On this side of the border, in their fortified lines and to the north, are about 540,000
Iraqi troops arrayed in several lines across.
On this side of the border sits our forces, about 460,000.
Now, how far is it across there, General?
From where we are to where he is, we're really inside now.
We are actually moved inside and within about six miles, we're at his positions right now.
And as our strategists understand it, what Saddam Hussein would really like U.S. forces
to do is hit head-on into those lines.
That's exactly what he'd like us to do, is come straight at him and atrit ourselves,
die on his fortifications.
And of course, that's not what we're gonna do.
What are we gonna do, General?
What we're gonna do is two things.
We, of course, will attack along the front here just to keep them busy.
And maybe we'll get some breakthroughs, Bob.
Then we're gonna swing around and we're gonna seal off this entire army of his and perhaps
come in from the sea to finish off the ceiling so that what you have is an army surrounded.
Now, then they have some choices.
Obviously, they can surrender.
They can fight if they want to.
If they want to fight, we come to them from their rear, not from the front like they want.
Let's take a look at how it would look at ground level.
We prepared a display here, General, using models and all kinds of television technology
to give a look at this battlefield.
Thousands of tanks.
What 2000...
Bob, what you're looking at is an armored division in the attack, almost 400 tanks,
plus you will see here some bridges.
They're armored personnel carriers, about 90,000 troops advancing across the plains
toward the Iraqis.
Now, those are the flat-top vehicles we saw every so often there.
Those are what they call the scissor bridges.
That's right.
Scissor bridges to go across these obstacles we're about to see.
Now, here's the first line of berms.
These are the things we've seen our tanks and stuff going through already, cutting through.
It's designed to slow us down.
Beyond this now will come the anti-tank ditch.
And of course, this is a long ditch designed to hold up the tanks.
Now, these are the things they've been talking about, putting oil in.
And of course, we've been putting napalm in to burn them off.
That would be the second line that our troops would have to go across.
This would be the second line.
Now, we have those bridges and things to try to get across that.
Beyond that then will come the wire that you see right here.
And then the minefields, the little red dots, all sorts of mines, both anti-personnel, anti-tank.
And finally, the Iraqi defenses themselves with their tanks, their berms, and the artillery
behind.
Now, notice the tanks in protected positions to protect them until they come out to maneuver.
Behind that now the artillery lines.
So these are the lines we've been seeing on the maps.
These are almost 10 miles wide, probably two, three miles deep.
Well, some of them also are concrete-enforced, sandbag-enforced.
Concrete, emplacements, sandbags, like little moles living in there.
So Dan, that's how it will look if it comes.
If is the word, because we want to underscore that with the deadline approaching, even if
the deadline goes by and Saddam Hussein is not withdrawing his troops from Kuwait as
President Bush has demanded in his ultimatum, that doesn't necessarily mean that a ground
offensive is going to be kicked off immediately following that.
As the noon deadline approaches, sirens have sounded in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Tom Fenton is there.
Tom?
Dan, the sirens went off about three minutes ago.
This is what the Israelis have been fearing.
They're afraid that Saddam Hussein and extremists will now launch some sort of a major attack
at Israel.
So far we've had one scud.
I don't know what else is to come.
You get four or five minutes warning after the siren usually before they land.
This is the sixth Saturday since the war began and we've been hit on every preceding Saturday.
Chief of Staff Dan Shamran said a while back that he expected a major chemical attack once
the ground war begins.
Now ironically, the Israelis are hoping the ground war will begin.
They're relieved that Saddam Hussein has not accepted the allied ultimatum because they
feel that the only way to get rid of the Iraqi threat is to have a ground war and to pursue
it until all of Saddam Hussein's non-conventional weapons are destroyed and most of his conventional
weapons.
The defense minister Moshe Aaron said a short while ago that if Saddam Hussein left under
a ceasefire and took part of his army with him, it would be a major problem for Israel.
Dan?
Thanks, Tom Fenton.
Let's check back in at the Pentagon with David Martin who has some new information about
what U.S. satellites are revealing about Saddam's troop movements.
David?
Well, Dan, I got a look at a satellite photo of Kuwait.
This is not a super secret spy satellite.
This is a simple unclassified weather satellite photo of Kuwait.
And it really was like looking into your fireplace when it's filled with glowing embers, just
bright spots, which were obviously these oil well fires all over the country.
This was at a time when the official figure was about 150, and I didn't count them, but
to me 150 looked like a conservative estimate of the number of fires that were burning in
Kuwait at that time.
But, David, one thing this all this smoke does, it gives Saddam Hussein's forces some
cover in addition to everything else, doesn't it?
They can move, and it makes it very difficult to tell exactly what they're doing in many
places in Kuwait.
Well, yeah, on a limited scale, but when you're talking about the kind of strategic advantage
that the U.S. now has, this is a very limited cover indeed, and it may save the life of
an individual Iraqi soldier who is not spotted by an aircraft.
But in terms of saving the Iraqi army, I think it's going to have very little effect.
Watch you with great interest all these developments.
Our military families, David Dow is with some of those families at Camp Pendleton, California.
David?
Well, Dan, here in this marine community, you find a mix of dread and support tinged
with a sense of relief that is most here see it anyway.
This war is moving toward an end.
Most marine families here have never personally faced war in their families, and in a sense,
this is the beginning of the war should we get into a ground war, since most, the spouses
of most marine families, the marines in Saudi Arabia have not been involved in the air-dominated
war so far.
So, there's a good deal of just plain fear here.
Some families say they've stopped watching things on television.
One wife told me last night that as today's deadline passed, she was simply going to get
away from it all, come home tonight and find out whether the ground war had actually begun.
But at the same time, these are marine families groomed to respect and follow the commander
in chief, and it's hard to find anybody here who does not support the president's withdrawal
ultimatum.
Partly too, families are reflecting the calls and the letters that they get from the front.
One wife told me last night that her husband had called her a couple of days ago, and the
last words that he told her were, your next call is going to come from Kuwait International
Airport.
Dan?
Thanks, David.
And we thank you, General Walter Boomer, the Marine Commander here in this theater, who's
smacked up against the Kuwaiti border today with his troops, members of the 1st and 2nd
Marine Divisions, with the thump of mortars in the background and artillery firings punctuating
all that deep black smoke and chaos on the battlefield there.
Tom Fenton in Tel Aviv, what's the latest on the sirens there?
And you mentioned one Scud has been fired into Israel today.
Right, and one Scud has hit Israel now.
We don't know yet whether it has a conventional warhead or a chemical warhead.
People have been told to stay in their sealed rooms, keep their gas masks on until further
notice.
The great fear, of course, is that Saddam Hussein, in one last gas before he goes down,
will try to launch a major attack against this country.
Dan?
Thanks, Tom.
Here are the latest headlines.
The deadline is in the process of passing.
That is, President Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to begin withdrawing his troops from
Kuwait and publicly announce that he was doing that.
No movement can be discerned by Iraqi forces in Kuwait.
There's no movement of them that anybody we've been able to contact can see at all.
Saddam Hussein keeps silent.
Last thing he said was that the angels were on the shoulders of his troops.
Saddam Hussein, from all apparent signs, is intent on continuing the fighting to make
the United States and the allied forces come and get him.
And the U.S. command accuses the Iraqis of systematic executions of Kuwaiti civilians,
particularly those who might be witnesses to atrocities.
It is the decisive hour in the Persian Gulf War.
It may well be at hand, the razor cut as to whether we're going to have peace or a large
ground war offensive.
As the noon hour passed in Washington, exactly noon right now, 8 p.m., as you can see in
the darkness here in Saudi Arabia, and as noon passed in the United States, so apparently
did the last hope of averting a ground campaign for the liberation of Kuwait.
As U.S. and other allied warplanes blasted Baghdad yet again, Saddam Hussein was reported
meeting with his war counsel, but Saddam has made no public response to President Bush's
ultimatum.
All along the warfront, on both sides of the border, U.S. and other allied armored vehicles
have set to the task of breaking through the earthen barriers, that brim that General Chris
mentioned, the brim that bars their way to the Iraqi army, which has fallen back from
right up against the border to the north inside Kuwait, a vision of hell.
The U.S. command says nearly 200 Kuwaiti oil wells and other oil installations are burning,
most of them torched, according to the allied command, and in occupied Kuwait city, what
one U.S. briefer describes as terrorism at its finest hour.
That's a quote.
There seems to be a systematic campaign of execution, particularly people that they may
have tortured previously, that they're sort of destroying the evidence, I guess, for lack
of a better term.
John Charles Daly, U.S. Secretary of State for the United States of America,
Bob Faw is at the U.N. with the late development.
Bob?
Bob Faw, U.S. Secretary of State for the United States of America,
We now believe, or we are led to believe by three different people who have left the Security
Council meeting and have come out and talked to reporters that at some point in the last
several hours, Tariq Aziz responded favorably to the American proposals.
We should stress we do not know the context of the remarks.
We do not have the exact language, but both a Russian, a Canadian, and one other diplomat
have said that as they understand it, there was a favorable response in Moscow by Tariq
Aziz.
Now, hearing this in the Security Council, the American Ambassador, Mr. Pickering, asked
for clarification, and there at this point is where the matter stands.
Perhaps a breakthrough, perhaps nothing, but at least it has caused a flurry of activity
here at the United Nations.
Dan?
Thanks, Bob.
And Ambassador Pickering, for those who do not know him, one of the most experienced
of U.S. diplomats who is our ambassador to the United Nations, keeping in mind that what
President Bush said was the demand for noon today as it now passed was not some reference
from Tariq Aziz in Moscow.
He wanted a public pronouncement that the Iraqis were withdrawing and actually wanted
to withdraw to begin.
Bill Plant is at the State Department, Bill.
Dan, officials who heard what the Soviets said in the closed-door Security Council meeting
tell us that the quote was from the Soviets, in practice, Tariq Aziz responded positively
to the U.S. proposals, unquote, as he left Moscow for Baghdad earlier today.
Now, no one here is certain what that means.
What it does suggest, though, is that there is still room for negotiation as far as the
Iraqis are concerned.
As David Martin and you, Dan, described earlier, there are a lot of steps yet to go before
there's a full-scale ground war, and I think everybody understands this.
Ambassador Pickering is scheduled to speak next at the UN.
He will simply reiterate what the president said.
Here's where we are, he'll say, and this is what full compliance means, and then list
all of the steps that have to be taken.
Meanwhile, no real interpretation yet of that remark by the Soviets attributed to Tariq
Aziz.
Dan?
Perhaps we'll be getting clarification as time goes along.
Let's go back to Tom Fenton in Tel Aviv.
Tom?
Well, Dan, this looks like Saddam Hussein's last blow, if it's true, as we hear that they
have accepted the ultimatum.
He's gotten in one last lick against the state of Israel, and in fact, the only offensive
action except for that one little incursion a week or 10 days ago that Saddam Hussein
has ever gotten off are Scuds, Scuds against Israel and Scuds against Saudi Arabia.
We now have a picture of the Scud coming in somewhere and landing in central Israel.
We're waiting for just a moment to see whether Tom Fenton...
Something may have happened to the picture, but we don't know yet whether the Scud that
just landed is a chemical warhead or whether it's a conventional warhead.
The Israelis are prepared for the worst as always, and people have been told to stay
inside, stay in their sealed rooms and keep their gas masks on.
That is the 37th or 38th Scud to hit this country, depending on how you count it, since
the war began.
There have been some 11,000 homes damaged.
Over 1,000 people have been injured.
Dan?
Thanks, Tom.
Storyline of the hour.
President Bush's deadline time, 12 noon Eastern time, the United States has passed.
If there are any signs that Saddam Hussein is moving his troops out of Kuwait, we're
not aware of them.
However, Tariq Aziz is quoted as saying as he left Moscow to go back to Baghdad that
the Iraqis had accepted the conditions put forward by President Bush.
But we're seeking clarification of that.
At the United Nations, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Ambassador Pickering, said that
he would be seeking clarification.
There was this special meeting at the UN today, which was requested by the Soviets.
Fuad Ajami, who is an expert on this part of the world, historian and scholar, a CBS
News consultant, and our good friend from Johns Hopkins University joins us now.
Fuad, what are we to make of this?
Saddam on the one hand exhorts his soldiers saying, you have angels on your shoulders.
Bush and the allied forces are devils, and God will help you crush them.
On the other hand, Tariq Aziz leaving Moscow says, well, we'll accept the U.S. conditions
for withdrawal.
This is a really interesting moment in this war.
I mean, look at Saddam Hussein.
We made him an offer he could refuse.
This was President Bush's bet that we made him an offer he could refuse.
We sought his unconditional surrender.
And this was always the outside chance was that in a way Saddam would deny us the war
that at some point we really wanted from him and that he would, in a blaze of glory, set
Kuwait to the torch and leave.
And this is, in effect, the real moment of truth for this regime.
Was he going to make a stand?
Was he going to give us the mother of all battles on the ground?
Or was he going to set Kuwait to the torch and, in effect, just walk out?
Well, we've talked many times about the whole history of Saddam Hussein as a survivor.
His lifetime is the story of a survivor.
Now if he is able to keep himself in power and keep any semblance of an army around him,
what kind of factor is he going to be in the Middle East in the post-Persian Gulf War era?
Exactly, Dan.
That's the worry of President Bush.
In effect, the worry is, to use the words of Maureen Dowd, who is the White House correspondent
of the New York Times, that the thief of Baghdad would reincarnate as the phoenix of Baghdad,
that he would rise out to the ashes of this defeat.
He would, in effect, if he were to walk out with a bit of his armor, he then would go
home and we would beget the legend of Saddam Hussein, the man who resisted the West and
the man who resisted American power.
And in effect, President Bush's nightmare is that we would have this man, he would walk
out.
He would, in the end, after he strutted, after he was the great rooster in the region, he
would beat a hasty retreat from Kuwait.
He would go back to Baghdad.
We wouldn't have the international consensus for hot pursuit, if you will, into Baghdad
itself, and that the effort to get him would have been thwarted to some extent.
This was always the choice.
Fouad Ajami, thanks, at Central Command headquarters here in Saudi Arabia is CBS News correspondent
Susan Spencer.
Susan, good day.
Good day.
We have just been briefed by the British here, and they have a little bit of new information
about the situation in Kuwait City.
They told us that, in fact, there are, they stress unsubstantiated reports now that boys
above the age of 13, right up until, to elderly men, are being rounded up.
They haven't indicated what happens next.
They did say that this does not appear to be large-scale executions, but this report
coming on the heels of the Americans saying that executions were going on is certainly
chilling indeed.
The Americans earlier, as I'm sure you know, have also talked about damage to buildings,
infrastructure, other kinds of scorched earth, as President Bush called it.
