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CNN Live At Daybreak
Intelligence Says Iraqis May Blow Bridges
Aired March 26, 2003 - 05:50 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: All right, let's go to Doha, Qatar right now to CENTCOM command headquarters. And that's where Tom Mintier is now.
At last check, Tom, you were talking about Basra and a possible citizen uprising there.
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We were talking about Basra. But we have some very latest information, Carol, that military sources here tell CNN that intelligence reports seem to indicate that the bridges in and around Baghdad may have been rigged with explosives and wired to be detonated. This was just reported to us within the last hour or so. And intelligence reports indicate that the bridges in and around Baghdad have been rigged for explosives.
We heard from Walt Rodgers as he crossed the Euphrates well south of Baghdad that the bridge that they crossed, they did see explosives tied to the side of the bridge but the military units took out the command posts on both sides of the bridges as they crossed. So the bridge was maintained intact.
I am in the briefing room here at Central Command where each day they come in and tell us about the operational details and how the campaign is going.
We have with us today not the people who brief, but the people who do, Lieutenant Colonel "Dawg" Dean Pennington. He is an F-16 pilot. And you have flown several missions in this operation already.
LT. COL. "DAWG" PENNINGTON, USAF F-16 PILOT: Right.
MINTIER: And also First Lieutenant Liesl Causey. You're an intelligence officer with an air refueling squadron.
LT. LIESL CAUSEY, INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Yes, I am.
MINTIER: These are people who keep...
PENNINGTON: Keep us in the air.
CAUSEY: Sixteen times.
MINTIER: Keep you in the air. Fine.
First to you, what do you see as you fly over Iraq?
PENNINGTON: Well, we've -- I've been doing a lot of night missions so we're on night vision goggles, which allows us easier access to when they're shooting as with AAA or SAMs. And other than that, it depends how much of the moon is and what the clouds are what we can see outside.
During the day, depending on where we are in Iraq, a lot of sand and desert, obviously. And then around the cities you see the villages, you know, they stand out real well if it's good weather.
MINTIER: When we had pictures from Baghdad, we could see a lot of that AAA coming up and there were reports that as the campaign went on, you were seeing less and less of it. What is it like flying over the city, say, tonight?
PENNINGTON: It varies. It's been pretty heavy lately, a lot of AAA. And, you know, I think someone said this before, you look at it as, hey, this one's after me. And at night it's hard to tell how close it is a lot of times until it gets really close.
MINTIER: In this briefing room, they show us camera video from the bombs and the missiles. Is each bomb and missile equipped with a camera? Can they get video imagery back?
PENNINGTON: No, that's not.
MINTIER: It's from selected (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
PENNINGTON: Selected types of weapons, that's right.
MINTIER: And it's based on the target that each individual aircraft is going to get?
PENNINGTON: Depending on what your, what you're flagged for or what you're given as a target and then the ammunition that you're given, the weapons. Some weapons have TV-guided optics on them, some don't. Some use targeting pods to light up the target so you can visually guide them or use a laser beam to guide the bomb in and then you can watch it that way through a camera.
MINTIER: When you go over Baghdad, how many targets do you have on your list?
PENNINGTON: I'm a -- I do suppression of enemy air defenses, so my job is to ensure that the bombers and the fighters that are going to drop bombs are protected from enemy fire on the ground, whether it be missiles or AAA. And that's our primary duty. We also do the secondary role of dropping bombs, but we get particular targets given to us either while we're in the air or before we fly.
MINTIER: Right.
Lieutenant Causey, your unit refuels the fighters and other aircraft up in the sky.
CAUSEY: Yes, sir.
MINTIER: There have been some incidents of -- two British helicopters crashed into each other at night. A Patriot missile battery took down a British Tornado and an F-16 yesterday or the day before fired into a Patriot missile battery. It's got to be a very difficult operation to keep everything apart. There's a lot of airplanes flying, 1,400 missions yesterday.
