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CNN Live At Daybreak

Strike on Iraq: U.S. Army 7th Cavalry

Aired March 21, 2003 - 05:48   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.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Walt Rodgers actually standing by in a Humvee moving fast, moving furiously, as he said earlier.
Walt, how's it going?

WALT RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's actually going very well. Even though you believe these tanks don't move quickly, they move faster than anything else on land over this desert. This is very rugged and rough terrain. We drove over a watie (ph), dry riverbed, which almost shook the bottom out of our Humvee vehicle, but the tanks just rolled right through it.

We know what the plan is, that is the Army showed us the grid and the -- and the routes we'd be traveling. And I can tell you, we are making good progress and we are more than on schedule. The U.S. 7th Cavalry is now reaching out, traveling in advance of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is -- which was around us a while back until we made a left turn and now they are somewhat behind us. But they are -- they are coming on and coming on very, very hard.

Again, we used the analogy earlier that what you're looking at is a wave of steel that's sweeping across the desert. And every hour that wave of steel grows in strength and momentum as more and more tanks, particularly from the 3rd Infantry Division, a heavy mechanized division, join this fight. That being the case, there is a huge wave of steel headed towards Baghdad -- Leon.

COOPER: Walt, it's Anderson Cooper in Atlanta. I got to ask you, you know this reminds me of that old Army commercial, you know we do more before 8:00 a.m. than most people do in a day. If that were ever true, you guys have been going all night with this. Many Americans are just waking up at this hour. It is 5:50 here on the East Coast. When do the troops -- when do the members of the 7th Cavalry sleep? I mean this has been going on all night long and many hours before the evening began.

RODGERS: You don't sleep. You really don't sleep out here. Of course you're on an adrenaline high. But racing across the desert, you know that you're traveling toward the jaws of what could be a major military battle as the 7th Cavalry and the 3rd ID move towards Baghdad. That being the case, there's no -- there's not going to be much sleep. The only nap I saw any of the -- any of the soldiers get was during the refueling as other tanks were in line ahead of them. They would lie inside the tank or on a flat portion of the tank.

I want you to know that the preferred corner of the tank to sleep in is on the aft turret because -- or aft of the turret on that back part over the engine because in cool desert nights that stays warm for about four hours. Having said that, this is not a time for sleep. These are young men who know how -- know how to burn the candle at both ends and they're burning it at both ends in this race toward Baghdad -- Anderson.

COOPER: And you are doing an excellent job of keeping up with them. Walter, I should just point out to our viewers, the video that you and your crew are shooting is on the right hand side of our screen. The other video image on the left hand side of the screen is being shot by Martin Savidge's crew also in -- somewhere in southern Iraq. He is traveling with the U.S. Marine Corp. So just to inform our viewers, we're seeing two different images. The one, the Marine Corp. traveling along a road. It does not look at quite as fast a rate of speed. Walter Rodgers traveling, it looks -- how fast do you think you're going -- Walter?

RODGERS: We're travel -- well we just slowed down now to about 20 miles an hour because we're coming up on what appears to be another watie. But we have been traveling anywhere from 30 to 40 miles an hour. Sometimes as low as 20 or 25, like when we go through soft sand, as we're doing now. Some of this sand is very soft. And when we come to a watie, which is the Arabic word for dry riverbed or for a riverbed, then there are huge boulders there. We have to travel more slowly. But these tanks move very, very quickly. I've seen them roll at over 54 miles an hour in these deserts full bore.

But again, the problem, the difficulty with that is they out race their supply train, which is following behind them, and they don't want to go too fast. The reason being they have a set schedule. Everything is charted out on this like a graph and they move through these grids on these maps. And every refueling point is marked out on the grid, on the map, almost every stop the same.

Now the 7th Cavalry is coming up on a ridge which they can't see over. So you can see the tanks out in front of us pausing on top of the ridge because they're not certain what's on the other side at this point. And of course they don't want to go racing into an ambush. Again, not that much resistance from the Iraqi regular army was expected down here in southern Kuwait. But the closer the -- these troops move to Baghdad, the more dangerous it will become.

And there's no question even though this may appear to have been a cakewalk for the first 15 hours or so of this march toward Baghdad, no one in the command structure believes this is going to be a cakewalk unless there's a regime change in Baghdad. If Saddam Hussein's regime were to collapse, then perhaps the Republican Guard units, which guard the perimeter of the city, might not put up a fight. But if the regime does not collapse and if those Republican Guard units remain dug in around the perimeter of Baghdad, then the soldiers you are looking at now in their tanks are going to be looking at a very serious fight with some well-trained troops -- Anderson.

