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CNN Live Today

Discussion with Mike Turner

Aired March 21, 2003 - 11:55   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to bring into our conversation now retired Air Force General Mike Turner about strategy and war plans. Colonel Turner joins us from Colorado Springs.
Good to see you again, Colonel. First of all, your reaction to what we've seen this morning. Coalition forces taking over this very important town of Umm Qasr, a port city in southern Iraq.

COL, MIKE TURNER, (RET.) U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, Paula, as we mentioned yesterday, Saddam's objectives in this effort are principally political. And U.S. planners I'm sure took that into account. Two key objectives were H-2 and H-3 out in the west and then the Umm Qasr fields. Clearly because Saddam could have gained great political benefit by torching his own oil wells and also launching on Israel.

Now, H-2 and H-3 were very high on the target list and early in the target list in Desert Storm. However, we went about it a little bit differently. They were fixed Scud sites and as such were considered highly vulnerable. And therefore, we didn't consider them to be particularly difficult targets.

The difference in this operation is rather than attacking these targets from the air, as I understand it from news reports, we've actually secured these airfields with troops on the ground. What this does, is it allows us to put eyes on the ground in the basket from which Saddam's forces could launch on Israel and preemptively attack any mobile Scuds which in fact is where most of the attacks on Israel occurred, in that western section. This allows us to have troops either to preempt that or to respond almost immediately if they see traffic moving in that area.

As far as the oil fields are concerned, it clearly demonstrates that U.S. planning to obviate Saddam's political objectives and focus, and they've done that very successfully with a minimal loss of life. And we're very fortunate in that regard, I think.

ZAHN: Colonel, you were the man who used to brief General Norman Schwarzkopf. And I wondered if you could comment for a moment on how fluid this all seems to be. Secretary of State Powell telling all of us a short while ago that there are ongoing contacts not only between U.S. military officials and Iraqi military officials, but other contacts all over the world trying to convince the military leadership to abandon Saddam. Give us your insights into that process and how long that might take, and how long you let that go.

TURNER: Well, what's notable in this is that the empirical evidence -- and I have to emphasize this is just the circumstantial evidence -- strongly suggests that there has been some serious damage to his leadership structure. We had no such discussions during Desert Storm, and the reason for that was despite a number of attempts to do this kind of operation against his leadership structure, we perceived in Riyadh that he was continuing to command and lead his forces in the field fairly rigorously.

And what we see now so dramatically is that there seems to be a malaise or a disarray in the command structure, and that would then, if we responded to that appropriately and quickly enough, would result in U.S. overtures to the now headless Republican Guard units and some of the military command authorities in Baghdad. And we would increase those efforts to try and end this bloodlessly as fast and as robustly as possible. And I think that's what's going on.

Now, there are some other alternatives. He may have just hunkered down, gone underground and left a lot of those units without guidance. But right now the symptoms are awfully good that we've done some serious damage to his leadership structure.

ZAHN: In fact, the White House is basically saying today that they believe that they have certainly created at a minimum a lot of chaos. Coming back to the point you were making about responding appropriately and swiftly to any perceived weakness in the structure, what kind of a time period are you talking about? I mean, how long could that take?

TURNER: Well, it's not a function so much as a linear time. It's a function of progress being made. If you're making extraordinarily rapid progress behind the scenes and you feel their leadership begin to crack and crumble, and you want to continue to press diplomatically and you want to continue to press with behind the scenes communications to continue that process, and as long as that process is yielding valuable fruit and you can save American lives by allowing that process to continue, there really is no time limit. You're driven by the exigencies of the moment and by circumstances. As long as that's productive, then you continue to do that. And when it ceases to be productive, then you can resume your planned operations.

ZAHN: Need a quick yes and no. Do you ever see the shock and awe part of this campaign being implemented?

TURNER: Too hard to guess at this point, to hard to tell.

ZAHN: That wasn't fair, for me to let you just say yes or now, but...

TURNER: That's OK. That's OK.

ZAHN: Colonel Mike Turner, always good to have you on the air with us. Thank you very much for your perspective.

