and that's why we've been anxious at all times to be ready for them.

MR. MacNeil: Will Britain have any hesitancy in responding with chemical weapons if he --

MR. KING: We don't have chemical weapons; we don't have them.

MR. MacNeil: What is your policy about the rest of the coalition, the American forces responding?

MR. KING: We've made clear that we won't disclose what we think is a proper or improper response at this time. We aren't going to give him the comfort of knowing what we might do. I have always said one single thing. I said that were he to use chemical weapons, it would be a very very serious matter. It would be an extremely stupid thing for him to do, and he would pay very direly for it.

MR. MacNeil: Could the situation -- Britain is a nuclear power - - could the situation ever get so desperate for the coalition forces that tactical nuclear weapons would be needed in this operation?

MR. KING: John Major, the prime minister, made clear our position on that. We don't comment on the use or willingness to use nuclear weapons for the three reasons that I've just given and that's where I think I would rest.

MR. MacNeil: Right. Yesterday the United States and the Soviet Union, the two foreign ministers, issued a statement saying that the war could stop, the fighting could stop if Saddam gave an unequivocal commitment to pull out. Your government's been saying a simple pull out from Kuwait isn't enough. What is the aim now? Could he stop the war by saying, all right, I will pull out?

MR. KING: I think the exact quotation is rather different. I don't want to challenge you on that, but I think we would -- it referred to effective evidence of immediate withdrawal. We have always recognized nobody wants a ground conflict. We want to see the liberation of Kuwait. We want to see also the achievement of the United Nations resolutions, and I have drawn attention to the last part of Resolution 678, which is to restore international peace and security to the area. Now that is a very difficult issue and why the simple liberation of Kuwait, if it was achieved nearly by the Iraqi forces withdrawing from the border and it's merely positioning themselves there and continuing to look as menacing and threatening as they have in the past, that obviously would be a very difficult situation for the coalition and for the United Nations. We need to see not only the successful liberation of Kuwait, but the clear assurance that it will stay liberated.

MR. MacNeil: You've heard Gen. Schwarzkopf's assessment. With the progress he's reporting, what is the soonest you think this could all be over now?

MR. KING: I wouldn't, with all the experts debating these issues on television, we simply don't know. We know what our commitment is and our objective is, which is the earliest possible resolution. I hope that very soon the message will at last get through to Baghdad. This is a conflict that they're bound to lose. The only consequence it's not withdrawing now is that they have to withdraw later, and the only difference between now and then will be a lot more casualties on the Iraqi side. That's not what anybody actually wants to see. We want to see an end to the aggression and we want to see a return to peace and security in the area.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. King, thank you very much for joining us today.

MR. KING: thank you.

MR. LEHRER: And speaking of debating these issues on television, we go now to some American analysis of today's battle on the ground, the war generally after two weeks, and a look ahead. It comes from former army chief of staff Gen. John Wickham, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes, he's now president of the American Friends of Turkey, Leslie Gelb, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and a former official in the Defense and State Departments in the Johnson and Carter administrations, Edward Luttwak, a fellow at the Center For Strategic & International Studies, and a consultant on military matters to the U.S. government, and Bruce Van Voorst, senior national security affairs correspondent for Time Magazine, who just returned from Saudi Arabia. Bruce, to you first. How do you see the significance of today's ground battle near Kafji?

MR. VAN VOORST: Well, I think first of all, it was predictable that Saddam Hussein given the pressures that he's feeling would lash out in some way or another. He's experienced a series of very frustrating efforts on his part. He's seen things fall apart. He has not with the Scud campaign been able to provoke the Israelis. He had launched some of his best aircraft against U.S. Navy forces. They were shot down. The Exocet went into water. The oil slick is a real nuisance for us and if we had plans for an amphibious attack, it could be a bit of a problem. But basically all of these things have come to naught for him in terms of really drawing the United States into a bloody ground battle, and he has to, if he's got any strategy at all, he has to anticipate or try to provoke us into this fight, and so coming across the border last night in a reconnaissance and strength was a way to check and find out what we can do to him, and I think he learned.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. You don't think that it has that much significance in the overall situation?

MR. VAN VOORST: Well, yes. I mean, I think that this is certainly an effort on his part to determine just what happens when he puts up his units against ours. Certainly it showed one thing as well. We didn't fall into a trap as far as I can see, because we responded in the kind of warfare that we wanted to, i.e., it was basically our aircraft, the AC-130s and the helicopters, the Apaches and the A-10 aircraft, which took on the armored battalion that he sent over the border.

