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CNN Live At Daybreak
Ryan Chilcote Back From the Front
Aired May 29, 2002 - 05:44 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Ryan Chilcote brought us some compelling stories from the war in Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just to give you an idea of exactly how close we are to Pakistan, right behind me you see the landing zone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: He's been on the front lines of the operation, inside the cracks and crevasses of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda caves and with the troops on Operation Mountain Lion, and this morning he's with me to talk about what it's like out there.
Thanks for waking up early.
CHILCOTE: Good morning.
COSTELLO: I see you had a big cup of coffee with you.
CHILCOTE: I did have. Yes, it was not easy.
COSTELLO: So you're just back from Afghanistan, what it's like there now?
CHILCOTE: Well, it's getting very hot. I understand it's about 115 degrees during the day now.
COSTELLO: Wow!
CHILCOTE: Yes, really hot, really dry and really dusty, those are the main gripes. And so -- you know...
COSTELLO: And still very dangerous.
CHILCOTE: Still pretty dangerous. You're -- you know I was with 12,000 troops -- coalition troops, and there wasn't too much enemy fire. There hasn't been a lot of enemy around recently, but there was -- there are always helicopters crashing, explosions go wrong, so it is a little bit dangerous there.
COSTELLO: Well, and it's that sniper fire, you just never know where it's coming from now.
CHILCOTE: That's true, yes. That's very...
COSTELLO: So you were actually inside Osama bin Laden's caves. Tell us what they looked like.
CHILCOTE: You know it's funny, they don't look like the caves that you might imagine. A lot of times they're tunnels, actually, manmade tunnels that go back maybe 20 meters, and you could -- you could sort of hide in them if you wanted. They oftentimes have blast walls in front of them so that if a plane was to come over a hill, it would -- and drop bombs on it, it would hit -- it would hit this blast wall, but anyone who was inside the tunnel would be safe. They have separate holes for generators. So they're pretty elaborate but not exactly the sort of really amazing cave complexes that we'd been hearing about. We -- I didn't see any of those.
COSTELLO: Oh you mean they don't have like furniture inside them and all the...
CHILCOTE: No.
COSTELLO: ... accoutrements of life?
CHILCOTE: No furniture, no like electricity I'd heard about, you know, water.
COSTELLO: Do they like restrooms in them? I'm just curious.
CHILCOTE: No, I didn't see any restrooms, no.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: How long do you think that U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan?
CHILCOTE: It's really tough to know I guess because the -- right now it seems -- even since I was there over the two months, their job seems to be changing. It's -- the days of Operation Anaconda when there was a real shootout between the al Qaeda and Taliban guys and U.S. and coalition forces and had -- those days are sort of over. I mean, we haven't seen any direct confrontations with enemy fighters in two months now. So where this is going, I don't know. It's difficult to say. I think that there's this desire to find the, you know, Al Qaeda and Taliban guys, but they don't seem to be able to do it. And so how long they're going to stay there I don't know...
COSTELLO: Yes.
CHILCOTE: ... and what their role exactly is going to be.
COSTELLO: What was the hardest part of being there for you?
CHILCOTE: The...
COSTELLO: I suspect I know the answer. (LAUGHTER)
CHILCOTE: Obviously it's not easy being away from your family, and you know it's a difficult place to begin with and so you know that -- there's -- that's not easy. That's the hardest thing. I have a brand new son. He's eight months old.
COSTELLO: OK, so while you were in Afghanistan, your wife's pregnant?
CHILCOTE: Yes.
COSTELLO: And you thought the baby was due to arrive at a certain time. Look, we're looking at your little baby there. So she calls you, what, from Florida?
CHILCOTE: Yes, and...
COSTELLO: She calls Afghanistan and says honey...
CHILCOTE: It was bad news, yes. It was actually my first trip to Afghanistan in September and we'd -- we were the first people in. On September 12 I left Moscow, which is where I'm based out of for Afghanistan. And the baby was due in October so we kind of thought -- you know I kind of thought I'll stick around until the bombing, because I thought the U.S. would start bombing very, very soon, but they didn't. And I kept, you know, every day it was like oh well, you know I've got a little bit more, a little bit more time.
Well you know I talked to my wife daily, and one day she's like I think if you want to be here for the -- you know for the birth you need to get back. I'm like, oh you know, be back on the next helicopter, but it's not easy to get out of Afghanistan that quickly.
COSTELLO: No, it's like you can run down to the airport in Afghanistan, hop a plane and get back.
CHILCOTE: No, it was not easy at all. I mean they -- thankfully I was on the next helicopter out, which was the very next morning, which is unbelievably quick time in Afghanistan. And all of the Afghan men were -- that were sort of controlling the helicopter were really helpful because they understood that I was going to have a baby and that's really important to them. So they got me on this helicopter, but the next city I got to in Tajikistan, they didn't have a flight until the next day. So I was on the phone with my wife during the...
COSTELLO: Coaching her.
CHILCOTE: But anyway, we heard -- sorry about that if you're watching -- but she was really good about it. And I was in Florida -- the baby was born in Florida -- the next day. And it all worked out.
COSTELLO: So you managed to get back like the day after?
CHILCOTE: She was still in the hospital, everything was still great. The baby was all clean.
COSTELLO: So what's your next step? Where do you go now?
CHILCOTE: I think Afghanistan is still a very fascinating place. I think the entire war on terror is interesting. I think it's really a complicated effort, and I think that it's really important to be right out there where it's happening. We hear so much about the war on terror, but there's so little access to what these troops are doing right out on the front lines so that's what I'd like to do in the future.
COSTELLO: Well we enjoy your stories. And thank you for...
CHILCOTE: Thank you.
COSTELLO: ... coming in this morning and talking with us. It was fun (ph).
CHILCOTE: Yes, sure, had to bring up my son.
COSTELLO: He's so cute.
CHILCOTE: He is.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Ryan.
CHILCOTE: Thank you.
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