COOPER: Walter, I don't know what exactly, Walter, what you can say about this, but whatever you can would be helpful, how exactly does this work? I mean you are moving fast. We see you are paused right here at this moment because you said unable to see what's over this ridge that you are approaching. Are there -- are there aircraft that are -- that are sort of clearing the way for you in terms of radar telling you what is ahead? Are there helicopters moving ahead of you scouting out locations? And if you do encounter something, some sort of an Iraqi presence, do you immediately come to a halt? How does it all work?

RODGERS: Well presently we do not see aircraft overhead. The armored units, which are out there, are sufficient to probe forward. However, they rely on the eyes of the eyes which are the OH Kiowa helicopters which usually are out over the horizon and patrolling about anywhere from 4 to 10 kilometers out. The OH Kiowa helicopters have been out there all day, although I confess I do not see them now, and I'm looking on a -- on about a 180 swing of the horizon. Normally those helicopters are flying a zone reconnaissance around to make sure there -- that no Iraqi units try to outflank this armored force or, as I say, ambush them. I don't see the Kiowas now, although I expect they're probably out there.

But we do not have the United States Air Force in the air above the 7th Cavalry at this point. They could be called on at any moment. They're in the area, but there's no need for them because this is still the southern no-fly zone and the Iraqi air force is essentially grounded and so there's no real air threat. The United States and its allies control the air over Iraq. That is an enormous advantage for the United States and gives these tanks great latitude of movement, which they would not enjoy on a battlefield if indeed there was a competitive air force -- Anderson.

COOPER: The Kiowa, which you referred to, are these scout helicopters moving ahead. How do they get refueled? I mean they are traveling along with you, they are part of the 7th Cav., they -- do they get the same kind of fuel as you guys do and do you carry that and they refuel with you? How does it work?

RODGERS: Well that's the genius of the general who designed this operation and the modern Army of the United States, every vehicle you see out here on the battlefield, from the Humvee to the Bradley fighting vehicles, to the MC-113s (ph), the tanks and the helicopters all use the very same fuel.

By the way, our camera is focusing over on a Psyops vehicle there. These are the psychological warfare folks in that vehicle with the speaker on top. If there were a call to call to the Iraqi civilian populous, if there was a mass surrender or something like that, those are the people who would -- who would be engaged in that.

Yes, the Army does use universal fuel for all its vehicles, which is very economical and very prudent, because you don't -- it means you don't -- you carry a limited number of fuel trucks. That is enough to fuel all the vehicles but no more. You don't have to duplicate anything -- Anderson.

COOPER: Is it a concern and when you are moving this fast, as you mentioned, the forces of the 7th Cavalry are very spread out, obviously, for a very understandable tactical reasons. Is communication a problem? Obviously you have some sort of communication system between you, but does there -- is there a concern over communication security about talking too much on the wires, on the radios? Tell us what you can.

RODGERS: Well, not every vehicle has a radio out there. Some do, some don't. And some of the ones you look at obviously do because you can see the aerials out there. But not every vehicle has a radio.

And it's very interesting how the embed communication is handled. We are essentially given a tank or a vehicle, for example, the Air Force TAC armored vehicle to follow or to stay close to. We worked all of this out in the practices before the embed -- or before the operation commenced. The embed gave us plenty of opportunity to know the people we were working with. This was very important because what we did was build the confidence of the U.S. 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry. They got to know us, they knew we were not reckless, they knew we understood the military culture where there's a chain of command and a set of rules. And when they understood we understood their culture, their rules, the embed has worked extraordinarily harmoniously and we really don't need a radio.

If there's a -- if there's a change in the -- in the maneuver or a change in direction, they may sometimes come over and tell us. Or if we're down, everybody's down, someone will drive up in a Humvee and say we're leaving in five minutes. But other than that, we're without radio...

COOPER: All right.

RODGERS: ... contact with them. But we are within line of sight -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Walter, we've got to end it there. Thanks for joining us. We'll check in with you shortly.

Walter Rodgers reporting with two other members of the CNN team as he has been, really, throughout much of the -- much of the early morning and late night hours.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we've been selfish with Walter.

COOPER: Yes.

COSTELLO: CNN International wants him now so we've got to let him go to give his report to the world.

COOPER: But unprecedented pictures. Really never seen something like that before with the technology that we have now, just extraordinary pictures of the 7th Cavalry moving rapidly through the deserts of Iraq and target, quite simply, Baghdad.

COSTELLO: And of course the Marines also on the move somewhere in southern Iraq with Martin Savidge.

COOPER: Right, those pictures from Martin Savidge.

