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American Morning

America Strikes Back: In Anthrax Scare, White House Working Overtime to Keep Public Informed; Reported Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

Aired October 15, 2001 - 11:19   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In the anthrax scare, the White House working overtime to help keep the public properly informed. They fanned out on the talk shows all day on Sunday. And again, a big day ahead.

AT the White House, here is CNN's Kelly Wallace now, watching all the movement there -- Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, another what has really become a typical day for the president since the September 11th attacks. He'll be doing some coalition building, as Bob Franken reported. He'll be meeting with Italian prime minister Berlusconi in the Oval Office a short time from now, and then the president will be addressing senior executives within the federal government. The message there, that the government doing everything it can to respond to this campaign against terrorism. There we don't know exactly, but it is likely that the president during that speech could do what he's been doing really over the past several days, and that is to try to reassure a very anxious country, people anxious about the possibility of future terrorism attacks, and also concerned about these anthrax cases in the country.

Now as for anthrax, the administration continuing to say that it is -- quote -- suspicious "about whether these cases could in some way be linked to the September 11th attacks." But beyond that, the administration somewhat sensitive about whether to describe this as an act of terrorism.

So first, let's listen to what Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said on CNN's "LATE EDITION" yesterday when he was asked if these cases of anthrax amount to acts of terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND SERVICES SECRETARY: There's no question it's bioterrorism. It's a biological agent. It's terrorism. It's a crime. It's terrorism. But whether or not it's connected to Al Qaeda, we can't say conclusively. A cynic can say it looks like it, but there has not been conclusive evidence to tie it into Osama bin Laden or to Al Qaeda. All we know is that it's a terrorist act, because anybody that would do this is trying to create terror, trying to create fear in the American public. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: The White House seemed to back off just a little bit from those remarks. Ari Fleischer, President Bush's spokesman, saying no question if someone is sending anthrax in the mail. That individual or individuals could be trying to terrorize people, but when asked if acts of terrorism, he said, if you're asking me to pin down the legal definition, he said, you just can't say it right now, the Justice Department needs to investigate to determine who's responsible, how widespread, before determining if these are acts terrorism.

You see some sensitivity there.

And, Bill, one other thing we definitely learned yesterday, the administration, to submit to Congress a request for about more than $1.5 billion in part to deal with concerns of biological or chemical attacks. Most of this money would be used to dramatically increase the amount of the antibiotic Cipro on hand that is used to treat people with anthrax.

Bill, back to you.

HEMMER: Kelly Wallace. All right, Kelly, keep us posted. Kelly Wallace at the White House -- Catherine.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As we've been telling you this morning, in weekend airstrikes in Afghanistan, there were reports of civilian casualties just north of Kabul, when a JDAM missile went off course.

We're going to take a closer look at the technology and the missile's failure now with CNN's Miles O'Brien who's at the Big Board with an explainer.

Good morning again, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Catherine, we've been telling everybody about the smart weapons in the U.S. inventory, and sometimes when we talk about capabilities in the way they're designed, we often forget that sometimes things don't work according to plan. So let's bring military analyst, retired General Don Sheppard.

Good to see you, again, sir.

And let's go through -- I think what we'll do General Sheppard is just go through a few scenarios here, and as we're talking about how they work, let's also talk about how they don't work. Laser-guided weapons, first of all, as we put the map in motion here, this shows a bomb going off, and what this shows here is another aircraft, and we did use a little bit of poetic license. It wouldn't be an A-6 doing this, folks, so don't give us a call. We know that. Would send a laser beam to the target, illuminating the target.

Now the goal there is to give precise place to aim, right, General Sheppard. MILES SHEPPARD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's correct.

Miles, we're being very responsible not to show tactics here.

Basically, the laser can designate the wrong target, the missile can have internal failure and fail to follow laser beam, or you can have internal failure on the aircraft receiving the laser on some of its systems. So there's many opportunities to go wrong. However, there are very, very reliable and seldom go wrong, but it does occasionally happen, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Now this particular weapon very weather dependent. If there's fog ,or clouds or a dust storm, it can spoof the laser, can it not?

SHEPPARD: That's right. You can't deliver through the weather. It's one of the limitations of laser-guided weapons. You can sometimes designate below the weather and toss a bomb through the weather that then intercepts the laser. It's less accurate to do it that way, and can go awry. But generally speaking, it's weather dependent.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's move along to something that isn't weather-dependent.

And if these the JDAM weapons, the one that linked to that particular incident where there were some civilian casualties reported, and these are weapons that are guided by satellites, the global positioning system, a lot of people out there familiar with GPS, because there are a lot of consumer products that take advantage of it, basically triangulates its location using it gathers from these satellites, and that, in turn, causes the bomb to move it kennards (ph), or wings, to send it off to its location. What can go wrong here, general?

