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American Morning
Strategic Perspective
Aired April 01, 2003 - 08:18 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: You're looking at a live picture of Baghdad this morning as the debate rages behind the lines about whether coalition forces have stopped their forward progress. We are getting reports from the front lines that there is a pause in the action. "Time" magazine's Terry McCarthy joins us now by phone from Kuwait City to talk about what he has learned and what -- when he was actually with U.S. troops near Baghdad.
Thank you very much for joining us, Terry. Just let us know what it is you found out.
We're going to try one more time to see if we can establish that telephone connections. Apparently, we don't have that up.
So in the meantime, let's talk about some of the discrepancies between what the troops might be doing and what the Department of Defense might be telling us. Let's go straight to our military desk, where General Don Shepherd, our military analyst, is -- has dropped by.
Good morning, general. There you are.
GEN. DON SHEPHERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: Let's talk about the some of the reports. We understand that Mr. McCarthy was with some people who suggested indeed there is a pause in the plan. You've heard these reports before. What do you make of them?
SHEPHERD: Well, Paula, this is perfectly understandable to me. The reporters in the field there are with selected units out there. And any unit is only seeing through a soda straw exactly what it's doing. And the troops are frustrated any time they stop. They want to keep moving, they want to keep fighting, they want to get this over with, and they want to go home. So anytime they stop, even for a day or so, to them, it's very, very frustrating. It appears to me that there is obviously a pause to retrench and reconstitute the forces, rearm them, before they take on the deployed Republican Guard divisions and allow airpower to work on the Republican Guard divisions before they're engaged on the ground.
All perfect sense, Paula. Now whether one calls that a pause or whether it's just reconstitution, it's probably a matter of semantics.
ZAHN: I want you to react a little bit to what Colonel Tom Bright had to say last night, the Marine Corps chief. He was on "LARRY KING LIVE," and he basically talked about continuing to maintain what he call contact with the enemy line lines right there around the southern part of Baghdad.
Now when you talk about contact, you're referring to actual fire, aren't you?
SHEPHERD: Yeah, it's you're screening and reconnaissance forces. You want to keep pressure on the deployed enemy forces all of the time. And you want to find out where they are. And you do that by sending out small teams, vehicles and this type of thing, testing fire, drawing fire. All the time in the rear area, beyond your troops is being beat up by coalition airpower.
But again, you constantly send out patrols to find out where the enemy is, and where you draw fire. If you draw on them, you may move your forces a little bit further forward.
But all of this is a prelude to frontal contact with these Republican Guard divisions, Paula. You've got to find out where they are and you've got to weaken them as much as possible before we send our troops into the breach.
ZAHN: General, if you wouldn't mind standing by, we do have "Time" magazine's Terry McCarthy back on the telephone. I'd like for you to react to what he had to say.
Terry, good morning. I think you can hear me now. Just let us know what you have learned about any potential halt in the plan.
TERRY MCCARTHY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, Paula, you know, the commanders are being cherry about saying this openly, because they realize that it's become a political issue, but it's quite clear that a lot of the units have slowed down. In fact, we heard from one unit yesterday, they had started putting land mines around their camp, which clearly indicated they were not moving anywhere fast, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to do that.
And we also heard from other units that they're running low on food. I know the one unit was down to two MREs a day, and they were afraid they were going to one MRE a day. So clearly need some time to get that logistics column catching up with them.
ZAHN: And when they talk about standing down for a couple of days, was the attempt to resupply?
MCCARTHY: Well, I think part of it is resupply, and part is to wait for more troops to come. I understand that the thing to watch, what we've heard the thing to watch is the air campaign this week, if they can really degrade the Republican Guards sufficiently to make a breakthrough near Baghdad, they might go for it. But if they're not convinced that they've done enough damage from the air, they're going to wait basically for the fourth I.D. to come up, and that's going to take a couple of weeks.
ZAHN: All right, Terry, we're going to have to leave it there. Glad we finally established a connection with you. Thank you for that live update.