MR. LEHRER: Gen. Haynes, does it mean for all practical purposes that the ground war has, in fact, begun?

GEN. HAYNES: I think it does. I think it means that it will continue at a low level. I would expect more of this in the weeks to come. As a precursor to a major attack on his part, or a major offensive on our part, I would say probably not for the time being. But that whole thing is a continuum and we are now in a phase which I think is leading into the potential of major ground action.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think that the Marines pleaded right by responding the way they did, or should they have not attacked -- in other words, should they have fallen back and let him do whatever they wanted to do and then get back?

GEN. HAYNES: Well, I think the nature of this kind of warfare calls for some kind of aggressive action to blunt any kind of a probing attack of this sort. It's very difficult to tell about the tactics. The Marines lost a couple of light armored vehicles, which I suspect were a part of a covering force in relationship to what might come from the Iraqi side. But a reaction to be aggressive in the matter I think is absolutely appropriate.

MR. LEHRER: Ed Luttwak, do you agree that this means the ground war has begun?

MR. LUTTWAK: I certainly hope not. We have adopted an air strategy. That's what the President's strategy is. That's the strategy that was approved by the United States Congress, and the strategy is going very well. We are proceeding in a rather calm, orderly way, only one mission a day for each attack aircraft, so let's be patient. What we've had here has not been an Iraqi probe. As Gen. Schwarzkopf said the Marines were sent up three months in a row to goose the Iraqis into action. They opened fire on the Iraqis to see if they could provoke them. Well, they now succeeded and the 12 --

MR. LEHRER: He said that on the clip. There are three artillery attacks that the Marines --

MR. LUTTWAK: Yes, that's right. They went up to goose them into action and I hope they're all very pleased now, because there are now 12 dead Marines in an insignificant skirmish. The entire air war has cost us I think 11 pilots to achieve the strategic objective of cracking their defense, cracking the Iraqi air force, which is now extinct, and we're now in the course of cracking the rest of the military machine. And that cost us 11 lives, whereas this little game by the Marines cost us 12 lives. I suggest that President Bush does want an air strategy. He should review the command structure which puts ground force officers in charge of an air strategy, because these ground officers are clearly spoiling for a fight. They really want to have the fight. They move the forces forward. And by the way, Saddam Hussein's strategy is to kill Americans. Saddam Hussein's problem is he has no reach. He cannot get to us. So what do we do? Very clever, move forward to put our troops under his guns. This is exactly playing into his hands. If we had told him no ground war, sorry, Saddam, we're going to send the reservists home, we're not going to have a ground war, he would collapse, because that's his only strategy. He couldn't face his men if he didn't have the promise of a ground war in which he could kill Americans.

MR. LEHRER: Gen. Wickham, these Marines play right into Saddam Hussein's hands?

GEN. WICKHAM: No. I disagree with Ed Luttwak's comment that we're spoiling for a ground war. What --

MR. LUTTWAK: Are you disagreeing with Gen. Schwarzkopf's explanation that it was the Marines that provoked --

GEN. WICKHAM: Hear me out, will you?

MR. LEHRER: Let the General --

GEN. WICKHAM: What we're trying to do there is build a defensive capability and you have to be forward to defend. When you have hundreds of thousands of soldiers that are in proximity to each other, you're going to have reconnaissance. We've been doing reconnaissance. They've been doing reconnaissance sometimes on foot, sometimes by fire. But there also efforts to have a reconnaissance in force, as Bruce said, and they had sent some battalions. This is not uncommon. They did this in the eight year war with Iran. There's going to be more of this and the Marines did well in defending themselves and in creating a --

MR. LUTTWAK: General, you are a well known armor expert. Would you send these armored cars, these thin armored cars, to tangle with Iraqi tanks? Would you do that? Or was this feistiness and wanting and reaching out to see whether you can provoke a ground fight? Perhaps they're not happy with the President's policy.

GEN. WICKHAM: I'm not going to comment on the tactics thousands of miles away. I think the Marines did well in defending themselves and the coalition forces in bringing sufficient casualties to bear on the Iraqis. The real issue here is going to be there is going to be more of this and we have yet to hear the results of the enormous artillery capabilities that the Iraqis --

MR. LEHRER: We'll get to that in a moment. But let me ask Gen. Haynes, Ed Luttwak has made a very serious charge, that --

GEN. HAYNES: He has.