So this is seen here, I think, as one more impetus to perhaps act quickly rather than
wait, and certainly puts a new cast on what may be going on in that country right now.
Susan Spencer, thanks.
Let's go to the White House and CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.
Wyatt, with the Tariq Aziz quoted as saying he accepts the terms put forward by President
Bush, what's the mood?
What's the response at the White House?
Dan, you can believe that this will set off a scurrying round of phone calls both to the
United Nations and perhaps back and forth between the U.S. and Soviet Union to find
out exactly what this means.
Important to point out now that there are three critical things that the president demanded
that Iraq do at this deadline that has just passed.
First of all, he demanded that Iraq publicly and authoritatively declare its intention
to withdraw.
That hasn't happened.
He also demanded that Iraq actually begin the withdrawal, and let's look at it, 10 minutes
ago.
We're not at all clear that that has happened.
However, the one thing Tariq Aziz did correct, according to Mr. Bush, if this report is true,
and that is he responded to the United Nations.
It may well be that Tariq is brokering some of his acceptance through the Soviet Union
and that the Soviets in the Security Council meeting are acting as, in effect, Iraq's lawyer
there, but he's got the right address, Dan, and this would at least force the president
and the secretary of state to monitor this to see if this is the breakthrough.
John Charles Daly, The Washington Post, The White House, Doug Tennell is at our listening
post in Amman, Jordan, and he monitored Baghdad Radio.
Doug?
Dan, the Baghdad Radio news broadcast is just off the air, and it's worth noting that there
was not a mention of Tariq Aziz.
There was no word on any change of policy.
Indeed, there's not even been a mention today of any deadline.
The radio broadcasts just aren't even addressing the president's ultimatum.
What there has been, however, very recently as that bombing started in Baghdad, very strongly
worded advisory to Iraqi forces.
It really came with a two-fold message.
One seemed to be prepared for imminent war, and the other was, God is on your side.
To quote for a minute, the broadcast said, you have angels on your shoulders, and it
said the enemy is fighting on the side of the devil.
Whatever kind of technology they bring against you, the broadcast said, it will not frighten
you.
No number you do not be afraid.
Earlier today for the first time in one of the broadcasts, Saddam Hussein was mentioned,
first time in several days now.
He specifically was said to have chaired a meeting of the ruling Revolutionary Command
Council and of the regional Ba'ath Party.
That's an interesting one because there have been some publicly expressed doubts in Washington
as to whether he was still in charge in Baghdad.
Dan?
Thanks, Doug.
John Bush, who is a veteran of World War II, a Navy flier in the Pacific campaign, would
with almost every other American who was old enough to remember World War II, perhaps remember
in the final days of the war when Allied forces were sweeping toward Paris, Adolf Hitler
in his bunker kept sending word to his generals, is Paris burning?
Is Paris burning?
One of the more memorable quotes of World War II, the German generals refused to put
Paris to the torch, although the Führer had ordered them to do so.
Today Kuwait is burning.
Here in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, we can smell here, this many miles away from the border,
we can smell the heavy odor of burning fuel.
And as you get closer to the border up near Qafji where that great battle was felt, it's
not a pleasant thought, but it's part of the reality of war that the heavy odor of the
burning fuel is mixed with the unmistakable smell of death.
Let's go back to Tom Fenton in Tel Aviv where there's been a Scud attack, Tom.
Well Dan, it looks like Saddam Hussein fired off his answer to the ultimatum and one last
Scud at Israel at the same time.
This last Scud turns out to have been a conventional warhead, thank God.
And now if they have accepted the ultimatum and accepted the terms laid down by the United
States and the Allies, that means there'll be no more Scuds against Israel.
I'm sure the Israelis won't trust Saddam Hussein though.
They'll be prepared for something more until and when all the Scud missile launchers are
destroyed and apparently he has quite a lot of them.
Dan?
Thanks Tom.
Bill Plant reports from the State Department that it's being noted that as Tariq Aziz left
Moscow to go back to Baghdad, that it was reported that he, quote, responded favorably
to President Bush's conditions.
However, the word, quote, accepted was not used and at the State Department they're noting
that with interest.
Dateline, the United Nations, the Soviet ambassador to the UN, told a Security Council meeting
today that Iraq has responded favorably to some, you may want to underscore that word,
some of President Bush's conditions to end the Gulf War.
Now this is according to Iranian and Canadian diplomats.
The UN Council began a formal closed door meeting on the Gulf War shortly before the
noon deadline.
It may be important to note that the noon deadline has passed.
President Bush's ultimatum was that the Iraqis had to make known publicly that they were
beginning to withdraw from Kuwait and actually had to start removing their forces from Kuwait
by noon today.
Betsy Aaron is in Baghdad.
We want to check back in with her.
Betsy?
Hello Dan.
The bombing was stopped for about 10 minutes and now it's starting again.
I'd say it's about a mile from the hotel.
But it seems almost constant.
Once it starts, it goes for five or 10 minutes.
Sky is just full of smoke.
You can really smell things burning.
We just can't tell what it is because it is so dark.
Only the moon is showing with a few stars above the clouds.
Thanks Betsy.
Aaron in Baghdad.
We note that Ambassador Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has when
told that Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz had responded positively, Ambassador Pickering
began asking, well let's have some clarification of whether he responded positively to all
of the conditions set down by President Bush.
And as Pickering asked for clarification, there was a pause at the U.N. meeting and
that's where things stand at the moment.
The deadline has passed.
Tariq Aziz has complicated things a bit with this rather unclear quotation of his.
At the State Department, as in almost every place else in the world, including along
the front lines here in Saudi Arabia, people are scratching their heads saying, well is
this really significant or not?
Bill Plant at the State Department, what do you hear?
Well Dan, they're in the business here of parsing things very carefully, of splitting
hairs which can be maddening but also can be very important, as in this case.
Now here is what the Soviet delegate said as quoted to me by a United States official.
In practice, said the Soviet, Tariq Aziz responded positively to the U.S. proposals.
Now we have to ask exactly what that means.
It doesn't say accept, it doesn't say some, or it doesn't say all U.S. proposals.
So it looks at first blush, Dan, like something the Iraqis have done many times before.
When they're in a corner, they throw a little something out to divert us, to get everybody's
attention.
It's a pattern.
It has gone on before.
It probably means that there is additional room for negotiation or at the very least
that the Iraqis are trying to buy time.
Now of course, as you point out, Ambassador Pickering, the U.S. representative to the
United Nations, is trying to get a clarification and we'll be working on trying to find out
what that is.
Dan?
Thanks Bill.
Here are the headlines as more warplanes take off from Daran, Saudi Arabia.
The deadline comes and goes with no word of an allied ground attack and no word of an
Iraqi acceptance.
But the air war does continue with heavy bombardment in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Iraq remains defiant.
The deadline has passed without any news that a ground battle has begun.
We say ground battle has been fighting all along the border, but we're talking about
the major counteroffensive push to force Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait.
So far as anybody can make out, that has not started.
There are plenty of reports about fighting along the border and there's also reports
that an Iraqi Scud missile has hit Israel within the past hour.
No details yet available.
Pictures cleared by Iraqi sensors are said to show some of the heavy damage from the
overnight attacks.
Iraq's foreign minister went home from Moscow this morning.
He had agreed with the Soviet peace proposal deemed, quote, unacceptable by President Bush.
Sources at the UN and at the State Department tell CBS News that Aziz has given a, quote,
positive response, unquote, to at least some of President Bush's proposals about an immediate
withdrawal from Kuwait.
But the withdrawal itself has not started.
The UN Security Council went into a closed-door meeting as the deadline neared and Radio Baghdad
told Iraqi troops, angels are on your shoulders, while the allies, it said, are fighting for
the devil.
We mentioned a little while ago the United States Marine First and Second Divisions up
right along the border where mortar fire, artillery fire, cross-border probes have been
the order of the day for better than a week.
Among the other U.S. forces right up across the, right up smack against the Kuwaiti border
or the Iraqi border include the United States Army 18th Corps, the U.S. Army 7th Corps,
the 1st Cav, the 101st Airborne, and the 82nd Airborne to mention just a few.
And speaking of the front, we have a number of our correspondents up on the front.
You've seen during this broadcast those exclusive pictures taken by David Green, our CBS News
staff cameraman of the fires inside Kuwait, which he got at a great risk to himself, and
Martha Teysner is among those who've been up at the front.
Martha, good to have you back.
Thank you, Dan.
I was at the Kuwait border two days ago with the 1st Armored Division when they were actually
firing on the Iraqis for the first time for real, not just an exercise.
And they were firing the multiple-launch rocket system, which is considered the artillery
of the future.
During a ground war, the MLRS will be fired early and often over the heads of U.S. artillery
and tanks as they move forward.
The result is called steel rain, capable of showering destruction on Iraqi artillery and
command positions up to 20 miles away.
Literally hundreds of bomblets shatter over each target, obliterating everything in an
area more than a half-mile square before the enemy can target advancing U.S. forces.
The launchers pull up and fire, as many as a dozen rockets in less than a minute, and
then are gone.
Their advantage?
A moving target is hard to hit.
Their disadvantage?
They carry no conventional guns, so they have to have extensive cover from aircraft and
artillery in case they get caught in enemy range.
Dan, when I was watching this, it's just staggering.
You have no idea until you see it what it's like to see hundreds of these things, and
you get a queasy sense in your stomach of what it's like at the other end.
And this is the kind of rocket raid, the kind of probing and pounding that's been stepped
up in the last few hours.
Thanks, Martha.
The 1st Armored Division, where Martha spent her time, is just ahead of the 3rd Armored,
both of them part of the 7th Corps.
And if it comes to a ground war, the 7th Corps is expected to lead the main attack, the flanking
attack in southern Kuwait, which will eventually come head to head with the elite Republican
Guard.
On their left flank would be the 101st Airborne and the 82nd Airborne, and on their far right
flank would be the Army's 1st Cavalry, and even more to their right flank would be the
U.S. Marines.
Let's go check in again with Tom Fenton in Tel Aviv.
Tom, what about the Scud attack?
Dan, that Scud that was fired off at Israel just as the ultimatum expired landed here
in central Israel.
It was a conventional warhead.
There were no injuries.
I don't know yet whether there was any damage, and the alert has now been called off.
We've had the all clear.
Well, that's good news.
We're going to check back in in Baghdad with Betsy Aaron, where a furious U.S. air attack
has been underway for some hours now.
Betsy?
Well, Dan, the all clear here in Baghdad just sounded, and accompanying the all clear was
the sound of a bomb going off.
I think their signals are a little crossed.
I think a lot of—there's a lot of confusion, almost as much confusion here as on the diplomatic
front.
But we hope it stays quiet for a little while, Dan.
Thanks, Betsy.
Bob Schieffer has been following what's going on.
Bob, with a special view to if and when a ground attack springs off, as you look and
listen here today, what do you think the most important things are for us to have in mind?
Well, Dan, I think one of the more interesting things is how this battlefield is going to
look and how it must look now to the Iraqi soldiers who are dug in these bunkers along
that area, a 30-mile deep web of bunkers.
It is a very unpleasant place to be, and the reason is these tremendous oil well fires
that are going on.
We have some astonishing pictures here taken by satellite.
General Christ is with us here.
Let's talk about these pictures, how this thing looks from high above, General.
Bob, look at this.
There are 190 fires burning inside Kuwait right now, and that's generally the border
between the two of them.
All of these are well-head fires, and you can see 25 percent of the country is now covered
with smoke.
If you're in the middle of this, for instance, the Warfafil, where they have Iraqi positions,
or up in here in Manganish, where there's more Iraqi positions, can you imagine what
life must be like having all these fires burning around you at the same time expecting a major
attack from the allies?
At the same time that you've been living in underground bunkers, perhaps not having a
very good diet, being pounded daily by bombs, I think we have some more pictures from the
satellite.
Now, this is an airfield, I believe, General.
This is the Al-Jabr military airfield, and as you look at this, you can see part of the
bombing really going in at it.
Literally, as we're looking at the pictures, down here are well-heads on fire.
This is part of the northern...one of the northern fields, and they're actually on fire.
And let's see.
Now, I believe there's another view here.
Yes, this is another airfield.
Here again, this is the same field taking a slightly different angle, but look at the
intensity of these well-heads.
These are the actual producing well-heads in two of the fields, and you can see clearly
that burning and smoking, and you know, some of this smoke, Bob, is toxic.
So if you're in close proximity to this thing, you've got a little problem breathing.
Let's see.
One more here, I believe, and that...yes.
Again from the oil field fires.
Again, very, very clearly.
Look at the heat.
Each one of those red dots that you see here is a well-head within that oil field, and
this is just one field that's on fire.
And you can see at the corner, more fields on fire.
So all of their fields are pretty much burning right now.
And let's see.
I believe there's another sequence here.
No, I'm told that's it.
Well, anyone who knows how the neighborhood can change when the leaves catch on fire in
the fall or something can just imagine what it must be up there like up there now.
Dan, back to you.
Thanks, Bob.
We've been in touch with people who are with the 1st Infantry Division and the 24th Mechanized
Infantry Division, both up in what we call the central section along the border with
both Iraq and Kuwait.
And they report seeing these tremendous smoke clouds, some fires, and the sky black all
out in front of them and in some cases over them.
Let's go back to the White House and Wyatt Andrews.
Wyatt?
Dan, the only fresh word from here is that the White House does plan to respond to what's
going on at the UN at some point later in the day.
And I know that's awfully fuzzy, but keep in mind that events are as well.
Because the information that all of us have right now is diplomats quoting the Soviet
foreign minister, quoting the Iraqi foreign minister.
At the moment, that seems, depending on what's being said, that seems to fall short of the
president's condition that whatever Iraq said around the deadline today, it needed to be
public and authoritative.
However, at the same time, this clearly is a matter the White House is pursuing.
And again, the only fresh word we have from here is that there will be some response when
things clear up a little bit more.
Dan?
Good point, Wyatt.
President Bush said that what he wanted from the Iraqis was something public and authoritative
about their beginning to withdraw and that he wanted to see by noon today actual withdrawal
of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Now in the...
We talk about the fog of war and the current fog of diplomacy.
It's a little hard to tell what's going on, but this we know that while Tariq Aziz made
a public statement, something about a positive response to President Bush, it was not an
authoritative statement.
That's one thing we know.
And the second thing is that nobody has reported seeing any of Saddam Hussein's forces actually
pulling out of Iraq.
We'll go to Bob Fowl at the United Nations, Bob.
Dan, there is considerable muddle here as to what Mr. Aziz in Moscow said or did not
say the secretary general's spokesman leaving the Security Council meeting a few minutes
ago saying, it's wrong, it's wrong, referring to reports that Aziz had in some way accepted
the American proposals.
However, four diplomats who were in the meeting who heard the Russian diplomat clearly stated
that as they understand it, Mr. Aziz did in fact buy into some of the American proposals.
