Interview with military analyst Vladimir Slipchenko by Aleksandr
Khokhlov;
Vladimir Slipchenko, is military analyst, doctor of military
sciences, professor, and major general of reserves, is a major
Russian specialist on future wars.
His predictions of the course of US military operations in Iraq
(1991, 1996, and 199
, Yugoslavia (1999), and Afghanistan (2001) coincided
almost 100% with what subsequently happened in reality. Today the
military analyst predicts the course and outcome of the next US war
against Iraq, which the American military themselves have already
dubbed Operation "Shock And Awe."
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[Khokhlov] Vladimir Ivanovich, so much has already been said about
the reasons and causes of the new war in Iraq, but I cannot get rid
of the feeling that they are either talking about something
entirely different, or not telling the full story...
[Slipchenko] The main purpose of the war is indeed being left out
of the picture and nobody is saying anything about it. I see the
main purpose of the war as being the large-scale real-life testing
by the United States of sophisticated models of precision weapons.
That is the objective that they place first All the other aims are
either incidental, or outright disinformation.
For more than 10 years now the United States has conducted
exclusively no-contact wars. In May 2001 George Bush Jr.,
delivering his first presidential speech to students at the Naval
Academy in Annapolis, spoke of the need for accelerated preparation
of the US Armed Forces for future wars. He emphasized that they
should be high-tech Armed Forces capable of conducting hostilities
throughout the world by the no-contact method. This task is now
being carried out very consistently.
It should be observed that the Pentagon buys from the
military-industrial complex only those weapons that have been
tested in conditions of real warfare and received a certificate of
quality on the battlefield. After a series of live experiments --
the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan -- many corporations
in the US military-industrial complex have been granted the right
to sell their precision weapons to the Pentagon. They include
Martin Lockheed, General Electric, and Loral. But many other
well-known companies are as yet without orders from the military
department. The bottom line is $50-60 billion a year. Who would
want to miss out on that kind of money? But the present suppliers
of precision weapons to the Pentagon are also constantly developing
new types of arms and they must also be tested The US
military-industrial complex demands testbed wars from its country's
political leadership. And it gets them.
And that is the main aim of the new war in Iraq.
Peculiarities of the War
[Khokhlov] How will this war differ from the no-contact wars
previously waged by the United States?
[Slipchenko] First, in terms of its political objectives. For the
first time since 1991 the United States sets the goal of changing
the political system in the enemy state and removing or physically
eliminating the country's leadership.
They have not previously succeeded in this. Remember, the Americans
did not previously try to remove Saddam Husayn from politics, and
even Milosevic was not removed from the post of Yugoslav leader by
military means. The US Armed Forces carried out their required
tests of new weapons and then packed up their guns and went home.
Now they face a very difficult mission.
Therefore, second, because of the change of objective the strategy
of the war also changes radically For the first time the war aims
mean that the United States must without fail achieve total
victory. To that end it is necessary to achieve three objectives:
rout the enemy's Armed Forces, destroy his economy, and change the
political system.
The Iraqi army will be subjected to very powerful blows. It will be
physically annihilated. In order to impose a new puppet government
in the country (and I am sure the Americans have already formed
that government) and to give that government the opportunity to get
on with its work, the United States will be forced actually to
occupy Iraq. The occupation of territory within which seats of
organized resistance could persist would lead to large losses among
US Army personnel. Guerrillas, and in the context of the Arab world
also shahid martyrs wearing explosive belts -- naturally the
Americans do not need this Therefore they will totally annihilate
the Iraqi army. Practically all Iraq servicemen will die. There
will be terrible carnage.
[Khokhlov] Does Iraq have any chance of offering resistance to the
United States?
[Slipchenko] In Iraq we will once again see a situation where two
generations of warfare meet. Iraq is strong and prepared for a war
of the last generation -- on land and for land, for every target.
But 600,000 soldiers, 220 military aircraft, something like 2,200
tanks, 1,900 artillery guns, around 500 multiple rocket launchers,
6 SCUD missile launchers, 110 surface-to-air missile systems, and
700 anti-aircraft installations will prove useless when they meet
the aggressor.
In fact, there will not be a meeting on the battlefield as such.
The Americans, waging a no-contact war, will methodically use
precision missile strikes to destroy all the key facilities of
Iraq's state and military infrastructure, and will then wipe out
enemy manpower with missile and bombing raids.
Progress of the War
[Khokhlov] How will the Americans begin hostilities?
[Slipchenko] First of all there will be precision strikes against
bunkers and command posts where Saddam Husayn and the Iraqi leaders
might be hiding, against Army headquarters and troop positions, and
against components of the air defense system. Sophisticated
ground-penetrating vacuum-type precision munitions will be used to
destroy buried targets. Even if one of these weapons explodes not
exactly inside, say, an underground bunker, in any case the exits
from the shelter will be blocked. The bunker will become a mass
grave for everyone who is unfortunate enough to be in it.
To destroy armored equipment, in the very first days the Americans
will use cluster aviation bombs with self-guided munitions. The
"mother"-cluster bomb gives "birth" to several tens or hundreds of
"baby" bombs, each of which independently chooses its own target to
destroy on the ground.
