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American Morning

U.S. Military Begins Use of Cluster Bombs in Afghanistan

Aired October 26, 2001 - 11:47   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: It is evening in Kabul, Afghanistan. This picture is coming into us courtesy of Al Jazeera. Just a short time ago, moments ago, in fact, said to be in Kabul; where exactly is not known at this time, but we know that U.S. fighter jets have been hitting areas north of the city, near the Bagram Air Base about 25 miles north, and also certain military installations in and around the capital city. This, though, what we're seeing right now. Clearly a fireball at some point after a munition was dropped there at some point in the capital city.

Now in the meantime, though, the Pentagon is confirming that it is now using cluster bombs there. It can be a brute force weapon in the issue of war.

And CNN's Miles O'Brien to explain how these cluster bombs work.

Miles, good morning to you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill. You know, we've been talking so much in this war over Afghanistan about the precision weaponry. It's worth pointing out that these clusters bombs are also in play. And if you're talking about smart weapons, well these are the dumb bombs. And there are still many of them in use by the U.S. military. As a matter of fact, tens of thousands of them were used over the Persian Gulf, even though many people remember the Persian Gulf for much of its laser-guided weaponry.

Let's take a look at some of the video that we can show you about smart weaponry as we bring in our general and military expert, General Don Shepperd.

General Shepperd, the dumb bombs still have a role to play, don't they?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They do, Miles.

And these are area weapons that you drop in an area where you don't know the exact coordinates or exact location, such as troops spread over a large area or vehicles strung out along roads, and this type of thing. If you don't know exactly where they are, you can drop these cluster bombs. Some of them and the sub-munitions are actually smart. In the weapons such as JSOW, they can go against signatures and IR, infrared, signatures of vehicles. O'BRIEN: Looking at this video, it looks like it's raining down havoc, quite literally. It also seems like it wouldn't be that accurate.

SHEPPERD: it's not that accurate. Again, it's an area weapon -- area denial and area targeting designed to cover targets of some length. And these -- think of them as large hand grenades that explode. And sometimes they explode above the ground, sometimes when they hit the ground. It's a formidable weapon, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's look a look at an animation, give you a sense of how they work. We have depicted a CBU-87. That stands for Cluster Bomb Unit-87. Now, this particular one is launched from an aircraft and -- in this animation. Take a look at it. It seems like a regular kind of weapon, but as it is launched -- hangs from the wing like any other bomb would -- as it is launched it gets to a predetermined altitude and things change dramatically.

General Shepperd, typically where does the cluster bomb aspect come into play? At what altitude? Does it change depending on the mission?

SHEPPERD: It does change. The fusing changes and the delivery altitude and mechanism changes to get the pattern that you want on the ground for the particular target. Now this weapon is used by U.S. and coalition forces. It's a standard weapon in all arsenals for the military as an air weapon these days, Miles.

O'BRIEN: It's also a weapon that comes under quite a degree of criticism. Folks who crusade against land mines, the group linked to the late Princess Diana, for example, offering some criticism for the U.S. using these particular weapons in this engagement. How does the military respond to that?

SHEPPERD: It's a nasty weapon and a nasty war. We are going to use any weapon in our inventory against the target if we feel it's appropriate. We will be very careful -- when I say "we," I mean both the U.S. and coalition forces -- the militaries will be very careful about using this weapon. And they'll put it through computers. But if it is decided that it is the weapon to take out the target that they are interested in, all of the militaries, the coalition forces, will employ it, Miles.

O'BRIEN: One of the issues, however, is when have you 202 little bomblets coming out of one weapon and, say, 5 percent of them don't explode, you have some -- a lingering problem that maybe a child could pick up. It's the size of something that might look like a toy, for example. What's the military thinking on how to solve that problem, long-run?

SHEPPERD: Well, there's a dud rate, and it's in any bomb. It doesn't matter whether it's a cluster bomb or any bomb, there is a dud rate that you have to cope with. Basically, they're very dangerous, sometimes for years. We had these weapons, the duds, turned around and used against us as booby traps in Vietnam. Vietnam is -- and Laos are still littered with hundreds of thousands of these things out there, as is many areas of Afghanistan.

So they're very dangerous. After the war we send in clean-up crews to do it. We provide civilian contractors to do it. But it's dangerous and, again, a nasty weapon in a nasty war used by all the coalition militaries, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Briefly, before we -- we're going to change subjects on you briefly before we let you go here. Later this afternoon we're expecting a big announcement from the Pentagon on what could be the largest Pentagon procurement in history. That is for the joint strike fighter. Two big aerospace giants involved in this. In the first case, Boeing. Let's take a look at their -- it's sort of been a fly- off, if you will, to date between the Boeing and Lockheed Martin aircraft. What is at stake here? Why is it necessary to have a joint strike fighter?

SHEPPERD: Well, this is big, Miles. This is the replacement for the F-16 and the A-10, which actually have been around a long time. It's a multi-role fighter for all services: Air Force, Navy and Marines. This is the classic dogfight between Lockheed Martin's X-35 and Boeing's X-32. We're supposed to know the results of it this afternoon.

Air Force version, around $28 million. The Navy being the most expensive -- or the Marines being the most expensive, around $35 million, depending upon the quantity bought in '94 dollars, which is Pentagon gobbledygook talk -- it depends on what you count.

It's a good airplane; it brings stealth to the Navy, and it's the future of the air-to-ground airplane for all services, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, General Don Shepperd, our military analyst.

Worth pointing out as we close here that even if there were a joint strike fighter in the fleet right now, it really wouldn't have much impact on what we've seen thus far over Afghanistan.

If you want to find out more about all this, we invite you to check out our Web site at CNN.com. Among the many things you can find there is more information from General Don Shepperd, one of our military analysts giving a lot of insight and information, and helping you understand what is going on as this war on terrorism continues.

We'll send it back to Bill.

HEMMER: And he's a darn good one, too, isn't he Miles?

O'BRIEN: Yes, he is.

HEMMER: You got it. Miles, thank you.

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