We don't know the language, we don't know the context.
So here, there is still considerable confusion as the Security Council meeting continues.
Dan?
As we try to make something out of the muddle, let's go back to State Department correspondent
Bill Plant, Bill.
Well, Dan, the language as it was reported by the United States representatives to the
UN back to the State Department was as follows.
The Soviets were supposed to have said, and this is a quote, in practice, Tariq Aziz responded
positively to U.S. proposals, unquote.
So that is definitely not an acceptance outright.
And it doesn't say which proposals or whether it covers all proposals.
That is what the U.S. is now seeking some clarification of.
Ambassador Pickering doing that currently at the UN.
Dan?
Let's go to the Pentagon and David Martin.
David?
Well, Dan, as Betsy Aron can probably report more authoritatively than anyone, obviously
the bombing is continuing.
There's no change in the prosecution of the war occasioned by whatever is happening right
now at the United Nations.
But I think it's important to point out here that, all right, Iraq has not met the noon
deadline, but nobody here is going to quibble if four, five, six, seven hours from now there
begins to be signs of an Iraqi pullout.
This is the aim here is to save lives and at the same time meet all of the goals that
the U.S. has set out for itself.
So the war continues.
Something is in play here, but obviously it's way too soon to tell whether that is going
to have a lasting effect on the outcome of this war.
Thanks, David.
And noting that Wyatt Andrews, our correspondent at the White House, says that the indications
are that President Bush and or his spokesman may have something to say a little later on
the day as the day goes along, that the clear inference at the moment is that they're trying
to carefully go through the statement by Tariq Aziz and what's happening at the UN to try
to get a little clearer picture of exactly what the situation is.
We're going to talk about the situation on the ground here in Saudi Arabia and along
the border with Iraq and Kuwait, where, make no mistake about it, while the diplomats wheel
and deal that an avalanche of steel and fire has been rained down on Baghdad today and
in many areas of the border, artillery fire goes, those ground rockets that Martha Teicher
described for you a few moments ago are all underway as well.
Eric Ingberg is here to bring us up to date on what's happening on the ground.
Well, in a sense, Dan, you could almost say that the artillery war has begun.
The Americans, the British, the other allies have been pounding the Iraqi positions, command
and control facilities, artillery for the past several hours now.
And the United States High Command announced today that 1,200 sorties, a sortie being a
single mission by a single plane, were flown against Iraqi emplacements in Kuwait itself
today.
That is a one-day record for American and allied missions against targets in Kuwait.
That is a clear precursor to a ground attack.
Thanks, Eric.
Here are the headlines of the hour.
The deadline of President Bush passes, apparently opening the way for an all-out ground war
offensive.
But hope has not yet died completely.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz is quoted as he left Moscow for Baghdad as having made
a, quote, positive response, unquote, to U.S. demands, whatever that may mean.
This as the U.S. military command accuses Iraq of a systematic execution campaign inside
Kuwait.
Sources at the U.N. and at the State Department tell CBS News that the Iraqi Foreign Minister
Aziz has, quote, responded positively to at least some elements of President Bush's demands
for averting a ground war.
But the deadline has passed, and there is no confirmation of a positive response from
Baghdad, no word from Saddam Hussein himself.
The allies marked the passing of President Bush's deadline with a fierce bombing raid
on Baghdad itself and in Israel, another Iraqi scut attack.
The target was somewhere in central Israel.
The warhead is said to have been conventional, not chemical.
It's not clear yet if a Patriot intercept was fired, and no word on damage or casualties
in Israel.
But the U.N., delegates to the Security Council gathered for an emergency meeting.
They went into that emergency meeting.
Kuwait's U.N. ambassador, for one, seemed satisfied with today's events.
Well, the Kuwaiti ambassador said he was hopeful.
President Bush has indicated that the ground attack could come, could come at any time
following the deadline that passed just about a half hour ago.
All we can do now is wait and see.
Now, be assured that we'll be alert all afternoon.
We will interrupt programming when and if necessary with any bulletins.
We'll have regular updates through the afternoon.
We'll have the regular Saturday news at the regular time on these CBS stations.
And then, please note, a CBS News special report at 8 p.m. tonight Eastern Time, that'll
be 7 Central.
Until then, live from Saudi Arabia, Dan Rather.
Stay with CBS News for continuing coverage of the war in the Gulf.
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A current affair, weeknights at 7 on Channel 3.
This CBS News special report is part of our continuing coverage of the war in the Gulf
with Dan Rather reporting tonight from Saudi Arabia.
The thunder of war sounds on the border as the desert storm threatens to break.
Good evening from the war zone.
Tonight reports from all along the front lines indicate that the massive U.S.-led ground
war offensive has begun to roll.
At the very least, early parts of it are now stabbing into southern Iraq and Kuwait.
This is one reason we're on the air at this time.
We'll be monitoring the situation throughout this hour.
President Bush today brushed off the latest bid by Saddam Hussein for a face-saving way
out of Kuwait.
So the last deadline has passed, and the next round of the conflict is up to the two huge
armies facing each other out there in the dark and in the sand.
We go to David Martin at the Pentagon.
David Martin, D.D.
Dan, timing is everything, and that is about all that's left here.
It's clear that the decision to launch a ground offensive has been made by the president and
communicated to the commander in the field, General Norman Schwarzkopf.
It is up to him now to decide exactly when and where to strike.
I think the element of surprise is basically gone.
Saddam Hussein had to know that an attack would come after the noon deadline expired
and probably during hours of darkness.
And the real question now is exactly where the U.S. is going to strike.
Will it be along the border?
Will it be along the coast?
Will it be behind enemy lines?
Will it be all of the above?
Will some of those be faints?
Those are the kinds of things that are now going to determine how successful this is.
Not all the factors are going to be right for this operation.
They never are.
And it's going to be up to General Schwarzkopf to rely on his 30-plus years of military experience
to go when his gut tells him to go.
Dan?
CBS News correspondent Eric Ingber now has the latest from the front.
For the vast American and coalition army whose weapons make it the most powerful invasion
force ever assembled, the withdrawal deadline was barely a blip on schedules filled with
preparations for battle.
Most had expected it would take foot soldiers and tanks to drive Saddam from Kuwait.
Many, including those who will spearhead the invasion, have already gotten their orders
and await only the word to go.
I'm so excited.
I'm shaking now.
I want to go do it.
Marine Corps units on the Kuwait border in some of the fiercest fighting of the war took
a hundred Iraqi prisoners within sight of the more than 200 fires the Iraqis have lit
in the oil fields.
This is the Um Gadar field.
Iraq is destroying lives as well as oil fields in Kuwait.
The U.S. says it has intelligence that Kuwaitis are being pulled from the streets in roundups,
apparently aimed at getting rid of witnesses to earlier atrocities.
It's intelligence that Kuwaitis are being pulled from the streets in roundups, apparently
aimed at getting rid of witnesses to earlier atrocities.
Kuwaitis in exile said these reports, including stories that all adult males in the country
are being rounded up, argue for an immediate invasion.
We want to strike now because we know our people are suffering.
The U.S. campaign of airstrikes against Iraqi troop positions was intended to diminish Iraq's
fighting power.
American commanders today report the destruction of 1,625 enemy tanks, or 40 percent.
And the planes kept flying.
Eric Engberg, CBS News, Saudi Arabia.
As the deadline approached, the sirens screamed, and then the skies of Baghdad lit up.
The American ultimatum had been ignored by Saddam Hussein.
And as the deadline passed, the allied bombardment continued.
But on the streets of Baghdad this afternoon, you couldn't tell that George Bush's deadline
was hours away.
Iraqi radio was saying Americans will be losers.
To Iraqi troops, the radio message was, you will be winners.
This is your day to drive back the infidel.
On this day, Iraqis took foreign journalists to see the remains of two power plants.
The message, look what the allies have done to civilian services.
And the question, who is going to pay reparations?
While most Iraqis don't know that the deadline has passed, most Iraqis are more than aware
of the grim consequences of a ground war.
Betsy Aaron, CBS News, Baghdad.
U.S. and allied forces are now reported to be 6 to 12 miles inside Kuwait.
They're also inside Iraq.
They have moved up against the first Iraqi lines of fortifications in Kuwait.
U.S. Marines are already within a mile and a half of a major oil field.
This may be the point at which the 2nd Marine Division aims its attack.
This is more than reconnaissance, it's reported.
These are the positions from which the ground attack will actually be launched, positions
inside Kuwait itself.
It's also significant, we think, that except for the Marines, guns all along the front
have suddenly gone silent.
The gunners are waiting for the order for the barrage which will signal the beginning
of the all-out ground attack.
The essential question of the hour is, has the Iraqi infantry abandoned its first line
of defense except for observation posts and moved to its second line of defense?
The White House watched the deadline pass, then issued a statement of regret and resolve.
Wyatt Andrews is at the White House.
Wyatt?
Dan, good evening.
Diplomacy, such as it was, failed once again today.
Nothing that happened, not a rumor of a peace deal at the U.N. and not a personal appeal
from Mikhail Gorbachev to the president, persuaded Mr. Bush to dilute his ultimatum.
Mr. Bush has simply concluded that Iraq is still looking for a deal when what Mr. Bush
wants is for Iraq to publicly accept the ultimatum and throw its troops in reverse in order
to prove that.
Now, two very significant developments today.
Mikhail Gorbachev called the president at Camp David and argued on Iraq's behalf for two
days delaying the ground war, arguing that in that time maybe Iraq would come around.
President Bush said no.
Secondly, Mikhail Gorbachev revealed that he had also talked to British Prime Minister
Major and also French President Mitterrand to lobby them on behalf of the Soviet peace
deal that they had said no, that they backed the president's plan.
Dan, the upshot of all of that is that the president now has unprecedented political
power to launch what could be one of history's most bloody ground wars and that at the end
of this intense three days of Soviet diplomacy, instead of weakening the president's position,
it actually wound up strengthening it precisely because Gorbachev came up with a plan, shopped
it around to the allies and failed.
Dan?
The deadline came and went, but efforts at diplomacy are continuing and appear to still
be underway at this hour, even as the forward elements of the offensive move into Iraq and
Kuwait.
Bill Plant is at the State Department, Bill.
Dan, on the diplomatic front, there is indeed still a lot of talking, even though there
is only the slimmest possible hope of a peaceful settlement.
The secretary of state talked to the Soviet foreign minister again this afternoon.
The Soviets were still, according to accounts we received, pushing their peace plan.
The U.S. rejected it, but rejected it going out of its way to praise the Soviets for going
to their trouble, to say that this is not a U.S.-Soviet problem.
The U.S. still wishes to keep good relations with the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet later tonight in New
York.
The session is described, however, by one official as a gum-beating session.
There are no resolutions on the table.
There is no indication that anything is going to happen at the U.N.
Another U.S. source says that the members are there because they feel that the war is
probably going to start and they feel that they ought to be involved somehow.
So the question, is peace still possible?
According to the administration, only on the U.S.-led coalition's terms.
And as a practical matter, I suppose, if the Iraqis were suddenly now to announce that
they were beginning a massive withdrawal and begin to do it, then the U.S. and the other
members of the coalition would find it pretty difficult to continue shooting them in the
back or to begin shooting them in the back if they were leaving.
But nobody here expects that to happen.
Based on Saddam Hussein's past track record, no one believes that there's much chance
left.
Dan?
Thanks, Bill.
The Soviets had pressed hard for a peaceful solution and today saw their hopes of that
all but disappear.
Anthony Mason joins us from Moscow.
Dan, for Moscow and especially for President Mikhail Gorbachev, this was a day of great
disappointment as hopes for their peace initiative, which they constructed in a week of intensive
negotiations, all but evaporated.
The Soviets are still holding out faint hope that their plan and the U.S. plan might be
integrated at the United Nations.
But when President Gorbachev's request to President Bush to extend the deadline fell
on deaf ears, as one Soviet official said somberly, there is little more that we can
do.
As our Soviet spokesman Vitaly Ignatenko insists that U.S.-Soviet relations have not
been shaken by their disagreement over the peace initiative, Saddam Hussein, he suggested,
had yet another opportunity to end the conflict today and only he can be blamed if he chooses
not to take it.
We still hope, Ignatenko said, that common sense will prevail.
Dan?
Thanks, Anthony Mason.
As high noon drew near, Saddam Hussein sent the world a signal that he was stiffening
his resolve, a Scud missile attack on Israel.
Tom Fenton has more from Tel Aviv.
The sirens went off in Tel Aviv just before the deadline and sent Israelis scurrying for
their gas masks and into chemical warfare shelter.
An 8-ton Scud missile streaked through the sky, breaking up as it re-entered the atmosphere.
As far as Israel is concerned, that was Saddam's answer to the American ultimatum.
The debris started a fire in a field somewhere in central Israel.
There were no buildings nearby and no one was injured.
It was a conventional warhead, not the poison gas the Israelis fear Saddam Hussein will
use before he surrenders.
It was the 38th Scud missile he has hit this country with since the war began.
The only thing that he was able to initiate with some measure of success, at least perceived
by his own people and by the Arab masses in the Arab world, was launching Scud missiles.
Israelis tonight were trying to live a normal life despite the Scuds.
When an Israeli philharmonic concert was interrupted by the attack, the orchestra left the stage,
the audience donned gas masks, and the guest violinist Isaac Stern carried on with a special
solo.
Israeli officials have been urging the United States to begin the ground war as soon as
possible and to pursue it until the end.
They want the missile launchers destroyed, the chemical weapons threat eliminated, and
the Iraqi war machine crushed.
Dan?
Thanks Tom Fenton.
Americans watched the clock tick down today, watched and wondered what happens next.
John Blackstone reports on how some on the home front are facing a Gulf War at the crossroad.
For many Americans, the idea of war just doesn't seem as terrible as it did little more than
a month ago.
For the most part, the nation is back to life pretty much as usual.
But today, the certainty of fighting on the ground is close to the front of most everybody's
mind.
We're going to face a lot of people coming back in body bags.
Nobody wants war, but if they're not going to get out, that's kind of inevitable, isn't
it?
In San Francisco in February, people from all over the country come to find some California
sunshine.
Sharon Ponder is here from Arkansas.
I don't think we should be compromising with him anymore.
I think it's too late for that.
John Cathcart is visiting from Atlanta.
So if we don't take a stand and take care of this now, I think we've lost another battle.
Until two weeks ago, Lieutenant Tom Fagan was flying patrol missions as a Navy pilot
in the Gulf.
Some things you can't question, you just have to do.
How many kids did you kill today?
It seems fewer people are questioning the war now.
A month ago in San Francisco, thousands demonstrated.
Today, only a few dozen were on the streets.
I don't know if it's apathy, frustration, a combination.
