Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

War in Iraq

Aired March 24, 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, HOST: Well, good evening again, everyone. If we've learned anything over the last few days, we're never quite sure what our time here will turn out to be. Over the next four hours we'll take you where we have been this day and we will see what unfolds before us.
We begin with an overview of the war, which in a way has turned into two wars: the drive for Baghdad and the mopping up in the south, both turning out to be more deliberate and somewhat more difficult and costly than perhaps it was in our most optimistic imagination, at least. And the closer American forces get to Baghdad, of course, the tougher the going gets; and it is getting tougher.

We begin at the Pentagon tonight. We have our senior Pentagon reporter, Jamie McIntyre with us. Jamie, good evening to you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well U.S. and British forces are girding for a showdown with Iraqi Republican Guard troops, and there is fresh evidence tonight, fresh indications that they may be facing chemical weapons.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): U.S. troops are within 50 miles of Baghdad, preparing to engage a key Republican Guard division in what may be a decisive battle in the war against Iraq. The first assault against Republican Guard troops has already been conducted south of Baghdad near Karbala, with more than 30 U.S. Apache Longbow helicopters and multiple launch rocket systems.

From reporter accounts, it was a fierce fight. One Apache was lost, forced to put down in a field. Both crewmembers, Chief Warrant officers Ronald Young and David Williams, were captured and later shown on Iraqi television.

BRIG GEN. VINCE BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: All the other helicopters involved in the mission did accomplish the mission and return safely to base.

MCINTYRE: The downed Apache was later destroyed by a U.S. air strike, and most of the other helicopters on the mission sustained some damage from heavy Iraqi gunfire. Pentagon sources say punishing air strikes are now in store to soften up the dug-in troops. In fact, sources say, about half of the air strikes conducted in the last 36 hours have been directed at Republican Guard positions around Baghdad, including one of the best divisions, the Medina Division. MAJ. GEN. STAN MCCHRYSTAL, JOINT STAFF DEPUTY DIRECTOR: I am sure that it has been degraded significantly in the last 48 hours or so. I couldn't judge its current strength, but it is a linchpin to the consistency of the Republican Guard defense.

MCINTYRE: U.S. commanders insist they are not at all surprised by the stiff Iraqi resistance.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMANDER: We have come across dead-enders, and we've had some terrific firefights with some of these. Not unexpected. I think our people are prepared to fight this war.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says most of the battle deaths so far are the result of deadly deceptions by fanatic Iraqi fighters, known as the Fedayeen Saddam, who the Pentagon alleges have staged false surrenders and posed as liberated civilians in order to ambush U.S. troops.

TORIE CLARK, PENTAGON SPOKESPERSON: Such acts are strictly prohibited because they make it extraordinarily difficult for coalition forces to accept surrendering forces or protect civilians. Some liken these acts to terrorism.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence tonight suggests that some Iraqi Republican Guard troops may have been given orders to use chemical weapons if U.S. forces cross an imaginary red line that encircles Baghdad. The Pentagon simply has repeated what it's said before, that it will hunt down and prosecute as war criminals anyone who either issues or follows such orders -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, they are -- do we know where this line is? Because we have some sense of how close the coalition forces are already.

MCINTYRE: Well, presumably, this was one of the lines of defense around Baghdad. But no, we don't know. It's not a line that we can draw on a map.

It's -- supposedly there's a threshold once the U.S. troops pass that, where commanders would be authorized to use chemical weapons. But the question really is, at that point, if the U.S. is getting that close, what is the morale, what is the command and control of the Iraqi forces? Will they be motivated to use those chemical weapons and perhaps even seal their own fate if they know Saddam Hussein is doomed and his regime is going? That's a big unknown.

BROWN: It is a huge and unsettling unknown. And I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon reporter. He'll be back with us as we go along tonight.

This chopper, this Apache chopper assault began, or at least we began reporting on it about this time last night, just south of Baghdad. We now have a view of some of what went on. CNN's Karl Penhaul was the embedded correspondent with the 11th Attack Helicopter Regimen of the Army's 5th Corps, and he's filed now on that attack.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What I can tell you is that the other Apache helicopters that flew alongside that came under heavy anti-aircraft fire as they flew a mission to attack Republican Guard positions around the town of Karbala. The aim of the mission was to destroy some T-72 tank emplacements, up to 90 T-72 tanks in that region, and some heavy artillery pieces. But as the helicopters flew into the target area, they came under heavy anti-aircraft fire, both from military emplacements and also, commanders say, from residential areas.

In an effort not to target civilians or cause possible civilian deaths, many of the helicopters didn't unleash their hellfire missiles for fear of destroying homes and the like. On return to the airfield, where these Apache helicopters are now, the pilots throughout the day today have been assessing the damage that they received to their craft. Not one of them has escaped without a bullet impact. Most of them have anything between 10 and 20 bullet impacts. One even had an engine blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BROWN: Karl Penhaul, who is with that group. And we expect we'll be hearing more from him as we go along.

General Wesley Clark is here with us, as always. And we just showed, General, a shot of that helicopter sitting in a field. And we can tell our viewers now that that helicopter is no longer sitting in that field. It's been blown to bits because?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we're not going to allow that technology to fall into the hands of the Iraqis or whoever is back there working with the Iraqis, Aaron.

BROWN: Is that something that they send in -- how do they do that? Are there munitions on the helicopter that...

CLARK: No, we would have sent in an airplane to just put a guided weapon right on the top of the helicopter.

BROWN: How do you read this incident in the context of the overall plan? Because it -- again, we tend to focus a lot on those specific things that we are witness to and can report, and it doesn't necessarily provide the broad picture. The significance of it is good and bad, what?

CLARK: Well, two things here. First, the reports we've been hearing have only talked about what happened to the Apaches. Nobody's reporting what happened to the Medina Division.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: In fact, I've received information from -- indirectly from Army sources that the Apache raid was effective. We destroyed a number of tanks. We destroyed a number of artillery pieces, killed a lot of Iraqi troops out there.

That's been followed up today with more air strikes. This is part of the process of breaking down and destroying the Medina Division.

