“Sir,” Major Banner said, “I reviewed the tape of the F-22s that went down in the past battle, and the same thing is happening again here. Our pilots are so dependent on their electronics that when the fighters get in close they are not ready. Our birds are far more maneuverable but our pilots are thinking with their computers too much. Tell them to avoid close combat as much as possible and we will retain more of our force. Get them to engage only from long distances.”
“Son of a Bitch!” Shouted the General. “Send out the order now! No close in engagements if at all possible. Their MIG pilots are too well trained for close in combat. Use the technology and speed to the full advantage. Stay out far, out run them if you have to. Long distance engagements will keep our guys up, and our birds in the fight. Go NOW!” the Chairman ordered.
The orders went out. The battle shifted quickly to a greater distance fight. The American pilots started to become dominant once again.
Their stealthy fighters were difficult to get missile lock on at a distance.
The same could not be said of the enemy MIGs.
The fighter on fighter battle had drawn everyone’s attention. The bombers came in behind. There were not enough MIGs left unengaged to harass the bombers as the enemy’s numbers were continuing to decline due to the dominance of the United States fighter aircraft.
Some of the screens changed to show satellite images of the ground. Thankfully it was a clear enough day for the images the men in the room watched as the enemy took huge losses in every sector of their ground forces. The bombers moved around without so much as a scratch.
Finally, the one target that was assumed would make a difference was reached. In groups of three some of the largest bombers opened their bomb bay doors and dropped their payloads. Three of the B-52s dropped their entire loads, 210,000 pounds of munitions on the leadership compound in Iran. Identical, and exactly timed attacks occurred on the leadership compounds of the Iranian allied countries.
The damage could be seen.
It was heavy, but it was certain there would be some survivors due to the depth of the bunkers. The leadership always found deep bunkers for themselves, and a very limited number of bunker busters were used. The goal was to get them to quit, not utterly destroy the nations. There was no way to tell how many civilians would be packed into those bunkers. It was a virtual certainty that the leadership had brought their families at a minimum.
Then, as quickly as it all began, the bombers were headed out. The remaining fighters, 80 % of the American force, headed home. Losses had occurred, pilots had been shot down, but the battle was over, “Mr. Chairman. How long before we know how much of their forces we have destroyed.”
“Mister President, thanks to modern technology I can tell you pretty close to the final number now. We have destroyed, essentially, their entire remaining Air Forces. They have lost ninety percent of their tank forces. Their leadership compounds were punched hard, but not destroyed, that way there is someone left to surrender. If I where a betting man I would say they would be on the phone to the United Nations in the next hour.”
“Wanna put $20 on it General?” asked the President.
“You are on Mr. President,” the Chairman agreed.
The men in the room continued to watch for a short time to ensure they knew when all the American assets were in friendly airspace. Then they would head over to brief the press.
Suddenly the phone in front of the President rang. He had left orders to only allow two people in the world through on that line.
He picked it up, “This is President Scott Press.”
It was the Israeli Prime Minister, “Mr. President. How was your air campaign?”
“I didn’t tell you about it, for that I apologize. Mr. Prime Minister, how did you know so soon?”
“I just got a call from the head of the United Nations; I asked them to let me call you. Our enemies are unconditionally surrendering, and issuing orders to their troops to return home,” he said.
“Well, that is what we wanted. Sorry I couldn’t tell you our plans. We needed as much operational security as we could on this one. Mr. Prime Minister I will be in touch soon. We need to meet in person as soon as it can be arranged,” finished the President.
The President stood up, “I owe you $20 Mr. Chairman. It only took fifteen minutes. Looks like your plan has worked! Let’s hope they stick to their claims of desiring peace, although I don’t think they have much left to fight with.”
“Thank you Mr. President,” the Chairman said.
Everyone in the room was tired, exhausted from stress, “We are not done yet, and we still have a lot of pilots to pick up. We are sure their people have not gotten word this is over so let’s get those down pilots home before they find them, and shoot them. Mr. President I will call you every thirty minutes with updates. I know you will have to brief the press.”
The Chairman turned his attention to Major Banner, “Frank, I checked this morning with my sources in the Senate. It looks like your confirmation is not going to have a single hitch in it. I look forward to accepting your resignation so you can move on to bigger and better things.”
The General turned around to face the room, “Now Gentlemen, lets make sure we get those pilots back.”
AP NEWS FLASH: The President made a brief, two minute remark, in the Press Room saying that Iran and their Allies are standing down and intend to come to the United Nations to sign an unconditional surrender. This should happen in the coming days.
AP ECONOMIC NEWS FLASH: The stock market rallied over 500 points today after the announcement that hostilities would be coming to an end in the Middle East. Economists believed that if this had not happened the United States economy would have taken at least a decade, and in all likelihood longer, to recover.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Scott Waits had just finished the final press briefing of the day. President Press turned off the television. He was seated in the living room of the residence of the White House.
With him, watching the briefing were his wife, the recently sworn in Vice President, Frank Banner, and his fiancée, Sandra Cooper.
The President looked at the group and said, “I don’t know about you three, but after the war, the confirmation, starting to get the two cities worth of citizens to move, finding a way to get the Iranians to discuss terms at the United Nations rather than them just continually stalling even after their troops had withdrawn, trying to get some tax breaks through so we can kick start the economy, all the while working with various transportation officials to get milk and vegetables to market faster, I could use a weekend away.”
“Mr. President, I agree with you,” said Sandra.
“Sandy, your fiancée is now the Vice President of the United States can you please start calling me Scott, at least when we are in private?” he begged.
“Sure. Scott, I think we could all use a vacation, but there have been all these things going on and people to help. Are you sure we dare? Shouldn’t we stay here and use our time to help those who need it?”
“Sandy, people here in the administration will continue to work, we don’t have to be here every second. No one person can do it all. I think the nurse in you needs to start to realize that you can help far more people by just empowering those around you to do more. Teaching people to do things for themselves and setting the right conditions for that to happen is really the best thing for the country. We can’t ever get the job done by us helping one citizen at a time. The job is just too big. For too many years Washington has tried to micromanage everything down the local level. We have to stop that. We really have to worry about the whole, not just one little group here or there,” said Scott.