MR. LEHRER: Is there validity to it in your opinion?

GEN. HAYNES: No, I don't think so. I think that he's overreacting to something which he knows very little about. He's not there. He's assuming that two light armored vehicles were sent up to fight two tanks. My guess is -- and this is really a guess, Ed -- that -- but knowing the tactical situation in general is that the light armored vehicles were probably a part of a covering force.

MR. LUTTWAK: I'm not questioning the detailed tactics. I'm just citing --

GEN. HAYNES: You take risks at any time --

MR. LEHRER: Let the General finish.

GEN. HAYNES: -- with any force that you send out in a covering mode. You cannot send out an armored force initially.

MR. LUTTWAK: But why send them? If we have an air strategy -- if we have an air strategy, why go forward under the guns of Iraq, when Iraq's only problem is it has no reach to get to us.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Les Gelb listening to this in New York. Les, do you think that we're falling into -- do you agree with Ed Luttwak, that we're falling into a trap laid by Saddam Hussein to have a ground war?

MR. GELB: Well, I agree with him about that, but I really don't think we're in a position to play armchair lieutenant. We can pay armchair general and talk about strategy and that might even be useful. On that plane, I think Ed Luttwak is exactly right. What's going on now in the sands out there is maneuvering to see who is going to fight on whose terrain, whose strategy is going to determine the battlefield. Right now the United States has been conducting a bombing campaign, a bombing strategy, and I think that's the right way to do it. But we will not -- we can break Saddam Hussein's back with a bombing strategy. I don't think we can break his will that way. His will is tied to his ground forces and he wants to draw us into a battle with his ground forces and he's trying to cause us to lose our self control. If we get into a ground combat with him, he is on a much more level playing field against the coalition than he is in any air campaign. We have air superiority. But if we get into a ground campaign we will suffer heavy casualties and he believes, Saddam believes that that will crack our will. So he is trying to bring it to a test of wills on the ground and I think it ought to be a test of wills from the air, and at all costs, unless there are overpowering reasons to the contrary, we should avoid full scale ground combat.

MR. LEHRER: Bruce is the feeling at the Pentagon that the United States and the coalition forces can actually control when a ground war begins or does Saddam Hussein have something to say about it himself, and that's what he's trying to say?

MR. VAN VOORST: I think that's the view, that he's trying to get in the act himself. I agree completely with Les, for example, that if we have our druthers, let's just sit there and pop off the air campaign and that seems to be going very well. The losses seem to be very minimal and we're doing a lot of damage as the Schwarzkopf briefing today showed. But nevertheless, Saddam Hussein is going to try to draw us into some kind of ground activity which we don't want to get involved in or at least not at this stage, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that you get fire fights, heavy fire fights such as we had. Ed makes a point that the feisty Marines -- no, the Marines have been taking incoming fire. I was there 10 days ago with Gen. Boomer and his command post and --

MR. LEHRER: But what about his point? Gen. Schwarzkopf said, and we ran it a minute ago, that this attack followed three days of U.S. Marine attacks on the Iraqis.

MR. VAN VOORST: But the U.S. Marines were responding to fire that they were taking from the Iraqi forces.

MR. LEHRER: Before that.

MR. VAN VOORST: And also -- let me repeat the point -- we don't know the tactical details of what happened just now, but it appears that we didn't just stand there and slug out. We had some artillery at a distance, which we can do quite well, but mostly we called on air power and that's the sort of fight that we're going to fight.

MR. LUTTWAK: Nobody here is going to discuss tactics 15,000 miles away. The issue is that if the Iraqis want to mount a serious attack, rolling down the road, you have lots of empty dessert there. There are no towns, there's nothing. You call in your air power and you stop them with air power. That is, indeed, what was done here. There is absolutely no need for the Marines to go forward -- this is not 1914 -- and set up little observation posts to see what they can see with binoculars. We have complete air supremacy. We have got complete air reconnaissance. This is simply -- this is acting out an impulse to fight. It's very commendable. We should be very pleased that we have such brave Marines. Now strategic reason must intervene to impose strategy on them. It is not strategic for people to creep forward and set up observation posts under somebody else's guns. What do you observe from an observation post? You look with your binoculars and you see a couple of things. When we can fly over and see everything we want.

MR. LEHRER: General, is he wrong about that?

GEN. HAYNES: I think he's wrong about that in the sense that the Marines have been put there, they didn't go there of their own accord, they went there for a purpose and the purpose is to provide a forward defense of the Saudi area where they're located.