CAUSEY: Yes, sir. It is. However, there are very many levels of deconfliction for the various aircraft running all the way from the top, obviously, and the planners, to all the way down to the squadron level. And they obviously try to keep the different levels and the different tracks apart as best they can.
MINTIER: These missions that the F-16s are flying, you keep them up in the air after they are about to run out of fuel. They load them up again and they stay over the target areas for how much longer?
CAUSEY: It depends on their mission, sir. It depends on where they're going, how far up they have to travel. Obviously, they have to keep enough fuel left to get back to base again and maybe some in reserve if they need to divert somewhere. So it depends on where they're going to go in country, what they're going to do.
MINTIER: All right, Lieutenant Causey, Dawg Pennington, thank you very much.
So there you have it from two people who are actually out there doing what the briefers are talking about here -- Carol, back to you.
COSTELLO: All right, Tom Mintier, many thanks to you.
And just on the Basra situation, earlier from CENTCOM command headquarters a British officer said there was massive resentment in the civilian population in Basra and in essence that means that there may be a massive civilian uprising against Saddam Hussein's forces. We don't know as of yet for sure, but we think that's what's going on right now.
COOPER: Right, resentment, we should say, among the civilian population toward those Iraqi irregulars who had faded back into the city and were trying to use the city, use the civilian population, really, as cover. And so as General Grange was saying just a short time ago, if that is, in fact, happening on the ground, it could be a major development and one we will be following a lot in the coming hours, I should say.
Let's check in with Bob Franken because the air war certainly here is something, a major component of this war in Iraq. Some trouble with sandstorms for the last couple of days. In particular today there were well over 1,000 sorties flown yesterday, as Tom Mintier was just talking about, with those airmen.
Let's check in to see how it's looking today -- Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, if I may interject, during the first Persian Gulf War, there was also an uprising at the end of that in Basra. There are some very big ethnic and religious differences between that regime and the one in Baghdad. I just thought I'd like to add that historical perspective.
As for the present time, we are at a base, as we've learned to call it, near the Iraq border. It is a major launching pad for the United States Air Force. But it has been diminished somewhat by the sandstorms. There's a little bit of a lull now, but of course they've been blowing up quite a fuss, not just here, but throughout the region, so much so that visibility has been severely inhabited, to the point that about a third of the flights that were scheduled to go yesterday did not. They expect similar performance today.
The problem is that those flights also are the ones that the ground forces are counting on as they continue their advances so there have had to be changes of plans. Everybody admits that Mother Nature is once again putting a crimp in whatever technology the United States decides to put up. The sandstorms still cause problems, not just with visibility, which is the big problem, but with all that sand, which is really more like dust. It gets into everything and oftentimes unless it is properly dealt with immediately, it can cause significant, significant mechanical difficulties in everything from all the military gear to all the television equipment that's here.
Now, one other thing, the sandstorms which began yesterday, along with the heavy rain, had some effect on a mission we were on. We were heading to a base in Iraq that had just recently been taken over by U.S. military forces. We were with an Air Force ground contingent because the planes couldn't fly, for a variety of reasons, including the weather.
The other reason, though, was that there was heavy fire in the area, so heavy that it meant that we had to stop and come back.
So, the sandstorms in juxtaposition to everything else, the story of the day from the war here as well as throughout the region. Sandstorms, by the way, that are supposed to last, according to weather forecasters we interviewed, until tomorrow -- Anderson.
COOPER: And, Bob, it's interesting you mentioned that, that uprising back in 1991 in Basra, and it is significant and I think it's a good point to mention, that among the Shiite population there was this uprising that was then brutally crushed and suppressed and basically because it was not supported by then coalition forces.
And, Bob, I don't know if you were able to hear British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday. He made a statement basically speaking to those who kind of felt reticent to step forward again. And he said, "My message to them today is that this time we will not let you down. Saddam and his regime will be removed. Iraq will have a better future ahead."
So, Bob, it seems like perhaps some people in Basra may be listening.
Bob Franken, appreciate you joining us from somewhere near the Iraqi border.
Thanks very much -- Carol.