I don't know.
I'm here.
Talking to people from all over the country here today, it seems clear that Americans
are no longer shocked the nation is at war.
Many admit that already the fighting has gone on longer than they'd expected.
And with a ground war beginning, there is worry about casualties.
But there's no doubt about which side will be victorious.
In San Francisco, this is John Blackstone, CBS News.
Now back to you, Dan.
Thanks, John.
And we'll have much more about what's going on along the front tonight in the Persian
Gulf War, including a look at the men and the weapons who will fight the ground offensive
with Iraq.
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A land war will provide the acid test for two theories.
Saddam Hussein's idea that America will quit when confronted with heavy casualties and
the U.S. and allied theory that superior technology, constant pressure, can win the war and keep
losses to a minimum.
CBS News correspondent Martha Tyshner reports on the high tech ground war.
The multiple launch rocket system pours its steel rain on the Iraqis from 20 miles away.
The MLRS is one of the high tech reasons U.S. commanders believe they can win the ground
war with minimum U.S. casualties.
Each MLRS rocket can obliterate square blocks then move on before enemy artillery can target
them.
High tech weaponry underscores the basic battle principle that if you can hit the enemy but
he can't hit back, you win.
Another key to American hopes is the Apache helicopter.
With its night vision and laser targeting capability, the Apache is one more GWIS weapon
the Iraqis can't match.
The important thing is you see him first, then you've got the initiative, you've got
the advantage over him.
On the ground, the M1A1 tank can see through smoke and darkness and is pressure sealed
against chemical contamination.
It's got a longer range cannon than the Iraqis Soviet made tanks.
Plus it's fast and in this war fast is expected to make the difference between a decisive
clean win and getting bogged down in the kind of slogging match the Iraqis are good at.
That costs lots of lives.
So the Iraqis use mines, lots of them.
Mines are intended to slow down the war.
Saddam's forces are believed to have laid two and a half million of them, many with
chemicals that will have to be cleared.
Those chemical mines and chemical laced artillery shells are some of the most fearsome weapons
the Iraqis possess.
The specter of chemical warfare threatens to undermine the high-tech advantage the allies
take into battle.
Ground troops have been told to expect to wear their chemical suits and gas masks for
most if not all of the push into Kuwait and Iraq.
Martha Teichner, CBS News, Dakhran.
So far Saddam Hussein has not used his deadliest force, chemical weapons.
Some analysts believe that could change when the war moves to a full ground combat.
If Iraq does resort to chemical warfare, how safe are US and other soldiers?
To help us try to answer that, Dr. Bob Arnott.
Bob?
Hi Dan.
Right now there are thousands of soldiers at the front in what we would call Mach Level
2.
And this is Mission Oriented Protective Posture 2.
What it means is that you will have on your chemical boots like these, over them you will
have a suit.
And the suit is made out of charcoal to try and absorb nerve or muscle gas.
A jacket you want to button pretty much all the way up like this.
Now what you are waiting for is an alarm.
Here is one.
This is a chemical detector for nerve, blood, choking agents.
And so these are set out at the perimeter, say 500 meters out.
Or you may even wear one of these.
This is a personal one the United States Marines would use.
Once that alarm goes off, you do not want to breathe in.
You hold your breath, close your eyes, grab your mask like this, you pull it up, put your
chin like this and pull it all the way up over your face.
Now before you take a breath, what you want to do is to put your hand here and underneath
here.
Push out all of the bad gas.
Then hold on here.
Take a deep breath through these inlets.
That will seal your mask.
At this point you are protected against any of the chemical or biological weapons that
the Iraqis may use.
So should you have signs or symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, and those might be tearing
eyes, shortness of breath, some pressure in your chest, perhaps some diarrhea or vomiting,
then what you will want to do is to inject yourself.
You treat yourself here with atropine and Tupam.
Take this and you put it into your leg like this.
Hold it for 15 seconds.
There are three of these to try and treat yourself.
The key thing is, this should just be a nuisance and not a weapon that's going to kill a lot
of Americans with the proper kind of protection.
This seems very heavy.
It is.
You could use up to seven extra liters of water a day.
Very heavy uniforms the United States have.
British have a lighter uniform, a little bit more effective.
But the US is used to wearing these and they feel that they could be a very effective hand.
Thanks.
Dr. Bob Arnott.
The Pentagon has promised the ground war will be swift and violent when it comes.
The details of the battle plan are of course secret, but military strategists pretty much
know how the war is going to move.
Bob Schieffer has a look at the blueprint for battle, Bob.
Dan, as we've been saying all along, this fight is not going to be the charge of the
light brigade because General Schwarzkopf is not about to send his forces head on into
the strength of Iraq's dug in army in Kuwait.
Instead, the road to Kuwait lies through Iraq itself.
Military experts say the allies will widen the front lines and sweep around Saddam's
most heavily fortified defenses, thus avoiding an Iraqi killing field.
The officers say another allied force will encircle the Iraqi army, sealing it off from
the rear and denying it supplies and ammunition.
At the same time, a large marine force at sea could help spread confusion with a helicopter
assault.
It is a strategy aimed at keeping American and allied casualties low.
This CBS News animation of the battlefield shows what it is that awaits the allied force.
There is a deadly obstacle course of oil-filled ditches which could be set on fire, barbed
wires several layers deep, mines possibly armed with chemicals, and an Iraqi force armed
with tanks and artillery.
And to help us understand this, retired Marine Corps General George Christ, who was General
Schwarzkopf's predecessor and an expert on armor, an old tank commander, General Bob
Wagner.
Let me ask you first, General Christ, the ground war has not officially begun, but analyzing
pool reports, other sources of public information, it is absolutely certain that American troops
are already on the move.
General Christ, I am very touched by the fact that the ground war has not officially begun
but analyzing pool reports, other sources of public information, it is absolutely certain
that American troops are already on the move.
General Christ, we are nigh under there right now.
Our forces are up against those first lines of Iraqi defenses.
They are cutting through the obstacles, cutting through the minefields.
The largest armada since World War II is now bombarding the Kuwaiti coast.
Everything is absolutely ready.
I suspect all we need is the sound of the guns, Bob.
And let me ask you, General Wagner, will the Iraqi troops be vulnerable to this kind of
flanking action that they're talking about?
Absolutely, Bob.
As you saw on that very excellent diagram, we are bypassing the majority of their combat
power.
The defenses are not strong in that sector, and very rapidly we will begin to develop
that momentum of attack.
What we in the armor community call offensive shock action, hundreds of tanks on line shooting
supported by artillery, very demoralizing.
You're talking about just shutting the door.
Yes, sir.
And they will be cut off.
You have been cut off when you were in Vietnam.
What is that like, General?
Let's look at it from the perspective of an Iraqi soldier.
He's in his knocked out tank or his knocked down bunker.
He is contemplating suicide.
He can never go home again.
He has no letters.
He has no food.
He has no spare parts.
He has no ammunition.
The only way out of this situation is surrender.
Or die.
Well, what about that, General?
Chris, do you think these Iraqis are going to put up a fight?
I think it's going to be uneven, Bob.
I think the first lines are probably pretty well demoralized in their infantry anyway,
and they're not going to hold very well.
Now, the second group, which lies maybe 20, 30 miles behind, those are pretty good troops.
They may well fight, and certainly the Republican Guard, we don't know.
It's a cipher right now.
The real problem for them is how well they're going to fight if we come from the rear or
their flank.
And that I don't know.
How long will it take, General?
This whole thing, it could run from five days to 30 days or so.
All right.
Back to you, Dan Rather.
Thanks very much, Bob.
A late report in from northern Saudi Arabia.
The first video of the Gulf War ground fighting has been screened for reporters.
Now, under what one can only call the weird rules of this pool arrangement, you aren't
allowed to see that video.
Some selected reporters have been allowed to see it.
But what it shows are bewildered and terrified Iraqi infantrymen shot to pieces in the dark
by U.S. Apache attack helicopters.
One by one, the Iraqis were cut down in the middle of the night by an enemy they could
not see.
Some were blown to bits by bursts of exploding cannon shells.
Other Iraqis, jarred from sleep and disoriented, fled their bunkers under a literal firestorm
of night fighting equipment fired by the Apache helicopters.
Bruce Hall is in Fort Rucker, Alabama for a look at the Apache.
Bruce?
Dan, the Apache helicopter which I'm with right now is the night stalking tank killer
of the American Army forces.
It is the helicopter that will be out front when the forces go into Iraq.
And it is the one that will be on the very front line.
Here with me is Chief Warrant Officer Bill Murray who is going to tell us a little bit
about this helicopter.
Chief Warrant Officer Murray has just returned from Saudi Arabia and one thing that makes
this helicopter very different from any other helicopter is this armament right at the front.
Tell us about this.
Okay, Bruce.
What we have here are two of the most sophisticated parts on the aircraft.
On the top we have what is called the pilot night vision sensor.
This is the device that allows the pilot to see outside at night and fly the aircraft.
Underneath it we have what is called the co-pilot's TADS.
It's used by the co-pilot gunner to first acquire targets and then once he finds those
targets he can use it to engage the targets.
In many ways it's almost like a big video game that you have here.
All of the material and this makes it a very sophisticated helicopter.
As a matter of fact that's exactly right.
The better you are at playing video games the better you can operate this system.
But it has more than video games aboard.
This helicopter has a lot of armament.
Tell us about this particular piece here.
This is what is called the 30 millimeter chain gun.
It's an area fire weapon system that would be used primarily to protect the crew and
it can be activated and fired by either the co-pilot or the pilot.
How many shots?
The gun fires 600 to 650 rounds a minute and it carries 1200 rounds.
So it has a lot of firepower there.
But this helicopter which is really now the mainstay for the troops in the front has a
lot more firepower too.
Among them the Hellfire missiles.
Tell us about the Hellfire.
This is what the Apache helicopter is all about.
The Hellfire missile is a very accurate laser guided weapon that is used primarily to kill
tanks.
And also aboard this helicopter which has a lot of armament.
Is it prepared for anything?
Bruce Hall.
Bruce Hall, it's Dan Rather in Saudi Arabia.
Bruce, forgive me Bruce Hall, it's Dan Rather in Saudi Arabia.
We have breaking developments.
David Martin at the Pentagon has news from the front.
David?
Dan, we have now several reports from different sources that U.S. ground forces are as you
reported earlier inside Iraq and Kuwait in what is to be called I think the opening wave
of this ground offensive and probably the most crucial wave because it's during these
first couple hours that the Iraqis who choose to resist will probably have their only chance
to fire off whatever chemical weapons they still have left after this more than one month
of aerial bombardment.
So I think right now we are witnessing what may turn out to be the most crucial moments
of a ground war which apparently is just in its very opening phases.
David, we just had this report from the reporters who saw the Apache helicopter night attack
with Iraqis breaking and running.
We want to explain the footage was shot through powerful night vision gun sights that turned
pitch night into ghostly day.
It's one reason that the attack of course is being launched at night is because the
United States feels there's such an advantage over the Iraqis in night fighting.
David, General Schwarzkopf and others in the U.S. command seem to have been saying in the
last few days that they wanted to tighten the vice just as hard as they could on Iraq's
frontline troops obviously to get them to cave in.
Well, and I think the hope is that there is going to be mass surrenders and there is one
report from a source here in Washington that they are starting to take large numbers of
surrendering Iraqi prisoners of war.
If all goes well, that will be the trend throughout the ground phase of this campaign.
I think the vice may have been, had a slight interruption in it because of these reports
of atrocities being committed in Kuwait city.
It will be weeks probably before we know all the details of how this operation unfolded
in the final hours.
But it seems to me quite likely that perhaps the U.S. went sooner than it had originally
planned because of these reports of atrocities in Kuwait and the realization that if they
did not get on with the liberation of Kuwait, there would not be much left to liberate.
David, it's always difficult to tell in the early stages of a massive ground offensive.
It was at D-Day, it was with the Tet Offensive, it was with the Inchon landing in Korea.
Do you feel comfortable in reporting now that the ground war offensive has started?
I do, Dan.
I am not sure that the all-out go for what has frequently been called the largest cavalry
charge in history, at least around here.
I am not sure that has been given for multiple divisions to go across the border and deep
into Iraq.
But I am confident now that the opening phases of the ground war are underway with American
troops back inside on the ground in Kuwait, there to stay until Kuwait is liberated.
U.S. Marines, we know, are already inside Kuwait.
We reported that earlier.
If you look at the map, think of the Persian Gulf off to the right.
The Marines are closest to the Gulf.
They moved up inside Kuwait there.
Right next to them is the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division, along with the Arab forces, the
so-called Pan-Arab forces.
They, David, are operating inside Kuwait.
What we don't know about, if you didn't see the Kuwaiti border, it's the Persian Gulf
with the Marines, then the 1st Cavalry and the Arab forces to their left flank, and to
their left, facing southern Iraq, would be the 7th Corps, U.S. Army 7th Corps, including
the 1st Infantry, the 3rd and 1st Armored, and the 24th Mechanized Infantry.
I want to make sure I understand, David.
What you're saying is that that sweeping main attack flanking force may not have yet been
launched.
I do not know that that has been launched yet, Dan.
That's correct.
All right.
Now, some ELAD ground forces have been on forays into Kuwait for several days, troops getting
their first taste of ground battle.
And before, we were going to go to Peter Van Sant report, but right now, let's go to Bill
Plant at the State Department with the late development.
Bill?
I understand that the President will return to Washington from Camp David tonight and
probably is expected to address the American people sometime this evening, I think within
the next couple of hours.
It would be, of course, to signal the beginning of this ground offensive, which, as been widely
reported, seems now to be underway.
So repeating that, we expect the President to return from Camp David, according to a
couple of sources, to come back to the White House and to address the American people tonight
on television.
Thanks, Bill.
And David Martin, if you're still standing by there at the Pentagon, that would be a
further indication of what you've been reporting over these last few minutes, that now can
no longer be any doubt that the U.S. and ELAD ground offensive is underway.
That's right, Dan.
I think we can be certain of that now.
There are going to be a lot of details that come out, and probably at this stage, even
if we knew the details, it wouldn't be wise to help Saddam Hussein try and figure out
how he's going to deal with what is surely going to be a massive assault on the ground.
We want to pause.
Thank you, David.
We want to pause now in our CBS News coverage, which started out to be an hour special report.
We want to give an opportunity for our stations across the country to join us now that our
early reports of the ground offensive starting have in effect been confirmed, and we know
the president is heading back to the White House.
We're going to take a slight pause here, let some of our stations across the country join
us at this point.
Stick in here with us.
This CBS News special report will continue as part of our continuing coverage of the
war in the Gulf, with Dan Rather reporting tonight from Saudi Arabia.
Storyline of the hour.
The U.S.-led ground offensive against Iraqi forces in Kuwait is underway.
