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American Morning

Should CBS Air Its 9/11 Documentary?

Aired March 04, 2002 - 07:02   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And the big question at this hour, is it right for CBS to air its 9/11 documentary? We're going to talk to some family members of 9/11 who are split over the issue. Some think it's going to be too graphic. Others feel it's very important to remind America of what happened that day.

Up front this morning, though, the war in Afghanistan. U.S. troops come under fire in Khost, as the biggest offensive in the war continues, targeting a large pocket of al Qaeda and Taliban forces. American B-52 and fighter jets were visible in the clear skies over the eastern part of that country, as were the dark plumes of smoke that rose above the mountains during a barrage of nearly 300 bombs and missiles throughout the weekend. One U.S. soldier is confirmed dead.

CNN's Brian Palmer is standing by in Bagram. He joins us now with all of the latest details -- Brian, good morning.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Paula.

Well, I'm first going to let you know my cameraman may break away to show you some of the air activity that's going on here at Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet air base about 30 miles north of Kabul.

We've been told by U.S. military sources that at least some of the aircraft coming in and out of this air base are being used in support of that ongoing attack al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Paktia Province, which is in the mountainous eastern Afghanistan region.

Now, U.S. sources and the Afghan Defense Ministry confirm that the fighting, that the ground forces have been halted. The ground forces were halted at about noon, which is about four hours ago. This, according to the Afghan Defense Ministry, so that U.S., again, the U.S. forces telling us so that bombers could come in, intensify their bombing and continue to root out these al Qaeda and Taliban forces that have apparently regrouped in that area.

We have been told also by U.S. sources that the strategy is to encircle al Qaeda and Taliban so that they can target the vehicles, the artillery and the troop positions and totally destroy them.

Now again, we're here at Bagram. We're about three miles down the road from the air base. We've seen a variety of aircraft coming in and going out of the airport. There's been a spike in the rate of activity, I'd say, over the past 45 minutes. We've seen a variety of aircraft. We've seen transport planes and we've seen cargo planes, but we've also seen a tremendous number of helicopters, Chinooks and Apaches and Soviet era helicopters -- Paula.

ZAHN: And what is the size of this al Qaeda regrouping and the Taliban regrouping?

PALMER: Well, initially we were given very, very high numbers, but again, these same U.S. military sources telling us several hundred now -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Brian Palmer, we're going to leave it there.

Thanks so much for the update.

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