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CNN Live At Daybreak
War in Iraq: Military Analysis
Aired April 11, 2003 - 06:43 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: Want to stay -- want to stay focused on the military now. To get some expertise on strategy now, let's go to our military desk and CNN's Renay San Miguel.
Good morning -- Renay.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol.
With the fall of the north, it looks like there will be nobody for the coalition to fight in cities like Mosul and Kirkuk and Erbil. So as you just heard from Tom Mintier, the focus now is shifting to what may be Saddam Hussein and his regime's last stand and that would be in his hometown, his ancestral home of Tikrit. So let's go to some satellite imagery from EarthViewer.com and Space Imaging Middle East.
Tikrit is about 90 miles, 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, filled with Saddam loyalists. And there has been speculation that if Saddam is still alive, he and the remaining regime leaders not dead or captured or have fled to another country, you know, are in this particular city. Those loyalists have been rewarded by Saddam over the years, so it's believed that they would fight to the death for him. There's about a quarter of a million people in the town overall and there is an air base and an air force academy.
But the main concern here on the part of the coalition is these presidential palaces. It is quite a large complex in Tikrit, two-and- a-half miles long, nearly two miles wide. There is one of the main, the biggest palace right there. So U.S. Special Forces have been doing a lot of reconnaissance missions in this region as of late. Military analyst General Don Shepperd told me yesterday he believes there could be anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 Republican Guard troops from the Adnan division in the city. That's the last largely in tact division of the Republican Guard. Several palaces around here.
So, as you just heard Tom Mintier say, a lot of coalition airstrikes against these positions over the past few days, and some of those going on here as well. There could be anything in those palaces, especially underneath those palaces and what's believed to be some bunkers that could be hiding troops and armor and who knows, maybe even weapons of mass destruction. So Tikrit looking to be the final focus, any kind of a -- you know any more battles that are going on between the coalition and what's left of the Republican Guard.
Let's go now to our map table and show you with the developments out in the north where we stand right now in terms of movements and opposing forces for those opposing the -- opposing the coalition. As we just heard, you can scratch this guy off right here, because those estimated 20,000 to 30,000 members of the Republican Guard the 5th Corps in Mosul have indeed surrendered. And we are getting more American forces and Kurdish forces going in to Kirkuk as well. So it looks like those oil fields that run pretty much diagonal through Kirkuk just like that could be in coalition hands in just a couple of days.
That is the latest from the military desk.
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 11, 2003 - 06:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Want to stay -- want to stay focused on the military now. To get some expertise on strategy now, let's go to our military desk and CNN's Renay San Miguel.
Good morning -- Renay.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol.
With the fall of the north, it looks like there will be nobody for the coalition to fight in cities like Mosul and Kirkuk and Erbil. So as you just heard from Tom Mintier, the focus now is shifting to what may be Saddam Hussein and his regime's last stand and that would be in his hometown, his ancestral home of Tikrit. So let's go to some satellite imagery from EarthViewer.com and Space Imaging Middle East.
Tikrit is about 90 miles, 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, filled with Saddam loyalists. And there has been speculation that if Saddam is still alive, he and the remaining regime leaders not dead or captured or have fled to another country, you know, are in this particular city. Those loyalists have been rewarded by Saddam over the years, so it's believed that they would fight to the death for him. There's about a quarter of a million people in the town overall and there is an air base and an air force academy.
But the main concern here on the part of the coalition is these presidential palaces. It is quite a large complex in Tikrit, two-and- a-half miles long, nearly two miles wide. There is one of the main, the biggest palace right there. So U.S. Special Forces have been doing a lot of reconnaissance missions in this region as of late. Military analyst General Don Shepperd told me yesterday he believes there could be anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 Republican Guard troops from the Adnan division in the city. That's the last largely in tact division of the Republican Guard. Several palaces around here.
So, as you just heard Tom Mintier say, a lot of coalition airstrikes against these positions over the past few days, and some of those going on here as well. There could be anything in those palaces, especially underneath those palaces and what's believed to be some bunkers that could be hiding troops and armor and who knows, maybe even weapons of mass destruction. So Tikrit looking to be the final focus, any kind of a -- you know any more battles that are going on between the coalition and what's left of the Republican Guard.
Let's go now to our map table and show you with the developments out in the north where we stand right now in terms of movements and opposing forces for those opposing the -- opposing the coalition. As we just heard, you can scratch this guy off right here, because those estimated 20,000 to 30,000 members of the Republican Guard the 5th Corps in Mosul have indeed surrendered. And we are getting more American forces and Kurdish forces going in to Kirkuk as well. So it looks like those oil fields that run pretty much diagonal through Kirkuk just like that could be in coalition hands in just a couple of days.
That is the latest from the military desk.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
