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CNN Live At Daybreak

Huge U.S. Military Buildup in Persian Gulf Region

Aired January 14, 2003 - 05:02   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now onto Iraq and the huge U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. The White House says despite building up a force of up to 250,000 troops, President Bush has no timetable for ordering an attack on Iraq. Well, marching orders went out yesterday, this time to as many as 900 Army specialists trained in the use of advanced Patriot intercept missiles.
We want to get more on this military buildup now.

Our Ryan Chilcote is in Kuwait, where a number of U.S. troops are getting training in urban warfare, the most dangerous kind.

Ryan joins us now live from Kuwait City -- good morning.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, we spent the night with Task Force 315. They're a part of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division. A night out with them in the Kuwaiti desert, actually, in an abandoned mining town, as they practiced urban warfare techniques.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE (voice-over): The U.S. Army likes to fight at night, when technology gives the American soldier the advantage. Night vision goggles provide a similar but much clearer version of what you're seeing right now. Lasers direct fire with deadly precision. But an urban environment can be an equalizer. There is often no way to no what is behind a door until you've gone through it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't know what's going to be in that room. It could be, it could be some Iraqi soldier holding up a kid. You don't know what's going to be in there.

CHILCOTE: The soldiers use grenades to surprise the enemy and turn flashlights attached to their weapons for a split second to better distinguish the combatants from the non-combatants before they themselves become casualties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With me being the task force commander...

CHILCOTE (on camera): Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... one casualty I take is a significant casualty.

CHILCOTE: Sure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my job to train these guys to where I don't take any casualties.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE: Now, these guys were role playing, obviously, urban warfare, playing both the good guys and the bad guys. But they were taking score of who was getting hurt and I can tell you that a full 50 percent of the soldiers that were clearing those rooms were either wounded or killed. So that gives you an idea of exactly how dangerous this kind of warfare is -- back to you.

COSTELLO: Yes, I was just going to ask you to go into specifics about that and tell us why it's so dangerous, urban warfare, I mean.

CHILCOTE: Well, sure, with all the advantages, the technological advantages that the U.S. Army has, it's difficult, obviously, to deal with situations where you don't know who's behind the door that you're about to go through, you don't know who's behind the window. It's close contact fighting and really it's very unpredictable. So it's, like I said in the story, a very equalizing kind of situation. It gives the enemy, that might not have had all those technological advantages, a leg up on the U.S. Army.

COSTELLO: All right, Ryan Chilcote reporting live from Kuwait this morning.

And this note on Iraq. Yesterday we reported a "New York Times" story saying there had been a specific threat against a commercial airline moving U.S. troops to the Gulf. Well, our correspondents in Washington now tell us that "New York Times" story is incorrect. Multiple sources in position to know tell us there has never been an actual credible threat of a planned bombing of a passenger airliner carrying U.S. troops.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 14, 2003 - 05:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now onto Iraq and the huge U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. The White House says despite building up a force of up to 250,000 troops, President Bush has no timetable for ordering an attack on Iraq. Well, marching orders went out yesterday, this time to as many as 900 Army specialists trained in the use of advanced Patriot intercept missiles.
We want to get more on this military buildup now.

Our Ryan Chilcote is in Kuwait, where a number of U.S. troops are getting training in urban warfare, the most dangerous kind.

Ryan joins us now live from Kuwait City -- good morning.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, we spent the night with Task Force 315. They're a part of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division. A night out with them in the Kuwaiti desert, actually, in an abandoned mining town, as they practiced urban warfare techniques.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE (voice-over): The U.S. Army likes to fight at night, when technology gives the American soldier the advantage. Night vision goggles provide a similar but much clearer version of what you're seeing right now. Lasers direct fire with deadly precision. But an urban environment can be an equalizer. There is often no way to no what is behind a door until you've gone through it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't know what's going to be in that room. It could be, it could be some Iraqi soldier holding up a kid. You don't know what's going to be in there.

CHILCOTE: The soldiers use grenades to surprise the enemy and turn flashlights attached to their weapons for a split second to better distinguish the combatants from the non-combatants before they themselves become casualties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With me being the task force commander...

CHILCOTE (on camera): Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... one casualty I take is a significant casualty.

CHILCOTE: Sure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my job to train these guys to where I don't take any casualties.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE: Now, these guys were role playing, obviously, urban warfare, playing both the good guys and the bad guys. But they were taking score of who was getting hurt and I can tell you that a full 50 percent of the soldiers that were clearing those rooms were either wounded or killed. So that gives you an idea of exactly how dangerous this kind of warfare is -- back to you.

COSTELLO: Yes, I was just going to ask you to go into specifics about that and tell us why it's so dangerous, urban warfare, I mean.

CHILCOTE: Well, sure, with all the advantages, the technological advantages that the U.S. Army has, it's difficult, obviously, to deal with situations where you don't know who's behind the door that you're about to go through, you don't know who's behind the window. It's close contact fighting and really it's very unpredictable. So it's, like I said in the story, a very equalizing kind of situation. It gives the enemy, that might not have had all those technological advantages, a leg up on the U.S. Army.

COSTELLO: All right, Ryan Chilcote reporting live from Kuwait this morning.

And this note on Iraq. Yesterday we reported a "New York Times" story saying there had been a specific threat against a commercial airline moving U.S. troops to the Gulf. Well, our correspondents in Washington now tell us that "New York Times" story is incorrect. Multiple sources in position to know tell us there has never been an actual credible threat of a planned bombing of a passenger airliner carrying U.S. troops.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com