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CNN Live Today

Soldiers Relate Experience of Cave to Cave Fighting

Aired March 27, 2002 - 11:33   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The military operation in Afghanistan is far from over. U.S. forces are still on the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban forces, and some of the troops who took part in Operation Anaconda are talking about that experience.

Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins us live with that story. Barbara, good morning to you.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, earlier this morning we spoke by telephone with some of the soldiers at Bagram air base, who have returned from Operation Anaconda. They told stories about some of the cave searches that they have conducted, and the piles of ammunition that they have destroyed. And some of the caves that they have come across have been very sophisticated affairs.

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UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: ...looking for caves, and we mostly found holes or natural ravines that had been built over into a larger bunker. One of the bunkers that we destroyed went -- was 14 feet long, and you could only see about five feet of it, but it was about 10 feet deep. It had been built into a natural hole in the rock, and it was well camouflaged, so that it would appear to look like a cave from a passing helicopter, and the bunkers were not just set up randomly, they were interlocked. Whoever designed the scheme for their defensive positions, they knew what they were doing.

STARR: The soldiers also tell us that some of their comrades came across some of the equipment from U.S. soldiers killed earlier in Operation Anaconda, equipment that had fallen into al Qaeda hands.

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: The helmet that we found, we were not able to return to the Ranger personally. He died in combat. We gave it to his company commander, and I believe his company commander said he was going to give it to that Ranger's family.

STARR: And these soldiers told us that the -- really the biggest challenge they faced in moving through these caves and operations to destroy ammunitions was the very tough mountainous terrain that they were working in -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Barbara, on a different topic here, the Enron scandal reaching as far, or having some effect on the Pentagon?

STARR: It is. It is not what the Pentagon really wanted. Army Secretary Thomas White is meeting with reporters this morning to talk about Enron. He is a former top executive of the Enron corporation, and he has come under a lot of questioning from Congress in recent months about his activities at Enron and his selling of his stock in Enron once he became Army secretary.

Tom White has never spoken about all of this publicly until this morning, and he has told reporters that he has -- he will if Enron ever becomes a serious distraction, Tom White says he would then resign from office to deal with it. He has retained outside council.

It should be emphasized, he has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but Congress has continued to ask him a lot of questions in recent weeks. Tom White launching a very spirited defense of his actions. He says he has recused himself from any activity involving the Pentagon in the Enron corporation, and that he never sold his stock based on any insider information that he received as a result of his employment at Enron or his many continuing contacts with former colleagues at the company -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Barbara, thank you.

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