It's been underway for some hours.
The sequence of events.
President Bush had set a deadline of today, noon, Eastern time in the United States, for
Saddam Hussein to do two things.
One, to publicly announce that he was pulling his troops out of Kuwait, and two, to actually
begin pulling his troops out.
Under President Bush's proposal, all of the troops of Iraq, or at least the vast majority
of them, would have had to have been out in a week.
The Iraqis did not respond positively to that.
In the hours after that, the White House made it clear that the president had set his deadline,
the deadline had passed, the time for dealing was done.
Then CBS News began getting these reports of cross-border forays picking up, especially
inside Kuwait.
And tonight, it became clear, with David Martin reporting from the Pentagon, that the ground
offensive is underway.
Let's go back to David Martin at the U.S. Defense Department along with Atomic.
David?
David Martin, U.S. Defense Department, U.S. Defense Department
Dan, we now have reports that the amphibious portion of this operation has begun to swing
into operation.
Reports that the amphibious ships, there are 31 amphibious ships in the Gulf carrying about
17,000 Marines.
They are now reported to be moving into position.
Now, we have to remember, not all of these moves may be anything more than feints.
And there are a lot of people who will tell you that an amphibious landing against the
kind of defenses that the Iraqis have built up along the Kuwait coast is a very difficult
operation.
It may well be that the amphibious operation or any of the other maneuvers that we are
reporting now and will be reporting during the course of the night, it may well be that
they turn out to be feints designed to hold Iraqi forces in position so that the real
thrust of the attack can go forward.
But we have this report that amphibious forces have now begun to move into position.
Thanks.
Let's go to retired U.S. Marine General George Christ, who until fairly recently commanded
U.S. forces in this part of the world.
General Christ, if we can get you at the map, I think it's time for us to pause and again
review what the allied ground offensive is envisioned to entail once all of it gets rolling.
We now know that we have the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions moving into Kuwait onshore.
David Martin just reported that the first elements of the amphibious attack from the
sea is either underway or, could it be, General Christ, that this is part of a huge feint
while ground forces farther to the west along the Kuwaiti and Iraqi borders begin to move.
Well, Dan, we don't exactly know, of course.
We do know that the bombardments for preliminary for an amphibious operation have already begun
along the coast and the amphibious force is there.
That could, of course, be either one.
It could be to hold the forces here or to make an amphibious operation, and I think
it's a little unclear yet how that will develop.
Along the lines, you see the red lines, the allied coalition forces already closed on
those lines.
General Christ, if you'll forgive me for just a moment.
Sirens are sounding here in Daran, Saudi Arabia, the indication that a scut alert is underway
here now.
U.S. forces at this huge...
Well, the sirens have gone off in Daran, as you just heard, Dan rather, announce what
had happened.
What often happens when those sirens go off is that we lose communication.
The electricity goes out, as it were, and the satellites go down.
That's apparently what has just happened.
I'm told, Dan, you're back on the air.
Can you hear me?
Yes, Bob, I do.
We occasionally use power, lose power at the beginning of one of these scut alerts, and
that's what happened here.
Now, we've had several scut alerts in recent days.
In one case, a scut was knocked out of the sky by a Patriot missile not far from here.
The scut aimed at, it turned out, at Bahrain.
Several of the scuts have been knocked out just north of here in the last couple of days.
As the various air raid shelters are beginning to fill up here, and while we take the precautions
that we're required to take as people who intend to continue broadcasting here during
this scut alert, and while we look out to see if any Patriots are fired, let's go to
Wyatt Andrews at the White House.
Wyatt?
Dan, the development here is that President Bush, within just the next few minutes, will
get back on his helicopter and return to the White House from Camp David, where we are
told he will deliver a message to the American people.
He is expected about 9.30 Eastern Time to land at the White House, and at about 10 p.m.
Eastern Time, we'll have a message for, again, the American people.
This is new because we had not expected any sort of presidential announcement.
The White House, for the last hour or two, I should report, has been abuzz with high-level
officials.
John Sununu, the chief of staff, is here.
The two top national security advisors to the president, General Brent Scowcroft and
Bob Gates, are also here.
The White House press office is gearing up.
Pretty unusual, obviously, for a Saturday night, but obviously connected to an announcement
and an explanation of why the ground war is beginning and why the president believes that
diplomacy can go nowhere.
Dan?
The sounds of war here in Saudi Arabia, warplanes taking off heading for Kuwait and possibly
southern Iraq, and in the background, the sirens of a scut alert continue to sound.
We've had our eye out for any Patriot missiles firing at Scots.
So far as we can make out, none have been fired yet.
So let's take a breath, report that the major ground offensive that has been anticipated
for so long is in its early stages now on this Saturday night.
And General George Crist, as the scut alert first sounded, was in the process of explaining
to us what the overall tactics and strategy are expected to be.
So General Crist, if we can try to pick up again, we perhaps ought to emphasize that
David Martin did report from the Pentagon that the amphibious assault coming in from
the sea was either starting or at the very least a major effort was being made at a faint
for an amphibious operation.
Exactly right, Dan.
Just starting from the Persian Gulf and then moving across.
The amphibious forces are here.
Bombardment has been going on all day, either preliminary to an actual landing or to a demonstration
to hold the forces down.
Along the marine area, the Marines are already up on the fortifications and in fact, they're
very close in about 12 miles in here.
The same is true of the coalition forces, which are up along the line cutting the mine
fields and the obstacles right up on the Iraqi fortifications.
The main attack, of course, is expected further over here to the west.
We don't know anything about that yet, whether that is going in, but we do expect that sometime
in the course of this operation, these forces are going to crack loose, cut north, and seal
off the Republican guards up here to the north and cut this army loose and off from everything
to the north, isolating it on the battlefield.
General Chris, I think people want to know where their sons and daughters are.
So very quickly, could you point out on the map where the 82nd and 101st Airborne, where
they're located?
Well, I can't give exact positions, Dan, as you well know, but they are in the west right
now and I believe they're preparing for action.
And then where would the 1st Armored, the 3rd Armored, the 24th Mechanized Infantry,
and the 1st Infantry be?
Our Heavy Armor 7th Corps is sitting, Dan, right about here in the west in this general
area and they, of course, will take the great armored attack to the north.
And that would be the main attack under the strategy as we understand it.
That is correct.
That is the one that's going to sweep around the flank of the Iraqi army, engage the armor
if it decides to come out, cut them off, and then seal the entire operation.
And the 1st Cavalry Division operating with the Arab forces, want to point where they
are on the map?
They're down in this area down here and we do expect that the Arab forces, which are
located along here, will indeed make some attacks north.
Now those are not main attacks, Dan.
Those are what are known as secondary attacks.
However, any secondary attack may achieve success on the battlefield.
It could cut through those lines and one always reinforces the success.
So those forces will indeed be engaged very soon.
And on their right flank, the 2nd Marine Division and then the 1st Marine Division?
That's right.
The 2nd Marine Division is in this area here, just around the boot of Kuwait, and the 1st
Marine Division leads to the sea here.
And we expect the 2nd Division to probably attack up in this direction toward Kuwait
City and the 1st Division in this area.
But again, they're not going to try to cut through these lines and take heavy casualties,
but it may be that these fellows are going to surrender.
We've seen it today where stripped of their tanks, 83 prisoners came across to the Marines.
So this could happen again and again and again as this attack goes on.
General, we've reported that the Marines are already inside Kuwait, some 6 to 18 miles.
Just point on the area on the map there where, generally, where they're known to be operating.
They're right in here, Dan.
You see the blue arrow on the map.
This is the Um Gadir Field.
These red lines are the defensive lines, and the Marines are in fact right on those defensive
lines if not through them.
That's not clear, but they certainly were engaged right on those defensive lines within
about a mile and a half of that oil field.
I want to point out for those who are just joining us in progress that the President
of the United States is expected to dress the nation at 10 o'clock tonight.
That would be Eastern time, and that there is a Scud alert underway here in Daran, Saudi
Arabia.
We've heard no Patriots being fired as yet.
Air raid sirens are also sounding in Riyadh.
Now, there has been a school of thought that says that Saddam Hussein's Scud launchers
had been moved north of Baghdad, making it very difficult, if not impossible, for the
Scuds to reach either Riyadh or down here to Daran.
But that was never confirmed, and we had already had a Scud attack in Israel earlier today
with no damage and no casualties reported.
So that's just to bring you up to date.
General Christ, we'll get back to you later.
Thanks for pointing out where the various elements are there on the map.
Joining us now from Washington are Congressman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, and Republican Senator
Orrin Hatch.
Thanks for being with us, gentlemen.
First, Congressman Hamilton, your reaction at the ground war offensive getting started.
Well, my reaction is that the Congress, the American people now will put aside any questions
we might have had about the timing of that ground war, fully support it, and hope and
pray that it is successful and successful very quickly with minimum casualties.
Senator Hatch, your reaction.
Well, we knew it was going to happen.
I thought it would happen within 24 hours after the 12 noon deadline.
It's time that it did.
General Powell made it very clear that, you know, there's a point of diminishing returns
in just an air war.
If you want to end the war quickly, you're going to have to hit them psychologically
and hit them hard, and hopefully we can end this war and interdict this man and stop this
man from having access to weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons, plus stop him from sponsoring terrorism all over the world.
Congressman Hamilton, you had been talking about the need for prudence and caution in
the last hours of negotiation.
On the record that you know of, did President Bush go far enough with prudence and caution,
or would you have liked to have seen him go even further?
I think the President's initiative, his proposal in which he gave an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein
was appropriate.
It was appropriate because he stayed very carefully within the guidelines of the United
Nations resolutions.
He stayed within the framework of the coalition partners.
It was a tough ultimatum and I think appropriate.
But that's behind us now.
The Iraqis did not accept that proposal, and we have an altogether different situation.
It is worth pointing out, however, that remarkable progress was made in a period of about 24,
48 hours on the diplomatic side, and we ought not to forget that as we look at all these
pictures of the war.
And that progress was, it seems to me, changed the whole question.
The question was whether or not Saddam Hussein was going to stay in Kuwait.
Now the question is, how does he get out?
Senator Hatch, to those who were saying and some who may still be saying, listen, that
last offer by the Iraqis given by Tariq Aziz in which he seemed to be saying, well, we'll
be out within 21 days, wasn't all that unreasonable.
Why pull the trigger tonight as the trigger has obviously been pulled?
Well, there were at least four reasons why the president had to reject that.
Keep in mind, we've been using diplomacy for months now, ever since August 2nd, and there
have been tremendous achievements and it now looks like they're starting to break.
But there were four reasons why the president rejected that.
Number one, the 21 days was too long.
They could get all of their equipment out.
Seven days that the president offered them was reasonable.
Number two, the reason that Saddam Hussein did not want to agree with the Security Council
resolutions, and one of those lifted, is because number one, he doesn't want to recognize the
legitimate government of Kuwait, and number two, he doesn't want to make reparations for
the damage he's caused.
Number three, if we cease fire, that means that we would be subjecting our young men
and women to barrages.
We would be, it would be very difficult to start it up again, so we couldn't very well cease fire,
but we were going to allow them to retreat without any attacks from us if they had accepted
the president.
And number four, we could not lift the sanctions in accordance with what Saddam Hussein wanted,
because we needed those sanctions in order to keep him into a posture where he would
have to negotiate away his right to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons,
and sponsor, state-sponsored terrorism all over the world.
So the president was not only right, he diplomatically did everything he possibly could have done,
and it's time now to put this man in his place, stop him.
Diplomacy beyond this, I think, would be that the detriment of our young men and women over
there to the detriment of Israel, and of course the whole Middle East, and it's still going
to go on regardless, and we may still effectuate diplomatic, diplomatic, diplomatic turns that
could end the war in a way that all of us would be happy with.
Thank you very much, Senator Hatch and Congressman Hamilton.
Let's go to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the capital of the country, where Susan Spencer is, or
has been, under skirt alert.
Susan?
Dan, we still are.
The sirens are still going on.
We heard an explosion of some sort about five minutes ago, but we haven't been able yet
to verify whether or not that was a patriot intercepting a scut or what it was.
The people who could verify that for us, the Joint Information Bureau people, are themselves
in the shelter right now, so at the moment we can't really give you much more information.
Thanks, Susan, and here in Daran, Saudi Arabia, the all clear has just sounded after an earlier
scut alert, which came on while we were on the air.
We don't know whether any patriots were fired.
We don't know whether the scuds, at what the scuds were fired.
As the evening goes along, we'll probably be finding that out.
With the ground war offensive now underway, President Bush preparing to address the nation
at 10 o'clock Eastern time tonight, we're going to pause for a moment, but tell you
that our coverage will continue after these messages.
It's started tonight.
President Bush is coming back to the White House and will be addressing the nation in,
what, about an hour.
He's due to address the nation at 10 o'clock Eastern time.
Now, the situation on the battlefront itself appears to be as follows, and we're going
to try to use our makeshift map here, that what we know is that the U.S. Marine 1st and
2nd Divisions, this is Kuwait, this is Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Marine
1st and 2nd Divisions are right up here, tucked along the coast, and they have gone some 6
to 16 miles into Kuwait itself.
The U.S. Army 1st Cav, along with some of the Arab forces, including Saudi Arabian forces
and Egyptian forces, are right up here, sort of where Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia come
together.
They also have been making some cross-border forays.
Now, the U.S. Army forces are stretched, the main, the 7th Corps, stretched in this area
facing Iraq.
Whether they have started to make any serious forays into Iraq, southern Iraq yet, we do
not know.
Keep in mind that the main force flanking action, the main thrust against Saddam Hussein's
forces is expected to go through here to southern Iraq.
The whole idea is to cut off these well-dug in Iraqi forces in here, and when General
Colin Powell said, we intend to cut them off and then kill them, what he meant was a big
sweeping flanking motion here.
This is Basra right in here.
Now, the Euphrates River, roughly up in this area, this would be the target of the U.S.
7th Corps, making this slashing motion up through here, going in that direction to cut
them off.
Even farther to the west, the 101st Airborne, the 82nd Airborne, they would also have the
job, if the signal is actually given, of running their stab in and going all the way to the
Euphrates River.
That in rough form has been the battle plan.
Now, there were thunderous artillery duels all across, along that border last night,
and CBS News correspondent Peter Van Sant is just back with the first of the battle reports.
Stand by.
Fire!
Throughout the night, artillery units from the 2nd Marine Division blasted enemy positions
inside Kuwait, supporting Marines fighting Iraqi troops near the Um Qudar oil field,
not far from the Saudi Arabian border.
The small unit of Marines has been battling Iraqi troops for more than two days.
A military spokesman says as many as 100 Iraqis have been killed in the fighting, with an
equal number taken prisoner.
