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CNN Live Saturday

Pentagon Acknowledges Accidentally Killing Civilians in Afghanistan

Aired October 13, 2001 - 14:02   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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. planes pounded targets in Afghanistan for another day, and the Navy is acknowledging at least one mistake. It's now nighttime in that part of the world, and for the latest on the military situation we turn to CNN's Kathleen Koch live at the Pentagon -- Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, what the Pentagon believes happened was that just around down on Friday, U.S. Navy F/A- 18 Hornet swooped into the air space near Kabul Airport targeting a military helicopter. However, apparently the 2,000-pound joint direct attack munition, or JDAM, that the helicopter dropped -- or that the fighter dropped instead veered off course about a mile away, striking a residential area.

Now, the Pentagon says in a statement, quote, "we regret the loss of life -- the loss of any civilian life. U.S. forces are intentionally striking only military and terrorist targets. They take great care in their targeting process to avoid civilian casualties."

The Pentagon is investigating this incident. It may take several days, but the preliminary indications are what happened was called, a quote, "targeting process error."

Now, these missiles, the JDAMs, were first used during the war over Bosnia, over the former Yugoslavia in 1999, and the military considers them to be very reliable in their initial development stages, achieving an unprecedented 95 percent accuracy rate. So, it's very unclear as to what happened here. These missiles are guided by both global positions satellites and then a tail control system.

They are dropped, as we said, by a variety of aircraft, in this case the Hornet, the Navy's F/A-18. This is an aircraft that is being used quite a greet deal in this current conflict. It provides position and velocity vectors for the weapon when it is dropped. The F/A-18 is a one of the first tactical aircraft that was designed to carry both -- carry out both air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. It flies over 100 miles an hour and has a range of 1,777 miles.

Now, the Pentagon obviously of course regretting this latest incident and unsure as to whether -- as to these casualties and deaths, none of them have been 100 percent confirmed -- John.

KING: And Kathleen, as we follow the developing situation in Afghanistan, understand an incident as well today in the continuing U.S. and British operations patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq?

KOCH: Absolutely, John. And this sort of thing occurs on a very regular basis. What happened this time is that around 8:30 a.m. Eastern daylight time that a U.S. aircraft took out a command and control system. The Pentagon released a statement on that saying that it was in response to hostile Iraqi threats against coalition pilots and air crews, which were conducting routine monitoring of the southern no-fly zone. They are calling it a self-defense measure.

This sort of thing, again, occurs on a very regular basis. The Iraqis have with surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft missiles targeted both U.S. and coalition aircraft more than 1,000 times since 1998, 420 of those times this year alone -- John.

KING: Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon, thank you very much. The president keeping track of all this with a particular emphasis on the continuing war in Afghanistan from the Camp David presidential retreat. Standing by nearby, our Kelly Wallace -- Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi there, John.

First off, no formal reaction from the administration to this accidental bombing. All U.S. officials will say is that President Bush was informed Saturday morning of this accidental bombing of a residential area near Kabul.

We know that the president huddled once again by video teleconference with his national security council. With him at Camp David, his CIA Director George Tenet and his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. All other advisers joining the president from Washington.

Obviously, the president and his team going over the military part of this campaign, as well as other parts of this war on terrorism. The president also delivering a progress report once again to The American people in his radio address, and the president saying that this first week of U.S.-led airstrikes against Afghanistan, the president saying these airstrikes have been a success so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our men and women in uniform are performing as they always do, with skill and courage. And they have achieved the goals of the first faze of our campaign. We have disrupted the terrorist network inside Afghanistan. We have weakened the Taliban's military, and we have crippled the Taliban's air defenses. American forces dominate the skies over Afghanistan, and we will use that dominance to make sure terrorists can no longer freely use Afghanistan as a base of operations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But from the Taliban on this day, more defiance. Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar vowing never to turn anyone over to the United States. The Taliban also rejecting President Bush's second chance offer, that's an offer that he put out at his news conference Thursday, saying if the Taliban decided to adhere to all of his demands, he would reconsider the military action against Afghanistan. Earlier today, an administration official pretty much shrugging off these comments coming from the Taliban, saying that the military actions will continue until the president's demands are met or our objectives are reached, whichever comes first.

And also, John, we saw the president do something else today, something he has been doing offer the past several days, and that is try to calm a very jittery nation. The president saying in his radio address that he knows some Americans are uneasy because of concerns about more terrorist attacks and also because of the anthrax case in New York and the anthrax cases in Florida. The president once again saying the government doing everything it possibly can to protect the American people -- John.