Now these Apache helicopters are built to take fire. And we knew when we designed them back 20-some-odd years ago that they were going to be in a tough ground environment. That's the reason why they came back with all those holes and an engine missing.

So the pilots are -- they expect to do that. That's not to say that we won't do things differently the next time. We'd rather not have any fire at all. But as part of it, this is part of the campaign. It's -- you know, it's a give and take thing. And it's basically on track.

BROWN: One more question on this before we move on. To any extent, do you think that our ability to report these things in the way that we are now able to report them through the embedding process places undue emphasis on any one incident -- this one in this case -- at the expense of the broader picture?

CLARK: Well, it's just -- it's very hard to -- when you get the information -- here you're not receiving all the information that the Army has available. And even then we don't know everything inside the Army. The soldiers there, the leaders don't know everything that's happened to the enemy. So you know your own losses better than the enemy's losses; you know your own movements better than the enemy's movements.

So you tend to go from exhilaration that we had with Walter Rodgers the other night, when they were dashing across the desert, to despair, when suddenly you take losses, you have people captured and so forth. When in reality, neither of these is tactically significant. What's -- is no more than of tactical significance. What's strategically significant is the force has moved up to close with the Iraqi guard, it's consolidating its positions, it's preparing while the Air Force is continuing to grind away on Iraqi command and control.

BROWN: All right. It's just a good thing to keep in mind that -- it seems to me that there is a large picture, and we'll deal a lot with the large picture tonight. But along the way, we also deal with these snapshots, and we ought not get -- all of us who are learning about this, and in our case reporting on it -- ought not get confused about it.

It's about 6:10 in the morning in Baghdad now on a Tuesday morning. Quiet there now. There has been some activity, some explosions heard last night Baghdad time, last night. And you heard in the update some reporting that the airport, Saddam Hussein airport, has been under attack.

I think it is generally believed that the coalition would rather not destroy that airport completely because they would only then have to go in and build it. But obviously, they have decided to do some damage to it or around to it, and we keep our eye on Baghdad as we go.

The other major story line tonight is, again, as it was last night, the story of prisoners of war. Two more Americans taken prisoner of war today, two helicopter pilots, technically. One would have been the weapons operator, sitting in the front seat, and the pilot sitting in the back seat. Though both are certainly capable of flying and both have controls to fly if they had to.

Those are the young men. Ronald Young, his family lives outside of Atlanta here. And CNN's Susan Candiotti has talked with them. She talked with the family earlier. I guess I just said that, Susan. So I've now repeated myself for the first time tonight. Susan, good evening.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. In fact, the family, as you can well imagine, has been glued around the television set all day long and all evening long, looking at everything they can possibly learn about their son, who they have now learned is a prisoner of war.

Joining me now is Ronald Young's father, Ronald Young, also joining us. And one of the things we saw just a moment ago is General Clark saying that overall his information is that the attack, the Apache attack was effective. But that also raises some questions in your mind, having seen your son's Apache helicopter.

RONALD YOUNG SR., POW'S FATHER: Right. That helicopter looked like that he flew, they were talking about how it'll take a hit, but it didn't have any known hits on it. And I was just wondering why it didn't return too. Of course, I know engine malfunctions and things like that, things can go wrong, but it's still not easy, you know, when it's your son.

CANDIOTTI: We had talked about also that your wife had sort of a premonition when she initially heard the reports and saw the downed helicopter. Tell me about that.

YOUNG: Right. Well, she said about 12:00 she said she had this feeling that -- this just warm feeling that Ron was there with her. It was just like she was dreaming it or something like that. And she said that he had a soft smell, a sweet smell about him when he was a baby, and she could detect that at that time.

And I guess she felt like everything was, you know -- that maybe something had really happened to him. I think it has to do with mothers. I think maybe their closer to their children than fathers are because they care for them for so long. But she does have this connection with her children, and it seems like it did pay off. This morning we found out that he was, you know, captured, or was missing in action, is what they told us.

CANDIOTTI: Well, clearly, your entire family is very close. But when you were informed of this happening, I know your wife told me, she said, "I knew it. I knew it." And you were told that he was missing in action.

YOUNG: Right.

CANDIOTTI: Then you saw for the first time pictures of him on television. Describe how that made you feel. First, hearing that he was a prisoner of war, and then at least seeing him.

YOUNG: Well, at first I felt like I didn't know whether he was alive or not. And that was a real big question for me. As I went through the day, I said, well, he's got to be. I just feel like that's probably not him in the helicopter. And I convinced myself that it wasn't. You know that he had one out of six chances for it to be.

But then as -- when the Army came up and told us, you know, the bad news, that it was his helicopter, I had this sinking feeling, and I didn't know where -- they wouldn't give me any information, really. So I didn't know whether he was alive or dead. He was just missing. That's all it was. And then of course...

CANDIOTTI: And then you saw some of the insignias on the side of the helicopter.

YOUNG: Yes, ma'am.

CANDIOTTI: Then you knew it was his helicopter.

YOUNG: Well, I knew that -- we saw the insignias earlier, and I knew it was one out of his attachment.

CANDIOTTI: There are the pictures right now.

YOUNG: Right. And I knew that due to the fact those were his helicopters that he -- you know, there were six helicopters flying out of his attachment. So I knew...

CANDIOTTI: Because in fact you saw a bat wing on the side.

YOUNG: That's correct. That's right.

CANDIOTTI: That was one indicator that it might have been him.

YOUNG: Yes, ma'am.

CANDIOTTI: You've seen the tape. You've seen these people cheering. You've seen how he looks on television. How does he appear to you?

YOUNG: He looks good on -- you know, when I saw him, he looked like he's been treated well. It looked like it's just another day in the service for him. I mean he doesn't look like he's had anything noticeably done to him.

I mean he looks good. He looks like I'd expect him to look if he was coming home.

CANDIOTTI: I understand he always wanted to be a pilot. YOUNG: Always. Ever since he was a little boy, he talked about being a pilot and wanting to be a pilot. And of course he got a chance with the Army, so that's where he took the opportunity to be able to go on to flight school and warrant officer school and become a pilot. And it's something he wanted to do. Of course, I've always been kind of fretful for him because I know being a pilot and in the service is a dangerous occupation.

