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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Shock & Awe Campaign Leaves Baghdad Battered; Pentagon: Way Too Early to Declare Victory

Aired March 22, 2003 - 22:00   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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. It is the dawn of a new day, Saturday morning in the Persian Gulf, Saturday morning in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. A capital that was battered yesterday their time by American forces, the beginning of the Shock and Awe campaign.
It is just now coming up on dawn there, 6:00 in the morning. These are the pictures from Baghdad. As many of you know, some of you may not, however, our correspondent, Nic Robertson -- our correspondents, actually, led by Nic Robertson, have been expelled and they are making their way out. We still have access to a number of locations and a number of correspondents. Mostly from Arab language television networks that have been allowed to stay.

There is some evidence tonight that the Iraqis, in terms of how information is going to come out of Iraq, are getting more than a little testy. How that might impact what we see as daylight comes we don't know yet. But it's important to know, certainly for us, we want to know, American military planners want to know, what sort of damage was done beginning at about 9:00 last night Iraq time, middle of the day here in the United States on the East Coast, when this long- awaited Shock and Awe campaign began.

This was a seven-minute attack, but imagine how long those seven minutes must have felt. These bombs and missiles falling on the outskirts of Baghdad at selected military command and control targets. One of the things we would anticipate happening in the next four hours or so, if the Iraqis prove true to form, is we may well see some sort of tour of the damage, get some sense of what, if any, collateral damage, what, if any, civilian targets were erroneously hit.

These are very precise in most cases, very precise weapons. But they are still subject to error like any other thing that's mechanical. They don't always hit what they are intended to hit, and no one expects that there will be no civilian casualties in this.

This went on for seven minutes. It was a second strike that began, oh, 90 minutes or so later. And as the people of Baghdad wake up now on this Saturday morning and come out into the streets -- these pictures now live in Baghdad, as you can see. Very little activity on the streets there, but it's still very early in the morning, just a bit after 3:00 in the morning.

Surely, they must wonder what this day is going to bring, what it will bring in terms of the American military response. But they must also wonder who's running the country and how much control the government of Saddam Hussein has over the country. The message from the American side is that the government of Iraq is in disarray. Surely, the Iraqis must wonder that as well.

Is there a government of Iraq, and to what degree is it in control of any of the institutions of government? It's Saturday morning there. There has been a tremendous amount -- there have been a tremendous number of developments over the last 24 hours or so, and we'll spend a lot of our time tonight taking a look at those and trying to figure out where next this goes.

When we left you the other morning, yesterday morning, we anticipated today might be the day the attacks took place. The pictures on the big screen to the right, a major Air Force base in Great Britain. B-52s over the last hour or so have been landing. They've been making runs across Iraq.

One of the things to keep in mind while we're able to show you the pictures of these terrible attacks -- terrible if you're on the other end of them -- attacks in Baghdad, there have been missions flown throughout the country. Certainly in the north of the country, we know. These are pictures that we haven't been able to show you. We don't have cameras in those looks yet. We haven't seen what they have done, but these B-52s, these old workhorses of the Air Force have been doing their duty and they've been coming back now to this air base in Great Britain.

There is -- there have already been some defections and surrenders by Iraqi forces, not especially surprising given what planners believed would happen, but they have started at the time (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- we were told to anticipate -- we are not highly motivated to fight the fight. As you see, yet another one of those giant B-52s, and they go -- General Wes Clark is with me -- they go way back to I think before Vietnam, don't they?

They have been a part of the American military arsenal for most of our lifetime, literally, as we sit here. They're obviously updated, as is the weaponry they carry. But that basic plane, that B- 52 has been the heavy bomber for a long, long time. These planes coming back to England.

Over at the Pentagon, Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent. Jamie, there are a number of things I think that you can get us started on. There have been the -- first of all, what is your sense of where the military campaign goes, and then go ahead and kind of transition about into what we know about surrenders.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, this was the day that the Pentagon delivered on its promise to dish out a punishing aerial assault on Baghdad, which they said was unprecedented in modern warfare.

Now the results aren't in yet. We know that there are a lot of government buildings in Baghdad in ruins. And as you mentioned, there have been some significant surrenders of Iraqi forces, in particular, the 51st division down in the south, an entire division apparently surrendering in mass, according to the Pentagon's report. But Pentagon officials here caution that, despite the favorable battlefield reports, it's way too early to declare victory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The pentagon calls it "A-Day." "A" for the massively air assault that would drop 1,500 precision-guided bombs and missiles on hundreds of separate targets across Iraq. The Pentagon says it's a bombardment of historic proportion.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamed of in a prior conflict.

MCINTYRE: The bombing, designed to Shock and Awe Iraq's military, centered on Baghdad, but also struck key targets in Mosul and Kirkuk in the north and Basra in the south.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We successfully accomplished our mission. We did everything we set out to do. Everybody's back safe and sound.

MCINTYRE: All targets are designed to undermine the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to convince his generals to turn on him or at least surrender. Such as, for instance, this presidential palace compound which is located in downtown Baghdad. The concussions jolted Iraqi officials giving a military briefing.

While some Iraqi regular troops are giving up, others are fighting. Two U.S. Marines have been killed in action, and there are no signs yet Saddam Hussein's generals are defecting.

RUMSFELD: It apparently -- what we have done thus far has not been sufficiently persuasive that they would have done that.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has taken some ground in the south, including Umm Qasr, a key southern port, along with two airfields in western Iraq. The southern oil fields have just about been secured, and the U.S. ground forces have moved more than 100 miles into Iraq from Kuwait. But the war is far from won.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Clearly we're moving towards our objectives, but we must not get too comfortable. We're basically on our plan and moving towards Baghdad, but there are still many unknowns out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Two of those unknowns, what happens when the U.S. military comes face-to-face with the Republican Guard around Baghdad? Will they fold or fight? And are they armed with chemical weapons, and will they use them?

Pentagon officials say that's their biggest concern at this time. And, Aaron, so far in this aerial campaign, the so-called Shock and Awe campaign, no U.S. aircraft were lost. BROWN: May it stay that way. Jamie, thank you very much.

Michael Gordon writes about military matters, the chief military writer -- I believe that's true, Michael -- for "The New York Times." He's at Camp Doha, which is in Kuwait, the central command post within Kuwait. And he's been working on this story of the surrender.

Michael, how did it come about, do you know?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I think the surrender is noteworthy, but not decisive. So I wouldn't invest too much importance in it. I mean the 51st Division is a unit that faces -- was directly in the path of the invasion. And essentially, the Americans have been seeking, along with the British, to facilitate this unit's surrender for some time.

They've been bombarding them with leaflets, propaganda, broadcasts. And I think they probably had some private negotiations with them. And the basic philosophy behind this is the United States wants to defeat the Iraqi military without destroying it. They don't want to stir up anymore enmity than is necessary, because they're going to become the governing authority in Iraq.

So this unit eventually complied. And the commander and his deputy delivered his official surrender. And many of the troops themselves just sort of faded away into the night.

BROWN: And so they have not been taken prisoner of war, as it were?

GORDON: I don't know. I mean, honestly, Aaron, I think that this is a unit -- I mean, the fight, as Jamie McIntyre said, is with the Republican Guard.

BROWN: Yes.

GORDON: And they haven't engaged them yet. And these units are just a bunch of speed bumps on the way to Baghdad.

BROWN: I'm sorry, Michael. Go ahead.

GORDON: And so -- well, they're just -- you know they're units that the military confronts and has to deal with, the American forces. But it's hoping, you know, to fight as rarely as possible. So this is -- you know, like the 51st, there are other units that they're also trying to encourage to surrender, the 11th division in (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And that was only partially successful because there was, from what I can tell, a kind of fire fight at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) this past evening.

So what you really have at this point in time -- I think the way to look at this is what you have at this point in time is pockets of resistance. There was fighting in Umm Qasr, there was there some fighting in the Ramallah oil field. There was fighting in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) airfield, which they were moving to take. And two Marines were killed in this fighting yesterday. And, on the other hand, there seemed to be some units that don't want to have anything to do with this, like the 51st Division and some portions of the 11th, that the American military is dealing with. But all of this is just a prelude for the real battle.

The real battle is in Baghdad. The real battle hasn't begun yet. And I think that there's -- it begins in the outskirts of Baghdad, actually, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) begin to confront the Medina (ph), the Hamarabi (ph) and the al-Midal (ph) divisions. And I think there is just enormous uncertainty as to whether these units are attacked, to what extent they're cohesive, how determined they are to fight, and whether they're going to try to go back into the city and turn this into urban warfare. And I think that's what's all to be decided in the next few days.

BROWN: Michael, two questions, if we can hold you for a minute. Essentially, the way the Iraqi military is set up, the least well trained, the least motivated troops are the ones closest to the Kuwaiti border. It essentially gets tougher as you get closer to the capital, right?

GORDON: Well, they've done -- the Iraqi's defense makes a lot of sense. They basically decided to exploit the home court advantage, is one way you can look at it. And Saddam has based his own defense in Baghdad, and Baghdad is his fortress. And he's tried to turn it into kind of a bastion.

And he has -- in terms of ground forces, he has this special Republican Guard, which defends the city proper. And then three Republican Guard divisions raid (ph) around it within about 50 miles. And each (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defense there. And that's where he's making his final stand.

Now everything up to that, the function of all these other units, is simply to slow down the American advance and cause the Americans to lose a bit of momentum. But the decisive battle is around Baghdad.

Now what happened last night was -- in terms of U.S. air power -- is they decided to take the air war to Baghdad with the so-called Shock and Awe campaign that they're promoting. And it may have had an important effect in terms of morale and the Iraqi ability to command and control their forces. On the other hand, it's not exactly the first time the Iraqis have seen American air power in action.

They endured 43 days of it during the Gulf War. They had it during Desert Fox during the Clinton administration. So I think what's happened now is they've done the air campaign in Baghdad in a way that they're trying to unsettle a regime and hit key targets without laying waste to this city, because I guess there's an old sign that they used to have: You break it, you buy it. And I think the American military is also conscious of that, and every bridge they destroy in Baghdad is a bridge that the U.S. military and the U.S. taxpayers is going to have to rebuild, and they trying to govern the city. So they're trying to do it away pushes the regime off the edge without wiping the city off the map. And I've seen some of the target maps, because I'm embedded. And there are all sorts of restrictions as to what I can report.

And I have to say that, you know, there are big red splotches in some very key parts of the city. And there are whole areas that will be completely untouched. So they're trying to do it in this discriminate way. But the point is that the next few days are really decisive, because that's when we're going to learn how formidable an opponent or not formidable the Republican Guard will be.

There's no question about the outcome. The U.S. will win this. The question is at what cost.

BROWN: Michael, thank you very much. It's good to talk to you under any circumstance, especially nice to talk to you tonight. Michael Gordon, who is chief military writer -- I don't know if that's precisely the title, but that's the job for "The New York Times".

A distinguished and very much experienced writer of military matters for "The Times." And he's at Camp Doha, which in the country of Kuwait is the principal command center.

