Discussion on No-Fly Zones Over Iraq
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back everyone. In the past several days, Iraq's no-fly zone has been the scene of several incidents in which coalition aircraft have come under fire and in return launched missiles at Iraqi targets. The northern and southern no-fly zones were established by the U.S., Britain, and France, after the Gulf War. The purpose, of course, is to protect Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds located in the north -- and retired Air Force General and Gulf War veteran George Harrison is here with us this morning to help explain a little bit about the no-fly zone. Just to give us some background on this, General we -- we have some graphics for everyone to remind -- we've been talking a lot lately about these incursions that have been going on in the no-fly zones. First let's start with the northern no-fly zone which is of course protecting the Kurds there. Incirlik Airbase in Turkey is where most of the Allied troops are coming out of, right?</s>GEN. GEORGE HARRISON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's correct. Mostly the route of flight is across northern Turkey in down through -- avoiding Syria down through -- there's refueling, and then, of course, there's operation down in the no-fly zone.</s>CALLAWAY: And all of the Allied forces protecting that zone are coming out of Incirlik, right?</s>HARRISON: That's right.</s>CALLAWAY: Now let's take a look at the southern no-fly zone. This is the -- the 33rd Parallel we hear a lot about -- a lot of incursions there. In Saudi Arabia is one of the bases that we're hearing a lot about. Prince Sultan Airbase there but it's not the only one, right?</s>HARRISON: That's correct. We're flying out of Kuwait. We're also flying out of the areas that you see highlighted on the map Bahrain, Qatar. But that is, of course -- is a pretty straight shot. And naturally there's a lot of support in terms of what kind of combat measures those kinds of aircraft that support the aircraft that are "in the box," we call it.</s>CALLAWAY: Let's see the close up now of the other locations -- we have - there we go. Here's Kuwait. Here's Bahrain and Qatar. And also we have whatever is in the Gulf at the time, I think the U.S. Abraham Lincoln is there now. How important is that?</s>HARRISON: Well, it's very important, because it gives you another avenue of approach, it lets you come up through that area and it means that we can fly aircraft with out permission of the -- of the states that are providing -- that are providing support.</s>CALLAWAY: Now, we've been talking about these incursions -- there've been some 500, according to Jamie McIntyre, in the past year. That's a big number. In fact, we know that on Monday I believe there were some -- some 50 shots fired at Allied planes on Monday alone, so nothing unusual, but we have seen an increased activity.</s>HARRISON: Well it's intensified somewhat, but this has been going on for almost ten years now. And it's really an incredible sequence of events. The Iraqis have not damaged a U.S. aircraft. They have not done any -- they have not stopped us from operating in these areas; we still maintain our presence in the northern and southern areas so it's really mystifying as to what the military purpose is behind the Iraqi activity.</s>CALLAWAY: Well, could it possibly be Saddam Hussein's goal to -- to get himself a pilot -- perhaps a U.S. or British pilot...</s>HARRISON: Oh, I think he'd like to do that.</s>CALLAWAY: Let's move on to some of the animation we have for everyone on exactly what these incursions look like. Now this wouldn't be everyone, but this is a basic incursion we have allied F- 18 flying into the -- or flying over the no-fly zones...</s>HARRISON: As soon as the animation starts, we'll see that.</s>CALLAWAY: I'm afraid I'm a little slow on the button this morning. There's the no-fly zone. And, the 33rd parallel is where we're going to go, because that's where most of the incursions have occurred.</s>HARRISON: Well, essentially when threat radar comes up and you can see the threat radar radiating the friendly aircraft, the F-18s, well they will see that on their internal sensing gear and if it is a threat radar and not a surveillance radar they're authorized to fire and in this case you see a high speed anti-radiation missile or a harm going after the radiation of the -- of the -- radar.</s>CALLAWAY: Is this the basic incursion that we've seen? It is amazing that there has been no -- no injuries or no damage to even allied craft at this time?</s>HARRISON: Well I think that's a factor of the kind of equipment that we have in the aircraft and the training of the pilots. They understand very well what to do, how to operate, and they avoid the damage.</s>CALLAWAY: General, before we go, one of the most important questions to ask you here is we've shown everyone where the allied forces are operating out of, is this likely to change should this become a full-fledged war?</s>HARRISON: It certainly might. It's not clear that Saudi Arabia will let us operate our aircraft from the territory of...</s>CALLAWAY: And Turkey in the north...</s>HARRISON: Turkey has some issues with the Kurds in their eastern borders so they can be very complicated.</s>CALLAWAY: We could see those locations move, couldn't we?</s>HARRISON: Sure could.</s>CALLAWAY: All right, General, thank you very much. I know you're going to stick around for every one because I'm not the only one with a lot of question about this.