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CNN Live Saturday

U.S. Deployments Continue

Aired September 22, 2001 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN's continuing coverage of America's new war: The battle against global terrorism. I am Judy Woodruff in Washington, and I am joined by my colleagues, Martin Savidge in New York, and from Atlanta with the latest developments, Daryn Kagan -- and, Daryn, we'll start with you.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Judy, starting with our latest developments. Topping it with the latest would be isolation -- the increasing isolation of the Taliban, which has given sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

The United Arab Emirates just cut diplomatic ties with the Taliban. It was one of only three governments recognizing the Taliban. The UAE acting after saying the Taliban failed to respond positively to demands to surrender bin Laden.

Bin Laden is now the target of bounty hungers. The United States has put a bounty on bin Laden and his henchmen. The U.S. is offering $25 million for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Meanwhile, the Taliban says that it shot down an unmanned spy plane northwest of Kabul today. It's not known, though, who owned that plane. The Pentagon is not commenting on that alleged attack.

More developments just ahead -- now let's go back up to Washington and Judy.

WOODRUFF: Well, Daryn, as the United States gears up for the war on terrorism, the Pentagon is preparing orders for the second military deployment.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve joins us now from the Pentagon with the latest from there -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, first to talk about that report Daryn just mentioned from Afghanistan that the Taliban claimed to have shot down an unmanned surveillance vehicle -- aircraft, rather.

The situation is a little bit confusing, because the Taliban ambassador in Pakistan has said it's unclear what country this unmanned aircraft was from, and the Pentagon is not shedding any light on this situation. An official here only saying that they will not talk about operational issues, and they do not want to be drawn into responding to every statement from the Taliban.

The U.S. does, of course, use these unmanned aircraft, like the one you're seeing here on our screen. They are called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAV in Pentagon speak. They're useful for surveillance, because they can be kept in the air for 24 hours. They fly low. They fly slowly. They have no air defenses. And for all of those reasons, they could be vulnerable to attack, but once again, no confirmation or denial from officials here that the U.S. has lost one of these.

Meanwhile, Turkey announced today that it will allow U.S. transport aircraft to use its airspace and air bases in Turkey to respond to the terrorist attack. Turkey, at this point, already allowing the U.S. and British aircraft to use the base at Incerlik for the patrol of Iraq's no-fly zone. This is, however, Turkey's first explicit pledge of support in this instance.

U.S. deployments do continue. B-52 bombers left Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana last night. Officials there will not disclose where they are heading. U.S. officials choosing to say very little about the deployment of their forces, wanting to preserve the element of surprise as they pursue this very elusive enemy.

A lot of attention has been given to the hardware. We know a second deployment order is in the works that would put more support planes at those forward bases in Central Asia and in the Persian Gulf. But it was pointed out today by a retired Air Force general that hardware isn't the only thing to pay attention to. He talked about the importance of special operations forces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. BOB PATTERSON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): A special operations operation is very precise, and it all begins with good intelligence, whether it be overhead intelligence or eyes-on-the-target intelligence. And then from that, you develop a plan. And in that plan, you exercise -- practice, if you will, the scenario, and then you execute. And bringing these forces together is very similar to a ballet. Everyone has their role, everyone has their timing, and there are even backups to the backups. And then you go in and execute on exact schedule.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: Although certainly there is much work being done behind the scenes, there will be no public briefings at the Pentagon today, at least none is scheduled at this point. Secretary Rumsfeld will, however, tomorrow be appearing on some of the Sunday talk shows -- Judy, back to you.

WOODRUFF: All right, Jeanne, thanks very much. And now with some more on U.S. military deployment and plans, we are joined by CNN's military analyst, retired General Wesley Clark, and he joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas.

General Clark, so many Americans are asking how soon should we expect military action. What is your general sense of that?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY CONSULTANT: My sense is that it will be several days at the earliest before we would expect such action based on the time it takes to deploy and the development of the information.

And remember, the action is going to be correlated -- it's not going to be dependent just on the military itself, but it's going to be worked in the diplomatic side. So we bring our coalition partners along with us as best we can as we move into these early efforts.

So I think it's a little bit early yet, and I think it's important that people have patience in their expectations.

WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of that coalition, General, good words -- or good news, I should say, from Turkey today from the perspective of the United States. They are saying they will cooperate -- allow U.S. military to fly over Turkey, use their bases. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, there are reports, that they do not want the U.S. to use one of the command centers at an air base.

Talk about the significance of these developments.

CLARK: Well, I think first of all, it's very gratifying to have Turkish support, and we expect to have strong Turkish support throughout this process. Turkey, after all, is a very important member of NATO, and we have worked with Turkey for many, many years. And so, we are grateful for Turkey's support, or the United States should be.

Now, with respect to Saudi Arabia, I think this is more of a political issue than it is a military issue. Of course, that's a great command center there. It's relatively new, and it would be very useful. But there are other ways to command and control the forces.

What's important to watch here is the extent of Saudi Arabian support for the effort as a whole. You know, Osama bin Laden and the terrorist network do have connections to some money and financial backing, reportedly, from Saudi Arabia. And Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia from a Saudi Arabian family himself.

And so, it's going to be very important to bring that country fully into the coalition, and we -- obviously the United States would like to have their full support. It may take some time to get it, and I think that's what this indicator shows us.

WOODRUFF: General Clark, what do you mean by full support? What specifically should the United States -- does the United States need from Saudi Arabia in order to do what it would like to do?

CLARK: Well, the most important aspect of this operation is information. And so, even as far back as the Khobar Towers investigation, there was some information that apparently wasn't released by the Saudi government to the United States. It would have helped us follow-up on the investigation of who precisely ordered and coordinated the bombing of that barracks in 1996. And so, we've got to have information from the Saudi government. That information includes, not only individuals, but it includes financial transactions and how the money flows back and forth. And obviously, that's very sensitive information. It may be embarrassing to certain people in Saudi Arabia. It may implicate them in some of this.

And this is what's really critical: the Saudi government needs to give us its full -- give the United States and the coalition its full support in rooting out the terrorist network in however it may be connected to Saudi Arabia.

WOODRUFF: And just quickly, General, in the last hour, I spoke with a representative of the Northern Alliance. This, of course, is the rebel group fighting the Taliban inside Afghanistan.

How important will it be to have their cooperation? Does it matter very much, or are they seen too much as a losing group against the Taliban?

CLARK: Everything we can do to strengthen them and bring them into this fight, it increases the difficulties for the Taliban. It gives the Taliban another something else to worry about. It will help if we're going after the Taliban government like that.

So, yes, even though they are split, even though they have difficulties, we'd like them to take strong measures as much as they can do.

WOODRUFF: All right. Former NATO commander, retired General Wesley Clark, now a CNN analyst -- thanks very much.

CLARK: Thank you, Judy.

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