CANDIOTTI: You didn't always want him to be?

YOUNG: No. No. I was fine with him being a pilot, but I wasn't fine with it as going to war. I mean, you know, it was just a natural thing.

CANDIOTTI: How confident are you he'll come out of this all right?

YOUNG: Well, I feel better than I did. I mean, you know, he's alive. And that's one big thing that was a question in my mind at first.

So if the Iraqis will treat him right and we treat their prisoners of war honorably and right, then I think that we've got a chance to get them all back home. And that's what I hope for. Not just him but all of them, because they all have families just like me.

CANDIOTTI: Indeed. Why did you feel it was important to share with everyone how you feel about your son?

YOUNG: Because I know they would feel the same way. And it's not a bad -- it's not a good situation to be in whenever you lose contact with somebody that is close to you as your son or your daughter, or whatever.

CANDIOTTI: Mr. Young, did you ever talk about the possibility of capture with your son?

YOUNG: No, ma'am. I never even thought about the possibility. You know, that's something that you always think...

CANDIOTTI: That's hard to believe.

YOUNG: ... that happens to somebody else, not me. You know, and I felt like, well, the odds are, there's so many helicopters over there, that he'll get through it. But you know, you just never can tell. And this is one of those times that you can't tell.

CANDIOTTI: Do you feel he's prepared for it?

YOUNG: Well, he's a tough kid, and he's strong mentally. I think he's prepared for it, yes. He's got a -- I know he's got a long time and a tough road to hoe, but I believe he's prepared for it.

CANDIOTTI: Well, you certainly have a lot of people pulling for you, Mr. Young.

YOUNG: Well thank you very much. I hope so.

CANDIOTTI: Thank you very much for joining us. And as you heard him say, he not only wants his own son back, he also wants the other gentleman back also, who has also been taken prisoner, and everybody else for that matter, Aaron.

BROWN: Susan, thank you. Susan Candiotti.

Let me quickly turn to General Clark. You and I were talking last night about the five young Army soldiers who were taken as POWs yesterday and that they would not have received any particular training to cope with that sort of situation. Would a helicopter pilot, an Apache helicopter pilot have?

CLARK: He will have received more. He may or may not have gone through a special escape and evasion course, but he will have received more training. He's been through his commissioning school. He knows more about how to conduct himself.

A little bit more mature is what you would expect from someone of that rank. And he'll make it.

BROWN: And just on the subject of rank, for people who don't keep track of such things, a chief warrant officer fits in where in the scheme of things?

CLARK: Well, warrant officers are technical. And so they're not in the sense -- in the leadership chain like officers...

BROWN: Like a lieutenant or a captain?

CLARK: Right. You expect a lieutenant to later become a captain, become a major and so forth. Warrant officers go from warrant officer 1 to warrant officer 2, 3, 4, and some warrant officer 5s. And so, for example, in the aviation field, they can stay and fly helicopters continuously, whereas an officer who's an aviator would rotate in and out of aviation assignments. These warrant officers are the real experts.

BROWN: That's a nice way to put it. Thank you. So add tonight into your thoughts the names of these two young men: Ronald Young -- Ronald D. Young, Jr., chief warrant officer, family living in the state of Georgia. And also put into your thoughts tonight David Williams -- David S. Williams, a Floridian. Both we know are in the custody of the Iraqi government, as are five other young Americans in the custody.

Their families now have all been notified. As you can see, one of them is a young woman, Shoshana Johnson. We've heard from her family. They represent in many respects the true cross-section of the country. They come from the East Coast and the West, from the Midwest.

They are African-American and Hispanic and Caucasian. They are very much a cross-section of the diversity of the country. And they ought be very much in all of our thoughts tonight. Out in Fort Bliss, Texas, there is plenty of heartache there because of the fact it is home of the 507th Maintenance Company. Seven soldiers there are still listed as missing in action. And then there are the five that we just showed you, who are we know prisoners of war. The fifth prisoner's family has now been notified. So now all five have been told formally by the Army that their son or daughter, husband, is a prisoner of war.

Ed Lavandera has been at Fort Bliss since this story broke, and he joins us again tonight -- Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Aaron. Well you mentioned just a short while ago that Shoshana Johnson being the female prisoner of war. Just a few hours ago we had the chance to speak with her father and sister. And we got into the issue of their concerns about her being a female prisoner of war and how that might or might not affect the situation she's in.

They're really not sure exactly what to make of it, but they do say that it is a concern. And they wonder just exactly how she's being treated and whether or not she's being treated any differently from the male prisoners of war. So for them, there is that issue outstanding.

As I mentioned, we got to speak with them just a few hours ago. We spent 45 minutes with them talking. They explained to us how they found out about this situation. Sunday morning about 8:00, Claude Johnson, Shoshana's father, said he's flipping on the TV, trying to find some cartoons for his grandchild to watch. Instead, he flips across a Spanish language network, Telemundo, and finds that that network is broadcasting images from the Iraqi front lines.

And that is when he sees the images of his daughter in the custody of Iraqi soldiers. He said it wasn't until six hours later that they found out, got the official word from the Army officials here at Fort Bliss that in fact his daughter was a prisoner of war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI JOHNSON, POW'S SISTER: And when she went over there, we knew that obviously this was a little bit more in depth and more intensive. But I'm sure she didn't think that -- I'm sure this is the last thing she thought was on her mind. And she's in -- maintenance is combat service support.

You're not really supposed to be on the front lines at all. You know what I mean? They bring things back to you. You don't think about that stuff when you're a support element.

CLAUDE JOHNSON, POW'S FATHER: What happened? Did they miss a checkpoint? They made a wrong turn? Were they supposed to turn?

What happened? Where's the breakdown?

N. JOHNSON: You know you're going over there, but you never really think, you know, that this is going to happen. My sister's kind of always had a little angel following her around. She always manages to get out of stuff. So this was not something we thought was going to happen to her at all. You know? And considering the whole situation in which some individuals did die, you know, and the fact that, you know, she was seen on TV, she looks to be staying strong, you know, hopefully her angel's still with her.

