Cohen, left, and Shelton describe bombing damage Saturday INTERACTIVE: U.S. military releases bombing damage assessments for 3 nights of attacks on Iraq

December 19, 1998
Web posted at: 6:10 p.m. EST (2310 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Operation Desert Fox has caused "significant damage" to facilities relating to Iraq's ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, according to U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen.

"We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year," Cohen said at a Pentagon briefing Saturday afternoon.

Airstrikes, Cohen added, would continue until the operation's objective -- "degrading" Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ability to threaten his neighbors -- was achieved.

"The operation is going to continue until the president decides that it has been completed," the secretary said. "It's still under way."

Cohen was joined at the news briefing by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton, who said British and American forces flew 150 sorties over Iraq on Friday night. About 350 sorties have been flown since the operation began overnight Wednesday. The number of targets hit since the beginning of the campaign "is in the 90s," the chairman said.

"We are very pleased with the results of operation so far," Shelton said. "We've had significant success in our airstrikes."

The sorties have encountered "heavy aircraft fire," Shelton said, but no American or British aircraft or personnel have been hit.

The Pentagon has not been as successful at translating "the arcane language of battle damage assessment" into plain English, Shelton said. Much of Saturday's briefing was spent explaining how damage assessors discern between light, moderate and severe damage, and when they declare a facility destroyed.

"When the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed," Cohen said by way of illustration, "the initial photographs ... described that damage as being moderate."

Assessments, both Cohen and Shelton said, are initially made conservatively, and changed as better information becomes available.

RELATED VIDEO Watch the latest gun camera video released by the Pentagon Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K 3.6 Mb / 42 sec. / 240x180 QuickTime movie Please enable Javascript CNN's Jane Arraf reports on the damage done to southern Iraq Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K CNN's Brent Sadler reports from Baghdad Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K Baghdad hit again Saturday morning Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K View the U.S. Department of Defense video of bombs hitting targets in the initial attack Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K Quicktime Movie 4 M / 38 sec. CNN's Jamie McIntyre reports on the military equipment being used by the U.S. against Iraq Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K Sights and sound from Thursday night's attack in Baghdad Real 28K 56K Windows Media 28K 56K More video and audio

"We will have refinements of the photographs in the next few days," Cohen said. "We do not want to have misconceptions" about the damage inflicted on Iraqi facilities.

Among the targets attacked by American and British airstrikes were 32 air defense system targets, 20 command and control facilities, 18 security facilities, 11 industry facilities, nine Republican Guard facilities, six airfields, and one economic facility, according to the Pentagon. The attacks destroyed seven command and control facilities, one air defense system and two security facilities, the Pentagon said.

The aim, said Rear Adm. Thomas Wilson, a senior official on the Pentagon's Joint Staff, was to render the facilities unusable.

"We don't aim at every building in a facility," he said. "We aim for key parts that we think are most important."

Cohen said the military attacks were not focusing on the "dual purpose" facilities -- those that could serve a civilian as well as a military purpose.

"We did not target those facilities which are dual-use capable because of the concern for damage to innocent civilians," he said. "We are not going to engage in acts which could result in the deaths of many, many innocent people."

The third night of bombing, Cohen said, targeted mostly Republican Guard facilities in the southern part of Iraq.