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CNN Live At Daybreak

'International News Desk'

Aired November 06, 2003 - 05:32   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Our international desk tells us that not all of the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be coordinated by Saddam loyalists.
Our senior international editor David Clinch joining us to talk more about that -- good morning.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Heidi, good morning.

Yes, well, just to sort of set the scene for what I'm going to talk about today, where I'm reading an interview today in the "London Times" with the Britain's top man in Iraq. They have a sort of an envoy/ambassador there, Ambassador Greenstock. And in this "London Times" article today, the headline is, "We Can Expect A Rough Winter." He's looking at these series of attacks and saying it's going to be a very tough winter.

It brings up the question, then, of what kind of tactics, what kind of military tactics the U.S. and the British, the coalition, are using against these attacks.

The answers that we're getting, we heard Matthew talk about it there -- our Ben Wedeman's out near Fallujah today -- the answers that we're getting from the U.S. military are that there are two levels that they're approaching this on. They think that there are, the type of attacks that they're seeing against individual patrols, these improvised explosive devices, they think they can control those and contain those by getting down on the street, not going out with tanks, but on foot patrols and going out, actually entering buildings, finding suspects, gathering information. They think they can control and contain, and, perhaps, over a period of time, perhaps over this rough winter, that level, those types of incidents might go down. That's that level of tactics.

The other question, though, when you look at the downing of the helicopter, missiles being lobbed at hotels in Baghdad, these much larger attacks, there's still a question mark on what kind of tactics you use to prevent those kind of attacks. They're much less easy to sort of -- you can put all of the security you want in place in Baghdad and apparently attacks can still happen.

So there's a lot of thinking going on in the coalition military at the moment about how you counter those more coordinated, more controlled attacks. And, of course, the question, as you pointed out, is they're not even sure who's behind these attacks at the moment. They're concentrating a lot in their intelligence and on these ground level patrols on Baath loyalists, Saddam loyalists. They get intelligence from Iraqis about those people and they pursue them.

There's a big question mark about this foreign fighter question.

COLLINS: Of course.

CLINCH: Are there foreign fighters there, and if there are, how can they gather intelligence about them, how can they find them and what military tactics do you use to counter them?

COLLINS: Of course...

CLINCH: So we'll be following that question.

COLLINS: And maybe there's a step before that. You know, they do know where some of these munitions are coming from. They're coming from these abandoned sites that the Iraqis used in their own military so...

CLINCH: Right. Absolutely. And there's an effort, I think, to clean up those sites and guard them in a better way. And, also, when we talk about all of these new troops or fresh troops going into the U.S. over -- into Iraq over the next few months, you will see, I think, we're being told by the U.S. military, a lot more focus on which type of troops and which type of tactics they're used for. A big question mark about whether we bring in more special forces. That's what we'll be looking for over the next few months.

COLLINS: All right, OK, very good.

David Clinch, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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 November 6, 2003 - 05:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Our international desk tells us that not all of the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be coordinated by Saddam loyalists.
Our senior international editor David Clinch joining us to talk more about that -- good morning.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Heidi, good morning.

Yes, well, just to sort of set the scene for what I'm going to talk about today, where I'm reading an interview today in the "London Times" with the Britain's top man in Iraq. They have a sort of an envoy/ambassador there, Ambassador Greenstock. And in this "London Times" article today, the headline is, "We Can Expect A Rough Winter." He's looking at these series of attacks and saying it's going to be a very tough winter.

It brings up the question, then, of what kind of tactics, what kind of military tactics the U.S. and the British, the coalition, are using against these attacks.

The answers that we're getting, we heard Matthew talk about it there -- our Ben Wedeman's out near Fallujah today -- the answers that we're getting from the U.S. military are that there are two levels that they're approaching this on. They think that there are, the type of attacks that they're seeing against individual patrols, these improvised explosive devices, they think they can control those and contain those by getting down on the street, not going out with tanks, but on foot patrols and going out, actually entering buildings, finding suspects, gathering information. They think they can control and contain, and, perhaps, over a period of time, perhaps over this rough winter, that level, those types of incidents might go down. That's that level of tactics.

The other question, though, when you look at the downing of the helicopter, missiles being lobbed at hotels in Baghdad, these much larger attacks, there's still a question mark on what kind of tactics you use to prevent those kind of attacks. They're much less easy to sort of -- you can put all of the security you want in place in Baghdad and apparently attacks can still happen.

So there's a lot of thinking going on in the coalition military at the moment about how you counter those more coordinated, more controlled attacks. And, of course, the question, as you pointed out, is they're not even sure who's behind these attacks at the moment. They're concentrating a lot in their intelligence and on these ground level patrols on Baath loyalists, Saddam loyalists. They get intelligence from Iraqis about those people and they pursue them.

There's a big question mark about this foreign fighter question.

COLLINS: Of course.

CLINCH: Are there foreign fighters there, and if there are, how can they gather intelligence about them, how can they find them and what military tactics do you use to counter them?

COLLINS: Of course...

CLINCH: So we'll be following that question.

COLLINS: And maybe there's a step before that. You know, they do know where some of these munitions are coming from. They're coming from these abandoned sites that the Iraqis used in their own military so...

CLINCH: Right. Absolutely. And there's an effort, I think, to clean up those sites and guard them in a better way. And, also, when we talk about all of these new troops or fresh troops going into the U.S. over -- into Iraq over the next few months, you will see, I think, we're being told by the U.S. military, a lot more focus on which type of troops and which type of tactics they're used for. A big question mark about whether we bring in more special forces. That's what we'll be looking for over the next few months.

COLLINS: All right, OK, very good.

David Clinch, thanks so much.

Appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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