|
 |
CNN LIVE TODAY
Bodies of Eight U.S. Servicemen Arrive at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany
Aired March 5, 2002 - 10:01 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: First on CNN right now, the U.S. casualties from Operation Anaconda. Eight Americans died in that U.S. offensive in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The bodies of those U.S. servicemen are arriving at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. You see here a live picture.
And CNN's Matthew Chance is somewhere there. Let's check in with him right now and get the very latest.
Matthew, good morning.
We are having a little bit of difficulty tracking down Matthew. He us somewhere in that scene there. We'll get back to him in just a moment.
But first, let's stay here stateside and get an update on the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Let's go to the hub, the Pentagon. That's where Barbara Starr is keeping her post this morning.
Hello, Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Officials tell us that Operation Anaconda remains ongoing today, heavy airstrikes underway, plenty of ground action. There are about 2,000 U.S. and coalition forces on the ground. And the question that's being raised now is what is the opposition force looking like? You know, how many Taliban, how many Al Qaeda? Were there more than the U.S. expected? Did the Pentagon get surprised? And is that what went wrong when these two helicopters encountered enemy ground fire and there were a number of casualties.
The Pentagon had said from the beginning that there were about 400 Taliban and Al Qaeda, but that's a very interesting number, because if there is 2,000 U.S. and coalition forces on the ground, the U.S. always goes into combat with a 3-1 advantage against the enemy, and that means there were more like 700 opposition forces on the ground. In fact, officials here tell us this morning that the 400 number may not be very good any more. They believe that number has crept up. They're not sure why or how. One of the reasons they suspect is that more Taliban and Al Qaeda have perhaps moved into these remote areas. The intelligence assessment also is that these fighters will fight to the death. These people are not going to give up. They are not going to run away. They are not going to disappear into the hills as they did in Tora Bora and other areas. This is going to go on for sometime, until it's over, say Pentagon officials -- Leon.
HARRIS: Thank you very much, Barbara. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. We'll be checking back with you throughout the morning.
But right now, let's go back to Ramstein Air base, where as we said moments ago, the bodies of those eight Americans who died in that U.S. offense in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan should be arriving soon. Let's check in now with our Matthew Chance. I believe we got the audio problems straightened out.
Matthew, can you hear me?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, a few technical problems here. But we're all awaiting the arrival of that transport aircraft coming in from Afghanistan carrying what we are told by military officials here, the seven caskets, or the transfer cases, as they're calling them here, of the U.S. servicemen killed in action in Afghanistan, the highest number of course of U.S. casualties occurred by the armed forces since that campaign if Afghanistan began several months ago.
It has not been disclosed to us at this point, Leon, the identities of the servicemen who have been killed. They are still liaising, the military authorities tell us, with the families of those killed, to inform them of their loss, nor is it being disclosed for security reasons, the exact units, the regimens for which these people belonged, although it has been disclosed to us that the 10th mountain division, the 101st airborne, as well as Army special forces units, have been involved of course in the fighting around the mountains south of Gardez in Afghanistan. That plane has not yet arrived yet, although we are expecting it, as you said, in the next few minutes.
It's not been a flight without incident. We're told that on route from Afghanistan, the aircraft was struck by a bird, and the aircraft landed at the Enchilik (ph) airbase in eastern Turkey for some damage repairs to be carried out before it left, and is now currently on route here to Ramstein in Germany, the U.S. Air Force base.
We'll obviously bring you the latest details as they come down to us.
Leon, back to you.
HARRIS: Great Matthew.
As a matter of fact, we just want to let people know, Matthew, as you were reporting, there was a plane came in over your shoulder and landed. We want folks to understand that was not the plane. We still have not seen that plane yet. But, Matthew, before we let you go for the moment, can you give us an idea of what's going to happen to the caskets once they do arrive there?