MR. LUTTWAK: An area that was evacuated.

GEN. HAYNES: And they have done, just as I think the appropriate comment was made earlier, they have been responding to artillery fire on themselves. Now should they pull back and move away from the immediate battle area? I don't --

MR. LEHRER: So we don't know about that, but what about his general point that there is a natural tendency among brave Marines to take it to the enemy and that they need to be sat on?

GEN. HAYNES: I don't think so. I mean, the Marines are prepared to fight, but they're prepared to carry out their missions. They are not, well, okay, fellahs go out and decide whether you want to attack or not. That's certainly not in their doctrine.

GEN. WICKHAM: The kinds of orders that are going to be given and have been given, and Ed, I take offense at your sort of cavalier comments here, the kinds of orders that have been given to commanders are to defend terrain. It's not that you are to shrink from the enemy and defending terrain doesn't necessarily mean that we're not going to allow the enemy penetrate. We're going to use the air and I agree with Les Gelb. We want to try to do as much of the air campaign as possible, but we're not going to allow the enemy to continue to probe into Saudi Arabia freely without the cost.

MR. VAN VOORST: Well, what's the rush. The whole thesis of his idea, we can sit there, we can watch the air campaign over our head, there's no reason for us to start this ground campaign ahead of time, and he said the reason for this is I want to save as many American lives as I can.

MR. LUTTWAK: And then he moves the forces forward. Gen. Schwarzkopf said that the Saudis had evacuated Khafji from the beginning of the war. There is nothing there but sand. The Marines were not there. The Marines have been moved forward to set up this outdated, 1914 type of observation post. Then they started receiving artillery fire so that we could get footage on television showing people carrying on artillery fire, and now we have a skirmish, an insignificant skirmish, with no strategic value, in which more Americans have died than the entire air campaign which is on its way to winning this war.

MR. LEHRER: Les Gelb made another point in a column today and Tom King talked about it with Robin a moment ago, and that's the inevitability that I think you would think, to read Tom King's remarks of chemical warfare, that it's only a matter of time before Saddam Hussein and Iraq are going to use it. Do you agree, Les Gelb, in that this is coming, it's just a matter of time?

MR. GELB: Well, part of Saddam Hussein's strategy of getting us to engage on the ground is because that is the area where he can more or less equal our fire power and do it by unconventional warfare, meaning especially with chemical weapons. Now there's a lot back and forth about the utility of chemical weapons and I'd be interested to hear what the generals you have there had to say about that. But there's no question that the prospect of chemical warfare bothers the decision makers here in the United States and is one of the main reasons why they're delaying any decision to go forward on the ground.

MR. LEHRER: You said in your column that Pres. Bush was in danger at least of walking into that very trap.

MR. GELB: It's a horrendous situation, Jim, because we don't want to respond with chemical weapons. That isn't the way we want to fight a war, nor do we want to escalate to nuclear weapons and break that important moral and strategic barrier. We don't have good options and if you start a groundassault and he uses chemical weapons, we're left with nothing sensible to do, except to keep advancing and taking high casualties.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Gen. Haynes. Do you share that horror, sir?

GEN. HAYNES: I took this position in the general conversation here and in particular with respect to Les's column this morning. I believe that we should follow the air strategy as we are doing, a continuation of the air war, to the point when it is appropriate for us to attack on the ground. I do not believe that we can escape at some point a ground war larger than a few probes and it's not because Mr. Luttwak seems to think that Marines spoil for a fight. It is because you ultimately are going to have to take the offensive and you run the risk of accepting some chemical attacks on yourself and you run the risk of casualties anyway, but to think that we can sit forever and see the collapse of Saddam Hussein's forces I think honestly is whistling Dixie. One thing that happened to change at all and that would be the demise of Saddam Hussein. If he disappears, I think it might change.

MR. GELB: Jim, if I may make one comment.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, Les.

MR. GELB: I'm not talking about sitting indefinitely. I'm talking about a lengthy postponement in order to let the full weight of the bombing attack sink in. And that doesn't mean --

GEN. WICKHAM: Les, that's what's happening. Everyone says that. Even the commander there says that. Let the air war run, for it's like part of Norm's briefing today was to demonstrate the results of this air campaign, and that is going to run in time, and these little skirmishes that have occurred, as sad as they have been, are not the prelude to the ground war. If we get into the ground side, it's going to happen on our schedule and our time.

