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Modern-day blitzkrieg
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Iraq has six days to let the United Nations know whether it will comply with the terms set out in a resolution passed unanimously by the Security Council Friday. CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper spoke with retired Air Force Gen. George Harrison about how a possible war in Iraq might be fought. Cooper: In Jamie McIntyre's report they talked about a modern day blitzkrieg. Is that what this thing is going to look like? Harrison: I think that's exactly what it'll look like. I think this war, if and when it comes, will be characterized by what I call shock and sustainment. It'll be an initial heavy blow, primarily air, but certainly supported by all kinds of other sorts of operations. But it won't be a one-time shot, it'll be a sustained operation so that the enemy -- the Iraqis -- don't have an opportunity to recover from the shock. Cooper: Much like the last Gulf War... Harrison: That's correct. That's right. Although this will be much more intense and much more precise. Remember we had mostly unguided bombs during the Gulf War. This time it'll be primarily guided bombs with ... accuracy errors down in the tens of feet area rather than in the hundreds of feet area. Cooper: Is that because the weaponry has improved? Harrison: The weaponry has significantly improved. The J-DAM that Jamie was just talking about ... the Joint Direct Attack Munition is a GPS-guided bomb. If you know the coordinates of the target it'll hit within 10 or 15 feet of the target. Cooper: Now in Jamie's report, they talk about not only this aerial blitzkrieg with missiles, bombs ... also covert operations and psychological operations. Sounds a lot like the war in Afghanistan. Harrison: Well it does. And it'll have some of those characteristics but it'll be much more intense it'll be much wider in scale, much broader in scope. The infrastructure in Iraq is more developed so the infrastructure, the things that sustain the Iraqi military machine can be targeted more precisely. As you recall we had a very vague enemy in the Taliban. Cooper: There's been a lot made, and particularly by the Iraqis, of they're going to be fighting in the cities they're going to be defending the cities. And it may be talk, it may be bluster. How seriously do you think the United States should take that? Harrison: Well I think the U.S. will take it very seriously but I think our planners understand that that is the Iraqis' strength and we'll avoid that kind of fighting. We don't want to get bogged down in city fighting digging out those 15,000 inner circle guards of Saddam's one at a time. And we'll figure out ways to approach that problem without getting bogged down in the city. Cooper: In the last Gulf War so much was made about the Republican Guard and these highly elite trained troops and in the end ... after significant bombing they didn't seem so highly trained... Harrison: A portion of the Republican Guard was ready to fight, unfortunately for them the U.S. Army was well-prepared and was able to move in with again, shock action and take out those Republican Guards that were willing to fight. They weren't a pushover by any means. That was a tough fight for the U.S. Army. Cooper: So you think there will be opposition. Harrison: There will be opposition. Cooper: I want to move on to the Predator. Because so much attention was paid to elections a lot of people kind of missed this really significant operation in Yemen really conducted by a Predator drone that took out a suspected terrorist. Harrison: That's right. It was almost "Star Wars" in its context, the way that it operated. The Predator as you know is essentially a radio-controlled model airplane. It's a fairly good-sized airplane, probably about the size of a Cessna 150, 172, something like that. Cooper: As a kid I would've dreamed of a model airplane like this. Harrison: It is really fantastic. But in addition to all the things that a model airplane pilot has, the flight controls, the radio controls, all those kinds of things, the operators of the Predator operate the sensors, the low light level TV, the infared sensor, the electro-optics, much like a television camera, and they have in addition to that on the Predator that was used in Yemen, the capability to fire Hellfire missiles from the Predator itself. Cooper: And that is obviously a very significant capability. We don't want to give anything away that would adversely affect things, but what can you tell us about how this thing works? I mean, you don't need a person on the ground with a laser sight pointing at this truck. Theoretically this truck was driving along in a relatively unpopulated area in Yemen and what, these Predators are just flying around constantly? Harrison: Well the Predator was hovering over the area. I'm sure that there was some kind of an intelligence operation that gave the operators of the Predator an idea that this is a place to look at, a place to have a Predator orbiting. The Predator was clearly in orbit, it had Hellfire missiles onboard. Cooper: So you need intelligence to know what you're looking for. Harrison: Sure, sure. You need intelligence with the TV camera to know where to point it. You have to have some queuing so that you know where to look. But once you know where to look, once they've focused on the primary target, they keep the target in sight, and then when it's time to take the target out, there is a laser which is coaligned with the sensor, whether it's the TV, the infared, whatever. The laser puts a spot on the target, the Hellfire is launched and the Hellfire goes after the laser spot. Cooper: Now is this being done out of an AWACS and where they're circling overhead even higher or is it being done from a ground base? Harrison: Probably from a ground-based operation which does not have to be very close to the Predator. It can be thousands of miles away. Cooper: Is there any sense, and I don't know if it's public knowledge or not, how many Predators there are out there? Harrison: I'm not sure. The Air Force operates one. I'm not sure about the numbers that have been published. The Air Force does operate one squadron of Predators. And the airplane is continuing to be produced. As a matter of fact, there's a follow-on model, the Predator B, which will be a little more powerful, fly a little higher and have longer endurance. Cooper: We don't know who it was who had to give the order to fire that (Hellfire). My understanding from all the press reports is that the president of the United States has signed some sort of directive which no longer requires he be to say: "Go ahead and fire the missile." Harrison: I'm not clear about the exact release procedure. We know that it was a CIA-operated Predator. That's been published. And I'm not sure that there's been any publication of the approval process. But clearly so many of these operations can conceivably go on at one time the president can't possibly authorize release of every single weapon. Cooper: It would seem to be rather cost effective. Relatively speaking, a Predator drone, it's unmanned, it's cost-effective not only in cost but in risk to American lives. Harrison: Well of course it is. And that's the great strength of uninhabited air vehicles. You don't have a pilot at risk. You don't have an American serviceman at risk. And although these things cost about $3 million that's still significantly less than the cost of an F-16 or an F-15E for instance. Cooper: Going back to any possible action in Iraq. Do you think this is going to be unlike anything we've seen before? Harrison: I think it'll be surprising in its characteristics. I think that the planners are working with very innovative approaches, the increased accuracy of the weapons for instance, the capability of the B-2 ... as you recall the F-117 dropped two bombs, the B-2 can drop 40 or 50 with the same degree of accuracy, with the same degree of undetectability. Cooper: Long drawn-out campaign you think? Harrison: Depends on Saddam. But I suspect it will be measured in weeks and months rather than years.
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