Preliminary indications are we've damaged 18 tanks, 11 of them by Marine air, 7 of them
by direct fire conventional weapons.
Besides artillery lighting up the night sky, much of southern Kuwait appeared to be on
fire overnight as dozens of oil wells, apparently torched by Iraqi troops, burned out of control.
In what is being described as a scorched earth tactic, the massive fires are sending huge
clouds of smoke across much of southern Kuwait and parts of Saudi Arabia, obscuring visibility
which could hamper military operations.
As with any chemical burning like that, there's always the problem of those types of noxious
gases and pollutants in the air that we may have to deal with.
There could be some extreme heat that we'll have to avoid coming in proximity to those
fires.
From our base, there is a constant drum roll of artillery and bombs striking Iraqi positions.
All along the front lines, the mobilization for battle is picking up momentum.
A Marine patrol here made a disturbing discovery, coming across traces of a chemical agent near
an Iraqi position.
If there is war, these men will go into battle wearing their chemical suits.
Peter Van Sant, CBS News, with the 2nd Marine Division.
The ground war has begun.
Here are some of the headlines.
The first wave of allied forces has crossed into Kuwait in at least two separate sections.
Amphibious assault may also be underway, although there is a school of thought that the amphibious
assault may turn out to be a feint.
We simply don't know about that.
President Bush will address the nation later tonight around 10 o'clock Eastern time.
David Martin at the Pentagon reports troops are up to 8 miles inside Kuwait in one place.
We also have a report that some of the Marine forces are as much as 16 miles into Kuwait.
I want to point out that it could take 48 hours or more to develop the full offensive.
Throughout the day and night, U.S. and other allied troops have probed into enemy territory
to clear a path for the main thrust of the ground offensive.
There are also indications of an amphibious assault.
Some 17,000 Marines are said to be moving into position, but it's not clear yet if that's
to be an attack or a diversion for the Iraqi troops.
We feel we can't point that out often enough.
President Bush was at Camp David during the day when the deadline, 12 noon Eastern time,
passed for Saddam Hussein's troops to begin getting out of Kuwait.
The president is now on his way back to the White House from Camp David.
The indications are at the White House that he will be speaking to the nation about the
beginning of the ground war, which is now underway.
Let's go to David Martin at the Pentagon.
David?
David Martin, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Pentagon David Martin, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Pentagon
Dan, an official who has been watching our coverage and heard me report that some of
the Iraqi troops are beginning to surrender called me to caution me, not that that was
incorrect, but that not to take much heart in the fact that these front-line troops may
be surrendering.
The heart of the Iraqi army is the Republican guards.
They are behind, way behind all these forces that are being attacked now.
They're back in Iraq proper just south of the city of Basra, and they are the ones that
are going to have the greatest capability to kill young Americans that are going into
battle tonight.
But we should, I suppose, take some pleasure in the predicament that these Republican guards
face.
They have spent the last 38 days being bombed almost daily.
Now they know that an attack has begun.
They don't know exactly what direction it's coming from, but they know that if they come
out of their fortifications and start to maneuver, they are going to expose themselves to airstrikes,
because remember, we've been talking about the ground offensive, but all this ground
maneuver is being done under the cover of allied air forces.
Let's go to Wyatt Andrews at the White House.
Wyatt?
Dan, we believe that the president will be speaking to the nation tonight.
We don't know exactly from where, from what point, whether it will be a press conference
or simply a statement of speech from the Oval Office, but we do know that he any minute
now will leave what had been, what looked, began to look like a long weekend at Camp
David.
We'll helicopter back to the White House.
It's expected to land here in about 30 minutes, 930 Eastern Time, and again, we'll probably,
we're a little sketchy on this, address the nation in some form or another at 10 Eastern
Time.
Unusually for a Saturday night, the White House began to get to work in earnest around
here.
Several of the president's top advisors have been at work for at least the last couple
of hours.
His chief of staff, John Sununu, his two top national security advisors, Brent Scowcroft
and Bob Gates have been here.
Marlon Fitzwater, the president's spokesman, is chairing a staff meeting to handle the
details of how the president's speech will be handled.
We are also told now that this will be in the briefing room, so he will face reporters
when he makes this announcement.
No doubt to explain to the American people why he felt this ground war was necessary
and justified and why he thought diplomacy was going nowhere.
Dan?
With the ground war offensive beginning tonight, scud alert sirens sounded here in Dairan,
Saudi Arabia, and in Riyadh, the capital of the country, but the all-clear is sounded
here in Dairan.
Susan Spencer said that in Riyadh that she heard what she thought to be some pops, wasn't
sure that the Patriots had been fired there.
So far as we can make out, no Patriots were fired here.
So if indeed scuds were lobbed into Saudi Arabia tonight, we do not know what their
fate was.
There have been no indications that they hit anywhere, no casualty reports, and no damage.
Now as the ground offensive begins, an underscoring that it could take as much as 48 hours for
the whole ground offensive to begin unfolding, we prepared a series of profiles of the major
weapons.
The major ground weapon will be the United States Army's M1 tank.
The M1 is the Army's main battle tank, and it's considered to be among the best, if not
the best in the world.
Its armor is designed to withstand an assault from molten metal shells, and it is equipped
with a system to provide at least some protection for the crew from a chemical weapons attack.
The M1 carries a 120-millimeter cannon, and its firepower is second to none.
One of the things the Army's counting on is the better range of the M1 tank's gun as
compared to the best that the Iraqis have.
Despite a weight of nearly 65 tons, the M1 is very fast.
That's one of the reasons they think they can hit so quickly out there across the desert,
but it's a real gas guzzler, the M1.
Its estimated mileage, two to five gallons per mile, and much of this ground war offensive
depends on how effective the M1 tank will be.
Let's go now to Bob Sheefer at our studios in New York with the retired U.S. Marine General
George Crist, Bob.
Dan, just as important as the weapons that will be used are the tactics.
One of the things that they're already talking about, General Crist, is a feint.
Now what do the commanders mean?
What do the military people mean when they talk about a feint?
Well, a feint, let's talk about the amphibious forces.
For example, you have a heavily defended coast here, Bob, with about four or five divisions.
Bringing the amphibious forces in and then pounding them with artillery fire and naval
gunfire and air the way they're doing now, the Iraqis aren't going to know whether those
17,000 Marines are going to come ashore or not.
So they're going to have to keep four or five divisions tied up on that shore awaiting that
attack.
Now that's four or five divisions that aren't going to be used for the west or someplace
else.
On the other hand, the Marines may go in, particularly if something happens, let's say
in this area, these troops start to move, that opens up a way for the Marines to come
in.
So a feint or a demonstration is sort of like punching with the right hand and then hitting
them with the left.
He doesn't know whether that fist is coming at him or not.
Now David Martin says that this could be one of the most critical parts of the operation.
Why does David say that?
What does that mean?
Well, I think what David is trying to say is that the operations here in the east against
Kuwait are all designed to fix some 300,000 troops that he has out in this area in place
while the big attack, of course, as Dan has mentioned, goes in around the western flank
and keep them from moving west to block us.
Now the troops that we know that have moved across the border here, I know you have a
blue arrow here, these are the Marines.
Those are the Marines from the 2nd Marine Division.
What kind of equipment are they using?
What are they bringing to bear on?
Well, they're bringing to bear right now.
They're bringing their M60A3 tanks up.
They're moving their tanks in those positions.
They've also brought infantry in the LVT, which is a mechanized armored fighting vehicle
that the Marines use.
They also have their light armored vehicles up in there, and they brought their 155 artillery
well forward to support this operation.
So there's quite a gaggle, if you will, of heavy firepower right now in that area.
Of course, the great horror, the nightmare is that if the Iraqis use chemical weapons,
would this be the point in the attack they would use the chemical weapons or would that
come later?
Well, we're getting pretty close, Bob.
The Iraqis will use chemical weapons at the point that our troops become concentrated.
If they can get us out in front of their lines or somewhere breaking through the lines and
there's a concentration, that's the time you use chemicals.
And indeed, in some of these instances, we certainly are approaching the possibility
of them using their chemical weapons.
General George Criss.
Dan, back to you.
Thanks, Bob.
Mitch Mitchell, a retired colonel of the U.S. Army and a war historian is with us here.
Colonel, you were saying to me while some of our other reports are going on that it,
in your opinion, would be a mistake to say that diplomacy has ended, that diplomacy has
to continue even as the ground war now starts because there has to be somebody thinking
about how to end this war.
Yes, Dan, there must be some type of conduit from Saddam Hussein to the United States and
especially to the United Nations.
He has to have a way to back out.
As we've discussed before, he is a survivor.
Right now, I'm sure he's still looking for a way out of this to get it, to put him in
the very best stead back in Iraq.
I'm sure he's not in Kuwait now.
I'm sure he is somewhere in Iraq figuring out whether this is a serious ground offensive
or not.
If he sacrifices 20,000 or 30,000 soldiers to find out, it won't matter as long as his
survival is not in jeopardy.
But right now, I think he is beginning to worry a lot about whether he's going to make
it through this war.
Let's go to Bill Plant at the State Department, Dan, talking about diplomacy.
Bill, what's the latest there?
Well, Dan, the General makes a very good point because there is a conduit, an existing conduit
between Saddam Hussein and the Soviet Union.
We're told that he has excellent communications with Moscow.
Anything he wants to communicate to the UN, for that matter, to the U.S., could very easily
be passed that way.
There is no diplomacy right now to speak of.
The UN is still planning to meet later tonight, about 10 o'clock.
The Security Council will have an informal session.
But as we were told earlier, they are there because they know the war is going on and
they want to be able to participate in some sense.
Although there are no resolutions planned, there is nothing expected from that session.
But in talking about what diplomacy might eventually do, it will have to play some role
in negotiating the end of this conflict, whether it is sooner or later.
No question about that.
Dan?
Bill, we have just in from Riyadh pictures of Patriots being fired against Scuds in Riyadh.
This was the scene and these were the sounds just a short while ago.
And so much for the theory that Saddam Hussein had moved his Scud missile launchers so far
north of Baghdad that they couldn't reach Riyadh.
Now, as we know, he has a lot of mobile Scud launchers, which in just in the last few days
could have been moved closer.
But what we know tonight is that Patriots were fired in Riyadh against Scuds there.
Here in Dharan, where the sirens sounded with a Scud alert within the hour, we simply don't
know of any Patriots were fired.
We didn't hear, nor did we see any there.
Here, Tom Fenton is in Israel.
Tom, the Israelis were hoping against hope that the ground war offensive would be kicked
off.
They must be relieved tonight.
Indeed, they were, Dan.
And indeed, they are relieved.
This is the moment they've been waiting for.
There was a lot of concern here that at the last minute a Soviet brokered deal might somehow
bring about a ceasefire and that the Iraqis would then withdraw from Kuwait with a good
part of their army intact.
Paradoxically, this is also the moment of greatest danger for the Israelis.
FIFA staff Dan Shamran said a short while ago that there was always a possibility that
at the last minute with his back against the wall, Saddam Hussein would launch some sort
of a non-conventional attack at Israel, either a chemical warheads on Scuds or perhaps a
suicide mission by fighter bombers bringing poison gas.
Now, if that happened and if there were a large number of casualties, that would be
the time that Israel would finally enter this war.
The Israelis have been sitting on their hands ever since the beginning absorbing these Scud
attacks because the United States wanted them out of the conflict to avoid breaking up the
Arab coalition.
But now that the ground war is underway, if there were some sort of a non-conventional
attack and there were heavy casualties, all bets would be off and it's quite likely the
Israelis would be in this war as well.
It may be worth underscoring, Tom, that while the Israelis made every argument and had a
strong belief that going and crushing Saddam Hussein's military forces, if indeed not
Saddam himself, was essential to Israel's security, that they also believed and made
the point that they believed it to be in the best interest of the United States and for
the long-range security of the United States to do the same.
Standing by in London is Dr. Jafar Ali of the Association of Free Kuwait.
Dr. Ali, thank you for being with us tonight.
The ground war is finally underway.
Kuwait is aflame and we hear these terrible stories which have every indication of being
true of executions inside Kuwait.
Yes, quite right.
One of the tragedies of this war, which started in August 2nd, has been that the brutal murder,
torture, and rape of our citizens in Kuwait and the Iraqi regime has not allowed any images
to come out from our country.
We know by now that at least 7,500 people have been killed.
We know that 17,000 at least have been taken away.
So the recent atrocities that have occurred since yesterday are really entirely consistent
with the type of campaign that the Iraqis have been conducting, the brutal atrocities
that have been conducting since August 2nd.
And this is really just a vindictive act and they are trying to intimidate our people.
You make a good point, Dr. Ali, that we've seen photographs, pictures.
Saddam Hussein has tried to make sure the world saw the pictures of civilian casualties
inside Iraq but never allowed any photographs of what was going on inside Kuwait.
When you finally get back into Kuwait, let me ask first of all, how soon do you expect
to return to Kuwait?
That we can return as soon as possible.
I think all Kuwaitis right now are patient because they know that this type of coalition
forces, the war that the coalition forces have joined since the middle of January has
to be planned carefully whereby there is minimal amount of loss both to the civilians and to
the forces.
And so we have to be patient and allow the coalition forces to take the best action they
can.
We're hoping that this will be as soon as possible because of, as I just said, the campaign
inside Kuwait of the terrorism that has been going on since beginning of August has increased.
We know people were picked up from the mosques yesterday.
This is the type of Iraqis call themselves Muslims and they ask for jihad.
But nevertheless, they go to the mosques where the Kuwaitis are and they pick them up from
there.
And they also have been picking up Kuwaitis from the streets.
And it's really the randomness of the whole action that they have been conducting since
then that is appalling.
Maybe worth noting that one reason apparently that they are rounding up people and executing
people is they don't want any witnesses to the atrocities that the Iraqis have perpetrated
on Kuwait.
Thank you very much, Dr. Nelly.
Joining us in New York, our CBS News consultant on the Middle East, one of the world's ranking
scholars on this area of the world and our friend Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University.
Fouad, what could be going on in Saddam Hussein's mind now as the ground war is underway?
He now has the mother of all battles that he wanted.
This isn't really the mother of all battles.
In many ways, it's the daughter of all his illusions and miscalculations.
A little knowledge is often said could be a dangerous thing.
Saddam Hussein doesn't really know much about America.
He had little fragments in his mind.
He knew about Vietnam.
He knew about what happened in Lebanon.
But what he didn't calculate and what he didn't factor into his calculations was the fact
that he was going to be facing a president molded by World War II.
So Saddam has this ground battle he wants.
On some level, it is a product of all his miscalculations.
On yet another level, this is really his hope, because, in the end, his hope was always the
fact that the ground battle is the great equalizer.
If you listen to him, if you read some of his speeches, Saddam Hussein has a very primitive
view of warfare.