General Wes Clark is here, Ken Pollack is here. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on a division that doesn't mean a whole lot and their surrender doesn't mean a whole lot. So tell me now if we need to -- both of you, I guess -- General, we'll start with you -- if we need to spend more time talking about the importance of the 51st, this group that surrendered today.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a warm-up drill. It shows us we've got a process. It shows us we can talk to them. It's warming up on how to deal with the surrender to warm-up.

BROWN: Ken, any significance -- I know you know a fair amount about this group -- any significance that you see to this that we ought to note before we move on?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes. I think just to take up a point that there are two ways to look at this. First, from Saddam's perspective, as Michael Gordon was basically getting at, I don't think this is a big deal for Saddam. He never expected the 51st Mechanized Division to put up much of a fight to us.

I think any amount that they can slow us down and inflict some casualties, that's a bonus for Saddam. As Michael was suggesting, he really believes the battle is going to be decided in Baghdad, and we shouldn't take their surrender as being necessarily a sign that the fight of Baghdad isn't going to be a tough one or that Saddam might be changing his mind.

But by the same token, it does indicate to us that our initial assumptions about how the Iraqis would fight seem to be correct so far. And that's important. So far, the initial estimates were that the regular army divisions probably wouldn't put up much of a fight and we would see large-scale surrenders. And this seems to be confirming that pattern.

BROWN: Well, just taking what all of you who know these military things a lot better than I do, honestly, what all of you have said is it also sounds to me as if it also confirms to a certain extent what the Iraqi military figured would happen, because they didn't have much confidence in the 51st either, General.

CLARK: They didn't have any way of really supporting this force down there. They knew it was there. It served a purpose, it maintained control over the Shiite Muslims and prevented them from sort of breaking away in advance. It was a sacrifice play.

BROWN: And just one other point. It seems to me that we all -- and I mean we all -- you watching us here need to keep in mind we see this enormous effort made in the air campaign today. This is the American -- there is -- this is the, if I might use Michael Gordon's term, the home field advantage is the city of Baghdad for the Iraqis -- the Americans own the sky. This is what the Americans do very, very well with precision, with power.

This is their strong suit. This thing gets nastier as it goes, and no one should get the sense, based on what happened today, that this thing is a slam dunk, it's over and everybody's coming home a week from Thursday, because nothing that happened today suggests that. Right?

CLARK: That's true. But I think as I listen to Michael talk -- and I don't know how Ken would feel about this -- but I think Saddam's made a significant strategic mistake here in thinking that he can draw back into a home field advantage. As long as we control the sky, we have the high ground. And with the air power that we have today, what we can see we can hit. What we can hit, we can destroy, and we can do it without any losses. And so wherever they make a stand, unless it's in a civilian populated area, they're going to be destroyed.

BROWN: Go ahead, Ken.

POLLACK: If I can just add something to what General Clark said. I think he's absolutely right, and I think it's something important to keep in mind for the future, which is I think that Saddam has made a tremendous mistake about the strategy. You can say -- I think you would make a very good case -- that really this is the only strategy, the only option that Saddam has available to him.

But nevertheless, he's done what we've seen him do time and again in the past, which is convince himself that this strategy is going to work. He is very optimistic, as far as we can tell right now, because he thinks this strategy is going to work. Even though you hear experts like General Clark and I think pretty much anyone who knows anything about military forces would say it's highly unlikely that it will work, Saddam continues to believe it.

And in the days ahead, we've got to remember that. We've got to remember Saddam's ability to convince himself of what it is that he wants to believe. BROWN: Let me throw a couple of questions out, then, as we go here. And I didn't know we'd sort of end up in a discussion on strategy, exactly, but that's sort of the way it works in these things. We've got some graphics that could help us.

OK, let's take for a second, General, the notion that this was a lousy strategy. Keep your eye on the monitor, too, if you don't mind. Did Saddam have many options in terms of strategy?

CLARK: Well, probably not. I mean if he had -- he didn't have enough strong, reliable forces to defend the perimeter of the country.

BROWN: So these outlined places that we see on the map, Mosul in the north, and down to the south, he didn't have enough of an army, if you will.

CLARK: That's right.

BROWN: He didn't have enough guys. An army that has been degraded a lot since the Gulf War.

CLARK: That's right. I mean he put most of his best forces into Kuwait the last time. He lost half of the force in 1991, and that was just in Kuwait and right around Kuwait. And he pulled back out of Kuwait.

Now trying to guard Kuwait, guard the north, protect the west from Jordan, just doesn't have enough forces. So he's been driven into this strategy. He really had only -- he has one key trump card, and that is the chemical and biological weapons. And let's hope, for the sake of the world, that he doesn't use them.

BROWN: Now that's the other thing. I mean there's been a lot of putting gas masks on and putting gas masks off. But, again, this is early in the game, if you will, to use the term (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's no game out there.

There's nothing to say that we won't see these weapons as more American forces and British forces come into the country. There's no guarantee that that's not going to happen. Ken, you pretty much agree that he didn't have many options? This is an army that's been almost literally begging for spare parts to try and hold itself together.

POLLACK: Yes. Aaron, the honest answer is he did have a different strategy available, but it wasn't a military strategy. It was a diplomatic strategy. And I think the right strategy for Saddam is he should have turned his country inside out and disarmed completely.

I mean the honest answer is he should have done that back in 1991. If he had done it in 1991, he'd probably have a nuclear weapon by now. But this time around, he should have seen us coming and he should have done everything that he possible could have to get rid of all of the weapons that he did have, turn them all over to the weapons inspectors to foreclose this attack, to prevent it from ever occurring. But, again, he convinced himself that he did have this military option, this military fallback position, and therefore he felt like he could continue to play around with the inspectors and not fully disarm. And I think he made a tremendous mistake.

BROWN: The would have and should haves of life. The all-clear siren has gone off in Baghdad for as long as that last daylight. Just, General, quickly on this point, since we're looking at the picture. The American forces, the British forces, the air forces would prefer not to attack in daylight, but they could.

CLARK: Well, we're probably attacking elsewhere in Iraq in daylight.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: This is where the majority of the air defense is. We probably want to give it one more night of working over before we go there. But eventually we'll be going over Baghdad in daylight.

BROWN: OK. Because at some point they've taken out enough of the anti-aircraft...

CLARK: Right.

BROWN: OK. Now, David, go back to the graphic that we put up. Let's try and explain. This is a kind of look at how this effort might play out. General, we'll let you do this. You do this for a living.

CLARK: Well what you've got here is you have the forces moving north. Right now we have two major thrusts. The 7th Cav, which is the advanced guard of the 3rd Infantry Division.

BROWN: That's that group we followed last night.

CLARK: And they're up there right now somewhere around the main road. They're near the Euphrates River, apparently near the town of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), according to the press reports. And on the right flank is the 1st Marine and a combination of the 1st Marines and the British out there in H2 and H3.

We're there. We're not quite sure what's there. Some of the press reporting would indicate maybe a brigade of the 82nd might be there.

Some fairly tough fighting. We had some British special forces in there, maybe Rangers. And in the north, reports that the Iraqis would like to surrender. If we can get up there we'll accept their surrender.

BROWN: Got to get up there. There's a group up there that wants to give up, but has nobody to give up to.

CLARK: So far. So we've got to get some forces leapfrogging from H2 and H3 up into that area. Then we put the squeeze on, we close in around Baghdad. And at the same time this, air power is not idle. And once it's worked over the air defense and command and control, then those Republican Guard divisions that are out there guarding the approaches of Baghdad -- the day of the orange painted tank in the desert is over.

And they're out there, they're visible. They'll be taken out one by one.

BROWN: There is -- again, to use Michael Gordon's term -- a home court advantage. There's also home court disadvantage, in that the environment, the countryside itself, it's just -- if you're out in the desert, there's no place to hide.

CLARK: Now there's built up areas in the outskirts of Baghdad.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: So there can be...

BROWN: As you come into the city it's different.

CLARK: They can be in a hut. They can be there. But you know we're going to know that area. We watch it.

And we'll see things move and we'll own the skies. And when you own the skies, you can -- and you have these precision weapons and you have no significant enemy air defense to prevent you from orbiting and watching it and using it, it's just a matter of time.

BROWN: Ken, do you think -- we're going to get one of our embedded correspondents up in northern Iraq in a second. But while we wait, I may interrupt you. Do you think that Saddam was surrounded by generals who for either reasons of fear, not wanting to be the one to deliver the bad news, or perhaps because they aren't all that bright, honestly, said, no, actually, this will work. We can make this work. Go ahead, try it.

POLLACK: Well, I think that that probably was the case. That they did say to Saddam, we think we can make this work. Probably not because they're idiots.

In fact, Saddam does have pretty competent generals around him. One of the interesting things about the Iraqi army over the last 20 years is they've actually developed some fairly competent generals, even though their troops themselves are pretty poor. But the fact of the matter is that they really didn't have any other options and they probably did come to Saddam and said to him, look boss, if you want to fight this out with the Americans, we think that this is the only way this is going to work. This is our one option.

They tried, I'm sure, to frame it in as positive a term as they could, because Saddam doesn't exactly like defeatists. And anyone who sounds like a defeatist has a bad habit of losing their head, quite literally. So they probably did go to Saddam and say to him, we think we've come up with a strategy to make this work. We think that it does have a chance to work. And probably Saddam convinced himself that, yes, this is what's going to get me out of things. BROWN: Ken, hang on. We haven't really introduced you, but I think you've been on enough over the last weeks or so that people are familiar with you and your expertise. We're glad to have you with us tonight.

Lisa Rose Weaver is one of our embedded correspondents. She's with the Patriot Unit. These Patriots are the missile batteries that shoot down anti-missiles, if you will. Lisa, it's good to hear from you tonight. What can you report?

LISA WEAVER: Well, Aaron, I am in southern Iraq at the end of literally a 20-hour convoy into this country from Kuwait. I am with a battery of Patriot missiles as well. The assets that they are intended to protect. So it was a very long convoy.

And one of the reasons it's taken 20 hours to get into southern Iraq is that the Patriot missiles are so heavy that they got stuck in the softer, looser sand that we encountered on the way in the desert. On the way up here. So it's kind of an interesting point, because the Patriots are being used in a much more sort of forward theater way more often in this conflict than they have been in the past.

Now this conflict wouldn't be the first time it's used in a so- called maneuver tactic way, meaning that it goes not right on the front, but that it accompanies infantry refueling stations, what have you, in order to protect them. But that comes at a cost, and it comes as some experience and hard lessons of being warned (UNINTELLIGIBLE) incredibly heavy (ph) units in this kind of terrain -- Aaron.

BROWN: Basically, just so I make sure I get this, this Patriot battery that you're with, their purpose is to protect the infantry should Saddam decide to throw missiles at them?

WEAVER: That's right, correct. It's designed to be on the lookout for any incoming threat to infantry that it (ph) flanks, or at a great distance. It's not limited to being close to them, by any means. But it does have that capability.

And other units as well, refueling stations, air assault, air assault refueling facilities, making it possible, in other words, for other units to utilize the area by keeping the skies safe -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, just as briefly as you can, they have yet to encounter trouble?

