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American Morning

Still Much Work Needed For Kandahar Airport

Aired December 27, 2001 - 08:33   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Back now to CNN's point man in Kandahar, Bill Hemmer, where Navy SeaBees are building detention facilities for captured al Qaeda fighters, Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey Miles, good evening again from Kandahar. Not only detention facilities, but I tell you what -- they have taken this place and turned it into a virtual city in only about two weeks's time.

Let's talk with the guy who's in charge of that, Lieutenant Commander Len Cook is with us from the U.S. Navy -- in charge of all those SeaBees, a a couple dozen running around this place. Good evening to you, sir.

LT. CMDR. LEN COOKE, U.S. NAVY: Good evening, Bill.

HEMMER: When you came -- you were just telling me a very story about the amount of things you're finding on the ground here. People may not know it, but a lot of times you're taking earth movers to help move around and make the operation go here. What are you finding, though, in the ground that's been here for decades?

COOKE: We find quite a lot of stuff around, including some old equipment and some old mines, some which of we can use and some of which we try to avoid. When we came in here, we came in here with a small footprint, just a couple of heavy pieces of equipment and we needed to find some more. So, our mechanics went to an old Soviet bone yard and resurrected a water truck, a runway sweeper and a few other vehicles to help us out.

HEMMER: Vehicles that were here on ground already?

COOKE: Yes, sir. They had just been abandoned. Most of them had been stripped so that they couldn't run. And we just went vehicle to vehicle and put them back together.

HEMMER: Now, you were telling me also about the runway. That was mission number one. That's quite critical for any airplane to come in here and land and they do now, on a nightly basis. What kind of condition was that runway in?

COOKE: When we first came here, we found a significant amount of bomb damage and a lot of shrapnel fragments on top of the runway that needed to be worked out before we could bring any kind of planes in. There was a section of the runway, about 3,500 feet, that was mostly

intact, just needed to be cleared of shrapnel and make sure there was no mines and then we could start bringing C-130s in the second night that we were here.

HEMMER: Wow. You say there's still some bomb damage, though? There's still some work to be done. How much work on that runway?

COOKE: We've probably got another solid week, week and a half of work. It's a 10,000 foot runway with a parallel taxi way and they bombed just about every major intersection.

HEMMER: Wow.

COOKE: We did the first 6,000 feet of primary, so we that we can bring C-17s in, and now, we're taking our time and doing the rest of them right.

HEMMER: Let's go to Topic A, right now. You're responsible for the construction of a detention facility. What was done on your behalf?

COOKE: What we were asked to do was just improve the existing facility. We came in here, and there was a structure with a mud wall. And so we came in and built some guard towers around it, put some lighting posts, built some strong-back tents, which are tents that don't have as many ropes and stuff associated with them, to actually house the detainees inside of them. And we worked with the Army C- flick (ph) engineers doing their envisionment of what they needed to have here, and we built it.

HEMMER: Well, listen, we have 37 detainees here on the ground, that we are told with the U.S. Marines. If that is the case, how many more could this facility take?

COOKE: Right now with what we've done in the last couple of days, this facility can hold a couple of hundred detainees, if it were necessary.

HEMMER: We're getting another plane buzzing in here, we'll try and talk over it. You've tapped water supplies. That is critical, so you don't have to keep on flying in water bottles here. What more needs to be done, though, in the future? I mean, this airport is a long away from being there. How much more work is done?

COOKE: Well, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done. One of the biggest things that's still hanging out there, is that the power distribution was knocked out completely. We've been using generators to string power locally. But we need do a lot more to bring this facility back up to its full capacity.

HEMMER: How much time will that take?

COOKE: With a lot of electricians, it would take a long time. It's not a short-term fix.

HEMMER: Indeed, you're right. You can look around here and see the condition of the airport. It is not good. Lieutenant Commander,

thank you. And bravo work you guys have done really excellent stuff in two weeks's time. Thanks again to you.

COOKE: Thank you very much.

HEMMER: Happy New Year to you also.

COOKE: Happy New Year to you.

HEMMER: Back to Miles in Atlanta, now. Miles?

O'BRIEN: They build them quickly. Thank you very much, Bill Hemmer. We appreciate that.

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