KING: And Kelly, we also know the president is making preparations to leave the country the middle of next week for a several-day trip to China. That trip is cut back, but he still plans to go. Some might ask, why would the commander in chief want to leave the country at a time the U.S. military is engaged in strikes overseas. Why does the president believe that trip is so important at this time?

WALLACE: Well, absolutely. As you noted, the president definitely cut it back, but the administration believing this is a very, very important trip, because number one, it will be a meeting, the Asian Pacific economic cooperation meeting, an important meeting for the president to sit down with Asian allies.

But also, John, it will give him an opportunity to meet with some key allies in his campaign. The president will have a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russians have been very helpful. Also, he'll be talking with leaders from China and South Korea and Japan and Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population around the world. Again, so an opportunity for the president to connect with key allies during this war, but also another sense to let the world know that other business is going on, and that this administration is focused on other issues, not just of course this campaign against terrorism -- John.

KING: Kelly Wallace, standing by near the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. Thank you very much. Thank you to Kathleen Koch over at the Pentagon as well.

For now, back to Leon Harris in Atlanta.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, John.

We just heard Kelly Wallace there reporting this defiant stance taken by the Taliban. We have gotten quite a few words coming our way from the Taliban. They responded this afternoon to overnight attacks and the accidental bombing by the U.S. Navy jet. Let's go now to our senior international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. She joins us now live from Islamabad, Pakistan. She's got the very latest for us.

Good evening to you, Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Leon, well, the very latest is that we appear now to have nailed down the video that we've been playing over the last several hours, and it appears that we've confirmed that this is the video of the aftermath of that mistake, that mishit the United States Defense Department officials have been talking about.

This has been showing the rubble in this village outside the airport of Kabul. It shows people standing around in the rubble, these pictures were taken by Reuters and al-Jazeera in Kabul earlier this morning.

Now, we were told at first that this may have happened early afternoon Kabul time. But now, the Pentagon has said that it happened really sort of at the crack of dawn, even before dawn, somewhere near 3:00 in the morning. And we have also heard from the residents there who confirm that they heard a very loud explosion about 3:00 in the morning.

We also have been showing you the pictures of the injured from that attack in the hospital. There was a young boy whose head was all wrapped up in bandages. The doctor at the hospital says that he was shrapnel wounded and he is apparently now in a coma. There are also people who have burn wounds on them, and there are other injured in the hospital.

The reports from the ground suggest that one person was killed and maybe four people were injured. For some reason, the State Department thinks maybe four -- rather, the Defense Department -- that four people were killed and eight injured. This appears, if this is the toll, this appears to be fortunately a relatively low toll. Nonetheless, an incident that is clearly rattling the people of that area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It was 10 to 3:00, and suddenly I saw a flash on top of my house, followed by an explosion. We came out and saw all houses had collapsed. It was the enemy's plane, and a woman was crying. We dug out three wounded from here and one dead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We have forgotten our own names, and can't even understand what we say to each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So you can hear from those eyewitnesses that these day and night bombs are clearly taking a toll on the certainly on the nerves of all the people who live around Kabul. Also, we've also just talked to our sources inside Kandahar who confirmed that in the last half-hour a second wave of nighttime bombing began around that city. They say that one of the Army corps commanders headquarters inside Kandahar has been -- taken a direct hit, as well as other targets outside the city. They say that that corps commanders' headquarters was empty and had been evacuated earlier. So, that's the latest that we have from here -- Leon.

HARRIS: Christiane, one question about the response there within Pakistan to these events we've seen happen in Afghanistan. We know there's lots of concern about whether or not what is going to happen in Pakistan should the toll among civilians rise over the border there in Afghanistan, any sense you're getting about reaction to this there in Pakistan?

AMANPOUR: No. So far, no reaction to this at all. And to be very clear, there have been demonstrations in Pakistan on a regular basis since September 11 incident in the United States. But these have been so far for the most part controlled, small, noisy, but not in any way, according to the government here, a threat to stability.

HARRIS: Christiane Amanpour reporting live this morning, or actually this afternoon here, this evening in Islamabad, Pakistan. Thank you very much.

And while we were talking, I've just been handed what we have gotten here at CNN directly from the Taliban. We have received here a statement from their leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. He sent this message to us, and we want to show you the words that we have gotten from them. "There is no extradition treaty between us and the United States. Therefore, we are not obligated to hand over any accused to America."