COSTELLO: Yes. COOPER: So just trying to pull all of the pieces of the puzzle together and bring you right to the front lines right here on CNN.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

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 March 21, 2003 - 05:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Walt Rodgers actually standing by in a Humvee moving fast, moving furiously, as he said earlier.
Walt, how's it going?

WALT RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's actually going very well. Even though you believe these tanks don't move quickly, they move faster than anything else on land over this desert. This is very rugged and rough terrain. We drove over a watie (ph), dry riverbed, which almost shook the bottom out of our Humvee vehicle, but the tanks just rolled right through it.

We know what the plan is, that is the Army showed us the grid and the -- and the routes we'd be traveling. And I can tell you, we are making good progress and we are more than on schedule. The U.S. 7th Cavalry is now reaching out, traveling in advance of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is -- which was around us a while back until we made a left turn and now they are somewhat behind us. But they are -- they are coming on and coming on very, very hard.

Again, we used the analogy earlier that what you're looking at is a wave of steel that's sweeping across the desert. And every hour that wave of steel grows in strength and momentum as more and more tanks, particularly from the 3rd Infantry Division, a heavy mechanized division, join this fight. That being the case, there is a huge wave of steel headed towards Baghdad -- Leon.

COOPER: Walt, it's Anderson Cooper in Atlanta. I got to ask you, you know this reminds me of that old Army commercial, you know we do more before 8:00 a.m. than most people do in a day. If that were ever true, you guys have been going all night with this. Many Americans are just waking up at this hour. It is 5:50 here on the East Coast. When do the troops -- when do the members of the 7th Cavalry sleep? I mean this has been going on all night long and many hours before the evening began.

RODGERS: You don't sleep. You really don't sleep out here. Of course you're on an adrenaline high. But racing across the desert, you know that you're traveling toward the jaws of what could be a major military battle as the 7th Cavalry and the 3rd ID move towards Baghdad. That being the case, there's no -- there's not going to be much sleep. The only nap I saw any of the -- any of the soldiers get was during the refueling as other tanks were in line ahead of them. They would lie inside the tank or on a flat portion of the tank.

I want you to know that the preferred corner of the tank to sleep in is on the aft turret because -- or aft of the turret on that back part over the engine because in cool desert nights that stays warm for about four hours. Having said that, this is not a time for sleep. These are young men who know how -- know how to burn the candle at both ends and they're burning it at both ends in this race toward Baghdad -- Anderson.

COOPER: And you are doing an excellent job of keeping up with them. Walter, I should just point out to our viewers, the video that you and your crew are shooting is on the right hand side of our screen. The other video image on the left hand side of the screen is being shot by Martin Savidge's crew also in -- somewhere in southern Iraq. He is traveling with the U.S. Marine Corp. So just to inform our viewers, we're seeing two different images. The one, the Marine Corp. traveling along a road. It does not look at quite as fast a rate of speed. Walter Rodgers traveling, it looks -- how fast do you think you're going -- Walter?

RODGERS: We're travel -- well we just slowed down now to about 20 miles an hour because we're coming up on what appears to be another watie. But we have been traveling anywhere from 30 to 40 miles an hour. Sometimes as low as 20 or 25, like when we go through soft sand, as we're doing now. Some of this sand is very soft. And when we come to a watie, which is the Arabic word for dry riverbed or for a riverbed, then there are huge boulders there. We have to travel more slowly. But these tanks move very, very quickly. I've seen them roll at over 54 miles an hour in these deserts full bore.

But again, the problem, the difficulty with that is they out race their supply train, which is following behind them, and they don't want to go too fast. The reason being they have a set schedule. Everything is charted out on this like a graph and they move through these grids on these maps. And every refueling point is marked out on the grid, on the map, almost every stop the same.

Now the 7th Cavalry is coming up on a ridge which they can't see over. So you can see the tanks out in front of us pausing on top of the ridge because they're not certain what's on the other side at this point. And of course they don't want to go racing into an ambush. Again, not that much resistance from the Iraqi regular army was expected down here in southern Kuwait. But the closer the -- these troops move to Baghdad, the more dangerous it will become.

And there's no question even though this may appear to have been a cakewalk for the first 15 hours or so of this march toward Baghdad, no one in the command structure believes this is going to be a cakewalk unless there's a regime change in Baghdad. If Saddam Hussein's regime were to collapse, then perhaps the Republican Guard units, which guard the perimeter of the city, might not put up a fight. But if the regime does not collapse and if those Republican Guard units remain dug in around the perimeter of Baghdad, then the soldiers you are looking at now in their tanks are going to be looking at a very serious fight with some well-trained troops -- Anderson.