C. JOHNSON: I'm hoping that because it was a big televised issue that they will comply at least to show that they're not as -- not as much the animals that they're portrayed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Shoshana Johnson comes from a family, a military family. Her father, you just heard from, is a 20-year Army veteran. He's also a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War.

Her sister that you just heard from as well, Nikki Johnson, is an Army captain based out of Fort Lee, Virginia. So they say that that background helps them cope with what's going on. But at some point you just stop being a military person and you become family, a mother, father, and a sister as well. And that is when the tears start to flow, they say.

So as you've seen them very confident and stoic there, they do say that the last couple days have been extremely emotional for them. And they also say, Aaron, that they have had very little contact with the officials here at Fort Bliss. And, by the way, we've been here at Fort Bliss since Sunday.

There have been several briefings that have been scheduled and canceled to talk about this. Officials here at this base say that that is per the guidance of the Pentagon that has asked them not to comment publicly on any of the details of this case until they get a little bit clearer picture as to what has happened with the five POWs there in Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, it's -- and correct me if I'm wrong here. It's not simply the five POWs, because they know about the five POWs. They've seen them. They've seen the tape in total that Iraqi state TV showed.

They have some sense of their condition. The broader concern, I assume, Ed, at Fort Bliss, and at the Pentagon. is the seven others, and there are some pictures. We started talking about this last night. But they want to be sure of where those seven are, whether they are alive or not, before they say very much. Is that -- it's not much of a question, but it...

LAVANDERA: Yes. Well, you're absolutely correct. The status of the other seven isn't clear. There were 12 soldiers in all, part of the 507th Maintenance Company that was part of this unit that was taken into Iraqi custody. So, yes, that's very much part of the concern. And a lot of the reason perhaps why they haven't been able to answer any questions here just yet.

BROWN: Thank you, Ed, very much. Ed Lavandera is down at Fort Bliss. General, two questions that were raised. Let me deal with the harder of the two first. I think when you talk about a woman and being held as prisoner of war, I mean there are certain obvious and horrible things that run through your mind. This happened during the first Gulf War.

There was a woman taken prisoner. She's now an army colonel, as I recall. Do we have any evidence one way or another that women in fact were treated any worse by the Iraqis than the men were?

CLARK: As far as I know, we don't.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: But the risk is always there. And you know, it's a terrifying thing.

BROWN: And then the other part of this is there was this long national debate about whether women should be in combat, and that was answered in an interesting way. No, they are not involved in direct combat, but as we know now very clearly, we learned this in the first Gulf War and we see it again, women are very much engaged in military operations, including being helicopter pilots.

CLARK: Anywhere on that battlefield you're in danger of being in direct combat. And that means you're in danger of being killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. And it really doesn't matter what your military occupational specialty is. You're at risk.

And by the way, we have female pilots as well who are flying our strike aircraft in the Army, in the Navy, in the Air Force. So it's not just the rear area.

BROWN: It's funny that, while a lot of people would assume this debate has gone on, like a lot of other debates, this one's long settled in the military. The military has, in many ways, led the way in certain respects in these areas of diversity and the like. They have integrated women in all sorts of ways. And we still sit around and argue about whether it makes sense or not. They just do the job.

CLARK: We've moved past this.

BROWN: Way beyond it.

CLARK: I mean, women are great soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, and so forth. Can I just return for a second?

BROWN: Please.

CLARK: I think, as I recall, a story from the first -- from the Gulf war, there was -- there were some sexual connotations in some of the actions that the female aviator suffered. But she was badly injured. And I think that may have kept it from being worse than it was.

BROWN: Well, yes. I mean that's what you worry about. And honestly, we looked at the tape of Shoshana Johnson yesterday, and she was obviously, as you would be or I would be or any human being on the planet would be, she was scared, nervous. And we just hope that they are decent and treat her decently.

CLARK: My heart goes out to them.

BROWN: Yes. It's all tricky business.

We'll take a look at some of the politics of all of this as we go to the White House, other places, and obviously out to the battlefield too. We'll take a short break first. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: Heidi, thank you very much.

As Heidi indicated, the president will send up to the Hill soon his supplemental budget request to pay for the war. The cost of the war was a very hot topic in Washington for many days leading up to it. At one point, there were estimates of anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion. And it turns out the number they'll ask for is somewhere right in between, about $75 billion.

At least that's the indication that Suzanne Malveaux has gotten in her work today at the White House. Suzanne joins us tonight -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, I want to clarify a couple of things. A senior administration official briefed us on these numbers.

First of all, he said it's $74.7 billion total, approximately $75 billion. But he said this is not over a 30-day combat period. He said what it is, is based on a model based on six months, where you'd have the troops inside. You would also have the reconstruction relief and then you'd have the withdrawal of the troops. That is something the Pentagon had talked about before, that 30-day figure. But this is based on something else.

Within that $75 billion, you have $63 billion for operations for the prosecution of the war. You have $8 billion for international operations, including the relief and reconstruction, and then $4 billion for homeland security.

I also want to talk a bit about what happened today. President Bush called President Putin. It seems as if the two cannot seem to see things eye to eye. And today was no different.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Today, the Bush administration stated Russia was aiding the Iraqi military by allowing Russian companies to sell sensitive military technology to Iraqi forces, in violation of U.N. sanctions.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have credible evidence that Russian companies provided the assistance and the prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime. That's why we have found these actions to be disturbing.

MALVEAUX: The big concern is that the Iraqis now have equipment that can jam GPS-guided American missiles used in its bombing campaign. While the administration has raised this issue before, today, President Bush stepped in and called Russia's President Putin.

FLEISCHER: President Putin assured President Bush that he would look into it, and President Bush said he looked forward to hearing the results.

MALVEAUX: But Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, denied that Moscow had been involved in shipping illegally shipping sensitive military equipment to Iraq, including anti-tank guided missiles and night-vision goggles, saying...

IGOR IVANOV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Russia invariably follows all international agreements and did not supply Iraq with any equipment, including military that violated the sanctions.