WEAVER: Well, that's right. yes. We didn't see any trouble.

The convoy I was with didn't see any trouble. We had arrived on pretty much a cleared battlefield. I also didn't see any evidence of the bombing that I've seen -- that we had all seen the night before, interestingly. That had occurred at other points, I suppose, on the border between Kuwait and Iraq.

We also saw very few Iraqis. Who we did see were some bedouin tribes, who were very friendly. They waved at the convoy. One of the sergeant majors at one point introduced himself to a couple of sheep herders. We saw cattle, sheep, and very few people. And all that we have seen so far have been friendly -- Aaron.

BROWN: Lisa, thank you -- Lisa Rose Weaver, who is moving with the 5th -- with a Patriot battery making its way up. It's a great description of the problems, general, that the Army endures.

Briefly, the Patriots that are out there today, are they a better Patriot than 12 years ago.

CLARK: Yes, they are.

BROWN: OK, because there was a lot controversy about that. We'll talk more about that later.

Let's try and catch you up briefly all of the things that have gone on on a very busy day.

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: Before we -- I want to get back at some point to this discussion we started, or wandered into, in truth, on some questions of strategy.

But we've got a number of our embedded reporters. And we're never quite sure when we'll get them. And when we get them, we don't want to lose them.

Brent Sadler is in the northern part of Iraq. Brent last night provided some of the most extraordinary pictures of the night, a group of Iraqi officers or soldiers.

Brent, I thought you said officers. I may have heard it wrong. What are you seeing now today?

BRENT SADLER, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, we've changed our position. I'm about 40 miles away of where we saw those, as you say, extraordinary pictures of Iraqi units, looking as if they might be giving up a ghost.

But, really, overnight, according to the Kurds, who are in control of this area, units were changed around. And as things stand now, here at daybreak, the Iraqi lines haven't changed at all. They're still holding. We do know, however, that, overnight, there were attacks, airstrikes against Kirkuk. Kirkuk is about -- I guess about 35 miles behind me that way, about 20 explosions reported around Kirkuk.

Kirkuk's important because of the oil wealth which surrounds that area, one of the richest oil resource areas in Iraq -- no sign, no reports, no clouds on the horizon or smoke on the horizon suggesting anything untoward has happened to those oil wells. But, of course, that is of great concern to coalition forces.

Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, again, that was attacked. But we're not seeing the kind of strength of attack, the Shock and Awe that we were seeing, obviously, in the Iraqi capital and elsewhere in the southern parts of Iraq, not the kind of military pressure that will collapse these lines, I don't think, nor will force Kirkuk or Mosul to relinquish Saddam Hussein's control over those cities, unless command-and-control is broken. I think, for as long as we see these lines holding here, we can assume that command-and-control from Baghdad is remaining intact.

But the other thing that perhaps is interesting for the Kurds, who control this territory, have done for the past 12 years, they're not so much concerned about what's happening in Baghdad now. They're more concerned about the possible entry, in perhaps the next day or two, of the Turkish military. Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, has said Turkey will enter with troops into northern Iraq. And we all know, for many weeks, the Kurds have been saying they will oppose them. So, an extraordinary situation could develop there.

Also, to give you an idea of the perspective on the ground here, if I were to jump in my car, Aaron, and drive down the road to Kirkuk, that would take me maybe 25, 30 minutes, to Baghdad, maybe three hours, perhaps under three hours with the foot on the gas pedal. That's how close we are here. Yet as you can see, static here.

BROWN: Brent, do me a favor, if you will. Just ask your cameraman to pan off you just to give us a view of the countryside that you are reporting from, so that our viewers have a sense. We've seen an awful lot of the barren desert in Kuwait.

Thank you.

We thought we would give people a sense of what it looks like in the northern part of the country. It's quite different. Well, for one thing, there are people. There are people who actually live there, as opposed to the southern desert, which is about as inhospitable a place as you could imagine. And it is going to get more inhospitable, not simply because of the military activity, but because of the weather. To the north, conditions are quite a bit different, a lot of greenery.

There was a point last night where, on one side of the screen, we had the barren desert, where the 7th Cavalry was making its way in, and, on the other side of the screen, the green of springtime in northern Iraq. In any case, it looks like a farming area.

And, Brent, we'll get back to you as we can.

And Terry McCarthy is -- I don't -- Terry, you're on the phone right? I don't believe you're an embedded correspondent. I believe, if I remember this right, you are making your way on your own through all of this.

To the extent you're comfortable, tell me where you are and what you're seeing and what you've encountered.

TERRY MCCARTHY, "TIME": Yes, Aaron, we're at the DMZ here just on the Iraqi border. There's a

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: North or south?

MCCARTHY: It's Abdali. They're not letting us through right now.

BROWN: OK.

SADLER: There's a kind of a gray haze in the sky. I think some of that might come from some of those oil wells that may still be burning.

Interesting. I was listening to you earlier. You were talking to Lisa Rose Weaver about the Patriots. We passed a large convoy of Patriot missiles, coming up about 20 different trucks with about four Patriots on the back of each one. So they're clearly bringing up a lot into more forward positions.

BROWN: Terry, is it -- I will tell our viewers, Terry, all of us who were going to be sent or who might have been sent to the region were required to spend a week in what was called war school to prepare us for the possibility...

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: We hear sirens now. We heard all clear before in Baghdad. These are sirens now in Baghdad. And we'll see what they bring.

Let's just listen for a second.

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: That's a nightscope shot. That's why it's so green. But it is daylight now in Baghdad.

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: There were about, oh, I guess, about an hour ago, maybe a little less than that, some reporting that two or three missiles had hit in Baghdad. And we have been -- that is not our reporting. And we have not been able to confirm it.

There are three -- these are all different locations in Baghdad. Again, that green screen on the top, they are still shooting through their nightscope, no particular reason to, because it's daylight. But that camera is positioned as a stationary camera, I believe. And that's probably why -- again, the air raid sirens now going off on a Saturday morning, early Saturday morning, in Baghdad.

Terry McCarthy, "TIME" magazine.

Terry, has it been as you anticipated it might be?

MCCARTHY: Yes. We're kind of hoping we're going to get across the border fairly soon. We knew there was going to be a delay for the nonembedded journalists. We have been getting stuff back from our embeds, as you all have. But it would be nice if we could go in independently, because that will give us a different perspective on what's going on.

BROWN: And just to explain very briefly -- because we don't like to spend a lot of time talking about the journalism of all of this -- as you know, there are about 500 embedded journalists. That is journalists who are living with units at sea, in bases, on the move right now.

But, also, news organizations have also sent other reporters, Terry for "TIME" magazine, a good many others over there, who will operate on their own, without the benefit of the embedding process and I suppose, you can also argue, without the restrictions of the embedding process. Terry, then, is essentially on his own out there and trying to get in.

And it is the U.S. military -- are they telling you that they might let you in today or not?

MCCARTHY: Yes, they're saying -- they've just told us to wait at the border right now. They didn't send us back to Kuwait City. So we're hoping that, once they secure whatever they need to secure, they'll let us through.

BROWN: OK, buddy, stay safe out there. I assume you have your medical kit we were all issued in that war school back then. And I'm sure you remember every detail of how to use it. And I hope you don't need to -- Terry McCarthy of "TIME" magazine.

MCCARTHY: Thanks, Aaron.

BROWN: Terry McCarthy of "TIME" magazine, who is one of the reporters who is going to do his best to cover this war as best he can.

Gary Strieker is an embedded correspondent on the USS Roosevelt.

Gary, are you -- I'm not sure if you're on the phone or the videophone or how exactly we have you. My memory is actually pretty good about stuff, but it's not that good -- Gary.

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, I'm on the telephone. I'm on the Roosevelt.

You've heard from other reports that aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf have launched attacks with warplanes on targets in Iraq. And we can now report that air attacks have also been launched from two carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Harry S. Truman and the Theodore Roosevelt, where I'm embedded.

BROWN: And...

STRIEKER: And here on the Roosevelt -- yes, go ahead.

BROWN: No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

STRIEKER: Yes. Earlier today, not too long ago -- I can't say exactly when -- about a dozen F-14 Tomcats and F-18 Hornets were launched on missions aimed at what were termed leadership structure targets and communication facilities in western and south central Iraq. And we are now waiting for those planes to come home back to the ship, Aaron.

BROWN: And as they wait for them to come home, Gary, is it a palpable tension on board the Roosevelt? Is there nervousness that everybody's going to get home safely?

STRIEKER: I think so. That's the perception I have.

The people I've seen standing outside on the fantail, on the landing decks, just looking out -- it's a beautiful moonlit night. And everything's quiet. We've had some tanker planes coming back that engaged in refueling. But the strike aircraft haven't come back yet. And when they do, there will be a big sigh of relief by a lot of people here, Aaron.

BROWN: And, Gary, I hope, when they come back, you'll be able to get back to us and get back on the phone and report what you've been able to learn from them and perhaps talk to them about what they encountered on their missions, to the degree they can give us details of it -- Gary Strieker, who is aboard the Roosevelt.

General, these aircraft carriers -- you're an Army guy -- but there's nothing quite like -- I've done this twice in my life, either taken off on one of those things or landing. It's a speck in the sea. And these incredibly powerful airplanes have no margin for error.

CLARK: That's exactly right.

I'm a joint guy.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: I was a joint commander. I had some of those aircraft carriers under my command. And it's enormous skill and competence to make one of those great war machines function.

BROWN: And Gary said -- and Gary was talking about how it's very quiet there now. There's basically two things on a carrier. It's very quiet or it is really noisy, because, when those planes are cranking, it is incredibly loud.

CLARK: Well, they just got clearance, I guess, this afternoon, about 2:30 our time, to fly through Turkish airspace, as I understand it.

BROWN: Right. This is all part -- if you put these puzzle pieces together, this is all part of that Turkish debate that's been going on. It's not that the troops are going to be in Turkey. It came down to whether American warplanes could fly over Turkey. They get the clearance. And out in the Mediterranean is the Roosevelt. And they launched at some point tonight. And now Gary reports that they're waiting to come home. CLARK: Here, it's been probably six, eight hours since they've had the clearance to go. So they were cocked. They were ready. They had their targets. They did their the premission planning. They had some awareness this was going to happen, presumably, and then they launched.

BROWN: And if you're running this operation, do you know now, do you know where all those planes are?

CLARK: Yes.

BROWN: You literally know where each and every plane is?

CLARK: By this point, you know they're all OK.

BROWN: You know that.

CLARK: Or not, or not.

BROWN: Or not.

Right. And if they're not, presumably, there are rescue operations going on. And that's all part of the process that the command has to keep track of.

CLARK: Exactly.

BROWN: The more we talk about this, the more you realize how many, literally, hundreds of moving -- or thousands, probably -- of moving parts there are that the Central Command keeps track of, in part because they have to know how the war plan's going, but, in part, to make sure that nobody -- that they minimize enough the possibility of friendly-fire accident.