COOPER: Walter, I don't know what exactly, Walter, what you can say about this, but whatever you can would be helpful, how exactly does this work? I mean you are moving fast. We see you are paused right here at this moment because you said unable to see what's over this ridge that you are approaching. Are there -- are there aircraft that are -- that are sort of clearing the way for you in terms of radar telling you what is ahead? Are there helicopters moving ahead of you scouting out locations? And if you do encounter something, some sort of an Iraqi presence, do you immediately come to a halt? How does it all work?

RODGERS: Well presently we do not see aircraft overhead. The armored units, which are out there, are sufficient to probe forward. However, they rely on the eyes of the eyes which are the OH Kiowa helicopters which usually are out over the horizon and patrolling about anywhere from 4 to 10 kilometers out. The OH Kiowa helicopters have been out there all day, although I confess I do not see them now, and I'm looking on a -- on about a 180 swing of the horizon. Normally those helicopters are flying a zone reconnaissance around to make sure there -- that no Iraqi units try to outflank this armored force or, as I say, ambush them. I don't see the Kiowas now, although I expect they're probably out there.

But we do not have the United States Air Force in the air above the 7th Cavalry at this point. They could be called on at any moment. They're in the area, but there's no need for them because this is still the southern no-fly zone and the Iraqi air force is essentially grounded and so there's no real air threat. The United States and its allies control the air over Iraq. That is an enormous advantage for the United States and gives these tanks great latitude of movement, which they would not enjoy on a battlefield if indeed there was a competitive air force -- Anderson.

COOPER: The Kiowa, which you referred to, are these scout helicopters moving ahead. How do they get refueled? I mean they are traveling along with you, they are part of the 7th Cav., they -- do they get the same kind of fuel as you guys do and do you carry that and they refuel with you? How does it work?

RODGERS: Well that's the genius of the general who designed this operation and the modern Army of the United States, every vehicle you see out here on the battlefield, from the Humvee to the Bradley fighting vehicles, to the MC-113s (ph), the tanks and the helicopters all use the very same fuel.

By the way, our camera is focusing over on a Psyops vehicle there. These are the psychological warfare folks in that vehicle with the speaker on top. If there were a call to call to the Iraqi civilian populous, if there was a mass surrender or something like that, those are the people who would -- who would be engaged in that.

Yes, the Army does use universal fuel for all its vehicles, which is very economical and very prudent, because you don't -- it means you don't -- you carry a limited number of fuel trucks. That is enough to fuel all the vehicles but no more. You don't have to duplicate anything -- Anderson.

COOPER: Is it a concern and when you are moving this fast, as you mentioned, the forces of the 7th Cavalry are very spread out, obviously, for a very understandable tactical reasons. Is communication a problem? Obviously you have some sort of communication system between you, but does there -- is there a concern over communication security about talking too much on the wires, on the radios? Tell us what you can.

RODGERS: Well, not every vehicle has a radio out there. Some do, some don't. And some of the ones you look at obviously do because you can see the aerials out there. But not every vehicle has a radio.

And it's very interesting how the embed communication is handled. We are essentially given a tank or a vehicle, for example, the Air Force TAC armored vehicle to follow or to stay close to. We worked all of this out in the practices before the embed -- or before the operation commenced. The embed gave us plenty of opportunity to know the people we were working with. This was very important because what we did was build the confidence of the U.S. 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry. They got to know us, they knew we were not reckless, they knew we understood the military culture where there's a chain of command and a set of rules. And when they understood we understood their culture, their rules, the embed has worked extraordinarily harmoniously and we really don't need a radio.

If there's a -- if there's a change in the -- in the maneuver or a change in direction, they may sometimes come over and tell us. Or if we're down, everybody's down, someone will drive up in a Humvee and say we're leaving in five minutes. But other than that, we're without radio...

COOPER: All right.

RODGERS: ... contact with them. But we are within line of sight -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Walter, we've got to end it there. Thanks for joining us. We'll check in with you shortly.

Walter Rodgers reporting with two other members of the CNN team as he has been, really, throughout much of the -- much of the early morning and late night hours.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we've been selfish with Walter.

COOPER: Yes.

COSTELLO: CNN International wants him now so we've got to let him go to give his report to the world.

COOPER: But unprecedented pictures. Really never seen something like that before with the technology that we have now, just extraordinary pictures of the 7th Cavalry moving rapidly through the deserts of Iraq and target, quite simply, Baghdad.

COSTELLO: And of course the Marines also on the move somewhere in southern Iraq with Martin Savidge.

COOPER: Right, those pictures from Martin Savidge.

COSTELLO: Yes. COOPER: So just trying to pull all of the pieces of the puzzle together and bring you right to the front lines right here on CNN.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

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