SHEPPARD: More great animations from the weather department. But basically, several things can go wrong here. First of all, you can simply have the wrong coordinates. The system or person that gathered the coordinates can be wrong. Second, you can have a fact- fingered error. The person that enters them into the system for targeting can make an error, and type a one instead of a zero, for instance.

You can also have internal failure within the bomb receiving mechanisms, and you can have things such as kennard fall off that guides the bomb. The most horrendous error, however, is having the wrong information about what the target is or what's in the target. The classic example, the Chinese embassy during the Kosovo attacks. We hit the right target, it was very accurate, and the human information that told us that that was something other than Chinese embassy was wrong. All of that can go wrong. There are very accurate weapons, but occasionally mistakes are made.

And if I recall, there may have been an outdated map involved in that whole scenario, so it can be little things like that. Let's look at one more scenario where something can go awry. Another smart weapon, but also a weapon that might have some problems with it. And this is the cruise missile, and let's take a look at that for just a moment. The cruise missile, which the older ones used a terrain-following system. The newer ones used those GPS that we were just showing you. The one thing about a cruise missile, the current inventory, you punch in the coordinates on either the ship or the submarine where it is launched, or the B-52, you can't steer it midcourse or change its mind once it's on its way, correct?

That's true. The new ones coming out, the new modifications hopefully will be able to do that, but it is complicated, it depends upon data links, et cetera. However, the same things can go wrong here that go wrong in any of the GPS weapons. The systems can fail internally, you can have to have the wrong coordinates. Generally, very accurate, but occasionally, something goes wrong. The classic example there, the one that veered into the hotel in Iraq that had the journalist in. The one place you wouldn't want hit in all of Baghdad was hit by an error either somewhere in the targeting process or equipment failure. Normally, very accurate but bad things can happen.

O'BRIEN: General, what's the caveat here for those of us watching this unfold? These are things obviously that military planners are fully aware of, but perhaps I think it is uniquely American to invest a lot of faith in technology. There are times when it fails us.

SHEPPARD: It does. It does fail us. Our American stuff works. It's a tip of the hat to our industry people that manufacturer these things and make them, And our training that goes, but occasionally bad things happen. The message is, that in wartime, bad things happen. So you'd better make sure that the war you're conducting is worth the bad things that happen. That's the overall message, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Military analyst Don Sheppard, thank you very much once again for all of your insights. We appreciate that.

Check out CNN.com, by the way, and if you want to find out a little bit more, we have basically here a snapshot look at the inventory that we are just talking about, those JDAMS, the tomahawks, and those big bunker-busters, the GBU-28s. Feel free to check it out at CNN.com. There is a lot of good information there for you. And we should offer tip of the hat as well to our graphics department, which assisted us on that as well. The general pointed out the weather department, we want to make sure everybody understands, everybody is helping out here.

We'll send it over to Catherine.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: The team effort. Thanks, Miles.

U.S. coalition airstrikes inside Afghanistan did continue for an eighth straight day.

And joining us now for more perspective from inside northern Afghanistan is Matthew Chance -- Matthew. MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Catherine.

Let me first of all, though, bring you up to date on the latest military developments here in Northern Afghanistan. We have been having reports by officials of the Northern Alliance. They say they're armed forces have made significant advances in the north of the country, capturing five new districts and advancing to within five kilometers of a crucial northern town, Mazar Al-Sharif (ph). We're not able to independently identify those reports of course. Hundreds of kilometers, these battles taking place, from where we are standing right now. But this is what the Northern Alliance is telling us right now.

Turning to those airstrikes, we can bring you pictures now from daytime today of airstrikes, U.S.-led coalition striking over the southern Afghan Kandahar. It's very difficult for us to get any details of exactly what was hit and what was not. Overnight on night, Monday morning, pictures of airstrikes taken on our nightscope, showing the skies lighting up over Kabul, the Afghan capital, just a short distance from I'm standing right now. Those flashes in the sky lighting up the skies, giving you some idea of the level of intensity of those strikes. Again, very difficult to say what's being struck. But what we can say, though witnesses in Kabul say that the telephone exchange there came under attack.

No further reports of any casualties, at least that we can confirm here. Going back to the Northern Alliance, there frontline, just north of Kabul, has been very quiet. Still no sign of any push deeper into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. And certainly no sign at this stage of that much-vaunted operation to take the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Catherine, back to you.

CALLAWAY: All right, Matthew Chance from Northern Afghanistan.

Thank you, Matthew.

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