“Remember, stay out of view until I say something. I don’t want them to have any warning it is going to be you. For once in this town a secret has actually been held. They don’t expect this announcement to come today, and no one is going to expect it is going to be you,” the President said to Frank with a smile and walked into the room.
President Press took the podium and started talking. “Sit down everyone and get comfortable it’s going to be a long day for everyone in this room. I am just the first of three people you will have brief you today. The necessity for this will become much more clear as we progress.”
He took a deep breath, “I have not told you this before, but as some news outlets are starting to report, we did step up our bombing efforts a great deal. We had one hundred B-52H Stratofortress heavy bombers moved into position in order to help protect Israel from what would be certain demise based on the amount of military force that was moving on them. There will be a full briefing given by representatives from the Pentagon later today. That briefing will done by a member of the Joint Chiefs but it may not be the Chairman. He is, understandably, very busy.”
“Let me give you a quick overview. We dropped more ordinance in twenty four hours than has been dropped in a very long time. I want to stress one point. Even though the opening salvo to this war committed by Iran was nuclear, we have remained conventional up to this point. These latest rounds of bombings, have all been conventional weapons. This cannot be stressed enough right now. If history is any guide they will very soon claim something to the contrary.”
“In those one hundred bombing runs we have dropped or fired over 7,000,000 pounds of bombs, missiles, cluster munitions, and other devices. The bombers all went in with air cover in the form of fighter aircraft of various designations. This represents the largest air assault since Viet Nam, and I believe the most in a twenty four hour period since the massive air campaigns in Europe during World War 2.”
“As a result of this set of the bombing runs they have lost approximately 30 % of their tank forces. It may be more, we are still examining the results of our attacks. They refuse to turn around or even talk about peace, despite these heavy losses. This is not what we wanted, but it is what the reality is on the ground. We had hoped they would surrender after this attack, especially given our small number of losses. We still continue to urge them to come to the peace table, but we will not allow them to plunder Israel first and talk second. We know their goal is to attack us once they kill off that little country. We did not start this fight, but we do intend to finish it.”
“We have taken losses on our side. We will release no information on the types of aircraft or the pilot, and crew names until after their families can be contacted. That is taking place right now, however our losses were not amazingly heavy, and we have the ability to continue our efforts for the foreseeable future. At this rate of attrition they do not share in that capability of continuing,” the President thought to himself that if the information got out on the lack of immediately availability of spare parts or new airplanes this could get ugly very fast and they would never come to peace negotiations. He wasn’t exactly saying something that was false, but it was all a matter of perspective.
He hoped that fact wouldn’t leak.
“I am sure you have a lot of questions about what is going on. I am needed in the Situation Room to review the current operations, and future plans. One more thing before I leave you.
“Now, for our next announcement, we have not had a full administration since I took office. I promised you that I would nominate a Vice President, and I intend to do that right now,” the room went dead silent and all reporters looked up from their notebooks in amazement.
“The man I am about to introduce can certainly answer any military questions you have within the limits of security about this battle, which is still taking place. He will take questions about the war, or anything else you want to ask him.
“Ladies and Gentlemen I am sorry I don’t have time for the questions you no doubt want to ask me, but I give you the next Vice President of the United States, Army Major Frank Banner,” the President took two steps back from the podium and led the Press Corps in a round of applause as Frank walked in.
The two men shook hands as Frank took the podium.
“Thank you Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen of the press. There is a war going on and I won’t take up a lot of your time with comments on my career direction, other than to say I am deeply honored and I will strive every day to be worthy of the office. I look forward to working with the Senate on a speedy confirmation process. I will work every day to assist the President however asked, and to take his place if need be. Now, before you start asking me questions about what it is I intend to do in office, I think we should really give the Senate the first crack at that. I have appointments lined up with every single Senator in the coming days prior to their debate on my confirmation. I would like to take your questions about our war effort,” he finished.
The room exploded. Everyone asked at once. He waved them down back into their seats, “One at a time, Mark from CNN.”
“Major, congratulations on the promotion, from what everyone has gathered it was and is well deserved. The President said the enemy continues to advance despite taking heavy losses. Can you explain to us why he seemed shocked by this?” asked the CNN reporter.
Frank was relieved to have a question that was right in the middle of his area of expertise.
“Certainly. They have lost somewhere around 30 % of their armor. In a military sense when you lose three in ten of your men, or tanks, or aircraft, unit cohesion is gone. They can no longer function as a unit with decent battle efficiency. The collection of Nations which is advancing on Israel just seems as though they refuse to quit no matter what the losses. They are fighting as though they would rather die than lose. This mind set, for Nations and organized military, is odd behavior. Normally peace negotiations would become a priority, if not outright surrender considering their level of losses,” he answered.
“Ok, Chuck from Fox,” he called on the next reporter.
“Why do you believe they are continuing to fight?” the reporter asked.
“They are fighting for a religious cause. I can tell you from experience that people fighting for a cause, such as a declared Holy War or Jihad, care about the cause more than their lives, or the lives of others. The people we are fighting view it as glorious to die killing those who they believe as infidels or non-believers. They view it as an honor to die for that cause. Their religious leaders tell them to do these things. It is challenging, if not impossible, to get people who are fighting for this kind of reason to quit,” he answered.
“Paul, from New York Times,” Frank pointed.
“How do you think we could get them to stop? If bombing them to pieces doesn’t do it, how do we bring an end to this?” asked Paul.
“That is up to them. At a minimum, their leadership needs to come speak to the UN leadership, or to us. That doesn’t seem to be all that extreme of a request, at least to us. Then we can work to find a way to bring an end to the hostilities in front of all the Nations of the world. We did not start this conflict, but we will continue to fight until they stop. We ask them to do no more than go back to their own countries and leave the countries they have invaded. There must be no more attacks on either Israel, or the United States, from the land, air, or sea. They must also enter international treaties against the use of WMDs as direct signatories, something the United States did years ago,” he answered.