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 April 1, 2003 - 08:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at a live picture of Baghdad this morning as the debate rages behind the lines about whether coalition forces have stopped their forward progress. We are getting reports from the front lines that there is a pause in the action. "Time" magazine's Terry McCarthy joins us now by phone from Kuwait City to talk about what he has learned and what -- when he was actually with U.S. troops near Baghdad.
Thank you very much for joining us, Terry. Just let us know what it is you found out.
We're going to try one more time to see if we can establish that telephone connections. Apparently, we don't have that up.
So in the meantime, let's talk about some of the discrepancies between what the troops might be doing and what the Department of Defense might be telling us. Let's go straight to our military desk, where General Don Shepherd, our military analyst, is -- has dropped by.
Good morning, general. There you are.
GEN. DON SHEPHERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: Let's talk about the some of the reports. We understand that Mr. McCarthy was with some people who suggested indeed there is a pause in the plan. You've heard these reports before. What do you make of them?
SHEPHERD: Well, Paula, this is perfectly understandable to me. The reporters in the field there are with selected units out there. And any unit is only seeing through a soda straw exactly what it's doing. And the troops are frustrated any time they stop. They want to keep moving, they want to keep fighting, they want to get this over with, and they want to go home. So anytime they stop, even for a day or so, to them, it's very, very frustrating. It appears to me that there is obviously a pause to retrench and reconstitute the forces, rearm them, before they take on the deployed Republican Guard divisions and allow airpower to work on the Republican Guard divisions before they're engaged on the ground.
All perfect sense, Paula. Now whether one calls that a pause or whether it's just reconstitution, it's probably a matter of semantics.
ZAHN: I want you to react a little bit to what Colonel Tom Bright had to say last night, the Marine Corps chief. He was on "LARRY KING LIVE," and he basically talked about continuing to maintain what he call contact with the enemy line lines right there around the southern part of Baghdad.
Now when you talk about contact, you're referring to actual fire, aren't you?
SHEPHERD: Yeah, it's you're screening and reconnaissance forces. You want to keep pressure on the deployed enemy forces all of the time. And you want to find out where they are. And you do that by sending out small teams, vehicles and this type of thing, testing fire, drawing fire. All the time in the rear area, beyond your troops is being beat up by coalition airpower.
But again, you constantly send out patrols to find out where the enemy is, and where you draw fire. If you draw on them, you may move your forces a little bit further forward.
But all of this is a prelude to frontal contact with these Republican Guard divisions, Paula. You've got to find out where they are and you've got to weaken them as much as possible before we send our troops into the breach.
ZAHN: General, if you wouldn't mind standing by, we do have "Time" magazine's Terry McCarthy back on the telephone. I'd like for you to react to what he had to say.
Terry, good morning. I think you can hear me now. Just let us know what you have learned about any potential halt in the plan.
TERRY MCCARTHY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, Paula, you know, the commanders are being cherry about saying this openly, because they realize that it's become a political issue, but it's quite clear that a lot of the units have slowed down. In fact, we heard from one unit yesterday, they had started putting land mines around their camp, which clearly indicated they were not moving anywhere fast, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to do that.
And we also heard from other units that they're running low on food. I know the one unit was down to two MREs a day, and they were afraid they were going to one MRE a day. So clearly need some time to get that logistics column catching up with them.
ZAHN: And when they talk about standing down for a couple of days, was the attempt to resupply?
MCCARTHY: Well, I think part of it is resupply, and part is to wait for more troops to come. I understand that the thing to watch, what we've heard the thing to watch is the air campaign this week, if they can really degrade the Republican Guards sufficiently to make a breakthrough near Baghdad, they might go for it. But if they're not convinced that they've done enough damage from the air, they're going to wait basically for the fourth I.D. to come up, and that's going to take a couple of weeks.
ZAHN: All right, Terry, we're going to have to leave it there. Glad we finally established a connection with you. Thank you for that live update.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