CLARK: Exactly. They have to know where everything thing is on the ground. They have to know who the other aircraft are. They even have to know -- someone's looked at it and said, OK, search-and-rescue aircraft, how many sets to we need? Where do they need to be? Who is going to talk to them? Who is going to give them the mission? Who is going to escort them in? How is the command-and-control going to work? And how are we going to sort it all out from the ongoing strikes? And somebody has gone through all of that in incredible detail.

BROWN: You wanted to finish a point, General, that we were talking about earlier with Ken. We were talking about strategy, the options available to Saddam Hussein. This was back, I guess, 15 minutes or so ago. The closer forces get to Baghdad, the greater risk that they are in because of the nature of that kind of fighting.

CLARK: That's right.

Once you get into built-up terrain, where, even though you're overhead and flying around, you can't see what's in the buildings, and you have the problem of civilians on the ground, whom you're trying not to strike, and infrastructure that you're trying not to destroy, then that obviates some of the American advantages of this high- precision airpower. It makes for a tougher fight.

But if Saddam were to elect to pull all the way back into Baghdad initially, he's going to lose his ability to command-and-control those Republican Guards effectively.

BROWN: Because?

CLARK: Because they're not prepared to fight in that urban terrain either. They're an open-field-type of organization.

BROWN: At that point, it just -- you make it sound like, at that point, it becomes -- it's like Wild West. I mean, it's just grab a gun and shoot a bad guy.

CLARK: Well, you are going to be operating off some procedures. But the level of being able to affect the battle will descend. Rather than Tommy Franks being able to affect it or Dave McKiernan or a division commander, you are going to end up with a battalion commander, a company commander, a platoon leader, a sergeant, in a key position making the call.

BROWN: Like go down Fifth Avenue or...

CLARK: Get around the corner of this house. Get into the basement of it and string the telephone wire, so we can talk to you when you're in there and tell us what you see when you knock a hole in the wall.

BROWN: And the objective in that kind of fighting is what? To kill as many bad guys as you can or to take control of that street corner?

CLARK: Well, it is going to be reconnaissance-led, in any case. You have got to know where the enemy is and you've got to decide what objectives you need to dislodge the enemy.

And so you'll probably section off the city and you'll block his ability to move and reinforce. You'll isolate areas of enemy resistance. And then you'll find the best means of closing in on those areas of resistance. Maybe the enemy will run out of ammunition and surrender. Maybe you'll find a key position that, if you occupy that -- maybe on top of a building -- that you can dominate his ability to move between other buildings. And then, step by step, you pick him off.

You don't want to have to do sort of a brute-force charge across an open courtyard in the face of a machine gun.

BROWN: I don't think I've ever asked you this. And I try not to ask you too many speculative questions. Do you have a sense that it might end in a -- this is really -- well, I think worst-case is chemical-biological attack. But do you have any -- do you have a gut feeling that it is going to end in hand-to-hand combat inside the city in the streets of Baghdad?

CLARK: Not so much with the American forces. I think that, before it comes to that, that the Iraqis themselves will be fighting in the streets of Baghdad.

BROWN: Fighting each other?

CLARK: Fighting each other. I think there will be a lot of resistance to Saddam Hussein and his forces that will emerge in Baghdad by that time. I don't think he'll be able to control the city.

BROWN: These are residents of Baghdad taking on soldiers in Baghdad?

CLARK: That's right.

BROWN: Or are these different units fighting each other?

CLARK: Some of each. And I think we'll have our own special forces in there working with some of these people. We're not going to give him a clean, neat break in the battlefield. And I'm speaking here of U.S. doctrine.

Of course, we haven't seen the plans and we don't know how it's going to actually work out. It's strictly U.S. combat doctrine. We are not going to allow him an orderly withdrawal into the city, fully protected rear. We're going to take advantage of every opening and every opportunity to prevent him from setting a defense in Baghdad.

BROWN: Ken Pollack, are you still there?

POLLACK: Absolutely are.

BROWN: If you are, why don't you take a shot at the speculative question? Does your gut tell you this will end in a hand-to-hand, street-to-street, house-to-house and high-casualty sort of end game?

POLLACK: Let me put it this way. I don't think Saddam wants to have it end that way. What we're seeing from the Iraqis is that they're actually trying to -- it looks like they're going to try to defend Baghdad the way that they defended the city of Basra during the Iran-Iraq war.

And it's important to keep that in mind. This is probably what's also going into Iraq's own strategic decisions, which is that, during the Iran-Iraq war, they defended the city of Basra at least twice against the Iranians, in 1982 and again in 1987. And they were successful both times. Now, the defense that they mounted was very crude. It was very unsophisticated, but it worked. It did stop the Iranians.

And, as best we can tell, that's what they're planning to do again. And it's basically ringing the city with the Guard divisions, building multiple defensive lines there, as I said, very sophisticated defensive line. But this seems to be what they're trying to do. And, as General Clark is suggesting, I don't think that it's going to work very well, given how U.S. forces are going to fight.

The reason it worked against the Iranians is because the Iranians had really no offensive capability. They were attacking with vast waves of human -- seas of human -- well, human waves -- excuse me -- and just found pounding into the Iraqis. And the Iraqis were able to basically slaughter them. We're not going to hit them that way. But for Saddam, if he winds up with street fighting inside the city, he's pretty much lost.

He's hoping that the threat of that street fighting will keep us from ever attacking the city. But if we do attack, what he's hoping is that he'll stop us the way that he stopped the Iranians before we ever get to the city itself.

BROWN: General, you're running the war. Have you studied how the Iraqis fought the Iranian war?

CLARK: We have looked at that a lot. In fact, we sent some people over there to learn all about the Iraqis back in the 1980s. And so, yes, we have looked at that.

BROWN: So Tommy Franks, General Franks, and his people have studied a lot of how the Iraqis stand and fight or don't. They know something about the doctrine of the Iraqi military. I guess you assume -- you must assume that the Iraqis have done the same, don't you?

CLARK: They have. They've looked at our military doctrine.

But they have a -- basically, it's a Soviet military doctrine. They had the technological superiority, as Ken suggested, over the Iranians. Now the tables are completely reversed. They've never really come to grips with what our technology is and how we fight. They don't have the resources. They didn't have the training facilities to do it. They're a generation behind, at best, maybe two generations behind.

BROWN: It must be incredibly unsettling for an Iraqi military, an Iraqi general, to kind of figure it all out, sit down and look at all the history and look at all that's available to them. At some point, you have to look at it and go, we could be brilliant, but we're still going to get kicked.

CLARK: Well, he probably doesn't want to say it, Aaron. He's probably going to say: Because of the character of the Iraqi soldier, they're going to stand and fight. And these Americans won't take casualties. They don't really mean it. They come from a soft society.

But, you know, he'd be very wrong if he said that, because these American soldiers -- we saw them last night -- they really mean it. They're not soft.

BROWN: Well, clearly, as Ken said a while back, they've made a lot of miscalculations along the way. And this would be one more.

Harris Whitbeck is in the southern part of Turkey. And he can join us now. There has been this ongoing discussion, Harris, as you know, about whether or not, and how many, if, Turkish soldiers -- Turkish troops have made their way into Iraq -- Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron.

Well, we are literally standing on the road that leads to Baghdad. The border is about, oh, maybe, 10, 15 kilometers from here, a lot of Turkish troops in this area for several weeks now, and a lot of them probably hoping to take this road to go into northern Iraq.

Now, CNN's sister network, CNN Turk's military correspondent says that about 1,000 troops have already crossed into northern Iraq. Our Jane Arraf also saw that from the other side, the Turkish minister of defense saying that their mission there is to provide a buffer zone to prevent refugees from flowing into Turkey. And, also, the Turkish foreign minister said that their mission is to prevent terrorist attacks on Turkey.

Now, there has been a lot of concern expressed by the United States that, if Turkish troops do go into northern Iraq in large numbers, that could provide for possible clashes between Turkish troops and the Kurdish groups that operate in northern Iraq. The United States had said earlier that an agreement had been reached between the different Kurdish organizations, the Turkish military, and the United States.

They all said they would work together to prevent that type of clashes, but still a lot of concern that, if more Turkish troops go in there in large numbers, there could be problems over there in northern Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there the kind of buildup of Turkish troops behind you that suggests they might be planning to do such a thing?

WHITBECK: That certainly seems to be the case, Aaron. The buildup has been going on for several weeks. And everybody does seem to feel that that's what's going to happen.

Turkey has felt -- and this is a matter of public opinion here that many feel almost insulted by this agreement that has been reached by the United States. We're hearing just comments from people on the road down here, where they said, well, we opened up our airspace to the Americans. They should let us go in there and do what we have to do. So, obviously, there is a lot of concern about that, just talking to people on the streets.

BROWN: Harris, thank you -- Harris Whitbeck, who is in the southern part of Turkey.

Samia Nakhoul -- and I hope I'm pronouncing that right -- is a Reuters correspondent who is still being allowed to report from Baghdad, on the phone with us now.

What is it like there?

SAMIA NAKHOUL, REUTERS: Well, it's dawn now already.

We had a heavy night of bombardment. It was actually the heaviest. We've said that war has really started in Baghdad. They pounded this -- warplanes and cruise missiles landed on scores of targets in Baghdad. We could see fires raging from different sites. And some buildings were still smoldering from the effect of the bombardments.

Wailing sirens were on continuously and off a few times. But it was long and very persistent. It's obviously targeted at certain positions. We could tell from a distance, from our hotel, that they were targeting the presidential compound which they targeted yesterday, which is the one that has the headquarters of the son of the president, Qusay. They did come back to it again. And, at dawn, they did fire missile strikes on it.

We could see that one building was guarded and another was an empty space. We couldn't tell what it was. But some people could assume it's just maybe one of these bunkers there. They did also strike at another building which is next to a communication tower. And we could see clouds of white smoke mushrooming out of that building. And it was hit two or three times, this building next to a communications tower.

Ambulances were racing in the street. You could hear them. And then there were some fire trucks heading towards the fires to put them out. And they did manage to put quite a few out. We don't see fires, but we could see some gutted buildings around.

BROWN: Obviously, we're able to see the city or at least a snapshot of the city. The sun has risen, a bright sky. Is there, both for you personally, I suppose for the citizens, too, a sense that daylight is the safe time?

NAKHOUL: No, not really. The is the first day where we saw that it is not safe, because, normally, the first two days they started for a little amount of time and then you had all-clear. But, today, it continues until the early days of the morning. And we don't know if we can go out and go to our offices. It's kind of -- we've started to feel insecure. It's unpredictable.

We know that there are targets, precise targets. In fact, we haven't heard of civilians buildings being pounded. But it is still -- being caught on the street in the middle of bombardment, it would be frightening. But we can check in another hour. Not many people are out on the streets now. A few cars ventured out.

BROWN: Yes.

NAKHOUL: And some people who are praying went to their mosque at dawn. That's all we could tell.

BROWN: Samia, thank you. Stay safe -- Samia Nakhoul of the Reuters News Agency, Reuters.

We're coming up at 11:00 Eastern time, many of you joining us, particularly out West. As your evening gets started, we'll take a look at where the day has been so far.