He's talked about air power as a kind of something that real men don't do.
Real men don't use air power, that they go to ground warfare.
So he has this battle now, and he has it on the ground.
I'm thinking, Fuad, when I interviewed Saddam Hussein and then after the interview, we walked
around the presidential palace in Baghdad, how many times he says, you can't take the
blood, meaning the United States can't take the casualties.
He still seems to be, asking whether you agree, still sort of saying to himself, well, when
they get on the ground, I can inflict the casualties, and they won't be able to take
it.
Exactly, Dan.
I think you're absolutely right.
In his own sense, despots have always misjudged the resolve of democracies.
Despots look at democracies and think that democracies are very feeble entities.
He looks at the U.S. and he thinks, well, it can take an air campaign because it has
a great technological advantage.
But he looks on the ground and he says, well, of course, if you can inflict five or 10,000
casualties on the American forces, then the resolve of this society will begin to erode.
You're absolutely right.
This was always the hope of Saddam Hussein, and this was always his great illusion about
this society, that we didn't have the gut and we didn't have the stomach for a long
fight.
Your judgment, Fuad, on how important was it, how significant was it when those U.S.
Marines were 242 blown up and killed in Beirut and then the United States pulled out of Lebanon?
I think, Dan, this is truly the formative experience of Saddam Hussein.
That's about where his knowledge of American society goes.
That's how deep it goes.
He looked at the verdict of the Lebanon war.
He looked at the quick withdrawal after the Marine barracks episode of October 1983, and
he didn't think that we would stay the course.
He didn't think that the stakes were large enough.
But he's been wrong all along.
He's miscalculated things wrong all along.
He didn't think we would price Kuwait high enough.
We priced it high enough.
He didn't think we would launch the air war.
We launched the air war.
He didn't think that President Bush had it in him to launch a ground war.
We launched the ground war.
And in a way, it really is this.
We now are at this point where every miscalculation of Saddam Hussein is right before us to see.
Fuad Ajami, thanks.
Today Iraqi radio was quoting Saddam Hussein in a broadcast of troops telling Iraqi troops,
you have angels on your shoulders, saying that the U.S. and allied forces were the devils
and that God would have the Iraqis prevail.
Let's go to Bob Fall now at the United Nations on the latest diplomatic activity there, Bob.
Dan, the events tended to eclipse, indeed overwhelm this institution.
A lot of diplomatic scurrying going on, but the horse, if you will, is already out of
the barn.
The ambassador for the Soviet Union still sticks by his words, it's entirely possible
and desirable, his words, for the Security Council to blend together parts of the old
Soviet and the American peace proposals.
That is what he will try to do in less than an hour when the Security Council members
start straggling in.
Non-aligned members like India think it's a great idea and will support the idea.
The United States does not and will try to fight it.
This all may seem very academic in light of events and somewhat embarrassing, if you will,
for the U.N., leaving this institution sitting on the sidelines and suggesting that when
push comes to shove, this place is little more than what its critics always said it
was, a glorified debating society and not, at least at this point, a force to be reckoned
with.
The curiosity, obviously, will be to see how the diplomats, when they come in less than
an hour, will choose to grapple with that new reality.
Dan?
Thanks, Bob.
The ground war offensive underway, President Bush on his way back to the White House.
The president of the United States is expected to address the nation sometime during the
evening.
No sooner than 10 p.m. Eastern time is he expected to speak.
With the ground war underway, you may want to, for perspective and context, keep in mind
that Saddam Hussein has to fight a one-dimensional war that is strictly with ground forces, tanks,
artillery, and he has the Scud missiles.
But he's one-dimensional.
The U.S. and allied forces are three-dimensional, air, sea, and ground.
And tonight, in the darkness, out there in the desert, inside Kuwait and over the southern
part of Iraq, those allied forces, all three elements, air, sea, and ground, are being
brought to bear.
A Marine amphibious force is reported approaching the Kuwaiti land.
We don't know yet whether that's a faint or not.
Forces on land are into Kuwait at least six miles, possibly as far as 16.
Units of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Army, along with Pan-Arab forces in another section of
Kuwait, are also operating cross-border.
Joining me now is CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner, who is just back from the front.
Martha, how is it planned for the men to get through the mines that we know the Iraqis
have set?
Well, step one of any ground advance is breaching, breaking through a path for any kind of oncoming
artillery and infantry that would go through.
In this kind of activity, there are many ways that this can take place, but it's been going
on for at least a full day along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.
What is expected to be the workhorse mine clearing device, the Miklick, for the U.S.
Army is practically experimental.
When I saw the 1st Armored Division practice firing it a couple of weeks ago, three generals
were seeing it in action for the first time, a piece of equipment they would have to use
extensively, not only in the first hours of a ground war, but also as U.S. forces move
deeper through the layered defenses the Iraqis have developed.
Back home in Germany, the Army was never allowed to try out the Miklick with real explosives.
The British version, called the Viper, has been in use for nearly 30 years.
The idea behind both the Viper and the Miklick is to throw out a line of explosives so a
minefield can be blown up at a relatively safe distance.
If Saddam Hussein has planted chemical mines, any safety zone could limit exposure.
Dan, there is no way that the United States forces have found to successfully breach what
we've heard about the flaming trenches.
They're absolutely too hot.
I've been told that they're 2,000, 3,000 degrees, and their approach to those is just
to go around.
There are lots of other kinds of devices that can be used, but one thing that I found interesting
is that the engineering operation, this is called engineering, is going to be larger
in this war than it was for World War II.
Martha Teicher, thanks.
And as we listen to the British Tornadoes, the F-15s and F-16s take off in the background,
there have been wave after wave of these planes taking off for about the last two hours, indicating,
underscoring once again that the land war is underway.
It may take as much as 48 hours to develop.
Martha mentioned the 1st Armored Division flush up against the Iraqi border.
It would be one of the lead forces sweeping through Iraq with the open maneuver of armor.
As Martha pointed out, there's no intention to take on the Iraqis dug in so deeply and
so well in Kuwait with any frontal assault.
The idea is to, as Andrew Jackson developed as a tactic for the United States military,
strong reconnaissance, then flank, always flank, run to the flanks, and once the enemy
begins to run, pour it on.
And that, in a nutshell, is what General Schwarzkopf is hoping to do here.
Now, headlines of the hour.
The ground war offensive is underway.
U.S. using its night fighting advantages to the maximum.
The President expected to address the nation sometime this evening, about 10 o'clock Eastern
time or sometime after that, and a Pentagon briefing is set for 1030 tonight Eastern time.
For an update at the White House, let's go to Wyatt Andrews.
Wyatt?
Well, Dan, we are just minutes away from seeing the landing of the President's helicopter.
He's expected to land at 930 from Camp David.
And what now, look, in retrospect, was probably a faint by the President to go to Camp David
in the way that he did, taking Secretary of State James Baker with him, only now to have
launched the ground war and to come back and to explain to the public exactly why he did.
Dan, it's one of those nights that this is the third night in this administration that
the President will make this kind of speech.
December of 1989, he sent troops to Panama and invaded that country.
And the second time was just about a month ago, January 17th, when he launched the air
war.
And tonight, once again, we fully expect the President will be in the briefing room for
an address to the nation.
Different this time, he'll also face reporters.
We don't know whether he will take any questions.
But that is what the speech is about.
He is a man who enjoys unprecedented support for this particular campaign, given what has
gone on with the permission that he got a month ago from Congress, the ultimatum that
he laid down on Saddam Hussein yesterday, and the support that he got from the coalition
over the last 48 hours to indeed get to this point.
Dan?
Thanks, Wyatt, word in from London that British Prime Minister John Major, the successor,
the new British Prime Minister, John Major will address the nation, the Great Britain,
beginning at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
That's Eastern United States time.
Now, whether President Bush will be speaking at that time or a little bit later, we do
not yet know.
We are told that the President will be addressing the nation sometime this evening.
Now, the British forces, by the way, if you want to look at the map, are fairly far west
in Saudi Arabia.
They're to the west of the main force.
We've mentioned the U.S. Army's Seventh Corps is sort of at that point where the Kuwait
border, the Saudi Arabia border, and the Iraqi border meet.
That's where the U.S. Seventh Army Corps is located.
To the west of that are the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne, the British, and even
far west of that, even further, farther west out there, are the French forces.
As we mentioned, the M-1 tank will be the main weapon on the ground.
A tremendous array of weaponry in the air, a lot at sea.
When it comes to this ground offensive that's now underway, a lot is being placed, a lot
of the burden is on the M-1 tank.
Aaron Hayes is at Fort Knox, Kentucky to talk about that tank.
Dan, right behind me is the M-1A1 Abrams tank, and as you said, it is going to be one of
the main machines for the U.S. in the ground assault against Iraqi forces.
It's new.
It had never been tested in combat before the Persian Gulf War, and it is expensive.
It's about a four and a half million dollar high tech tank.
The M-1A1 is different from older tanks in a number of ways.
It has a sophisticated suspension and stabilization system.
That allows the gunner to fire pretty accurately even while the tank is moving quickly over
rough terrain.
It is equipped with a smoke screen mechanism too to hide it from enemy sights.
The M-1A1 though has thermal sights that let it see through smoke.
Inside it is crowded, barely big enough for the four men who ride in it.
A gunner and tank commander are seen here.
The driver lies on his back behind them and steers using a series of periscopes.
He's with me right now to help explain how the tank works as the commander of this tank,
Sergeant Samuel Tuggle.
We are right in front of the driver's compartment right here.
Sergeant, during combat, we wouldn't see the driver's head poking out like this, would
we?
No, the driver would operate the tank in the closed position.
The hatch would be closed at all times during combat.
He actually lies on his back as he steers in combat.
That's exactly it.
The seat is designed in a reclining position so that he can operate the tank with the hatch
closed.
One of the interesting features of this M-1A1, which is the state of the art tank, are the
protective systems built in for the four men inside.
You have a system that protects you against a biological or chemical attack.
Explain how that works.
Yes, the NBC system, nuclear biological chemical attack, which is an over-pressurization system.
So that raises air pressure inside to keep contaminated air from seeping in?
Yes, it allows the crew to operate, pressurize the cabinet, allows the crew to operate on
the normal conditions during an NBC attack.
So in a chemical attack, you might be able to go without your gas masks in the initial
few minutes of the attack?
Yes, that is true.
But the tank commander would dictate, and the threat would dictate, whether they were
done to protect the men inside.
Some of the other protective systems on here include what you call explosive panels or
blowout panels on top of the turret.
Can you explain how those protect the men inside?
Yes, the blowout panels are designed if you were to receive a round or a direct hit in
the rear compartment of the turret, the blowout panels will activate and blow off, allowing
the bulk of the explosion to escape through the blowout panels.
So it blows everything away from the guys inside, including, I guess, your own ammunition.
Exactly.
Ammunition, it keeps the crew with the least damage to the crew so that the bulk of the
explosion can escape out through the panel.
And speaking of ammunition, you have quite a bit of your own.
And the cannon is an upgrade from the old tank, right?
Yes, when they went from the M1 to the M1A1, they upgraded the cannon from a 105 millimeter
gun to a 120 millimeter smoothbore gun.
And on this turret, I guess you have a lot of flexibility.
It spins pretty quickly?
Exactly.
The turret can spin anywhere from six to seven seconds in a 360 degrees.
Pretty quickly.
And I'll explain the armor over here.
This is a depleted uranium armor.
This is an upgrade from the old tank, too.
We're told that the Iraqis really don't have any artillery that can pierce this under normal
battle conditions.
A lot of the information on this is classified, and that's about all we can tell.
Exactly.
On the engine, Sergeant, you're pretty proud of this engine.
I understand it's pretty powerful.
Yes, the engine is a 1,500 horsepower engine.
It has a transmission that has four speeds, four speeds forward and two speeds in the
rear.
It can travel at anywhere from 40 to 45 miles per hour on flat surface, and it can travel
between 30 miles per hour across country.
I understand zero to 20 in seven seconds.
You're pretty confident in this tank, aren't you?
Zero to 20, yes.
Sure am.
The tank is a good tank.
Anyone come up against the tank, it's going to have to bring their lunch because it's
going to be an all-day affair.
All right, Sergeant, thank you very much.
And Dan, there, critics are a little concerned about how this will perform in desert conditions,
worried about sand clogging air filters, worrying about the gas guzzling.
You know, it only gets, it takes two to six gallons per mile to get this thing through.
There are some concerns, but the Army, as we've been told, is very confident that this
is the machine for this ground war.
Dan, back to you.
Thanks, Erin.
Footnoting that the M1 did have some difficulty when there were maneuvers in the Egyptian
desert, but a number of changes have been made since that time.
Also, as we hear more of the aircraft taking off, that particular plane is a cargo plane.
Cargo planes have been taking off along with the war strike planes for several hours here
now.
Part of the resupply, including making sure enough ammunition and fuel, gets right up
to the front now that the ground war has started.
Some, a number of people have called in to say, well, you know, you say the M1 tank has
a better range than the gun on the best of the Soviet tanks that the Iraqis have.
I'm a little confused because I thought the Iraqi guns had better range.
We're talking about two different things.
The Iraqis have artillery with longer range than U.S. artillery.
And one of the many things to look for as the ground war develops is how far forward
the U.S. artillery can get in to get inside the range that they can hit back at the Iraqi
artillery.
But the Iraqis' artillery has greater range with their best guns than the U.S. has.
But when it comes to the tanks, one of the things that General Schwarzkopf and General
Colin Powell and General Waller and others are counting on is that they want to get the
elite Republican Guard moving out in the desert, coming out to meet them, because when they
do, they think they can, in a word, knock the hell out of them because the M1 tank's
gun has a greater range than the gun on the Russian tank.
Let's go back to Bob Schieffer now with General Christ.
Dan, one thing that I think we should say and I think you would want us to underline,
we've had some calls here at CBS News about the information we're giving out about the
battle zone, about the war.
We want to stress that this all comes from public sources.
It is based on information we get from press pools at the front, other public sources.
We are extremely careful not to give away anything that might give Saddam information
that he might not otherwise have.
For example, when we talk about various units, the Marines and so forth, we speak only in
a very general way about where those troops are located.
Because we do have very good analysis, because General Christ is here to guide us along the
way, we want to assure all of our viewers that at no time do we give out information
when there's even that doubt that it might in some way help Saddam Hussein.
General, one of the things we've been talking about through the day is the atrocities that
are going on in Kuwait now, the problems that are going on there.
And it's going to be one of the most difficult aspects of this whole operation, is it not,
to free Kuwait city, the city itself?
Kuwait's going to be very tough, and I think that we would like to end up surrounding Kuwait
something like that, Bob, with the city sitting inside.
Now, the most difficult thing in the world is to tack into a city.