He goes on to say: "They accused bin Laden of these terrorist attacks, but they never gave us any solid evidence." He goes on to say, "U.S. raids are masking their own intelligence failures." "You the Muslims of the world" -- here he speaks not to us but to those who may be watching us -- "You the Muslims of the world were watching with your own eyes live pictures of atrocities of your Muslim brothers, and you don't make a move? Are some of you on the side of the infidels, are you with us?" He winds up by saying, "The Muslims should be with Islam, not with Bush. With truth, not lies."

This is a statement that we have just received from Mullah Mohammad Omar, who is the leader of the Taliban. And we are trying to be very judicious in how we deliver any words from there, from that faction, and from those inside Afghanistan. But we thought it was important for you to hear those words. We'll have more coverage on that throughout the day.

Right now, let's check in with our Donna Kelley. She is here in the studio. She is going to talk some more about what we saw happen with this report from Afghanistan about a missile or a bomb or whatever going somewhat off target, about a mile or so. She's got Major General Don Shepperd with her as well -- Donna.

DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Sure do, Leon, thanks very much. General Shepperd, thanks. It's good to visit with you about this. CNN.com had some more information that we found as we're getting more information about that.

We think probably a 2,000-pound guided bomb, a GPS, our Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon reporting that to us, and possibly it was a targeting process error. What does that mean?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, what that means is that something went wrong in the process of either putting the information into the weapon or in the weapon itself. We don't know. It's way too early.

They will get the HOD tapes, head of display tapes from the pilot. They will go over them in detail, just like an accident investigation. It could be we had the wrong coordinates, it could be that something went wrong inside the weapon itself, and prevented it from guiding to the target. This was not targeted intentionally. This was a terrible accident.

KELLEY: And it was about a mile off target. But there are several other reasons or ways that things can go wrong. Talk about those with us for a bit. Human error.

SHEPPERD: Yeah, human error for one. You can punch the wrong coordinates into your computer. The computer software can have a glitch. The can be a failure in the guidance mechanisms. The weapon after it is let go can even be hit, as was the case during recent action in the Gulf, a Tomahawk missile en route to the target was hit and it veered into the hotel where journalists were. That's the one target in all of Baghdad you sure wouldn't want to hit; it happened. These are terrible things that happen in war.

KELLEY: And sometimes it can be intelligence. If you think you're going after a target or something has been moved, or something has been built that you don't know about.

SHEPPERD: That's true. We have a good illustration here on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), if we can let it run here.

(CROSSTALK)

KELLEY: We talked about this, and this is a really good understanding for us. If you can help us how you can avoid this then.

Let's talk about the fragmentation and what you can do to try and get around collateral damage. And as the Pentagon say, you know, they regretted the loss of civilian life, but they target military and terrorists, and great care to avoid civilian casualties. Let's punch this button.

SHEPPERD: I can draw it at any rate here, let's say.

Let's just take us to the examples here. Let's say that this is a building right here that you did not want to hit. Let's say it's a hospital. And this is the target that you want to hit. There are several things that can go wrong with this process, so you run it through a computer to make sure you're doing the right thing. You design the right axis of attack, so if it goes long or short it doesn't hit something.

Here comes the weapon. Let's say the weapon goes off on the surface of the earth, and this is the fragmentation pattern that takes place. It is going to hit the top over here of the hospital that you don't want to have hit. You don't want that to have happened. So, you go back into the computer again, we put the target that we don't want to hit there, we put the real target here. Now, we come in, we can change the fusing, and instead of going off on the ground it goes off below the ground, and now the fragmentation pattern goes like this and you don't hit the target.

Another way of doing it is if this is the target you don't want to hit, and this is the target you do, you can drop a smaller weapon and have it go off, and then you have a smaller fragmentation. All of these things are run through a computer. The problem, Donna, is that when you unleash the dogs of war, unintended consequences take over, and the rule of military operations is if something can go wrong, it will at the worst possible time.

KELLEY: There is an enormous amount of planning too that goes into this. And a number of people, even when we were doing a story yesterday that I was working on with AWACs, minimum of 17 crew in an AWACs plane up to 35. So, there's a lot of planning that goes into any of these operations.

SHEPPERD: Yeah, a lot of planning. You do not want to see this type of thing happening on TV. It does two things: It affects world opinion of what you're doing, it affects opinion in the United States, and it tests the resolve of the American people. This is what happens in war, and if you're going to press this to the end, you're going to have to be able to deal with things like this. Seeing the pictures of those children is terrible for all of us.

KELLEY: Yeah. And next hour, we're going to talk a little bit more about collateral damage and how it is avoided, what we learn from it, because we'll talk about some of these precision weapons. This was off by a mile. And we'll ask the general if that was a lot. Leon, back to you.

HARRIS: All right, thanks, Donna. We'll see you in a little bit.

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