CHANCE: Yes, I mean, what's going to be happening here in Ramstein, in Germany, is it's going to be a very brief sort of ceremony where the caskets are taken off the C-17 Globemaster aircraft that's coming in from Afghanistan, and transferred onto a much larger transport aircraft, a C-5 Galaxy, where they'll be flown virtually immediately on to the United States, on to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The caskets, or the transfer cases, as the military are calling them, will be greeted by a multiservice guard of honor made up of members of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, special forces, as well as U.S. Air Force personnel, where they will be carried in silence from one plane to the next. There has been some coordination been going on between the armed forces and families of those who have been killed in latest action in Afghanistan, but the plan for the moment is to fly those caskets, those human remains, on straightaway to the United States -- Leon.
HARRIS: Very good. Thank you, Matthew. Matthew Chance from Ramstein Air Base. We will get back to you Matthew later on.
Now let's go back to that center of action in Afghanistan, one of the centers providing support to Operation Anaconda.
Our Brian Palmer checks in from Bagram Air Base. He's on the telephone right now. Brian, what's the word from there?
BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A number of words actually. First of all, we just heard that the senior defense minister, senior, excuse me, minister in the defense ministry, tells us that Hamid Karzai, chairman of the interim administration, General Fahim, who is the defense minister, will announce tomorrow at a press conference that their commanders are going to declare that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been defeated.
So this is going to be, as we are told by the source, a declaration. We've spoken to the Americans just about the general progress of the operation, and there is no one here that is that optimistic.
So we stress that on the one hand we have Afghan political officials telling us they will make the statement tomorrow at 0900 Afghanistan time. But the military officials here we're talking to at Bagram say the operation is ongoing.
We just talked to a major in the public affairs office who says what is going on now is -- quote -- we are using fire support to convince them to surrender or die, and them of course would be those Al Qaeda and Taliban forces that are dug in to Paskia (ph) province in Eastern Afghanistan -- Leon.
HARRIS: And, Brian, as you were reporting to us on the telephone, we were looking at a picture -- actually, we just lost the picture. We were watching the Honor Guard there, who are assembling right there on the tarmac at Ramstein air base. We see another plane is now landing on the tarmac. We don't know if this is the one that's actually carrying the bodies of those eight U.S. servicemen who lost their lives there in the theater, but we understand -- we just saw moments ago the Honor Guard assembling, so we have reason to believe perhaps the bodies have actually touched the ground at Ramstein Air Force Base.
PALMER: Yes.
HARRIS: I am now being told this is the plane that is carrying the bodies of the servicemen who did die in Afghanistan. Again, this is -- there still so many questions concerning what actually happened there. They were all on board two different helicopters, and, as we understand it, one -- of course one body actually came from the incident that happened over the weekend. But in the last couple of days, on Monday, there was a helicopter was shot down, and in that instance, six troops died.
Another instance happened that same day, the same battle there in that area south of Gardez, another helicopter shot down. It actually landed. However in the process of landing, and taking off again, one of the troops on board is now believed fell off of that plane, off that helicopters rather. What is not known, though, is whether or not those who died in those two instances were killed in the process of the crashes of the touchdown and relaunching of those craft, or if they were killed by firefights that happened on the ground after the incidents. And we are still waiting for the Pentagon to try to clear all that up.
In the meantime, let's check in with our Matthew Chance, who is there on the tarmac at Ramstein Air Force Base as we watching this plane in its final taxi -- Matthew.
CHANCE: That's right. Moments after we left you a few minutes ago, we heard that plane touched down, the C-17 coming in from Afghanistan after a brief stop over for A maintenance problem in Enchilik, Turkey. As you can see, live pictures of that C-17 Globemaster 3 aircraft that is taxiing along the tarmac here in Germany at the Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base.
The noise of the engines, at this point, is a bit overwhelming. Four very large engines in that huge transport aircraft, carrying what we are told by the military here, what is confirmed to us here as the seven casket, the seven transfer cases of the U.S. servicemen killed in action in Operation Anaconda yesterday, on Monday, local time, in Afghanistan, in the mountains south of the Afghan city of Gardez.
The engine noise very loud here. The casket, you can see this in the live pictures you are seeing. The caskets will be greeted with military honors, a full Honor Guard from the services represented here, representatives of the U.S. Army of course, special forces representatives, representatives of the United States Air Force, as well as the United States navy.