COSTELLO: We're going to start our next hour right now. Stay with us.
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 26, 2003 - 05:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's go to Doha, Qatar right now to CENTCOM command headquarters. And that's where Tom Mintier is now.
At last check, Tom, you were talking about Basra and a possible citizen uprising there.
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We were talking about Basra. But we have some very latest information, Carol, that military sources here tell CNN that intelligence reports seem to indicate that the bridges in and around Baghdad may have been rigged with explosives and wired to be detonated. This was just reported to us within the last hour or so. And intelligence reports indicate that the bridges in and around Baghdad have been rigged for explosives.
We heard from Walt Rodgers as he crossed the Euphrates well south of Baghdad that the bridge that they crossed, they did see explosives tied to the side of the bridge but the military units took out the command posts on both sides of the bridges as they crossed. So the bridge was maintained intact.
I am in the briefing room here at Central Command where each day they come in and tell us about the operational details and how the campaign is going.
We have with us today not the people who brief, but the people who do, Lieutenant Colonel "Dawg" Dean Pennington. He is an F-16 pilot. And you have flown several missions in this operation already.
LT. COL. "DAWG" PENNINGTON, USAF F-16 PILOT: Right.
MINTIER: And also First Lieutenant Liesl Causey. You're an intelligence officer with an air refueling squadron.
LT. LIESL CAUSEY, INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Yes, I am.
MINTIER: These are people who keep...
PENNINGTON: Keep us in the air.
CAUSEY: Sixteen times.
MINTIER: Keep you in the air. Fine.
First to you, what do you see as you fly over Iraq?
PENNINGTON: Well, we've -- I've been doing a lot of night missions so we're on night vision goggles, which allows us easier access to when they're shooting as with AAA or SAMs. And other than that, it depends how much of the moon is and what the clouds are what we can see outside.
During the day, depending on where we are in Iraq, a lot of sand and desert, obviously. And then around the cities you see the villages, you know, they stand out real well if it's good weather.
MINTIER: When we had pictures from Baghdad, we could see a lot of that AAA coming up and there were reports that as the campaign went on, you were seeing less and less of it. What is it like flying over the city, say, tonight?
PENNINGTON: It varies. It's been pretty heavy lately, a lot of AAA. And, you know, I think someone said this before, you look at it as, hey, this one's after me. And at night it's hard to tell how close it is a lot of times until it gets really close.
MINTIER: In this briefing room, they show us camera video from the bombs and the missiles. Is each bomb and missile equipped with a camera? Can they get video imagery back?
PENNINGTON: No, that's not.
MINTIER: It's from selected (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
PENNINGTON: Selected types of weapons, that's right.
MINTIER: And it's based on the target that each individual aircraft is going to get?
PENNINGTON: Depending on what your, what you're flagged for or what you're given as a target and then the ammunition that you're given, the weapons. Some weapons have TV-guided optics on them, some don't. Some use targeting pods to light up the target so you can visually guide them or use a laser beam to guide the bomb in and then you can watch it that way through a camera.
MINTIER: When you go over Baghdad, how many targets do you have on your list?
PENNINGTON: I'm a -- I do suppression of enemy air defenses, so my job is to ensure that the bombers and the fighters that are going to drop bombs are protected from enemy fire on the ground, whether it be missiles or AAA. And that's our primary duty. We also do the secondary role of dropping bombs, but we get particular targets given to us either while we're in the air or before we fly.
MINTIER: Right.
Lieutenant Causey, your unit refuels the fighters and other aircraft up in the sky.
CAUSEY: Yes, sir.
MINTIER: There have been some incidents of -- two British helicopters crashed into each other at night. A Patriot missile battery took down a British Tornado and an F-16 yesterday or the day before fired into a Patriot missile battery. It's got to be a very difficult operation to keep everything apart. There's a lot of airplanes flying, 1,400 missions yesterday.
CAUSEY: Yes, sir. It is. However, there are very many levels of deconfliction for the various aircraft running all the way from the top, obviously, and the planners, to all the way down to the squadron level. And they obviously try to keep the different levels and the different tracks apart as best they can.