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 - 11:55   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to bring into our conversation now retired Air Force General Mike Turner about strategy and war plans. Colonel Turner joins us from Colorado Springs.
Good to see you again, Colonel. First of all, your reaction to what we've seen this morning. Coalition forces taking over this very important town of Umm Qasr, a port city in southern Iraq.

COL, MIKE TURNER, (RET.) U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, Paula, as we mentioned yesterday, Saddam's objectives in this effort are principally political. And U.S. planners I'm sure took that into account. Two key objectives were H-2 and H-3 out in the west and then the Umm Qasr fields. Clearly because Saddam could have gained great political benefit by torching his own oil wells and also launching on Israel.

Now, H-2 and H-3 were very high on the target list and early in the target list in Desert Storm. However, we went about it a little bit differently. They were fixed Scud sites and as such were considered highly vulnerable. And therefore, we didn't consider them to be particularly difficult targets.

The difference in this operation is rather than attacking these targets from the air, as I understand it from news reports, we've actually secured these airfields with troops on the ground. What this does, is it allows us to put eyes on the ground in the basket from which Saddam's forces could launch on Israel and preemptively attack any mobile Scuds which in fact is where most of the attacks on Israel occurred, in that western section. This allows us to have troops either to preempt that or to respond almost immediately if they see traffic moving in that area.

As far as the oil fields are concerned, it clearly demonstrates that U.S. planning to obviate Saddam's political objectives and focus, and they've done that very successfully with a minimal loss of life. And we're very fortunate in that regard, I think.

ZAHN: Colonel, you were the man who used to brief General Norman Schwarzkopf. And I wondered if you could comment for a moment on how fluid this all seems to be. Secretary of State Powell telling all of us a short while ago that there are ongoing contacts not only between U.S. military officials and Iraqi military officials, but other contacts all over the world trying to convince the military leadership to abandon Saddam. Give us your insights into that process and how long that might take, and how long you let that go.

TURNER: Well, what's notable in this is that the empirical evidence -- and I have to emphasize this is just the circumstantial evidence -- strongly suggests that there has been some serious damage to his leadership structure. We had no such discussions during Desert Storm, and the reason for that was despite a number of attempts to do this kind of operation against his leadership structure, we perceived in Riyadh that he was continuing to command and lead his forces in the field fairly rigorously.

And what we see now so dramatically is that there seems to be a malaise or a disarray in the command structure, and that would then, if we responded to that appropriately and quickly enough, would result in U.S. overtures to the now headless Republican Guard units and some of the military command authorities in Baghdad. And we would increase those efforts to try and end this bloodlessly as fast and as robustly as possible. And I think that's what's going on.

Now, there are some other alternatives. He may have just hunkered down, gone underground and left a lot of those units without guidance. But right now the symptoms are awfully good that we've done some serious damage to his leadership structure.

ZAHN: In fact, the White House is basically saying today that they believe that they have certainly created at a minimum a lot of chaos. Coming back to the point you were making about responding appropriately and swiftly to any perceived weakness in the structure, what kind of a time period are you talking about? I mean, how long could that take?

TURNER: Well, it's not a function so much as a linear time. It's a function of progress being made. If you're making extraordinarily rapid progress behind the scenes and you feel their leadership begin to crack and crumble, and you want to continue to press diplomatically and you want to continue to press with behind the scenes communications to continue that process, and as long as that process is yielding valuable fruit and you can save American lives by allowing that process to continue, there really is no time limit. You're driven by the exigencies of the moment and by circumstances. As long as that's productive, then you continue to do that. And when it ceases to be productive, then you can resume your planned operations.

ZAHN: Need a quick yes and no. Do you ever see the shock and awe part of this campaign being implemented?

TURNER: Too hard to guess at this point, to hard to tell.

ZAHN: That wasn't fair, for me to let you just say yes or now, but...

TURNER: That's OK. That's OK.

ZAHN: Colonel Mike Turner, always good to have you on the air with us. Thank you very much for your perspective.

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