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CNN Live Event/Special

America's New War: Military Expansion Underway

Aired October 01, 2001 - 06:39   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The military expansion is getting under way. Let's check in now with our Bob Franken, who's at the Pentagon this morning. He's got the latest word on the latest deployment.

Good morning, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.

The expansion expands. Another aircraft carrier battle group is joining the flotilla that is fanning out pretty much around the globe. We're talking about the U.S.S. "Kitty Hawk." It had just come into port in Japan after nine days of exercises. It has now turned around, has been escorted out by a flotilla of Japanese destroyers, and it is now going on to points unspecified, unspecified by the Pentagon, which at first wouldn't even comment about the fact, but the Navy later confirmed that.

In fact, the "Kitty Hawk" was going out to join the various battle groups that are in, quote, "the region." The region, as I said, is pretty much all of the globe, but it focuses on the area which is within reach of Pakistan and the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific. There are carrier groups that are now pretty much fanning out in all of those locations, part of the military buildup that we've been witnessing as part of this entire war on terrorism.

Officials tell us repeatedly that there will be a visible component of it, this, of course, being the most visible, and there will be the invisible parts of it, including the cyber battles and the financial battles, and perhaps military battles that will never be seen.

Even so, as the administration's officials talked on the various talk shows, they said that there will be no guarantees of safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS," NBC)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: All of us know that it's not possible to defend against terrorism in every place at every time, against every conceivable technique. Therefore, we have no choice but to take this battle to the terrorists and to find them and to dry up their sources of money and to deal with the people who are harboring them. And that is what we intend to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: And, of course, as I said, there are so many components to this. The military part, there is a continuing buildup. Plans are still be drawn up. The administration says, Don't necessarily expect something that is just some sort of instant gratification, but at some point, with the polls showing that the United States citizens very much want some sort of retaliations for the attacks on the World Trade Center and this building, there is apparently an effort to create some sort of military response. It's just not been announced when.

Leon?

HARRIS: All right, thank you very much, Bob Franken at the Pentagon this morning. We'll talk with you later on.

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