MALVEAUX: But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, as recently as within the last 48 hours, the U.S. has discovered new evidence Russian officials have allowed the illegal equipment to slip through.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So, Aaron, it's just the latest flare-up in what has become an increasingly bumpy relationship between the United States and Russia. Today, President Putin said that the United States' war with Iraq was creating what he called a humanitarian catastrophe.

But aides for both leaders say that they are good friends, that they will continue these discussions and they will work out their differences -- Aaron.

BROWN: Has the president himself publicly said anything about this? I didn't recall anything -- I don't recall he did yesterday. Has he at all?

MALVEAUX: Well, we actually heard from Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, when it comes to this particular issue.

But I have to tell you that discussions have been going on for at least six months or so, that they've been complaining about this. But it's something that has been really lower level in the administration. This is really the first time that the president has picked up the phone and said directly to President Putin that this was an issue and a problem.

BROWN: There are levels -- I mean, part of the way you sort of judge how things -- the level of anger or anything else in covering the White House is who says it. If the spokesman says it, that's pretty high-level. But if the president says it, if it literally comes from the president's lips, then it's raised another notch. Have we heard -- we have not yet heard that, right?

MALVEAUX: We haven't heard that yet, Aaron. And we'll see if the president actually says that. In the week to come, it will be very interesting to see if it raises to that level. There has been quite a bit of tension between the two leaders, anywhere from issues of NATO expansion. Of course, you know the differences in their opinions about the war on terror, as well as the role of the U.N. in humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

So it will be very interesting to see if the president actually brings that up publicly.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you very much -- Suzanne Malveaux at the White House tonight.

There was, as we showed you a little bit ago, another taped message from Saddam Hussein. It appeared early Monday morning, with it, of course, another round of questions. This has become almost an obsessive cottage industry. When was is it taped? Is he alive? Was it taped beforehand? This, that, and another. It's not an inconsequential question, of course.

Here is CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the taped speech, Saddam Hussein refers to the biggest southern city, now encircled by coalition forces which are bypassing it on the way to Baghdad.

SADDAM HUSSEIN, IRAQI PRESIDENT (through translator): In Basra, the beloved Basra, I say to them, be patient, you brethren. Victory is imminent.

ENSOR: U.S. intelligence officials, analyzing the tape, say it is the Iraqi leader, but there is nothing said that proves when he recorded it.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We cannot be sure whether these recordings are prerecorded and some of them appear to be dated, but I don't think there is an exact science in this.

ENSOR: Another cause of suspicion about when the tape was made, U.S. officials say Hussein credits some Iraqi units that, in fact, have had nothing to do with the fighting so far.

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: He may have created these tapes ahead of time to make sure that no matter what happened to him and his regime, he could maintain both the morale of his supporters and the fear of the Iraqi population for as long as it was possible to do so. ENSOR: In Baghdad, Iraq's deputy prime minister angrily denounced as lies any suggestion that Saddam Hussein might not be in full control.

TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Saddam Hussein has full control of his country and over the armed forces and the Iraqi people and all the resources of Iraq.

ENSOR: Full control or not, some intelligence suggests he display been wounded in the first bombing, U.S. officials say, but most analysts believe he is alive.

POLLACK: The expectation is that if he were dead, we would see the whole place starting to come apart at the seams.

ENSOR: Concerning the Americans taken prisoner in Nasiriyah, U.S. officials say they were seized by the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group known for their black uniforms, now spread throughout the country in plain clothes.

POLLACK: The Saddam Fedayeen are by and large street thugs. They are recruited from among young city men, many of whom couldn't make it in the military, many of whom have ties of one sort or another to Saddam.

ENSOR (on camera): Iraq's government may soon show Saddam Hussein in a way that's proof-positive he's still alive and in control. U.S. officials say it has not done so yet. In the meantime, his fate has become the subject of a public-relations battle.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: CNN's Nic Robertson has -- as we take a look at Baghdad on a Tuesday morning, over on the right, in the big box, CNN's Nic Robertson has been following this part of the story since the Iraqi government threw him out of Baghdad a couple of days ago. He's made his way to Amman, Jordan.

Nic, it's good to see you. In Jordan and across the Arab world, I assume you're paying some attention to how this is being reported. Is this even an issue? Is anybody even discussing whether Saddam Hussein is alive, dead, in control, or not in control?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not in the way that it's being discussed in the United States and Great Britain.

But perhaps that's all -- that discussion and debate is all moot, really, because much of Saddam Hussein's appearance on Iraqi television is really for the Iraqi people's consumption. If they see him on television, whether it's taped or whether it's live or whether they think he was speaking last week, yesterday morning, or even that morning, to them, it's really immaterial.

To them, it's a signal, a clear sign, that the Iraqi leadership is still in control, that the ruling Baath Party is in control, that all the ministers that we see every day coming out and saying that this is President Saddam Hussein, he isn't injured and he is alive, for them, it's just a very clear signal that nothing has changed, that the Iraqi leadership is in place. And it's the sort of thing that the government in Iraq really needs at this time, because, if it does look like they're wavering, if it does look like they're crumbling, then it's much more likely that the soldiers of the army, of the Republican Guard and other units may begin to lay down their weapons.

And as long as the Iraqi leadership can show, and do it visibly on Iraqi television, without raising the sorts of questions that we hear coming from the United States or Great Britain about whether or not this is Saddam and whether or not he is alive, the answer is, Iraqi people believe he is still in control. And that's the message they want to get across, Aaron.

BROWN: And there's -- actually, as I sit here, at least, it seems like there's almost a two-pronged way to look at this. If you are a Saddam loyalist and you see him, that rallies to you his side, I presume. And on the other hand, if you're someone who thinks this might be an interesting time to turn on the government, Saddam's control of the government might make you think twice.

ROBERTSON: Absolutely.

It's designed to dissuade anyone that would think that this is a time to revolt, that now they can rise up, the way is clear. And the government knows it. And that's why it's so critical. They absolutely know that, if there's a chink that appears in the armor like that, then people will begin to fill that vacuum, if you will, much as they did at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

We haven't seen this so far, the mass surrenderings. Perhaps less than 1 percent of the force, about 3,000 or so, is reported to have surrendered so far. The big surrenders, when they thought that the leadership, the Iraqi leadership was on the run and defeated in 1991, haven't happened. And the government knows that there's the potential for that at this time, Aaron.