It's built up.
It's hand-to-hand, room-to-room, street-by-street, block-by-block.
And it's terribly, terribly expensive.
And I believe what they'll try to do is hope, one, that the garrison left before we get
there, or in fact, once they are cut off, as they would be in a ring like this, that
they would surrender, because the alternative is a very tough fight, as they found at Stalingrad.
General, we hear about these fires that are being set in Kuwait city, about setting the
oil fields afire.
Is there any military reason for that kind of action?
Well, it's difficult to say.
Of course, we've been firing in there, too, and we've been hitting those refineries.
But just to simply set the refineries afire, which sit right down in this area down in
there, has no military significance other than to set them afire and destroy them.
We're hearing these reports all through the day of atrocities, of civilians being rounded
up.
Does that give you any indication or a hint, perhaps, that in fact the Iraqis may be about
to leave, or there seems to be no reason?
No particular reason.
Obviously, it could be recrimination against the Kuwaitis.
They could be clearing them out of military areas that they expect to defend.
That's also been done.
Or the simple massacres the Germans did before they retreated from some of those Russian
villages.
I guess one thing we should underline, it's gonna be a while before they get to Kuwait
city.
That's gonna be a few days, Bob.
All right.
Thank you.
Back to you, Dan.
Thank you, sir.
Here are the headlines of the hour as the ground war begins.
President Bush, at this moment, is returning to the White House in Washington.
President Bush has been at Camp David, Maryland, with Secretary of State James Baker.
It's often said that when the really big decisions are to be made, when all the big chips are
on the table anytime for George Bush, that James Baker, his longtime friend, will be
with him.
Baker was with him at Camp David, but now the president is returning to the White House,
where he's expected to address the nation sometime tonight, noting that the prime minister
of Great Britain is expected to address his people at 10 p.m. Eastern time tonight.
Now, the headlines of the hour include the fact that President Bush has come back to
the White House.
Amphibious forces are said to have moved into action off Kuwait, and that President Bush,
we don't know the time he's gonna address the nation, but he definitely will.
What's described as the first wave of the ground offensive has started.
It's also said to be the most crucial wave since it may encounter whatever military might
Saddam Hussein has left, including possible chemical attack.
That's one of the things the forces are on the lookout for.
The ground offensive got underway about eight hours after the noon Eastern U.S. time deadline
today forced Saddam Hussein to begin pulling his forces out of Kuwait.
After that deadline had expired, U.S. officials said, you can expect anything, anytime now,
and the ground offensive then was kicked off this evening.
Just before the ground offensive started, some of the heaviest fighting of the war was
reported with U.S. Marines destroying some 33 Iraqi armored vehicles and taking 200 prisoners.
In this first wave on the ground, 31 amphibious ships with some 17,000 Marines were said to
be gathered off the coast of Kuwait.
Now, while all this was happening, Patriot missiles were fired in Riyadh, and air raid
sirens sounded both there and here in Dharan, where airplanes have continued to take off
in giant waves for the past several hours.
This was the sight and sound in Riyadh.
Patriots fired.
We don't have any reports on damage or casualties here in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.
While the sirens sounded, we don't believe any Patriots were fired.
We neither saw nor heard any of them.
Let's check in with David Martin at the Pentagon.
David, how goes the war?
David Martin, Pentagon Press Secretary, National Security Council, United States Department
of Defense, USA Well, Dan, we're going to find out more about
exactly that at 10.30, which will presumably be after the President speaks.
We are going to get a statement from somebody who is described only as a Defense Department
official, whether that will be Defense Secretary Cheney or not, I do not know.
And the announcement of this statement makes it pretty clear that there are not going to
be a lot of answers to questions here.
I think we're going to be frustrated for a period of time now while we wait for the details
of exactly what's unfolding on the ground, because I think there is going to be extreme
sensitivity about telling Saddam Hussein anything that might aid him in defending himself against
this onslaught.
Remember, all this bombing over the past 38 days has basically knocked out all of his
eyes and ears, and what he knows he knows from watching American television.
And Defense Department officials have said on a number of occasions when they're briefing
reporters that they are acutely aware of what they are saying is going directly into whatever
room Saddam Hussein happens to be at at the time.
So we should not count on a lot of details, and I think most of it is going to be guestwork
for probably another 24 hours.
If I were guessing, and I want to stress to people who are listening, I'm not giving away
any battle plan here because I do not know the battle plan, but I would say keep your
eye on the 24th Infantry Division for a couple of reasons.
General Schwarzkopf, when he was a Major General, commanded the 24th Infantry Division.
It is currently commanded by another Major General named Barry McCaffrey, who is widely
regarded as one of the, if not the best combat general in the United States Army.
And I think the combination of those two factors, Schwarzkopf's old affection for that division
and the high regard in which McCaffrey is held, makes it almost certain that the 24th
Infantry Division, which is one of those divisions out to the west, is going to play a crucial
role in whatever transpires in the next 24, 36, 48 hours.
David Martin, thanks.
And you mentioned the 24th Infantry, that's of course mechanized infantry.
It means it can move very quickly.
It's an outfit that has the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
They tuck the infantry into that Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
It has its own offensive capability with the tow missile, a rather incredible gadget is
the only thing I can call it.
It's a wire-guided missile that can be death on tanks.
And the 24th Mechanized Infantry is lined up as part of the 7th Corps, with the 7th
Corps, on the Saudi Arabian-Iraqi border.
We've said it before, we will say again, that the battle plan apparently includes, as its
main thrust, a thrust into southern Iraq.
Now, most of the combat tonight, so far as we've been able to determine, has been inside
Kuwait itself, with the Marines on the land of, flush up against the Persian Gulf.
The amphibious operation, which is still cloaked in mystery as it should be, don't know whether
it's a faint or an actual amphibious assault coming from the Gulf itself.
And then the Marines left flank is the Pan-Arab force, along with the Army's 1st Cav and
into their left flank, the 7th Corps, including the 24th Mechanized Infantry.
Eric Ingberg joins us now to talk about those fires in Kuwait.
Eric?
Dan, the Marines have been heavily engaged for the past 48 hours along the Kuwait-Saudi
Arabian border against a force of Iraqi troops, and it is a battle that has occurred against
an eerie battlefield.
The Marines reported that they could see dozens of fires from those oilfield fires that were
lit by the Iraqi troops, and the sky just covered with dark smoke as a background to
this battle.
Now the Marines report early successes here in this engagement, the capture of 200 Iraqi
prisoners of war, and apparent early victory in that fight in Kuwait.
One of the keys to this battle that we are going to see emerging in the days ahead will
be the ability of the American side and its allies to make effective use of artillery
weapons.
The Americans that we see here have been using their big 155mm howitzers and 8-inch guns
along the border for the last several days, joining up with American units that were similarly
deployed along the border.
Now the reason, Dan, that these artillery battles that have begun and are likely to
be grabbing many of the headlines in the days ahead are so important.
Here we see an MLRS, a Multiple Launch Rocket System, which is the newest item of artillery
in the U.S. catalog of weapons firing off at Iraqi forces in Kuwait.
The reason that this artillery is so important in the early going is twofold.
One, the Iraqis have built a line of obstacles and bunkers across the Kuwaiti border.
The Marines and the American Army troops that go in there are going to have to hit those
obstacles.
While they are tied up, knocking down the obstacles, there is the danger that they will
be subject to enemy artillery fire, which can be killing.
In fact, artillery very often results in 50% of the battlefield casualties in any war.
Secondly, and equally important, American commanders say that the artillery round is
Saddam Hussein's best way to deliver his poison gas weapons, nerve gas, mustard gas, and all
the other gas that he has, and that if the American artillery, the MLRS, the howitzers,
those other weapons, can knock out Saddam's artillery in the early going, then the threat
from gas is much diminished.
And that's one reason, Eric, that the troops who are part of the early assault, some of
them will be dressed in their gas protective gear as they move in a scene that can only
be described as an eerie battlefield tonight.
Thanks, Eric.
We have just heard from troops who have just returned from some of those probing attacks.
Let's listen to what they have to say.
This morning we left, started out across the berm.
We got a couple miles within the berm and they started firing mortar rounds.
Randomly we were in a tactical convoy and they were firing at angles all over the place
and then finally, I counted three, and then when the fourth one hit, it hit our vehicle.
We could hear the mortar fire as it was coming towards us, you know, the random hits, and
then the next thing we know we heard a boom, real loud boom, and it threw us into the
windshield, and all of our gear that was in the back came up to the front and it was smoky
and everything, we couldn't see.
Once our vehicle got hit, one of the LAVs fired a tow missile into the same direction
where they was at, so if anything was there, it's not there anymore.
LAV being a landing vehicle, and they, like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, they have these
tow missiles designed to knock out tanks, and for that matter they can fire it against
a variety of targets on the ground.
Those troops back from the early probing missions, you heard one of them talk about the green
that they had been trying to knock out.
British troops pounded Iraqi positions with their big guns, howitzers.
British artillery is organized much like U.S. artillery.
They fire the same ammunition.
They're right behind the advancing armor.
The British are now flush up against the southern Kuwaiti border.
The famous desert rats are among the British troops operating out here in the Saudi desert.
The desert rat's name comes from World War II.
General Montgomery, the legendary British desert commander who was the man who finally
stopped the German general Rommel in North Africa.
To many of our young viewers, this may sound like ancient history, but it was one of the
most decisive battles, most important battles of early World War II when the British General
Montgomery stopped the German general Rommel about seven miles from Cairo.
Rommel had advanced, and the famous desert rats got their name during that period, and
they're carrying the tradition forward now as part of the British forces here.
Now, as the ground war begins, we have these headlines, ground forces moving into Kuwait,
amphibious forces massing just off the coast.
President Bush, to brief the nation shortly, he's returned to the White House.
After high and day and noon, the showdown, the first wave of allied forces has begun
to roll in to Kuwait.
They are reported as much as 18 miles now inside the Iraqi Hale territory.
These pictures taken from an Apache attack helicopter.
Let's look at them for just a moment.
The Apache is a night killer.
Tanks, bunkers, truck convoys, and artillery emplacements.
The Apache has this night fighting equipment which just brings the whole battlefield up
as if it were daytime.
And it's been very busy the last couple of days and exceptionally busy tonight.
Amphibious forces, some 17,000 Marines, are reported massing off the Kuwaiti coast, but
it isn't known if they are actually planned to attack or if they are being used as a diversion
for the main ground force.
David Martin of the Pentagon says there's word of many Iraqi soldiers surrendering,
but the frontline Iraqi troops are the weakest.
This is the way ground warfare is frequently fought.
You put your weakest troops most forward, so when the other side attacks, you can sort
of get a measure of how strong the attacking force is.
Saddam Hussein's whole card is his elite Republican Guard, what used to be known as the presidential
guard, which is dug in much further back from the front.
Official word on the ground war will come in about 15 minutes.
Now we're told when President Bush is expected to speak from the White House.
David Dow is just outside Camp Pendleton, California with a young Marine recruit.
David?
Well, Dan, as you know, there are nearly 30,000 Marines from Camp Pendleton in the Gulf, many
of them undoubtedly involved in the ground offensive.
Hundreds more are on liberty here tonight along Hill Street, the main street of Oceanside,
the community adjoining Camp Pendleton, and are now learning about the ground offensive
for the first time.
With me is Private First Class Desmond Butts of Ogden, Utah.
Your thoughts as you learn of fellow Marines going into action on the ground in the Gulf?
Well, I heard about it just about a half an hour ago while I was eating dinner, and the
first thing I thought of is what type of force it was going to take to go in and finish off
the job that has been started, and that I was glad they were finally doing that rather
than sitting around and waiting hastily and letting people just build up the frustration
over the situation in the Middle East.
Now you're in training here.
What has been the talk among you and your colleagues here as it's built to this stage?
A lot of them have mixed feelings.
They're not really sure what is going to happen yet.
Our final orders aren't out.
Most of us are departing to our different technical schools in the Marine Corps because
we still are in training, but the anticipation is being very well taken by most of the Marines
here.
If we are going to be sent over to Saudi Arabia to help defend that territory, most of us
have a very positive attitude about it.
You can't let that type of thing get in the way of your training.
We joined the Marine Corps to be Marines, not to try to slide by anything.
Part of being a Marine is defending our country and defending our rights and privileges as
Americans.
First Class Desmond Butts, thank you very much.
Back to you, Dan.
Hey, Vidal, thank you very much.
As the ground war offensive mounts with what may be a 48-hour development to get the full
force of the ground offensive going, we're going to take a break here and be right back.
If you're like a lot of people, you're probably trying to cut back on caffeine.
You certainly don't want to find it in unexpected places.
So you might be surprised.
Across the United States, some clouds beginning to move up in our direction, a little more
moisture beginning to move in with those southwesterly winds.
And we'll see more of a partly sunny setting tomorrow.
That's what will hold our temperatures down somewhat.
The air mass hasn't really changed.
The frontal system is still well off to the north of us, but with a few more clouds around
that will keep temperatures just a few degrees cooler.
Radar is showing there's not much rain in those clouds.
A few scattered showers may make it up into portions of Illinois or Indiana, but I think
we will stay dry here across west Michigan.
Down to the south, a few scattered thunderstorms in south Florida and back to the west.
And really not too much going on.
There have been a couple of storm systems moving onshore in the Pacific Northwest and
still some strong gusty winds and some scattered rain showers, but not too much trouble in
the southwest.
Readings in the 70s.
And here's all the record heat with 50s, 60s, and 70s, the rule across the eastern part
of the country.
Tomorrow, lots of sunshine, but a few more clouds.
We'll call it partly cloudy or partly sunny with temperatures in the mid to upper 40s.
And on Tuesday, a little bit cooler still with readings only in the lower 40s.
And on the five-day outlook, you can see the trend is back down to near normal temperatures
by the end of the week, but mainly dry, except maybe some showers in here along about Thursday.
So the forecast tonight is for clear to partly cloudy skies with temperatures dropping back
only to around 35.
That's warmer than our normal high temperature for the day.
Tomorrow, partly sunny, breezy, and continued mild with highs in the upper 40s.
On Tuesday, not quite as warm, but still not bad with highs in the low 40s.
I'm enjoying this.
Yes.
It's been wonderful while it's lasted.
A real nice little break.
I think it'll continue at least for this week.
After that, I'm sure.
Back to winter.
Winter will be back soon.
Thanks, Dave.
The West Michigan Burn Unit has been treating burn victims for 17 years now.
Today, staff and many of those patients celebrated the center's success and their own individual
healing progress.
Today was dedicated as the first National Burn Survivors Sunday.
Burns are the third leading cause of accidental death among adults.
This year, the unit treated 112 patients, and many of them were on hand for today's
celebration.
Details to come tonight, details on budget wranglings on the state and federal level.