I am confident that in the very first hours of the war the United
States will also use new pulse bombs They are also called microwave
bombs. The principle by which these weapons operate is as follows:
an instantaneous discharge of electromagnetic radiation on the
order of two megawatts. At a distance of 2-2.5 kilometers from the
epicenter of the explosion the "microwaves" instantly put out of
action all radioelectronic systems, communications and radar
systems, all computers, radio receivers, and even hearing aids and
heart pacemakers. All these things are destroyed by the meltdown
method. Just imagine, a person's heart explodes!...
As a result of the use of these weapons Iraqi systems for command
and control of the state and troops will be destroyed practically
instantaneously.
[Khokhlov] What other new types of arms could be tested?
[Slipchenko] Since this war will be experimental for the United
States, several new types of precision cruise missiles will be
tested with a view to obtaining quality certificates. I believe
attention will be devoted first and foremost to missile launches
from submarines. The Americans are planning to make their submarine
fleet the main launchpad.
The Pentagon will continue to perfect the mechanism for targeting
precision weapons. In 2000 with the help of the space shuttle
Endeavor the United States scanned around 80% of the surface of the
Earth and created an electronic map of the planet in
three-dimensional coordinates. The level of detail of objects on
this map is down to the size of a window. That is to say, you could
train a lens -- installed in a military satellite -- first on
Baghdad, then on the city center, then on Saddam's palace, and on
his bedroom window. You give the command -- and in a few minutes'
time a targeted cruise missile flies into that window...
[Khokhlov] How long will this war go on?
[Slipchenko] I predict that Operation Shock And Awe will last not
more than six weeks. The first period of the war -- the "shock" --
will last around 30 days. Some 400-500 sea- and air-based precision
cruise missiles will be launched against targets in Iraq every 24
hours. During that month Iraq's troops and its economic potential
will be annihilated. Anything that survives for any reason will be
guaranteed destruction in the next two weeks. In the second stage
-- "awe" -- the Americans will conduct a piloted version of a total
cleanup of the territory. To this end the United States will use
B-52 and B-2 Stealth bombers. In four hours of flight one Stealth
is capable of detecting and destroying as many as 200 stationary or
moving targets on the ground. The United States intends to use at
least 16 B-2 bombers The Stealths will be in the air constantly,
one replacing the other.
[Khokhlov] Will the Iraqi air defense system be able to counter the
American planes and cruise missiles?
[Slipchenko] Iraq already has no air defense facilities in the
north and south of the country -- US aviation is constantly bombing
these areas. What remains in the center of the country will be
destroyed in the first 10 minutes of the war. Iraq's anti-aircraft
system is based on the classical active radar detection system:
emit -- detect -- illuminate -- destroy. The Americans will exploit
this for their own purposes. As soon as an Iraqi radar reveals
itself by emitting electromagnetic energy, a precision cruise
missile will be dispatched against the "revealed" air defense
facility using this same beam. Iraq has no chance of countering
this.
[Khokhlov] How much will this war cost?
[Slipchenko] According to my estimates, $80 billion. But the total
sum spent could rise to 100 billion. We will never know the exact
figure of expenditure, if only because the war will be partly
funded by private companies offering the Pentagon their
experimental models of precision weapons for free in the hope of
future dividends. The program for rearming the US Armed Forces is
about $600 billion Therefore today the military-industrial complex
need not stint, it can give weapons to the Army for free.
[Khokhlov] What human losses could Iraq suffer?
[Slipchenko] Very considerable ones. Since the Americans are
planning to physically annihilate the Iraqi army, I reckon that at
least 500,000 people will be killed. This will be a very bloody
war.
After the Apocalypse
[Khokhlov] What will come after the war?
[Slipchenko] The Americans will have to occupy Iraq. The occupation
corps will apparently consist of four mechanized and armored
divisions, one parachute division, and one division of the British
Armed Forces. All these troops will not fight. There will be no
ground operations in Iraq! The US Army will enter a burning desert
-- the Iraqis will certainly set fire to the oilfields -- without a
single shot being fired. There will simply be nobody to shoot at
them.
[Khokhlov] How long will the direct occupation last? Will the
Americans stay in Iraq forever?
[Slipchenko] They will certainly leave Iraq. There is no point in
their staying there. The occupation will last one and a half, two,
or at the most three years and will cost American taxpayers a
further $80-100 billion to maintain the troops in Iraq. Then the
United States may enlist in an operation that they will undoubtedly
call "peacekeeping" the Poles, Czechs, and other "new recruits" to
NATO, the Estonians, but they themselves will leave. The
"peacekeepers" will stay a further one to one and a half years in
Iraq.
During this time major investments will be made in the country with
a regime friendly to the United States, and in two years' time
Iraq's oil sector will reach a level of oil extraction of 2-2.4
million barrels a day. In five years they will be extracting up to
5 million barrels of oil a day. The world oil price will fall to
$12-15 a barrel. The currently stagnant US economy will soar.
[Khokhlov] And what will happen to Russia's economy, which is
currently supported exclusively by "petrodollars"?
[Slipchenko] I have no answer to that question. I am an expert in
wars.