But the ceremony, we're told, will be relatively brief here in Ramstein. It'll consist of the casket taken off this transport aircraft and carried on to an awaiting aircraft, a C-5, a much larger transport plane, to be flown back almost immediately to the United States. The plan at the moment is to fly the casket to the U.S. Air Force base in Dover, Delaware.
Leon, the noise is pretty overbearing at this point. Can you still hear me OK?
HARRIS: Yes, Matthew. I don't know if you can hear me but we can hear you quite well. The microphone is picking you up just fine.
While we have you here, I'd like to clarify one point. I think I may have misspoke here. Maybe you can clear this up. We understand that because of the reports from the actions that have happened since the weekend, we do know that there was one troop killed over the weekend. We lost seven on Monday. Now do we know that only seven are on this place, or are all eight on this plane?
CHANCE: It's a very confusing situation. I know there has been a lot of sketchy information coming out of Afghanistan over the last few days, in what is obviously a very confusing situation on the ground.
What the military officials here in Germany are telling us is that on this plane here mind me, there will be seven caskets, seven transfer cases, containing the remains of seven of the eight servicemen who have been killed in Afghanistan over recent days. It's a bit unclear at this moment that there does appear to have been a further arrival of another dead American soldier here in Germany at the weekend. He is apparently already here in Ramstein, in Germany. His casket, his remains already here.
Now, it's not clear, though, whether the entire eight caskets will be flown back to the United States right now. We assume that is what's going to happen, but the only thing we can confirm now is that seven caskets will be moved off this plane and flown back to the U.S. right now.
HARRIS: Thank you, Matthew. Stay right there. Let's check in now with our Barbara Starr, who is standing by at her post at the Pentagon. Maybe we can find out more about that.
Barbara, do we know whether or not the pentagon made arrangements for seven families, or for eight families in this case?
STARR: We haven't got exact word as to the situation with these pictures we're looking at now, of how many families are involved in the remains coming off this plane.
This is a very sad duty that the military unfortunately is very well trained and very well prepared for. We have seen it so many times in the past in combat deaths, in casualties returning from terrorist attacks from oversees. I think what we're going to see is military honor guards removing the casket from the plane. It will be a very subdued ceremony. This is not the point in these type of proceedings in which there is any -- anything other than subdued and very appropriate ceremony. These men, we now know, died in some of the most fierce close combat that the U.S. military has seen in almost a decade. People tell us the most feared fierce combat since Mogadishu in Somalia. What we have also learned this morning, is that as the firefight was going on on the ground, on that mountain side in Afghanistan, the Air Force for the first time called in A-10 close air support attack aircraft overhead. These aircraft, these A-10, circled the fire zone. They laid down a blanket of fire against these enemy positions to try and suppress the enemy fire, so that rescue teams could be called in to evacuate the dead and the wounded and get them out of this fire zone.
But we're also told that this took some time, that all of these troops, the wounded, the survivors, and the deceased were on that mountainside for several hours before they could suppress that enemy fire, and send in a rescue team and get them out of there -- Leon.
HARRIS: And that is part of the reason why it is unclear as to just how these troops met their demise. Some of the reports that we've gotten from the Pentagon about what they think happened here with them and how they died, whether they died at crash or whether they died in the firefight.
STARR: You know, I have to tell you, the facts don't change, but the understanding of them has changed many times in the last 24 hours or so. We're told that it is the belief of the Pentagon right now that most of the deceased, if not all of them, died in the firefight on the ground. We are told it was very bitter, very nasty, and it was really an extraordinary situation.
But I have to tell you, that word is not absolutely confirmed by the Pentagon. They want to still talk to all of the survivors off that helicopter and get some final word for them as to what did exactly happen.
HARRIS: Now As for the families of those who died here in that arena, do we know whether or not the Pentagon is making arrangements for them to meet at some point in Washington or at Andrews Air Force base, or whatever?