BROWN: Where you are in Amman, you're a few hundred miles, I guess, from Baghdad. Is the war a subject of constant conversation? Is it being widely shown on television in Jordan? Is that the lead story every day now?

ROBERTSON: It's certainly on the front pages of the newspapers, yesterday morning leading with the stiff resistance by the Iraqi forces. So it is being followed here and people are watching it. And, of course, they will be very sensitive to if they see what they view as their fellow Arab brothers, civilians being injured and killed.

And the fact that a number of Syrian civilian workers returning from Baghdad to Syria on the main highway were killed in a bus as they drove up that main highway back to Syria, that again will strike a chord with people in the region, who very much don't want to see this war taking place. They don't view it necessarily as a positive event, certainly in their lives and certainly the lives the Iraqis. So it is watched with a very critical eye at this time.

BROWN: Nic Robertson, thank you. Nic Robertson, in Amman, Jordan, always good to talk with you.

We're joined now by James Woolsey, the former CIA director. He can talk to us about the Saddam matter. And, hopefully, we'll get him to talk about a couple of other things, too, that have come up.

It's nice to see you again, sir.

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: Do you have a feeling one way or another whether -- I think that -- well, let me ask this differently, because it seems to me pretty clear he's alive. I don't think anybody's questioning that. I think the question really is, how much control does he have? The administration will say there is evidence that the Iraqi government is crumbling, is in disarray, this and that.

Do you see any evidence of that in the way the war is being conducted or anything else?

WOOLSEY: Well, so far, they seem to be holding together and fighting.

But there is one important footnote -- and David Ensor mentioned it -- which is that, in this videotape, Saddam gives credit to divisions, including one that caved very early and surrendered in the fighting. So it is at least possible that this was prerecorded, and perhaps in the window of time after President Bush said he was going within 48 hours and before the bombing of the bunker. So, although I guess I'd say you're more likely to be right than not that he's still alive, I don't know that it's a sure thing.

BROWN: OK. I was going to ask you that. Honestly, perhaps that was an unfair assumption that -- I could make it, but you're absolutely entitled to -- and you're a lot wiser on this than I am.

How do CIA analysts go about determining this? What are they looking at? What are they looking for? What are they listening to?

WOOLSEY: Well, they listen to voice patterns. They listen to past examples of the voice. This is not a science. It's more an art. It's a little like polygraphy or something. It's something that people read and get different things out of it. But some people are better at it than others.

They look at the facial features. I'm sure they use computerized techniques to try to detect if the face looks different or anything that is often distinctive about people, such as the ears. But after you go through all that, sometimes, you have to say, more likely than not, it was him or not. It's not a science. It's an art.

BROWN: Just on -- you mentioned facial features. Just looking at what almost looked like two different Saddams, the Saddam that was shown on Iraqi television the night of the initial attack -- that's the picture on the left -- and the Saddam that appeared on Iraqi TV yesterday, I wouldn't say they look like completely different people, but they don't look like a guy who's in the same shape.

WOOLSEY: That's right.

There's a curious pattern here. The first one that came out after the strike on the bunker didn't really look like him that much. And then the second one does, but there is this curious reference to a -- a positive reference to a unit that surrendered very, very early. It's complicated. If he were really there and healthy, you would think it would be relatively easy to record something that quite obviously indicated that it was being done live and he was fine. And it's messy. And that's what continues, I think, to raise people's suspicions.

BROWN: Let me ask one more question on this and then move on.

If part of what he's trying to do is just say to his -- to the people in the country, "We're doing great; our army's doing great," what difference does it make if he mentions a unit that surrendered or not, because the only information that the Iraqi citizens are getting anyway is the information the government is giving out?

WOOLSEY: Well, insofar as they're lying -- I mean, if it is in fact the case that he was badly injured or even killed in that bombing attack and that this was prerecorded and -- the reference to the unit might suggest that -- then, yes, temporarily, the Iraqi people may be fooled and rallied because they think he's alive and holding firm and everything is in control. But, in time, this could slip and cascade on them.

So, right now, that may be right. But if he's badly injured or dead, it could make a difference here during this battle for Baghdad, which may take place within the next few days.

BROWN: I'm going to move on to both this Russian thing and the chemical attacks. But let me just -- because I'll just turn to General Clark for a second. And you want to weigh in on any part of this conversation that has gone on so far?

RET. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think Jim is exactly right in terms of the command-and-control.

It always appears at the start of this -- and I felt the same way at the start of the Kosovo campaign -- that you get indications that you've done something significant to their command-and-control. The pattern is disrupted, and maybe it is temporarily. But I agree with Jim. We haven't seen any significant breakdown in Iraqi command-and- control or resolve to fight at this point.

BROWN: And, in fact, one of the things you said to me the other day, I believe, is that they probably went to different frequencies and whether -- so, the fact that we haven't heard as much -- we, the government, the United States government, the Pentagon hadn't heard as much -- may or may not be as significant as it sounds. CLARK: That, plus we put a lot of chatter on our nets. And we always keep saying, do we have to say this much? Do we have to say this much? Maybe they're not chattering as much as we are.

BROWN: Mr. Woolsey, the report that one of the Republican Guard units or that Republican Guard units have been given permission, if not directly ordered, to use chemical weapons if a certain line is crossed, does that -- I would suspect you would say that is a credible piece of intelligence? Do you?

WOOLSEY: Well, it's hard to know where it comes from. But, certainly, if it has any plausibility, they're going to prepare for the worst.

They have the chemical gear with them. Wes knows a lot more about this than I do. Frankly, I would be more worried over the mid to long term about biological weapons, because the chemical gear, we're -- I think we're pretty well equipped to deal with. But there have been stories about the possibility that Saddam has been working on genetically modifying some of these biological agents, making anthrax, for example, resistant to vaccines or antibiotics.

And if they should use something like that, it could be, maybe not immediately on the battlefield, but within a week or two, a lot more trouble even than chemical weapons.