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Way Too Early to Declare Victory>


Aired March 22, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. It is the dawn of a new day, Saturday morning in the Persian Gulf, Saturday morning in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. A capital that was battered yesterday their time by American forces, the beginning of the Shock and Awe campaign.
It is just now coming up on dawn there, 6:00 in the morning. These are the pictures from Baghdad. As many of you know, some of you may not, however, our correspondent, Nic Robertson -- our correspondents, actually, led by Nic Robertson, have been expelled and they are making their way out. We still have access to a number of locations and a number of correspondents. Mostly from Arab language television networks that have been allowed to stay.

There is some evidence tonight that the Iraqis, in terms of how information is going to come out of Iraq, are getting more than a little testy. How that might impact what we see as daylight comes we don't know yet. But it's important to know, certainly for us, we want to know, American military planners want to know, what sort of damage was done beginning at about 9:00 last night Iraq time, middle of the day here in the United States on the East Coast, when this long- awaited Shock and Awe campaign began.

This was a seven-minute attack, but imagine how long those seven minutes must have felt. These bombs and missiles falling on the outskirts of Baghdad at selected military command and control targets. One of the things we would anticipate happening in the next four hours or so, if the Iraqis prove true to form, is we may well see some sort of tour of the damage, get some sense of what, if any, collateral damage, what, if any, civilian targets were erroneously hit.

These are very precise in most cases, very precise weapons. But they are still subject to error like any other thing that's mechanical. They don't always hit what they are intended to hit, and no one expects that there will be no civilian casualties in this.

This went on for seven minutes. It was a second strike that began, oh, 90 minutes or so later. And as the people of Baghdad wake up now on this Saturday morning and come out into the streets -- these pictures now live in Baghdad, as you can see. Very little activity on the streets there, but it's still very early in the morning, just a bit after 3:00 in the morning.

Surely, they must wonder what this day is going to bring, what it will bring in terms of the American military response. But they must also wonder who's running the country and how much control the government of Saddam Hussein has over the country. The message from the American side is that the government of Iraq is in disarray. Surely, the Iraqis must wonder that as well.

Is there a government of Iraq, and to what degree is it in control of any of the institutions of government? It's Saturday morning there. There has been a tremendous amount -- there have been a tremendous number of developments over the last 24 hours or so, and we'll spend a lot of our time tonight taking a look at those and trying to figure out where next this goes.

When we left you the other morning, yesterday morning, we anticipated today might be the day the attacks took place. The pictures on the big screen to the right, a major Air Force base in Great Britain. B-52s over the last hour or so have been landing. They've been making runs across Iraq.

One of the things to keep in mind while we're able to show you the pictures of these terrible attacks -- terrible if you're on the other end of them -- attacks in Baghdad, there have been missions flown throughout the country. Certainly in the north of the country, we know. These are pictures that we haven't been able to show you. We don't have cameras in those looks yet. We haven't seen what they have done, but these B-52s, these old workhorses of the Air Force have been doing their duty and they've been coming back now to this air base in Great Britain.

There is -- there have already been some defections and surrenders by Iraqi forces, not especially surprising given what planners believed would happen, but they have started at the time (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- we were told to anticipate -- we are not highly motivated to fight the fight. As you see, yet another one of those giant B-52s, and they go -- General Wes Clark is with me -- they go way back to I think before Vietnam, don't they?

They have been a part of the American military arsenal for most of our lifetime, literally, as we sit here. They're obviously updated, as is the weaponry they carry. But that basic plane, that B- 52 has been the heavy bomber for a long, long time. These planes coming back to England.

Over at the Pentagon, Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent. Jamie, there are a number of things I think that you can get us started on. There have been the -- first of all, what is your sense of where the military campaign goes, and then go ahead and kind of transition about into what we know about surrenders.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, this was the day that the Pentagon delivered on its promise to dish out a punishing aerial assault on Baghdad, which they said was unprecedented in modern warfare.

Now the results aren't in yet. We know that there are a lot of government buildings in Baghdad in ruins. And as you mentioned, there have been some significant surrenders of Iraqi forces, in particular, the 51st division down in the south, an entire division apparently surrendering in mass, according to the Pentagon's report. But Pentagon officials here caution that, despite the favorable battlefield reports, it's way too early to declare victory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The pentagon calls it "A-Day." "A" for the massively air assault that would drop 1,500 precision-guided bombs and missiles on hundreds of separate targets across Iraq. The Pentagon says it's a bombardment of historic proportion.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamed of in a prior conflict.

MCINTYRE: The bombing, designed to Shock and Awe Iraq's military, centered on Baghdad, but also struck key targets in Mosul and Kirkuk in the north and Basra in the south.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We successfully accomplished our mission. We did everything we set out to do. Everybody's back safe and sound.

MCINTYRE: All targets are designed to undermine the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to convince his generals to turn on him or at least surrender. Such as, for instance, this presidential palace compound which is located in downtown Baghdad. The concussions jolted Iraqi officials giving a military briefing.

While some Iraqi regular troops are giving up, others are fighting. Two U.S. Marines have been killed in action, and there are no signs yet Saddam Hussein's generals are defecting.

RUMSFELD: It apparently -- what we have done thus far has not been sufficiently persuasive that they would have done that.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has taken some ground in the south, including Umm Qasr, a key southern port, along with two airfields in western Iraq. The southern oil fields have just about been secured, and the U.S. ground forces have moved more than 100 miles into Iraq from Kuwait. But the war is far from won.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Clearly we're moving towards our objectives, but we must not get too comfortable. We're basically on our plan and moving towards Baghdad, but there are still many unknowns out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Two of those unknowns, what happens when the U.S. military comes face-to-face with the Republican Guard around Baghdad? Will they fold or fight? And are they armed with chemical weapons, and will they use them?

Pentagon officials say that's their biggest concern at this time. And, Aaron, so far in this aerial campaign, the so-called Shock and Awe campaign, no U.S. aircraft were lost. BROWN: May it stay that way. Jamie, thank you very much.

Michael Gordon writes about military matters, the chief military writer -- I believe that's true, Michael -- for "The New York Times." He's at Camp Doha, which is in Kuwait, the central command post within Kuwait. And he's been working on this story of the surrender.

Michael, how did it come about, do you know?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I think the surrender is noteworthy, but not decisive. So I wouldn't invest too much importance in it. I mean the 51st Division is a unit that faces -- was directly in the path of the invasion. And essentially, the Americans have been seeking, along with the British, to facilitate this unit's surrender for some time.

They've been bombarding them with leaflets, propaganda, broadcasts. And I think they probably had some private negotiations with them. And the basic philosophy behind this is the United States wants to defeat the Iraqi military without destroying it. They don't want to stir up anymore enmity than is necessary, because they're going to become the governing authority in Iraq.

So this unit eventually complied. And the commander and his deputy delivered his official surrender. And many of the troops themselves just sort of faded away into the night.

BROWN: And so they have not been taken prisoner of war, as it were?

GORDON: I don't know. I mean, honestly, Aaron, I think that this is a unit -- I mean, the fight, as Jamie McIntyre said, is with the Republican Guard.

BROWN: Yes.

GORDON: And they haven't engaged them yet. And these units are just a bunch of speed bumps on the way to Baghdad.

BROWN: I'm sorry, Michael. Go ahead.

GORDON: And so -- well, they're just -- you know they're units that the military confronts and has to deal with, the American forces. But it's hoping, you know, to fight as rarely as possible. So this is -- you know, like the 51st, there are other units that they're also trying to encourage to surrender, the 11th division in (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And that was only partially successful because there was, from what I can tell, a kind of fire fight at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) this past evening.

So what you really have at this point in time -- I think the way to look at this is what you have at this point in time is pockets of resistance. There was fighting in Umm Qasr, there was there some fighting in the Ramallah oil field. There was fighting in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) airfield, which they were moving to take. And two Marines were killed in this fighting yesterday. And, on the other hand, there seemed to be some units that don't want to have anything to do with this, like the 51st Division and some portions of the 11th, that the American military is dealing with. But all of this is just a prelude for the real battle.

The real battle is in Baghdad. The real battle hasn't begun yet. And I think that there's -- it begins in the outskirts of Baghdad, actually, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) begin to confront the Medina (ph), the Hamarabi (ph) and the al-Midal (ph) divisions. And I think there is just enormous uncertainty as to whether these units are attacked, to what extent they're cohesive, how determined they are to fight, and whether they're going to try to go back into the city and turn this into urban warfare. And I think that's what's all to be decided in the next few days.

BROWN: Michael, two questions, if we can hold you for a minute. Essentially, the way the Iraqi military is set up, the least well trained, the least motivated troops are the ones closest to the Kuwaiti border. It essentially gets tougher as you get closer to the capital, right?

GORDON: Well, they've done -- the Iraqi's defense makes a lot of sense. They basically decided to exploit the home court advantage, is one way you can look at it. And Saddam has based his own defense in Baghdad, and Baghdad is his fortress. And he's tried to turn it into kind of a bastion.

And he has -- in terms of ground forces, he has this special Republican Guard, which defends the city proper. And then three Republican Guard divisions raid (ph) around it within about 50 miles. And each (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defense there. And that's where he's making his final stand.

Now everything up to that, the function of all these other units, is simply to slow down the American advance and cause the Americans to lose a bit of momentum. But the decisive battle is around Baghdad.

Now what happened last night was -- in terms of U.S. air power -- is they decided to take the air war to Baghdad with the so-called Shock and Awe campaign that they're promoting. And it may have had an important effect in terms of morale and the Iraqi ability to command and control their forces. On the other hand, it's not exactly the first time the Iraqis have seen American air power in action.

They endured 43 days of it during the Gulf War. They had it during Desert Fox during the Clinton administration. So I think what's happened now is they've done the air campaign in Baghdad in a way that they're trying to unsettle a regime and hit key targets without laying waste to this city, because I guess there's an old sign that they used to have: You break it, you buy it. And I think the American military is also conscious of that, and every bridge they destroy in Baghdad is a bridge that the U.S. military and the U.S. taxpayers is going to have to rebuild, and they trying to govern the city. So they're trying to do it away pushes the regime off the edge without wiping the city off the map. And I've seen some of the target maps, because I'm embedded. And there are all sorts of restrictions as to what I can report.

And I have to say that, you know, there are big red splotches in some very key parts of the city. And there are whole areas that will be completely untouched. So they're trying to do it in this discriminate way. But the point is that the next few days are really decisive, because that's when we're going to learn how formidable an opponent or not formidable the Republican Guard will be.

There's no question about the outcome. The U.S. will win this. The question is at what cost.

BROWN: Michael, thank you very much. It's good to talk to you under any circumstance, especially nice to talk to you tonight. Michael Gordon, who is chief military writer -- I don't know if that's precisely the title, but that's the job for "The New York Times".

A distinguished and very much experienced writer of military matters for "The Times." And he's at Camp Doha, which in the country of Kuwait is the principal command center.