MINTIER: These missions that the F-16s are flying, you keep them up in the air after they are about to run out of fuel. They load them up again and they stay over the target areas for how much longer?
CAUSEY: It depends on their mission, sir. It depends on where they're going, how far up they have to travel. Obviously, they have to keep enough fuel left to get back to base again and maybe some in reserve if they need to divert somewhere. So it depends on where they're going to go in country, what they're going to do.
MINTIER: All right, Lieutenant Causey, Dawg Pennington, thank you very much.
So there you have it from two people who are actually out there doing what the briefers are talking about here -- Carol, back to you.
COSTELLO: All right, Tom Mintier, many thanks to you.
And just on the Basra situation, earlier from CENTCOM command headquarters a British officer said there was massive resentment in the civilian population in Basra and in essence that means that there may be a massive civilian uprising against Saddam Hussein's forces. We don't know as of yet for sure, but we think that's what's going on right now.
COOPER: Right, resentment, we should say, among the civilian population toward those Iraqi irregulars who had faded back into the city and were trying to use the city, use the civilian population, really, as cover. And so as General Grange was saying just a short time ago, if that is, in fact, happening on the ground, it could be a major development and one we will be following a lot in the coming hours, I should say.
Let's check in with Bob Franken because the air war certainly here is something, a major component of this war in Iraq. Some trouble with sandstorms for the last couple of days. In particular today there were well over 1,000 sorties flown yesterday, as Tom Mintier was just talking about, with those airmen.
Let's check in to see how it's looking today -- Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, if I may interject, during the first Persian Gulf War, there was also an uprising at the end of that in Basra. There are some very big ethnic and religious differences between that regime and the one in Baghdad. I just thought I'd like to add that historical perspective.
As for the present time, we are at a base, as we've learned to call it, near the Iraq border. It is a major launching pad for the United States Air Force. But it has been diminished somewhat by the sandstorms. There's a little bit of a lull now, but of course they've been blowing up quite a fuss, not just here, but throughout the region, so much so that visibility has been severely inhabited, to the point that about a third of the flights that were scheduled to go yesterday did not. They expect similar performance today.
The problem is that those flights also are the ones that the ground forces are counting on as they continue their advances so there have had to be changes of plans. Everybody admits that Mother Nature is once again putting a crimp in whatever technology the United States decides to put up. The sandstorms still cause problems, not just with visibility, which is the big problem, but with all that sand, which is really more like dust. It gets into everything and oftentimes unless it is properly dealt with immediately, it can cause significant, significant mechanical difficulties in everything from all the military gear to all the television equipment that's here.
Now, one other thing, the sandstorms which began yesterday, along with the heavy rain, had some effect on a mission we were on. We were heading to a base in Iraq that had just recently been taken over by U.S. military forces. We were with an Air Force ground contingent because the planes couldn't fly, for a variety of reasons, including the weather.
The other reason, though, was that there was heavy fire in the area, so heavy that it meant that we had to stop and come back.
So, the sandstorms in juxtaposition to everything else, the story of the day from the war here as well as throughout the region. Sandstorms, by the way, that are supposed to last, according to weather forecasters we interviewed, until tomorrow -- Anderson.
COOPER: And, Bob, it's interesting you mentioned that, that uprising back in 1991 in Basra, and it is significant and I think it's a good point to mention, that among the Shiite population there was this uprising that was then brutally crushed and suppressed and basically because it was not supported by then coalition forces.
And, Bob, I don't know if you were able to hear British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday. He made a statement basically speaking to those who kind of felt reticent to step forward again. And he said, "My message to them today is that this time we will not let you down. Saddam and his regime will be removed. Iraq will have a better future ahead."
So, Bob, it seems like perhaps some people in Basra may be listening.
Bob Franken, appreciate you joining us from somewhere near the Iraqi border.
Thanks very much -- Carol.
COSTELLO: We're going to start our next hour right now. Stay with us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