BROWN: And just to interrupt this for a moment, we're getting some reporting from one of our embeds that there's heavy fighting going on around Nasiriyah right now. We're trying to get him up on the phone. And we'll update that as we go. This has been an area that, as most of these areas have been, has been a bit more difficult than perhaps some of us and some of the Pentagon officials suspected it might be.

Mr. Woolsey, one more area: This thing about the Russians and whether Russian companies are supplying the Iraqis with equipment allowing them to jam GPS missiles and the rest, that surprise you at all?

WOOLSEY: No. The Russians have advertised this sort of thing at international trade fairs. They're not particularly expensive. It is a problem, could be a serious problem for GPS, but we do have some ways of countering it.

The Russian military industrial complex is still pretty hostile to the United States and likes to make money a lot. And the fact that they might be selling things like this would disappoint me, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

BROWN: And, briefly on that, is it possible that the president of Russia would not know about it?

WOOLSEY: I suppose it's possible. As time goes on, it becomes less credible, because a lot of these are the same institutions and firms that have done this kind of thing before. But any given sale, maybe he didn't know about it in advance. But it's starting to wear a bit thin, I think.

BROWN: Well, Mr. Woolsey, we covered a lot of ground tonight. Thank you. It's good to talk to you. Thank you. I hope you'll...

WOOLSEY: Good to be with you, Aaron, Wes.

BROWN: Thank you, sir. I hope you'll come back again.

WOOLSEY: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Jim Woolsey, former CIA director. And we did cover a lot of ground.

We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another messy, frustrating combat situation for the Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, this time outside the port city of Umm Qasr, where they have been for the last three days.

They have moved out and are encountering another fight, this time with a similar situation: armed men coming from the town, firing at them, firing at them sporadically, and then running and hiding back in the residential areas, men who are not in Iraqi military uniforms. They tried to draw them out of the urban area using suppression fire. They fired TWO missiles, several artillery rounds, and machine gun fire in the direction from which these men are coming. At one point, the men came out and waved a white flight. But then, shortly thereafter, they took off again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're trying to figure out who's who and make sure that we don't shoot civilians. But those folks that are military, but aren't in uniform, we're going to go ahead and take care of them.

BELLINI: They went back behind the building where they had been firing from, leaving the Marines to try to suss them out some more, leaving them, again, an hour after this all began, in their same position, in their same battle position, at their machine guns hiding behind a berm here in the desert.

The other thing we saw was an ambulance coming up. And it appeared that some individuals were picked up by that ambulance. Again, this adds to the complexity of their situation in that they know they're dealing with civilians in the area from which they're being fired upon, making very difficult calls for the Marines here at the ground level who have to decide how much force to use.

I'm Jason Bellini with the Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit outside the port city of Umm Qasr.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: We've got Michael Gordon of "The New York Times" on the line. But just go ahead and open up the line. Michael can hear this, too.

Michael, it's good to have you with us.

General, while you were watching that, you reacted to it. Just quickly what you were thinking.

CLARK: Got to have another combat power there to finish that fight, isolated compartment by compartment. Somebody's got to work around the back of that building. Somebody's got to keep the whole thing under 360-degree observation. Somebody's got to stop that ambulance when it leaves and see who is in it, where they're going, how they got called.

BROWN: You are a general all the time here.

Michael, it's good to have you with us.

What's the lead from where you are, as you see it tonight?

Michael's the chief military writer for "The New York Times."

Michael?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, the Iraqis are trying to disrupt the allied attack by creating a lot of problems in their rear areas. They're trying to get them to focus their attention south instead of north. But, basically, the solution to all these problems, from the United States' point of view is -- United States' military point of view -- is through Baghdad. And they're preparing to move on Baghdad and move ahead with that over the next week.

BROWN: What I hear you say is that they refuse to be distracted by this. Is that a fair way to put it?

GORDON: Well, they've already had to make some adjustments. I mean, they're making more of an effort to guard their convoys, which they have to do of necessity, both by putting people with them and helicopters over them.

But they can't really be deflected from the Baghdad goal. I mean, that's the whole purpose of this operation. And it's really the only way, ultimately, to deal with the disruptions in the south. You can't go into every single city in southern Iraq and dig out the people there who are causing problems. What their strategy is, so to speak, is to cut off the head of the snake and let these people just wither.

BROWN: General, jump in.

(CROSSTALK)

CLARK: I think Michael's reading it exactly right. And I think that is the key thing. You have to focus on the objective here. But I think it's worth noting that some -- we've got three U.S. Army divisions and a Marine division -- and a British division in there -- sorry -- two U.S. Army divisions, a Marine division, and a British division. The British division and some of the Marines are still tied up back there. So that's 25 percent of your combat power is still trying to finish what was begun four, five days ago.

Got to get it finished enough to be able to go ahead and concentrate on the head of the snake. I wouldn't recommend diverting any more combat power to it. But, still, the people that are there in the rear have to be effective in doing their job to free the command to focus on its main mission.

BROWN: Michael, is there a sense that this part has taken longer and has not gone ex -- I don't mean exactly literally -- but has not gone as they suspected it would?

GORDON: Nothing ever goes the way it's expected to go. That's a given. It doesn't happen in journalism any more than it happens in military affairs.

I do think that the spin out of Washington was too optimistic. And Don Rumsfeld did play off the -- what he thought would be the great effects of the air campaign and Shock and Awe and all of that. And, clearly, there are some benefits from that. But they're not nearly as dramatic as they were portended to be, presented to be at the Pentagon. And I do think the Iraqis have thrown a few curve balls at them.

These people in the rear areas, this sort of irregular militia, is one. There were some tactics last night -- well, actually, not last night my time, but 24 hours ago -- that they used to basically thwart an Apache attack on the Republican Guard. It was the first attack, ground attack, attack by a ground unit on the Republican Guard. And the Iraqis used some fairly primitive, but effective techniques to thwart it.

They basically put lots and lots of guys in the field with machine guns and small arms and threw up a wall of lead and managed to hit 30 out of 32 Apache helicopters. So they're being clever on that level. I don't think it will change the ultimate result, but I think they can complicate things.