General Wes Clark is here, Ken Pollack is here. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on a division that doesn't mean a whole lot and their surrender doesn't mean a whole lot. So tell me now if we need to -- both of you, I guess -- General, we'll start with you -- if we need to spend more time talking about the importance of the 51st, this group that surrendered today.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a warm-up drill. It shows us we've got a process. It shows us we can talk to them. It's warming up on how to deal with the surrender to warm-up.

BROWN: Ken, any significance -- I know you know a fair amount about this group -- any significance that you see to this that we ought to note before we move on?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes. I think just to take up a point that there are two ways to look at this. First, from Saddam's perspective, as Michael Gordon was basically getting at, I don't think this is a big deal for Saddam. He never expected the 51st Mechanized Division to put up much of a fight to us.

I think any amount that they can slow us down and inflict some casualties, that's a bonus for Saddam. As Michael was suggesting, he really believes the battle is going to be decided in Baghdad, and we shouldn't take their surrender as being necessarily a sign that the fight of Baghdad isn't going to be a tough one or that Saddam might be changing his mind.

But by the same token, it does indicate to us that our initial assumptions about how the Iraqis would fight seem to be correct so far. And that's important. So far, the initial estimates were that the regular army divisions probably wouldn't put up much of a fight and we would see large-scale surrenders. And this seems to be confirming that pattern.

BROWN: Well, just taking what all of you who know these military things a lot better than I do, honestly, what all of you have said is it also sounds to me as if it also confirms to a certain extent what the Iraqi military figured would happen, because they didn't have much confidence in the 51st either, General.

CLARK: They didn't have any way of really supporting this force down there. They knew it was there. It served a purpose, it maintained control over the Shiite Muslims and prevented them from sort of breaking away in advance. It was a sacrifice play.

BROWN: And just one other point. It seems to me that we all -- and I mean we all -- you watching us here need to keep in mind we see this enormous effort made in the air campaign today. This is the American -- there is -- this is the, if I might use Michael Gordon's term, the home field advantage is the city of Baghdad for the Iraqis -- the Americans own the sky. This is what the Americans do very, very well with precision, with power.

This is their strong suit. This thing gets nastier as it goes, and no one should get the sense, based on what happened today, that this thing is a slam dunk, it's over and everybody's coming home a week from Thursday, because nothing that happened today suggests that. Right?

CLARK: That's true. But I think as I listen to Michael talk -- and I don't know how Ken would feel about this -- but I think Saddam's made a significant strategic mistake here in thinking that he can draw back into a home field advantage. As long as we control the sky, we have the high ground. And with the air power that we have today, what we can see we can hit. What we can hit, we can destroy, and we can do it without any losses. And so wherever they make a stand, unless it's in a civilian populated area, they're going to be destroyed.

BROWN: Go ahead, Ken.

POLLACK: If I can just add something to what General Clark said. I think he's absolutely right, and I think it's something important to keep in mind for the future, which is I think that Saddam has made a tremendous mistake about the strategy. You can say -- I think you would make a very good case -- that really this is the only strategy, the only option that Saddam has available to him.

But nevertheless, he's done what we've seen him do time and again in the past, which is convince himself that this strategy is going to work. He is very optimistic, as far as we can tell right now, because he thinks this strategy is going to work. Even though you hear experts like General Clark and I think pretty much anyone who knows anything about military forces would say it's highly unlikely that it will work, Saddam continues to believe it.

And in the days ahead, we've got to remember that. We've got to remember Saddam's ability to convince himself of what it is that he wants to believe. BROWN: Let me throw a couple of questions out, then, as we go here. And I didn't know we'd sort of end up in a discussion on strategy, exactly, but that's sort of the way it works in these things. We've got some graphics that could help us.

OK, let's take for a second, General, the notion that this was a lousy strategy. Keep your eye on the monitor, too, if you don't mind. Did Saddam have many options in terms of strategy?

CLARK: Well, probably not. I mean if he had -- he didn't have enough strong, reliable forces to defend the perimeter of the country.

BROWN: So these outlined places that we see on the map, Mosul in the north, and down to the south, he didn't have enough of an army, if you will.

CLARK: That's right.

BROWN: He didn't have enough guys. An army that has been degraded a lot since the Gulf War.

CLARK: That's right. I mean he put most of his best forces into Kuwait the last time. He lost half of the force in 1991, and that was just in Kuwait and right around Kuwait. And he pulled back out of Kuwait.

Now trying to guard Kuwait, guard the north, protect the west from Jordan, just doesn't have enough forces. So he's been driven into this strategy. He really had only -- he has one key trump card, and that is the chemical and biological weapons. And let's hope, for the sake of the world, that he doesn't use them.

BROWN: Now that's the other thing. I mean there's been a lot of putting gas masks on and putting gas masks off. But, again, this is early in the game, if you will, to use the term (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's no game out there.

There's nothing to say that we won't see these weapons as more American forces and British forces come into the country. There's no guarantee that that's not going to happen. Ken, you pretty much agree that he didn't have many options? This is an army that's been almost literally begging for spare parts to try and hold itself together.

POLLACK: Yes. Aaron, the honest answer is he did have a different strategy available, but it wasn't a military strategy. It was a diplomatic strategy. And I think the right strategy for Saddam is he should have turned his country inside out and disarmed completely.

I mean the honest answer is he should have done that back in 1991. If he had done it in 1991, he'd probably have a nuclear weapon by now. But this time around, he should have seen us coming and he should have done everything that he possible could have to get rid of all of the weapons that he did have, turn them all over to the weapons inspectors to foreclose this attack, to prevent it from ever occurring. But, again, he convinced himself that he did have this military option, this military fallback position, and therefore he felt like he could continue to play around with the inspectors and not fully disarm. And I think he made a tremendous mistake.

BROWN: The would have and should haves of life. The all-clear siren has gone off in Baghdad for as long as that last daylight. Just, General, quickly on this point, since we're looking at the picture. The American forces, the British forces, the air forces would prefer not to attack in daylight, but they could.

CLARK: Well, we're probably attacking elsewhere in Iraq in daylight.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: This is where the majority of the air defense is. We probably want to give it one more night of working over before we go there. But eventually we'll be going over Baghdad in daylight.

BROWN: OK. Because at some point they've taken out enough of the anti-aircraft...

CLARK: Right.

BROWN: OK. Now, David, go back to the graphic that we put up. Let's try and explain. This is a kind of look at how this effort might play out. General, we'll let you do this. You do this for a living.

CLARK: Well what you've got here is you have the forces moving north. Right now we have two major thrusts. The 7th Cav, which is the advanced guard of the 3rd Infantry Division.

BROWN: That's that group we followed last night.

CLARK: And they're up there right now somewhere around the main road. They're near the Euphrates River, apparently near the town of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), according to the press reports. And on the right flank is the 1st Marine and a combination of the 1st Marines and the British out there in H2 and H3.

We're there. We're not quite sure what's there. Some of the press reporting would indicate maybe a brigade of the 82nd might be there.

Some fairly tough fighting. We had some British special forces in there, maybe Rangers. And in the north, reports that the Iraqis would like to surrender. If we can get up there we'll accept their surrender.

BROWN: Got to get up there. There's a group up there that wants to give up, but has nobody to give up to.

CLARK: So far. So we've got to get some forces leapfrogging from H2 and H3 up into that area. Then we put the squeeze on, we close in around Baghdad. And at the same time this, air power is not idle. And once it's worked over the air defense and command and control, then those Republican Guard divisions that are out there guarding the approaches of Baghdad -- the day of the orange painted tank in the desert is over.

And they're out there, they're visible. They'll be taken out one by one.

BROWN: There is -- again, to use Michael Gordon's term -- a home court advantage. There's also home court disadvantage, in that the environment, the countryside itself, it's just -- if you're out in the desert, there's no place to hide.

CLARK: Now there's built up areas in the outskirts of Baghdad.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: So there can be...

BROWN: As you come into the city it's different.

CLARK: They can be in a hut. They can be there. But you know we're going to know that area. We watch it.

And we'll see things move and we'll own the skies. And when you own the skies, you can -- and you have these precision weapons and you have no significant enemy air defense to prevent you from orbiting and watching it and using it, it's just a matter of time.

BROWN: Ken, do you think -- we're going to get one of our embedded correspondents up in northern Iraq in a second. But while we wait, I may interrupt you. Do you think that Saddam was surrounded by generals who for either reasons of fear, not wanting to be the one to deliver the bad news, or perhaps because they aren't all that bright, honestly, said, no, actually, this will work. We can make this work. Go ahead, try it.

POLLACK: Well, I think that that probably was the case. That they did say to Saddam, we think we can make this work. Probably not because they're idiots.

In fact, Saddam does have pretty competent generals around him. One of the interesting things about the Iraqi army over the last 20 years is they've actually developed some fairly competent generals, even though their troops themselves are pretty poor. But the fact of the matter is that they really didn't have any other options and they probably did come to Saddam and said to him, look boss, if you want to fight this out with the Americans, we think that this is the only way this is going to work. This is our one option.

They tried, I'm sure, to frame it in as positive a term as they could, because Saddam doesn't exactly like defeatists. And anyone who sounds like a defeatist has a bad habit of losing their head, quite literally. So they probably did go to Saddam and say to him, we think we've come up with a strategy to make this work. We think that it does have a chance to work. And probably Saddam convinced himself that, yes, this is what's going to get me out of things. BROWN: Ken, hang on. We haven't really introduced you, but I think you've been on enough over the last weeks or so that people are familiar with you and your expertise. We're glad to have you with us tonight.

Lisa Rose Weaver is one of our embedded correspondents. She's with the Patriot Unit. These Patriots are the missile batteries that shoot down anti-missiles, if you will. Lisa, it's good to hear from you tonight. What can you report?

LISA WEAVER: Well, Aaron, I am in southern Iraq at the end of literally a 20-hour convoy into this country from Kuwait. I am with a battery of Patriot missiles as well. The assets that they are intended to protect. So it was a very long convoy.

And one of the reasons it's taken 20 hours to get into southern Iraq is that the Patriot missiles are so heavy that they got stuck in the softer, looser sand that we encountered on the way in the desert. On the way up here. So it's kind of an interesting point, because the Patriots are being used in a much more sort of forward theater way more often in this conflict than they have been in the past.

Now this conflict wouldn't be the first time it's used in a so- called maneuver tactic way, meaning that it goes not right on the front, but that it accompanies infantry refueling stations, what have you, in order to protect them. But that comes at a cost, and it comes as some experience and hard lessons of being warned (UNINTELLIGIBLE) incredibly heavy (ph) units in this kind of terrain -- Aaron.

BROWN: Basically, just so I make sure I get this, this Patriot battery that you're with, their purpose is to protect the infantry should Saddam decide to throw missiles at them?

WEAVER: That's right, correct. It's designed to be on the lookout for any incoming threat to infantry that it (ph) flanks, or at a great distance. It's not limited to being close to them, by any means. But it does have that capability.

And other units as well, refueling stations, air assault, air assault refueling facilities, making it possible, in other words, for other units to utilize the area by keeping the skies safe -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, just as briefly as you can, they have yet to encounter trouble?

WEAVER: Well, that's right. yes. We didn't see any trouble.

