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CNN Live Saturday

U.S. Puts Up $25 Million Reward for Terrorists Responsible for Attacks

Aired September 22, 2001 - 15:00   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN's continuing coverage of America's New War, I'm Daryn Kagan at CNN Center in Atlanta. For you now, a look at the latest developments.

The United States has put up nearly $25 million in reward money to find those responsible for last week's terror attacks. As the U.S. gears up for possible military strikes, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are claiming to have shot down an unmanned spy plane. It remains unclear whether the plane was an American aircraft. The Pentagon is refusing to comment on that development.

President Bush and the top advisers are at Camp David once again plotting their strategy, as thousands of reservists await orders for deployment.

And new evidence reveals a desperate and wild struggle in the final moments aboard United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed in Pennsylvania. More on that story just ahead.

Want to start in Pakistan. Taliban officials are trying to determine the origin of that unmanned spy plane that it reportedly shot down today just northwest of Kabul. Let's go to Islamabad, Pakistan right now with the latest on that and other developments from that region, and bring in our Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, starting with the alleged shooting down of this spy plane or this aircraft, what can you tell about that?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the only thing we can tell you is that we called the foreign ministry in Kandahar today in Afghanistan. We spook to the foreign ministry official there, the spokesman, who said that they have word -- they've confirmed, he said -- that a pilotless spy plane is down over territory that the Taliban control north of Afghanistan.

They said that they didn't know whether it was Russian or American, but that they said it had computerized equipment on it, and they were trying to get bits of the refuge down to them in Kandahar, which is quite a trek. And perhaps we'll see some evidence of that at some point. We obviously are unable to independently confirm that ourselves.

KAGAN: Let's talk about the country you're in right now, Christiane, Pakistan. A lot of people surprised last week when the leader of that country and pledged support to the U.S., yet some in the west still skeptical about the amount of support that will come through. Are you getting indications from within Pakistan how much support will come through for U.S. military efforts?

AMANPOUR: Well, a senior Pakistani government official tells CNN that the Pakistanis do have a bottom line -- that they won't allow their forces or their military equipment to be used in any military action but, they said, as a last resort -- and the hope in the words of this official -- that the United States realizes the kind of pressure Pakistan is under from opponents in this country. But nonetheless, they say as a last resort if ours, they would allow U.S. troops and U.S. military equipment to be based here in some bases, somewhere in Pakistan, presumably bases which would be of low profile if possible.

KAGAN: Up until today, Christiane, only three nations had diplomatic ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Today, one of those cut off ties with the Taliban. Can you tell us more about what's happening with the United Arab Emirates?

AMANPOUR: Well, exactly, there were three countries. Now there are two, and the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, broke up diplomatic relations saying that they were disappointed with the way the Taliban had failed to cooperate with the international community despite, they said, that they had asked the Taliban to do so. So now, it's really full intense and purpose is Pakistan, which is the only open diplomatic link

KAGAN: Christiane ...

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Go ahead.

AMANPOUR: ...the clear, the Taliban is saying that there is no diplomatic activity or any negotiations or efforts under way at all right now.

KAGAN: Thanks for clearing that up. Now we can explain to our viewers the slight delay because of the satellite to bring you to us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Christiane Amanpour, thank you for that report. And now we go to Washington D.C. and Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well, they are here in Washington at the Pentagon. They are saying nothing at all about those reports of an unmanned spy plane being shot down in Afghanistan, and for the very latest in the Pentagon, let's go to our military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

Jamie, the truth is, we wouldn't expect the Pentagon to comment on something like this under any circumstances, would we?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, in the past, the Pentagon has confirmed if it's lost an unmanned aerial vehicle over some place. For instance, they've done it twice when such unmanned vehicles were lost over Iraq in recent days, but they keep telling us that they've changed the rules now with the new campaign against terrorism, and they don't plan to comment on anything.

In fact, Pentagon officials seem to be somewhat enjoying the confusion about the reports from the Taliban that an unmanned spy plane was shot down over their territory. The only comment I can get from a Pentagon official here was, one, we're not going to discuss operational security matters and, two, don't believe everything the Taliban says. So, you have to read into that what you may, but the Pentagon is deliberately trying to keep the reports ambiguous. They like the suspected terrorists to have no idea -- to feel that maybe something is about to happen or maybe it won't happen for a while.

For instance, a second deployment order, the Pentagon sources told us yesterday, have not yet been signed by Secretary Rumsfeld. Normally, that's the kind of thing that the Pentagon would acknowledge, that at least the order had been signed, but again, despite a published report in "The New York Times" today saying the order was signed, they're still not talking about it.

We do know that that additional deployment order was for support planes to support the deployment of more than a hundred aircraft that are leaving to destinations that are not disclosed. Among those, B-52 bombers have left from Barksdale, Louisiana last night and yesterday, heading for a destination undisclosed. Sources have indicated that in the past these planes have operated out of the British base of Diego Garcia, but they won't say where they're going this time.

So, it is a completely different situation that we're dealing with here in terms of even the routine information that the Pentagon is giving out about these operations. They believe that any bit of information could end up giving some kind of intelligence to the people that they may be targeting in the days and weeks and months ahead -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Well, Jamie, are you getting any sense that, at all, for example how officials are reacting to the report today in "The Washington Post" that says "Saudi government is at this point not willing to let the U.S. use a command center there at a military base on their soil?"

