AP NEWS FLASH: Help has started to arrive at the hospitals in the two attacked U.S. cities. The International Red Cross has supplies moving toward Israel. The U.S. hospitals now claim that the critical care needs have leveled off and with additional supplies and medical personnel should be able to continue to function to help those in need of care with all the follow up appointments that will become necessary. Hospital workers have heralded the arrival of additional supplies, which were just the boost they needed as the morale had started to fall quickly.
AP ECONOMICS NEWS FLASH: Prime Defense Contractor Lockheed Martin filed for bankruptcy protection today. A company spokesperson stated that this was necessary while the company determines what will be required to rebuild their destroyed facilities. In other news, applications for government food assistance are rising rapidly as the price of food goes up and more families find themselves unable to purchase the most basic necessities. Some lawmakers are pushing for the start of a government gasoline assistance program for lower income families given the current price per gallon having settled back down, but still at an average of $5.00/gallon nationally. This is exceptionally high as compared to the median national income and people at, or below that level being able to afford this necessity.
Chapter Nineteen
President Scott Press stood at the podium in the briefing room of the White House finishing his opening statements concerning the air attack he had ordered. In recent years, Presidents had given speeches coinciding with the orders being given, prior to commencement of hostilities. In this case he decided it would be better to fill the press in after the first wave of the attack was complete and the pilots and their crews had cleared Iranian airspace. Usually the press had ways of figuring these things out anyway, but he was glad this time that the secret held. Somehow, he was sure the press would be pissed he hadn’t given them early warning, but to give the information about the strike to them meant that the enemy had the information as well. He wanted the element of surprise, which could work for both sides. It had certainly worked for the enemy.
“We gave the orders twenty-four hours ago to begin an air campaign in order to slow the Iranian ground forces moving on Israel. As you can see from the satellite photo, the Iranian military was mobilizing their twelve hundred or so tanks coming out of four different bases. They were nearly ready to move forward with a massive invasion of our ally, Israel.
“We have received no official communication from their government with regards to any of their actions, or any subject at all for what it matters. Their delegation to the United Nations has confirmed to the world that they were responsible for the nuclear attacks. They now claim their conventional troop activity is merely a training exercise. Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t believe that to be true.
“I will remind everyone that the United Nations Security Council has voted on, and approved our use of force. When I took office I promised as much transparency as practical. We are going to review the information that can be safely released without jeopardizing any ongoing military operations.”
The picture behind the President changed to one of the Middle East. It had nothing but country names and outlines on a map, “They were preparing to move their armored units out of Iran, across Iraq and Syria then into Israel. Since Iran refuses to speak to anyone from the United States or the United Nations we launched an attack from our air base, shown here in Turkey,” he pointed to a spot on the picture behind him, “and we also used other Naval aviation assets from one of our carrier groups in the area.”
He motioned to General Jackson who was behind him, “Now ladies and gentlemen, before you start asking questions, I am going to turn you over to someone much better at answering them, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Glenn Jackson. He will fill you in with as many details as possible. I have a few matters to attend to.”
“Thank you Mr. President,” the General said as he took the podium, “As the President said we know that the Iranians were preparing their tanks to move from four different bases and make a move on Israel, whom they also hit in their coordinated nuclear assault. We attacked one of those four bases. It was the closest geographically to Israel, and therefore the tanks would be the first to be in a position to engage in hostilities.”
“We used a variety of different assets, all of which are outlined in your briefing packets. Every bit of ordinance we dropped was conventional weaponry and we have confirmed from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite photographs that no civilian targets were hit. Their local television stations are already saying we did kill some large number of civilians, I can guarantee you we did not, unless they intentionally placed civilians inside purely military targets. The targets we hit with our smart weapons were known to be military in nature.”
The picture on the screen changed to show one of the Iranian Armor bases as it appeared before the attack, “As you can see here, Iran had been preparing these two hundred tanks to move. They were, by our estimation, twelve hours away from being able to do just that. All of the base names and types of tanks seen here are being passed out to you right now in the press kits. You will all get these images on a USB memory card in the highest resolution we can provide. I know that is a little unusual, but we want you to have the best possible imagery,” the Chairman said. He had argued that the American people deserved to know their enemy.
The picture changed to show the Middle East with the possible routes to take into Israel marked with red arrows, “Israel is, geographically speaking, a very small country. The nuclear attacks left them with little or no means to defend themselves against the size conventional attack that had been undergoing preparations. We stepped up to the plate here, and slowed down this attack. Part of it we completely stopped it in its tracks. Further detailed information of the results of our bombing runs are coming in, even as we speak. There will be follow up briefings scheduled as we obtain new data and verify the accuracy.”
The image once again faded out then back in, “Using our stealthy bombers we destroyed many of their anti-aircraft missiles sites, as well as a great deal of their radar capacity. Their fighter aircraft did not enter the fight. Our attack was too rapid and too well coordinated for them to manage any kind of response quickly enough to make a difference. We were in and out of their airspace before their pilots could even get to their airplanes,” the General said with obvious pride in his voice.
The image changed again, “In addition to some of their tanks, we destroyed parts of every road, bridge, or railway they could use to move these tanks quickly. The only routes they have left now are over land, which will slow them down a great deal.”
The picture behind the General changed again to show one of the Iranian armor bases in ruins. Tanks could be seen still on fire as a result of the bombing and missile attacks. Very few ground vehicles appeared to still be in anything resembling working order.
“Surprise was necessary to our battle plan and that was the driving reason behind our media blackout up to this point. As is apparent from the picture a large number of these target packages have been successfully destroyed. Those not destroyed were so heavily damaged as to be rendered useless for some time to come,” multiple pictures of craters and destroyed equipment flipped past so quickly that the press could see each one only briefly. One thing was obvious, a great deal of ordinance had been dropped, and a large number of tanks had been destroyed.
Finally the images stopped on a wide shot of the Iranian Armor Base, “As you can see here, once we had their anti-aircraft batteries out of the battle, we bombed these two hundred tanks. These used to represent the heaviest armored vehicles in their arsenal. Approximately seventy five percent of these tanks have been totally destroyed and the remaining roughly twenty five percent have been damaged to the point where we believe they are unfit for combat duty.