Representative Heather Wilson: “I told the gentleman I was a skeptic about plans, and I am. I will share some of the things I think are right about what…”

“I told the gentleman I was a skeptic about plans, and I am. I will share some of the things I think are right about what we have seen so far, what the military has accomplished under the leadership of General Franks in southwest Asia. First, the tactical surprise. I do not think the enemy, and I do not think a lot of Americans, expected him to jump off with a ground assault. We did not do that 12 years ago. We waited for 38 days of punishing air strikes. But instead, they did something that I think was smart and took advantage of the situation, a completely different situation on the ground, a completely different political objective and military plan to achieve that objective. But they got tactical surprise. As a result, that force that came out of Kuwait not only seized the oil fields intact after they saw seven of them burning, they jumped off early to try to keep the rest of the oil fields intact to benefit the Iraqi people and rebuild Iraq, but they also seized the bridges up and down the Tigris and the Euphrates to allow our forces to advance instead, as the gentleman said, to build them as they go. So they had tactical surprise. They were rapid, very nimble.”