[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Let's go to the Pentagon now. CNN senior military senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is standing by. Even among all of these developments, Jamie, a potentially significant deployment that you're getting word of. Tell our viewers. JAMIE Mc
[Intyre, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, we've known for some time that the F-117 stealth fighters, about a dozen of them, would be deployed to the Gulf region. We learned today that as of last night those fighter planes began to leave their base at home, an air force base in New Mexico, heading for the Gulf region, presumably to Kuwait. That's where they've usually been based, although U.S. is not saying exactly where they're going. Of course the F-117s, with their radar-evading capability, played a pivotal role in the opening parts of the 1991 Gulf War. Pentagon sources say their stealth abilities aren't quite as critical now, that the U.S. has other weapons platforms, including the B2 stealth bomber, which can drop 16 satellite guided bombs at a time. The F-117 only carries two 2,000-pound bombs. So it's not expected to play as pivotal a role, but yet it still has a great symbolic value since it led the air campaign with state of the art technology in 1991. Now the technology is a little older, but the symbolic importance of that deployment clearly shows the U.S. preparing for military action against Iraq Wolf.
[Blitzer:] It's been widely reported, Jamie, that the B2 stealth bomber is the bigger stealth aircraft. They need special hangars, special equipment to deal with them, that those kinds of arrangements have been set up on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. But do we know yet whether B-2 bombers have actually been stationed there? Mc
[Intyre:] Well, The B-2s will be used in the opening part of any war against Iraq. That's almost a certainty. But they will fly from their base in Missouri for the opening part of the war. That way they can preserve the maximum element of surprise and then they will recover, as they say, at two bases, either Diego Garcia, where there are two shelters set up for the maintenance of those B-2s, and Fairford, England, where they've also set up two of these shelters. Now, the B-2s don't need shelters all the time but they do need them in order to repair the B-2, which has to be cured at a certain temperature. So that's the purpose of those shelters. But the B-2s can operate in any weather and they will be a very important part of the opening part of any campaign against Iraq.
[Blitzer:] Jamie McIntyre, senior Pentagon correspondent. Jamie, thanks very much for all of that information. Once again we're following this latest development, an interview, a videotaped interview on British television, and the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein granting to a British member of parliament, a British politician, a socialist, an anti-war activist, who was just in Baghdad. The interview conducted on Sunday, airing tonight on British television. We'll have more coverage of this breaking news. USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com with Iraq