MCINTYRE: Well, like I said earlier, they were enjoying some of the confusion. And now they're enjoying the confusion about this subject as much. The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia had always been a very -- one that has to be handled very gingerly, because of the problems that the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia causes for the Saudi royal family.

The general rules that the United States is operating with in Saudi Arabia had been that the least said about something, the more permission the United States has -- the more freedom they have to move, the less publicity it gets.

So, the U.S. does have a brand new air operation center at the Prince Sultan Air Base, which logically might be some place to be used as a command center in future operations, but the more that that's discussed in the press, the less likely the Saudi family is to agree to the United States doing that. This is the kind of situation where the United States doesn't ask for permission. The Saudi government doesn't give the permission, and the United States has more freedom to act if they don't have to make any kind of formal requests -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Jamie McIntyre, our military affairs correspondent. Thanks very much. And as I try to speak with sirens going behind me in downtown Washington, we understand that they're not saying very much at the Pentagon at all, but we have joining us now someone who can shed perhaps some more light on the thinking at the Pentagon, and he is former General Shepperd Smith -- Donald Shepperd. I'm sorry. I'm thinking of someone else.

General Shepperd, you were in the military for 40 years with the Air Force, and you spent a number of years there at the end as head of the National Guard. My first question to you is, as, you know, we hear the Pakistanis for example say, "Well, we might be able to support something only if it's very targeted. We know the reason for it if it's very targeted." How realistic is it, General Shepperd for the Pakistanis, or any other country in that area, to expect that of the United States?

MAJOR GENERAL DONALD SHEPPERD, FORMER HEAD OF AIR NATIONAL GUARD: It's very tough for the Pakistanis and also for the Saudis because of the sensitivities in the Muslim world, and Jamie's report there is exactly what should be going on. It's called off-sect or operational security. The Pentagon is locked down. They're not saying anything. They're leaving it for us to guess to protect the troops out there, so what's going on is novel, a lot of it is rhetoric. It will sort itself out later on. Sometimes we'll act, sometimes we won't.

WOODRUFF: But my question is, how realistic is it to think that whatever we do will be very targeted? Because -- and I'm also for the Soviets, the former Soviet Union spent years trying to break down the forces in Afghanistan with bombing, missiles, and they couldn't do it.

SHEPPERD: It's going to be really hard to try target these small cells of people that have melded into the hills and melded into the population around us. It's going to be most difficult. The center of gravity in this war is the Taliban leadership, and they've learned to disperse, because they know things are coming over there.

So, it's going to be most difficult. We're going to have to be very wise and very careful. The encouraging thing is, we're not striking. We could have struck in the first few hours after this incident. We're not striking. We're taking our time to sort this out, and we're doing a lot of things besides military action, which is the rewards, the surveillance from the satellite from other things that are going on. We're taking our time to do it right.

WOODRUFF: Well, what are the tools at the disposal of the United States, general, if indiscriminate bombing and, you know, certain kinds of missiles attacks didn't work for the Soviets, what is it that the U.S. has that they didn't have and were not able to win a war without ... SHEPPERD: They've got the attention of the international coalition. A lot of partners out there are doing a lot of smart things behind the scenes -- taking away their money through banking. We also have a capability militarily to do a lot of things with special forces -- small teams. We're very good at it. We've practiced ...

WOODRUFF: For example?

SHEPPERD: For example, we have SEALs, we have Air Force people we can insert, Rangers, and an ejective forces type of thing to work with partisan groups within the country. We've got the full scale, all the way from bombing and rockets down to very small teams that do secret things that we may never hear about.

WOODRUFF: Even in this very rugged, very mountainous area that we are told that the forces of bin Laden have just dug themselves into?

SHEPPERD: Yes, you've got a lot of rhetoric about the Russians couldn't do it, why do we think we can? Well first of all, we're better. We have better weapons, we have better intelligence, we've really progressed in training since then, but the key to success anywhere is not all your bombs and bullets, it's the skill of the individual soldier, airman and sailor out there. We've really cropped us the things necessary. We've got a much better military than we had during the Gulf War. We've got the skills necessary to do what we need to do.

WOODRUFF: I keep hammering at this question, general, because I read a couple of articles, one in particular, quoting several former Soviet generals saying in effect, "The United States can drop as many bombs, they can fire as many missiles as they want at Afghanistan, but it's not going to do any good. These people know how to hide."

SHEPPERD: They know how to hide, but we also know how to fight. They're right. If you go in there and indiscriminately carpet bomb, if you hit the wrong things, if you don't have the right intelligence, if you're not tied up with the Northern Alliance, if you don't have the right pieces of machinery, you're not going to accomplish anything.

We're taking our time to make sure we don't do that. The difference is, the Russian generals are wrong. We have the tools, and we're going to do it this time. It may take a long time and the patience of the American people, but we're going to do it.

WOODRUFF: All right, Major General Donald Shepperd, retired from the Air Force, thank you very much.

SHEPPERD: My pleasure.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

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