STARR: Well, you know, this is all very much done according the wishes of the individual families. The military, of course, makes all of the arrangements to, quite bluntly, have the bodies transported to their homes, to where they will be laid to rest. So they work directly with the families, and they fulfill their wishes as to what the family wants.
We have seen cases in the past where the families participate in memorial services. I can tell you, we have also seen cases where the families want their privacy. They ask for the remains to be returned to their homes as privately as possible, and they conduct a private funeral, and there is no public viewing of that. So we just are going to have to wait and see what the family wishes are.
HARRIS: Yes, you're right, I remember seeing that in a number of cases. Speaking of that in privacy, Barbara, do we know whether or not the names of those who died have been released?
STARR: I'm sorry, Leon, with the noise from the engines on that plane, I couldn't quite hear you.
HARRIS: I understand. I understand. Do we know whether or not all of the names of those who died have been released?
STARR: I'm sorry, yes. No, they have not been yet. We are assuming that they are still conducting full notification of next of kin. We have only learned the name of the trooper who was killed on Saturday. We expect release of the rest of the names at some point relatively soon.
HARRIS: Is Matthew Chance still available? Do we still have Matthew Chance there? I know the engines have been cut off on the planes now. Perhaps he can hear us a little bit better.
Matthew, are you there? Matthew Chance, are you there.
CHANCE: Leon, I can hear you very well. Leon, I can you hear you; can you hear me?
HARRIS: Yes, great, I can hear you now, Matthew. What I'd like to ask you about is, it looks like a very small crowd there. Are there any civilians there at all, or is this base totally being kept off limits?
CHANCE: Well, I mean, it's totally off limits to the public, Leon, obviously, but, you know, we had to go through quite rigorous security checks to get here ourselves. But obviously This is something the armed forces of the United States are facilitating for us, to give us access to this usually very secure air base, of course, in the middle of Germany, giving us access to witness this -- these arrivals, Leon.
HARRIS: And with these people, the remains have been taken off of the plane, how much time will they actually spend there?
CHANCE: That's not entirely clear. But it is not going to be very long at all. I mean, there was some speculation earlier that there may be some mortuary, you know, details, to be carried out here in Germany. That does not appear to be the plan at the moment. But what they're planning is to take ceremoniously the caskets, the transfer cases off this military aircraft, and to move them as soon as possible, on to an awaiting military aircraft, a much bigger C-5, to fly them on to the United States, to Dover, Delaware airbase. So that seems to be the plan at the moment.
HARRIS: And we can only wonder what's going on right now, on that plane that has been sitting their idle for some seven or eight minutes. We don't see any activity outside at that plane. While we're waiting to see something develop there, let's go back to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon and talk some bout the scene the plane left behind when it took off out of Afghanistan.
Barbara, give us the latest of what is happening there this morning, and the word rather on whether or not the Pentagon believes there is some progress being made in going after these pockets off Al Qaeda or Taliban, because as I read it, it's getting more and more difficult because the pockets keep getting smaller.
STARR: Well, that is exactly the problem, and that's exactly why they had to put ground troops in. These are the not the kind of opposition forces you can really deal with, with airstrikes from very high altitudes. Officials tells us it got the point they had to put boots on the ground. And there are many pockets of resistance of Al Qaeda and Taliban. We have been told there are still pockets across the country, and there are pockets throughout eastern Afghanistan.
There are multiple pockets, of course, where this fighting has been taking place. Some of them are small as three or four fighters. Some of them perhaps as large as 20 or more. But this is the kind of thing you really have to send in U.S. troops to locate them, target them and attack them, not the kind of thing you can necessarily do from a B-52 aircraft. Those airstrikes have been into cave complexes, vehicles, things that can be readily targeted. But to get to the onesies and twosies of the opposition fighters, you've got to go in on the ground.
But it's absolutely right, Leon, we are told there are multiple pockets still across the country. And from the Pentagon's point of view, this is not going to be the end of it. They see this all going on for some time.
