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American Morning

North Carolina Sheriff's Deputy Shot Two Soldiers From Army's Fort Bragg

Aired February 25, 2002 - 07:10   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We now go the Justice Department and the issue of that apparently deadly misunderstanding in an Army training exercise. A North Carolina sheriff's deputy shot two soldiers from the army's Fort Bragg on Saturday. One of the soldiers was killed, the other seriously wounded.

CNN's Barbara Starr now joins us from the Pentagon with the very latest on that -- Barbara, how could this have happened?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Paula.

It's looking like it was all a very terrible misunderstanding. The two soldiers from Fort Bragg were part of an army Green Beret training exercise. They call it role playing. They move throughout a community. They're not in uniform. They're in unmarked cars trying to replicate what Green Berets might face in a real wartime combat environment.

And apparently they were driving along a rural road outside Fort Bragg. They were pulled over by a sheriff. The soldiers thought all of this was part of the exercise. The sheriff had no idea that these men were two soldiers from Fort Bragg. So when the soldiers thought it was part of an exercise, one of them tried to disarm the sheriff. The other one went for his military weapon. The sheriff thought these were men attacking him, going to kill him, so he opened fire. One was killed, one was wounded.

And it's apparent that the local sheriffs simply were not notified that this exercise was under way.

Here's what one of the army spokesmen had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR RICHARD PATTERSON, U.S. ARMY: Part of our standard operating procedure is to go out and coordinate with the county and cities where we're going to be operating at. What happened in this particular incident is part of the investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: And we'll bring everyone up to date on just one other controversial matter hanging over from last week. You remember that Office of Strategic Influence that was established here in the Pentagon? One of its proposals was to use the foreign news media to further U.S. war time goals. Well, over the weekend Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the office may never exist in its current form because of all of the controversy surrounding that -- Paula.

ZAHN: Barbara, at the same time he said he really wasn't well aware of all the details and yet in the "Washington Post" this morning there was a quote from an unnamed source who said he was fully briefed on the purpose of the office. What's that all about?

STARR: Well, this is one of these Pentagon word games a bit. People can be briefed. There can be proposals. There can be charts and diagrams. And the question always is does it still really exist? There's no question that these proposals were out there. They had never been approved. They had never been finalized. So the Pentagon can certainly sort of stand up and legitimately say it never existed.

There were proposals, very controversial, and it looks like they may be deep sixed now.

ZAHN: All right, Barbara Starr, thanks.

We're going to get some more reaction now to what happened with those Fort Bragg soldiers from CNN military analyst General David Grange, who joins us now from Chicago this morning.

Good morning. Welcome back.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.) U.S. ARMY: Good morning.

ZAHN: First of all, sir, you heard that an investigation is now under way as to why law enforcement weren't notified of this training exercise going on. What do you think went wrong?

GRANGE: Well, I believe it was most likely an accident because as the spokesman from Fort Bragg stated, normally the local law enforcement agencies are informed in these kind of exercises. These exercises are training opportunities for the soldiers to learn techniques and escape and evade in different types of environments, how to adapt and communicate and move by foot or by vehicle around different areas, to navigate, those type of things.

And it was obviously an accident.

ZAHN: Let's move on to the new reports about Osama bin Laden. Both the "Washington Post" and the "New York Times" reporting that he is apparently alive and well, perhaps somewhere on the Afghanistan- Pakistan border. Your insights into this new information?

GRANGE: Well, Paula, you know, it's hard to say, obviously. I think like Secretary Rumsfeld had said about chasing shadows several months ago, he could very well be there. There's a lot of areas, I believe, that have not been searched. But then again, he could be in some other countries. I mean it would not surprise me if he was still being harbored in an area like even Iran. I mean you have a government but then you also have the power of the Revolutionary Guards under the religious leaders that support the Hezbollah. And they could very well support Osama bin Laden, even though their religious doesn't go together very closely, their common enemy, I think, is the United States of America.

He could be in Saudi Arabia. I mean he could be just about anywhere.

ZAHN: A final question for you this morning. Public opinion polls would suggest that the American public will only believe this war on terrorism is effective if Osama bin Laden is finally brought to justice, or at least found, and the administration continuing to say this isn't a pivotal part of the campaign.

Is there a disconnect there?

GRANGE: Well, to accomplish the objectives that were stated up front, and that was to destroy, disrupt the al Qaeda organization and its connectivity to other terrorist groups, to remove the Taliban, to deter other countries from terrorism, which has partly been successful, I believe. That's correct. I think that the government is right.

However, he has become somewhat of a symbol and most people, the perception, the perception is that there's nobody, there's no victory and that, as Sherlock Holmes says, without a body there's no death.

So I think we have to get him.

ZAHN: All right, General Grange, as always, good to see you.

GRANGE: Good to see you.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by this morning.

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