STATEMENT OF

LIEUTENANT GENERAL THOMAS MCINERNEY

Former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force

U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ

Hearing of the
Senate Armed Services Committee

September 23, 2002

GEN. MCINERNEY: Mr. Chairman, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, thank you for this special opportunity to discuss a war of liberation to removed Saddam's regime from Iraq.

I will not dwell on the reasons why he should be removed. Suffice it to say the president is correct: We must remove threats such as those posed by Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. We face an enemy that makes its principal strategy the targeting of civilians and non-military assets. We should not wait to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction. We have not only the right but the obligation to defend ourselves by removing these threats. Iraq is part of the war on terrorism and should be treated as such. I will now focus on the way to do it very expeditiously, with minimum loss of life to both the coalition forces, the Iraqi military and people themselves and at the same time maintain a relatively small footprint in the region.

Access is an important issue. And we want to minimize the political impact on our allies adjacent to Iraq that are supporting the coalition forces. Our immediate objectives will be the following: Help the Iraqi people liberate Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein and his regime; eliminate weapons of mass destruction and production facilities; complete military operations as soon as possible; protect economic and infrastructure targets; identify and terminate terrorism connections; establish an interim government as soon as possible. Our longer-term objectives will be to bring a democratic government to Iraq, using our post-World War II experiences with Germany, Japan and Italy, that will influence the region significantly.

Now I would like to broadly discuss the combined campaign to achieve these objectives using what I will call blitz warfare, to simplify the discussion. Blitz warfare is an intensive, 24/7 precision air-centric campaign supported by fast-moving ground forces composed of a mixture of heavy, light, airborne, amphibious, special, covert operations, working with opposition forces that will all use effect-based operations for their target set and correlate their timing forces for a devastating violent impact.

This precision air campaign is characterized by many precision weapons, over 90 percent, using our latest command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, Joint STARS, Global Hawk, Predator, human intelligence, signals intelligence, et cetera, in a network-centric configuration, to achieve less than 10 minutes for time-critical targeting using the Global Strike Task Force and naval strike forces, composed of over 1,000 land- and sea-based aircraft, plus a wide array of air- and sea-launched cruise missiles.

This will be the most massive precision air campaign in history, achieving rapid dominance in the first 72 hours of combat, focused on regime change targets. These are defined as targets critical to Saddam's control -- for example, his command and control and intelligence, his integrated air defense system, his weapons of mass destruction, palaces and locations that harbor his leadership -- plus those military units that resist or fight our coalition forces.

All the military forces will be told, through the opposition forces and our information operations campaign, that they have two choices: either help us change the regime leadership and build a democracy, or be destroyed. In addition, commanders and men in weapons of mass destruction units will be told that they will be tried as war criminals if they use their weapons against coalition forces and other nations.

In a multi-directional campaign, coalition forces will seize Basra, Mosul and most of the oil fields, neutralize selected corps of Iraqi army, and destroy the integrated air defense zone, command and control, the weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq air forces, using stealth, SAM suppression and air superiority assets. This will enable coalition forces to achieve 24/7 air dominance quickly -- I believe within 24 hours -- which is critical to our success.

The expansion of our beachheads in the north, south, east and west regions and the airheads seized with alarming speed will allow the opposition forces to play a very significant role and decisively important role with our special covert operations -- the Iraqi army, air force -- and the Iraqi army air force.

To determine the status, whether friend or foe, or if they disarm themselves politically -- that is their decision -- the opposition forces will communicate with them intensively -- the military -- to neutralize them, and also the Iraqi people, letting them know that they are liberating them from 22 years of oppression, and they are now controlling large amounts of territory. Humanitarian missions will be accomplished simultaneously with leaflet drops, et cetera: "U.S. and other coalition forces are helping us to liberate and change the regime. You, the Iraqi people, must help us to do this quickly, with minimum loss of life."

This information operations campaign must be well planned and executed, working closely with the opposition forces. This means that the administration must move very quickly now to solidify the opposition forces and set up a shadow government with aggressive assistance and leadership from the United States. I cannot overemphasize; this is liberating the Iraqi people, this is not an invasion by U.S. and coalition forces. It is an enabling force.

In summary, the Iraqi forces we are facing are about 30 percent equivalent since Desert Storm, with no modernization.

Most of the army does not want to fight for Saddam, and the people want a regime change. We are already seeing increasing desertions from the regular army as well as the Republican Guards. Let's help them to make this change and liberate Iraq from this oppressor.

President Bush has accurately said, "Inaction is not an option." And I am in support of this position. I also support an international coalition, to include the United Nations, if they will be part of the efforts to remove this regime and its weapons of mass destruction. However, realistically, I have no confidence in Iraq allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to operate there in a satisfactory manner. Time is not on our side. Consequently, I urge the Congress to approve the president's draft resolution that was submitted last week as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman and members, again my thanks. I await your questions.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you -- General McInerney, thank you very much.