ANTUOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                         63


But I've got to tell you, that in the business of the military, of a military
commander, my job is not to go ahead and at some point say that's great,
they've just now pulled out of Kuwait--even though they're still shooting at us,
they're moving backward, and therefore, I've accomplished my mission. That's
not the way you fight it, and that's not the way I would ever fight it.

   Q.  You talked about heavy press coverage of Imminent Thunder early on,
and how it helped fool the Iraqis into thinking that it was a serious operation.
I wondered if you could talk about other ways in which the press contributed to
the campaign. (Laughter)
   A:  First of all, I don't want to characterize Imminent Thunder as being only
a deception,    because    it wasn't. We had   every   intention of conducting
amphibious operations if they were necessary, and that was a very, very real
rehearsal--as were the other rehearsals. I guess the one thing I would say to the
press that I was delighted with is in the very, very early stages of this operation
when we were over here building up, and we didn't have very much on the
ground, you all had given us credit for a whole lot more over here.  As a result,
that gave me quite a feeling of confidence that we might not be attacked quite
as quickly as I thought we were going to be attacked.  Other than that, I would
not like to get into the remainder of your question.

   Q.  what kind offight is going on with the Republican Guard? And is there
any more fighting going on in Kuwait, or is Kuwait essentially out of the action?
   A:  No. The fight that's going on with the Republican Guard right now is
just a classic tank battle. You've got fire and maneuver, they are continuing to
fight and shoot at us as our forces move forward, and our forces are in the
business of outfianking them,      taking them in the rear,  using our    attack
helicopters, using our advanced technology. I would tell you that one of the
things that has prevailed, particularly in this battle out here, is our technology.
We had great weather for the air war, but right now, and for the last three days,
it's been raining Out there, it's been dusty out there, there's black smoke and
haze in the air. It's an infantryman's weather--God loves the infantryman, and
that's just the kind of weather the infantry man likes to fight in.  But I would
also tell you that our sights have worked fantastically well in their ability to
acquire, through that kind of dust and haze, the enemy targets.      The enemy
sights have not worked that well.   As a matter of fact, we've had several anec-
dotal reports today of enemy who were saying to us that they couldn't see
anything through their sights and all of a sudden, their tank exploded when their
tank was hit by our sights.   So that's one of the indications of what's going on.

   Q.  ff there's no air support, are you saying . .
   A: A very, very tough air environment.   Obviously, as this box gets smaller
and smaller, okay, and the bad weather, it gets tougher and tougher to use the
air, and therefore, the air is acting more in an interdiction role than any other.