HARRIS: Well, let me ask you this, because I know they don't say this in the briefings we have been watching every single day, but I want to know what you are hearing behind the scenes there about -- is anyone there being forthcoming, or are they showing any surprise about this? Are they saying they were caught by surprise to find pockets like this, or to find the numbers of Al Qaeda or Taliban they are still fighting there in country?
STARR: That's such a tough question to answer, because, of course, officially you're right, no surprise expected at all; everything was well planned for. But there is an undercurrent of a little bit of concern. These fighters are tougher than they have encountered in the past. It's very clear that these Taliban and Al Qaeda are going to fight to the death. They are not going to give up. They are not going to run into the hills and disappear. They are making a stand. They are going to fight.
And the complicating factor is the geography and the terrain. Very high altitude, very cold, very thin air, so U.S. helicopters, which are already vulnerable when they fly into these confined areas, complicated by the thin air, the tough operating conditions, it's going to be a very tough fight for the U.S. They have already put ground mortars up there to try and target some of these pockets more closely.
They say they are not surprised, but they're sure making an effort to pull it all together and go after these pockets of resistance.
HARRIS: Yes, and that's a fight we have heard President Bush say time and again we are in for the long haul.
Let's check in now at the White House. Our John King is standing by there. John, what's the word from the White House this morning?
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, certainly when the president received word of these fatalities, that is perhaps the most difficult moment for any commander-in-chief, to learn that American servicemen or servicewomen overseas have been killed in combat.
From the White House standpoint, obviously a tragic lesson in all of this. There has been some concern here at the White House that the American people would view the Afghanistan phase of the war on terrorism as over, or at least in the cleanup, the wrapping-up phase. And through this fierce fighting in Gardez in recent days, and through these tragic fatalities of the American servicemen, the White House saying it needs to remind the American people once again that in some ways the hunt for Al Qaeda is just beginning, or certainly in its very early stages.
Yes, there were success early on, but as Barbara Starr was just noting, Al Qaeda pockets and loyal Taliban pockets still spread out across Afghanistan. As we have had the political debate a bit here in Washington in recent days, still no hard information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, with all of the focus of the special forces in the Philippines, military advisers going into Yemen, the possibility that more military advisers and military troops will go into the republic of Georgia, a concern here at the White House that people would think the war on terrorism was moving out of Afghanistan.
This is a very painful tragic reminder that as the president said from day one, as you noted, this will be a multifront war, and the phase in Afghanistan is going to take a very long time. The administration saying, even as the new interim government is up and running, even as that peacekeeping force gets up and running, that it will keep about its singular mission, trying to find Al Qaeda and Taliban fighting. And we haven't had many days like this fortunately, but the president said from the beginning, in this type of terrain, in this type fighting, there will be American casualties and fatalities.
HARRIS: Yes, and, John, in the past days, we have seen something of the bloom coming off the rose, where Democrats are now coming out and actually speaking critically about this spiraling and widening of the war. Is there concern there at the White House that there may actually be traction there?
KING: Well, the Democrats certainly would say they are not being critical, but they would say they are raising legitimate questions. The White House trying to say, you should not criticize a commander- in-chief in the middle of ongoing operations. That is a political subplot to all of this back in Washington. And a lot has to do not with what is going on the ground in Gardez, certainly overwhelming bipartisan support for the American men and women fighting the military campaign there. It is much more a question of budget priorities, spending priorities, and whether the president is consulting the Congress enough. That is always a sticking point, regardless of the issue. Many members of Congress resent the fact that this administration, in their view, is very secret about what is going on, not only in the today military campaign, but what the planning is for next week and beyond. That is really the source of most of the tension between the administration and the Congress right now. No one questioning the effort on the ground in Afghanistan. There will be questioning at the Pentagon.
This operation we are told was some two months in the planning. President Bush was warned from the get-go this would be about the nastiest fighting in the campaign and to expect casualties and possibility fatalities. These pictures at Ramstein Air Force Base telling us those predictions came true.
HARRIS: We'll sneak in a break and when we come back, see what develops at Ramstein Air Force Base.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The bodies of those U.S. servicemen are arriving at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.>
|
|
|
|
|