The convoy I was with didn't see any trouble. We had arrived on pretty much a cleared battlefield. I also didn't see any evidence of the bombing that I've seen -- that we had all seen the night before, interestingly. That had occurred at other points, I suppose, on the border between Kuwait and Iraq.

We also saw very few Iraqis. Who we did see were some bedouin tribes, who were very friendly. They waved at the convoy. One of the sergeant majors at one point introduced himself to a couple of sheep herders. We saw cattle, sheep, and very few people. And all that we have seen so far have been friendly -- Aaron.

BROWN: Lisa, thank you -- Lisa Rose Weaver, who is moving with the 5th -- with a Patriot battery making its way up. It's a great description of the problems, general, that the Army endures.

Briefly, the Patriots that are out there today, are they a better Patriot than 12 years ago.

CLARK: Yes, they are.

BROWN: OK, because there was a lot controversy about that. We'll talk more about that later.

Let's try and catch you up briefly all of the things that have gone on on a very busy day.

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: Before we -- I want to get back at some point to this discussion we started, or wandered into, in truth, on some questions of strategy.

But we've got a number of our embedded reporters. And we're never quite sure when we'll get them. And when we get them, we don't want to lose them.

Brent Sadler is in the northern part of Iraq. Brent last night provided some of the most extraordinary pictures of the night, a group of Iraqi officers or soldiers.

Brent, I thought you said officers. I may have heard it wrong. What are you seeing now today?

BRENT SADLER, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, we've changed our position. I'm about 40 miles away of where we saw those, as you say, extraordinary pictures of Iraqi units, looking as if they might be giving up a ghost.

But, really, overnight, according to the Kurds, who are in control of this area, units were changed around. And as things stand now, here at daybreak, the Iraqi lines haven't changed at all. They're still holding. We do know, however, that, overnight, there were attacks, airstrikes against Kirkuk. Kirkuk is about -- I guess about 35 miles behind me that way, about 20 explosions reported around Kirkuk.

Kirkuk's important because of the oil wealth which surrounds that area, one of the richest oil resource areas in Iraq -- no sign, no reports, no clouds on the horizon or smoke on the horizon suggesting anything untoward has happened to those oil wells. But, of course, that is of great concern to coalition forces.

Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, again, that was attacked. But we're not seeing the kind of strength of attack, the Shock and Awe that we were seeing, obviously, in the Iraqi capital and elsewhere in the southern parts of Iraq, not the kind of military pressure that will collapse these lines, I don't think, nor will force Kirkuk or Mosul to relinquish Saddam Hussein's control over those cities, unless command-and-control is broken. I think, for as long as we see these lines holding here, we can assume that command-and-control from Baghdad is remaining intact.

But the other thing that perhaps is interesting for the Kurds, who control this territory, have done for the past 12 years, they're not so much concerned about what's happening in Baghdad now. They're more concerned about the possible entry, in perhaps the next day or two, of the Turkish military. Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, has said Turkey will enter with troops into northern Iraq. And we all know, for many weeks, the Kurds have been saying they will oppose them. So, an extraordinary situation could develop there.

Also, to give you an idea of the perspective on the ground here, if I were to jump in my car, Aaron, and drive down the road to Kirkuk, that would take me maybe 25, 30 minutes, to Baghdad, maybe three hours, perhaps under three hours with the foot on the gas pedal. That's how close we are here. Yet as you can see, static here.

BROWN: Brent, do me a favor, if you will. Just ask your cameraman to pan off you just to give us a view of the countryside that you are reporting from, so that our viewers have a sense. We've seen an awful lot of the barren desert in Kuwait.

Thank you.

We thought we would give people a sense of what it looks like in the northern part of the country. It's quite different. Well, for one thing, there are people. There are people who actually live there, as opposed to the southern desert, which is about as inhospitable a place as you could imagine. And it is going to get more inhospitable, not simply because of the military activity, but because of the weather. To the north, conditions are quite a bit different, a lot of greenery.

There was a point last night where, on one side of the screen, we had the barren desert, where the 7th Cavalry was making its way in, and, on the other side of the screen, the green of springtime in northern Iraq. In any case, it looks like a farming area.

And, Brent, we'll get back to you as we can.

And Terry McCarthy is -- I don't -- Terry, you're on the phone right? I don't believe you're an embedded correspondent. I believe, if I remember this right, you are making your way on your own through all of this.

To the extent you're comfortable, tell me where you are and what you're seeing and what you've encountered.

TERRY MCCARTHY, "TIME": Yes, Aaron, we're at the DMZ here just on the Iraqi border. There's a

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: North or south?

MCCARTHY: It's Abdali. They're not letting us through right now.

BROWN: OK.

SADLER: There's a kind of a gray haze in the sky. I think some of that might come from some of those oil wells that may still be burning.

Interesting. I was listening to you earlier. You were talking to Lisa Rose Weaver about the Patriots. We passed a large convoy of Patriot missiles, coming up about 20 different trucks with about four Patriots on the back of each one. So they're clearly bringing up a lot into more forward positions.

BROWN: Terry, is it -- I will tell our viewers, Terry, all of us who were going to be sent or who might have been sent to the region were required to spend a week in what was called war school to prepare us for the possibility...

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: We hear sirens now. We heard all clear before in Baghdad. These are sirens now in Baghdad. And we'll see what they bring.

Let's just listen for a second.

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: That's a nightscope shot. That's why it's so green. But it is daylight now in Baghdad.

(SIRENS BLARING)

BROWN: There were about, oh, I guess, about an hour ago, maybe a little less than that, some reporting that two or three missiles had hit in Baghdad. And we have been -- that is not our reporting. And we have not been able to confirm it.

There are three -- these are all different locations in Baghdad. Again, that green screen on the top, they are still shooting through their nightscope, no particular reason to, because it's daylight. But that camera is positioned as a stationary camera, I believe. And that's probably why -- again, the air raid sirens now going off on a Saturday morning, early Saturday morning, in Baghdad.

Terry McCarthy, "TIME" magazine.

Terry, has it been as you anticipated it might be?

MCCARTHY: Yes. We're kind of hoping we're going to get across the border fairly soon. We knew there was going to be a delay for the nonembedded journalists. We have been getting stuff back from our embeds, as you all have. But it would be nice if we could go in independently, because that will give us a different perspective on what's going on.

BROWN: And just to explain very briefly -- because we don't like to spend a lot of time talking about the journalism of all of this -- as you know, there are about 500 embedded journalists. That is journalists who are living with units at sea, in bases, on the move right now.

But, also, news organizations have also sent other reporters, Terry for "TIME" magazine, a good many others over there, who will operate on their own, without the benefit of the embedding process and I suppose, you can also argue, without the restrictions of the embedding process. Terry, then, is essentially on his own out there and trying to get in.

And it is the U.S. military -- are they telling you that they might let you in today or not?

MCCARTHY: Yes, they're saying -- they've just told us to wait at the border right now. They didn't send us back to Kuwait City. So we're hoping that, once they secure whatever they need to secure, they'll let us through.

BROWN: OK, buddy, stay safe out there. I assume you have your medical kit we were all issued in that war school back then. And I'm sure you remember every detail of how to use it. And I hope you don't need to -- Terry McCarthy of "TIME" magazine.

MCCARTHY: Thanks, Aaron.

BROWN: Terry McCarthy of "TIME" magazine, who is one of the reporters who is going to do his best to cover this war as best he can.

Gary Strieker is an embedded correspondent on the USS Roosevelt.

Gary, are you -- I'm not sure if you're on the phone or the videophone or how exactly we have you. My memory is actually pretty good about stuff, but it's not that good -- Gary.

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, I'm on the telephone. I'm on the Roosevelt.

You've heard from other reports that aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf have launched attacks with warplanes on targets in Iraq. And we can now report that air attacks have also been launched from two carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Harry S. Truman and the Theodore Roosevelt, where I'm embedded.

BROWN: And...

STRIEKER: And here on the Roosevelt -- yes, go ahead.

BROWN: No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

STRIEKER: Yes. Earlier today, not too long ago -- I can't say exactly when -- about a dozen F-14 Tomcats and F-18 Hornets were launched on missions aimed at what were termed leadership structure targets and communication facilities in western and south central Iraq. And we are now waiting for those planes to come home back to the ship, Aaron.

BROWN: And as they wait for them to come home, Gary, is it a palpable tension on board the Roosevelt? Is there nervousness that everybody's going to get home safely?

STRIEKER: I think so. That's the perception I have.

The people I've seen standing outside on the fantail, on the landing decks, just looking out -- it's a beautiful moonlit night. And everything's quiet. We've had some tanker planes coming back that engaged in refueling. But the strike aircraft haven't come back yet. And when they do, there will be a big sigh of relief by a lot of people here, Aaron.

BROWN: And, Gary, I hope, when they come back, you'll be able to get back to us and get back on the phone and report what you've been able to learn from them and perhaps talk to them about what they encountered on their missions, to the degree they can give us details of it -- Gary Strieker, who is aboard the Roosevelt.

General, these aircraft carriers -- you're an Army guy -- but there's nothing quite like -- I've done this twice in my life, either taken off on one of those things or landing. It's a speck in the sea. And these incredibly powerful airplanes have no margin for error.

CLARK: That's exactly right.

I'm a joint guy.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: I was a joint commander. I had some of those aircraft carriers under my command. And it's enormous skill and competence to make one of those great war machines function.

BROWN: And Gary said -- and Gary was talking about how it's very quiet there now. There's basically two things on a carrier. It's very quiet or it is really noisy, because, when those planes are cranking, it is incredibly loud.

CLARK: Well, they just got clearance, I guess, this afternoon, about 2:30 our time, to fly through Turkish airspace, as I understand it.

BROWN: Right. This is all part -- if you put these puzzle pieces together, this is all part of that Turkish debate that's been going on. It's not that the troops are going to be in Turkey. It came down to whether American warplanes could fly over Turkey. They get the clearance. And out in the Mediterranean is the Roosevelt. And they launched at some point tonight. And now Gary reports that they're waiting to come home. CLARK: Here, it's been probably six, eight hours since they've had the clearance to go. So they were cocked. They were ready. They had their targets. They did their the premission planning. They had some awareness this was going to happen, presumably, and then they launched.

BROWN: And if you're running this operation, do you know now, do you know where all those planes are?

CLARK: Yes.

BROWN: You literally know where each and every plane is?

CLARK: By this point, you know they're all OK.

BROWN: You know that.

CLARK: Or not, or not.

BROWN: Or not.

Right. And if they're not, presumably, there are rescue operations going on. And that's all part of the process that the command has to keep track of.

CLARK: Exactly.

BROWN: The more we talk about this, the more you realize how many, literally, hundreds of moving -- or thousands, probably -- of moving parts there are that the Central Command keeps track of, in part because they have to know how the war plan's going, but, in part, to make sure that nobody -- that they minimize enough the possibility of friendly-fire accident.