MR. VAN VOORST: I have to clarify this chemical question. It takes place, a possibility of chemical use on two levels, one is the strategic, that is, it's widely believed that he still has the capability in missile warheads to deploy chemical weapons. That means primarily his effort to promote Israel into the war. That could have vast significance. The other level is the artillery and tactical on the battlefield and that I don't think is correct to say we don't have a response to that.

MR. LEHRER: But what about, just from a public point of view, as well as a military point of view, doesn't Ed Luttwak make a point that is very telling on this particular night that 12 U.S. Marines died in a minor skirmish and only 11 have died in two weeks of a bombing war?

MR. VAN VOORST: That's the difference between an air attack and a ground war. We cannot avoid the ground war to some extent, to the degree that he ferrets out --

MR. LUTTWAK: No, he did not ferret out. He did not -- Gen. Schwarzkopf's statement that he was successfully goosed into action --

MR. LEHRER: State your position in a general way, Ed Luttwak. Do you believe that everybody else is wrong -- I mean, not everybody else but I mean the generals and others who believe that eventually there's going to have to be a ground action made, major ground action by the allied forces?

MR. LUTTWAK: From the beginning of this crisis in August, I've been for an air strategy.

MR. LEHRER: Period.

MR. LUTTWAK: That's it. It's not Vietnam and it's not Europe. You now have 540,000 Iraqis according to the figures sitting in Kuwait in the desert. They have to eat. Every day just to feed them you have to have hundreds of trucks coming over. We have very belatedly, as Gen. Schwarzkopf is saying, very late in the day, started cutting this flow of supplies to him. You cannot resupply him by people carrying loads on their backs and in the jungle -- there is no jungle -- there are no people to do that. You can't resupply them with a few camel trains at night. You cut the supplies, this army has no food. It has no food. It must abandon or surrender.

MR. LEHRER: Gen. Haynes.

GEN. HAYNES: What Ed is saying -- can it happen -- yes, it can happen. How long it will take is hard to say but --

MR. LUTTWAK: One week, two weeks, three weeks at the outside.

GEN. HAYNES: Well, I -- longer than that --

MR. LUTTWAK: As he --

GEN. HAYNES: The point at which we have to have a ground war.

MR. LUTTWAK: Yes, he's a ground -- the President has made the mistake of hiring gardeners to do his cooking. He has ground commanders in charge of an air campaign and I don't like it.

MR. LEHRER: We have to go, gentlemen. Thank you all five very much. GULF NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: In other Gulf related news, U.S. officials today denied that last night's joint U.S.-Soviet statement amounted to a new peace offer to Baghdad. The statement said Iraq could bring an end to the war by making an unequivocal commitment to withdraw from Kuwait and taking immediate concrete steps to back it up. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that represented no change in U.S. policy. He said that policy remained no cease-fire until Iraq undertakes a massive withdrawal from Kuwait. Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was upset by the U.S.-Soviet statement. He said his government should have been consulted because it had direct bearing on Israel's future. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Jordan today accused the United States and its allies of deliberately bombing civilian refugees. Jordan's foreign minister said four Jordanians and one Egyptian died during air raids inside Iraq as they traveled in cars and trucks toward the Jordanian border. He said they were clearly not traveling in military vehicles. The foreign ministry issued a strong protest to the U.S. ambassador in Amman. U.S. officials have not yet provided an account of the incident.

MR. MacNeil: An Iraqi frigate set on fire by allied warplanes sought refuge in Iranian waters today according to reports from Tehran Radio. It was the first report of an Iraqi ship entering Iranian waters since the war began. Tehran Radio also said at least two more Iraqi planes arrived in that country today. Allied military officials have said 90 Iraqi planes have flown to Iran since the war began. This morning, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said the pilots of those planes are being treated as prisoners of war. Also today, Iran asked the United Nations for permission to send food aid and infant formula to Iraq's civilian population. The Security Council delayed a decision until a U.N. team could investigate the situation. If approved, food distribution would be supervised by the Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: And in non-Gulf news today, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the Soviet Union has reportedly been delivering on hits promise to withdraw troops from the Baltic Republics. He said the Soviet officials vowed all troops not normally stationed in the republics would leave. Lithuania's president confirmed some troops left today, but he said many sites remain occupied and he warned the West not to be taken in by the Soviet promises. The U.S.'s Commerce Department said its index of leading economic indicators was up .1 percent in December. It was the first rise in the index in six months. Wall Street had a good day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up more than 50 points. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with full coverage and analysis of Gulf War developments. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.