CLARK: Exactly. They have to know where everything thing is on the ground. They have to know who the other aircraft are. They even have to know -- someone's looked at it and said, OK, search-and-rescue aircraft, how many sets to we need? Where do they need to be? Who is going to talk to them? Who is going to give them the mission? Who is going to escort them in? How is the command-and-control going to work? And how are we going to sort it all out from the ongoing strikes? And somebody has gone through all of that in incredible detail.

BROWN: You wanted to finish a point, General, that we were talking about earlier with Ken. We were talking about strategy, the options available to Saddam Hussein. This was back, I guess, 15 minutes or so ago. The closer forces get to Baghdad, the greater risk that they are in because of the nature of that kind of fighting.

CLARK: That's right.

Once you get into built-up terrain, where, even though you're overhead and flying around, you can't see what's in the buildings, and you have the problem of civilians on the ground, whom you're trying not to strike, and infrastructure that you're trying not to destroy, then that obviates some of the American advantages of this high- precision airpower. It makes for a tougher fight.

But if Saddam were to elect to pull all the way back into Baghdad initially, he's going to lose his ability to command-and-control those Republican Guards effectively.

BROWN: Because?

CLARK: Because they're not prepared to fight in that urban terrain either. They're an open-field-type of organization.

BROWN: At that point, it just -- you make it sound like, at that point, it becomes -- it's like Wild West. I mean, it's just grab a gun and shoot a bad guy.

CLARK: Well, you are going to be operating off some procedures. But the level of being able to affect the battle will descend. Rather than Tommy Franks being able to affect it or Dave McKiernan or a division commander, you are going to end up with a battalion commander, a company commander, a platoon leader, a sergeant, in a key position making the call.

BROWN: Like go down Fifth Avenue or...

CLARK: Get around the corner of this house. Get into the basement of it and string the telephone wire, so we can talk to you when you're in there and tell us what you see when you knock a hole in the wall.

BROWN: And the objective in that kind of fighting is what? To kill as many bad guys as you can or to take control of that street corner?

CLARK: Well, it is going to be reconnaissance-led, in any case. You have got to know where the enemy is and you've got to decide what objectives you need to dislodge the enemy.

And so you'll probably section off the city and you'll block his ability to move and reinforce. You'll isolate areas of enemy resistance. And then you'll find the best means of closing in on those areas of resistance. Maybe the enemy will run out of ammunition and surrender. Maybe you'll find a key position that, if you occupy that -- maybe on top of a building -- that you can dominate his ability to move between other buildings. And then, step by step, you pick him off.

You don't want to have to do sort of a brute-force charge across an open courtyard in the face of a machine gun.

BROWN: I don't think I've ever asked you this. And I try not to ask you too many speculative questions. Do you have a sense that it might end in a -- this is really -- well, I think worst-case is chemical-biological attack. But do you have any -- do you have a gut feeling that it is going to end in hand-to-hand combat inside the city in the streets of Baghdad?

CLARK: Not so much with the American forces. I think that, before it comes to that, that the Iraqis themselves will be fighting in the streets of Baghdad.

BROWN: Fighting each other?

CLARK: Fighting each other. I think there will be a lot of resistance to Saddam Hussein and his forces that will emerge in Baghdad by that time. I don't think he'll be able to control the city.

BROWN: These are residents of Baghdad taking on soldiers in Baghdad?

CLARK: That's right.

BROWN: Or are these different units fighting each other?

CLARK: Some of each. And I think we'll have our own special forces in there working with some of these people. We're not going to give him a clean, neat break in the battlefield. And I'm speaking here of U.S. doctrine.

Of course, we haven't seen the plans and we don't know how it's going to actually work out. It's strictly U.S. combat doctrine. We are not going to allow him an orderly withdrawal into the city, fully protected rear. We're going to take advantage of every opening and every opportunity to prevent him from setting a defense in Baghdad.

BROWN: Ken Pollack, are you still there?

POLLACK: Absolutely are.

BROWN: If you are, why don't you take a shot at the speculative question? Does your gut tell you this will end in a hand-to-hand, street-to-street, house-to-house and high-casualty sort of end game?

POLLACK: Let me put it this way. I don't think Saddam wants to have it end that way. What we're seeing from the Iraqis is that they're actually trying to -- it looks like they're going to try to defend Baghdad the way that they defended the city of Basra during the Iran-Iraq war.

And it's important to keep that in mind. This is probably what's also going into Iraq's own strategic decisions, which is that, during the Iran-Iraq war, they defended the city of Basra at least twice against the Iranians, in 1982 and again in 1987. And they were successful both times. Now, the defense that they mounted was very crude. It was very unsophisticated, but it worked. It did stop the Iranians.

And, as best we can tell, that's what they're planning to do again. And it's basically ringing the city with the Guard divisions, building multiple defensive lines there, as I said, very sophisticated defensive line. But this seems to be what they're trying to do. And, as General Clark is suggesting, I don't think that it's going to work very well, given how U.S. forces are going to fight.

The reason it worked against the Iranians is because the Iranians had really no offensive capability. They were attacking with vast waves of human -- seas of human -- well, human waves -- excuse me -- and just found pounding into the Iraqis. And the Iraqis were able to basically slaughter them. We're not going to hit them that way. But for Saddam, if he winds up with street fighting inside the city, he's pretty much lost.

He's hoping that the threat of that street fighting will keep us from ever attacking the city. But if we do attack, what he's hoping is that he'll stop us the way that he stopped the Iranians before we ever get to the city itself.

BROWN: General, you're running the war. Have you studied how the Iraqis fought the Iranian war?

CLARK: We have looked at that a lot. In fact, we sent some people over there to learn all about the Iraqis back in the 1980s. And so, yes, we have looked at that.

BROWN: So Tommy Franks, General Franks, and his people have studied a lot of how the Iraqis stand and fight or don't. They know something about the doctrine of the Iraqi military. I guess you assume -- you must assume that the Iraqis have done the same, don't you?

CLARK: They have. They've looked at our military doctrine.

But they have a -- basically, it's a Soviet military doctrine. They had the technological superiority, as Ken suggested, over the Iranians. Now the tables are completely reversed. They've never really come to grips with what our technology is and how we fight. They don't have the resources. They didn't have the training facilities to do it. They're a generation behind, at best, maybe two generations behind.

BROWN: It must be incredibly unsettling for an Iraqi military, an Iraqi general, to kind of figure it all out, sit down and look at all the history and look at all that's available to them. At some point, you have to look at it and go, we could be brilliant, but we're still going to get kicked.

CLARK: Well, he probably doesn't want to say it, Aaron. He's probably going to say: Because of the character of the Iraqi soldier, they're going to stand and fight. And these Americans won't take casualties. They don't really mean it. They come from a soft society.

But, you know, he'd be very wrong if he said that, because these American soldiers -- we saw them last night -- they really mean it. They're not soft.

BROWN: Well, clearly, as Ken said a while back, they've made a lot of miscalculations along the way. And this would be one more.

Harris Whitbeck is in the southern part of Turkey. And he can join us now. There has been this ongoing discussion, Harris, as you know, about whether or not, and how many, if, Turkish soldiers -- Turkish troops have made their way into Iraq -- Harris.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron.

Well, we are literally standing on the road that leads to Baghdad. The border is about, oh, maybe, 10, 15 kilometers from here, a lot of Turkish troops in this area for several weeks now, and a lot of them probably hoping to take this road to go into northern Iraq.

Now, CNN's sister network, CNN Turk's military correspondent says that about 1,000 troops have already crossed into northern Iraq. Our Jane Arraf also saw that from the other side, the Turkish minister of defense saying that their mission there is to provide a buffer zone to prevent refugees from flowing into Turkey. And, also, the Turkish foreign minister said that their mission is to prevent terrorist attacks on Turkey.

Now, there has been a lot of concern expressed by the United States that, if Turkish troops do go into northern Iraq in large numbers, that could provide for possible clashes between Turkish troops and the Kurdish groups that operate in northern Iraq. The United States had said earlier that an agreement had been reached between the different Kurdish organizations, the Turkish military, and the United States.

They all said they would work together to prevent that type of clashes, but still a lot of concern that, if more Turkish troops go in there in large numbers, there could be problems over there in northern Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there the kind of buildup of Turkish troops behind you that suggests they might be planning to do such a thing?

WHITBECK: That certainly seems to be the case, Aaron. The buildup has been going on for several weeks. And everybody does seem to feel that that's what's going to happen.

Turkey has felt -- and this is a matter of public opinion here that many feel almost insulted by this agreement that has been reached by the United States. We're hearing just comments from people on the road down here, where they said, well, we opened up our airspace to the Americans. They should let us go in there and do what we have to do. So, obviously, there is a lot of concern about that, just talking to people on the streets.

BROWN: Harris, thank you -- Harris Whitbeck, who is in the southern part of Turkey.

Samia Nakhoul -- and I hope I'm pronouncing that right -- is a Reuters correspondent who is still being allowed to report from Baghdad, on the phone with us now.

What is it like there?

SAMIA NAKHOUL, REUTERS: Well, it's dawn now already.

We had a heavy night of bombardment. It was actually the heaviest. We've said that war has really started in Baghdad. They pounded this -- warplanes and cruise missiles landed on scores of targets in Baghdad. We could see fires raging from different sites. And some buildings were still smoldering from the effect of the bombardments.

Wailing sirens were on continuously and off a few times. But it was long and very persistent. It's obviously targeted at certain positions. We could tell from a distance, from our hotel, that they were targeting the presidential compound which they targeted yesterday, which is the one that has the headquarters of the son of the president, Qusay. They did come back to it again. And, at dawn, they did fire missile strikes on it.

We could see that one building was guarded and another was an empty space. We couldn't tell what it was. But some people could assume it's just maybe one of these bunkers there. They did also strike at another building which is next to a communication tower. And we could see clouds of white smoke mushrooming out of that building. And it was hit two or three times, this building next to a communications tower.

Ambulances were racing in the street. You could hear them. And then there were some fire trucks heading towards the fires to put them out. And they did manage to put quite a few out. We don't see fires, but we could see some gutted buildings around.

BROWN: Obviously, we're able to see the city or at least a snapshot of the city. The sun has risen, a bright sky. Is there, both for you personally, I suppose for the citizens, too, a sense that daylight is the safe time?

NAKHOUL: No, not really. The is the first day where we saw that it is not safe, because, normally, the first two days they started for a little amount of time and then you had all-clear. But, today, it continues until the early days of the morning. And we don't know if we can go out and go to our offices. It's kind of -- we've started to feel insecure. It's unpredictable.

We know that there are targets, precise targets. In fact, we haven't heard of civilians buildings being pounded. But it is still -- being caught on the street in the middle of bombardment, it would be frightening. But we can check in another hour. Not many people are out on the streets now. A few cars ventured out.

BROWN: Yes.

NAKHOUL: And some people who are praying went to their mosque at dawn. That's all we could tell.

BROWN: Samia, thank you. Stay safe -- Samia Nakhoul of the Reuters News Agency, Reuters.

We're coming up at 11:00 Eastern time, many of you joining us, particularly out West. As your evening gets started, we'll take a look at where the day has been so far.

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Way Too Early to Declare Victory>