BROWN: And the Pentagon briefer in Washington today described that, the Apache assault, as essentially successful. Is that -- would that be your view also?

GORDON: Well, I wouldn't say it was unsuccessful, but I would say it was more difficult than the people who carried out the assault anticipated.

I mean, they had gone through fairly extensive preparations to disrupt the radars and take into account the surface-to-air missile threat. And then they flew in very low and they encountered what was for them an unexpected defense, hundreds of guys firing -- whatever the number was -- submachine guns and small arms, probably cued by somebody near the airfield, an Iraqi agent of some kind or just -- who told them the attack was coming. The end result, as I mentioned, was, they got 30 out of 32 helicopters shot up. They lost an Apache Longbow helicopter, which they had to go back and try to destroy. They had a pilot wounded who flew home.

I think the Pentagon is using what the Pentagon usually does, which is to put things in the most favorable light. I think the more accurate way to present it is that the military here encountered something that surprised it a bit and they're going to go back and rethink their tactics a bit. And I think they'll probably come up with a better way to do it in the future.

BROWN: The British Prime Minister said today that a decisive battle is coming soon. Do you have a feeling that a major moment is just about upon us?

GORDON: Well, I mean, it's all - it all centers on Baghdad. That's the so-called center of gravity in military-speak. That's where it all starts and where it's all going to end, in terms of - it's where Saddam has decided to make his last stand. And that's where the U.S. has decided to let him make his last stand.

And so they're putting the Army and Marine forces into play here, and gearing them up.

I mean, I think this will go through a couple of phases. They're going to continue to hit Baghdad from the air. They're going to pound the Republican Guard from the air.

Then there will be the attack on the Republican Guard to get to Baghdad. Then there'll be the fight inside Baghdad proper, which they're trying to do in a clever way.

I don't think this is something that happens tomorrow, for the simple reason that the weather is not very good tomorrow. But I do think it's building to its natural climax.

BROWN: Michael, thank you. As always, it's good to talk to you, and we'll talk to you again soon.

Michael Gordon is the chief military affairs writer for the "New York Times." He's at Camp Doha in Kuwait.

He has - he has much experience in these matters. And, General, you dealt with him in the war that you were running. And he knows an awful lot about Chechnya, as well. A very fine reporter.

We'll pick up some of that in a moment. We need to do an update first. Heidi Collins takes care of that.

Our coverage continues from here in a minute.

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







Aired March 24, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Well, good evening again, everyone. If we've learned anything over the last few days, we're never quite sure what our time here will turn out to be. Over the next four hours we'll take you where we have been this day and we will see what unfolds before us.
We begin with an overview of the war, which in a way has turned into two wars: the drive for Baghdad and the mopping up in the south, both turning out to be more deliberate and somewhat more difficult and costly than perhaps it was in our most optimistic imagination, at least. And the closer American forces get to Baghdad, of course, the tougher the going gets; and it is getting tougher.

We begin at the Pentagon tonight. We have our senior Pentagon reporter, Jamie McIntyre with us. Jamie, good evening to you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well U.S. and British forces are girding for a showdown with Iraqi Republican Guard troops, and there is fresh evidence tonight, fresh indications that they may be facing chemical weapons.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): U.S. troops are within 50 miles of Baghdad, preparing to engage a key Republican Guard division in what may be a decisive battle in the war against Iraq. The first assault against Republican Guard troops has already been conducted south of Baghdad near Karbala, with more than 30 U.S. Apache Longbow helicopters and multiple launch rocket systems.

From reporter accounts, it was a fierce fight. One Apache was lost, forced to put down in a field. Both crewmembers, Chief Warrant officers Ronald Young and David Williams, were captured and later shown on Iraqi television.

BRIG GEN. VINCE BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: All the other helicopters involved in the mission did accomplish the mission and return safely to base.

MCINTYRE: The downed Apache was later destroyed by a U.S. air strike, and most of the other helicopters on the mission sustained some damage from heavy Iraqi gunfire. Pentagon sources say punishing air strikes are now in store to soften up the dug-in troops. In fact, sources say, about half of the air strikes conducted in the last 36 hours have been directed at Republican Guard positions around Baghdad, including one of the best divisions, the Medina Division. MAJ. GEN. STAN MCCHRYSTAL, JOINT STAFF DEPUTY DIRECTOR: I am sure that it has been degraded significantly in the last 48 hours or so. I couldn't judge its current strength, but it is a linchpin to the consistency of the Republican Guard defense.

MCINTYRE: U.S. commanders insist they are not at all surprised by the stiff Iraqi resistance.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMANDER: We have come across dead-enders, and we've had some terrific firefights with some of these. Not unexpected. I think our people are prepared to fight this war.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says most of the battle deaths so far are the result of deadly deceptions by fanatic Iraqi fighters, known as the Fedayeen Saddam, who the Pentagon alleges have staged false surrenders and posed as liberated civilians in order to ambush U.S. troops.

TORIE CLARK, PENTAGON SPOKESPERSON: Such acts are strictly prohibited because they make it extraordinarily difficult for coalition forces to accept surrendering forces or protect civilians. Some liken these acts to terrorism.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence tonight suggests that some Iraqi Republican Guard troops may have been given orders to use chemical weapons if U.S. forces cross an imaginary red line that encircles Baghdad. The Pentagon simply has repeated what it's said before, that it will hunt down and prosecute as war criminals anyone who either issues or follows such orders -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, they are -- do we know where this line is? Because we have some sense of how close the coalition forces are already.

MCINTYRE: Well, presumably, this was one of the lines of defense around Baghdad. But no, we don't know. It's not a line that we can draw on a map.

It's -- supposedly there's a threshold once the U.S. troops pass that, where commanders would be authorized to use chemical weapons. But the question really is, at that point, if the U.S. is getting that close, what is the morale, what is the command and control of the Iraqi forces? Will they be motivated to use those chemical weapons and perhaps even seal their own fate if they know Saddam Hussein is doomed and his regime is going? That's a big unknown.

BROWN: It is a huge and unsettling unknown. And I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon reporter. He'll be back with us as we go along tonight.

This chopper, this Apache chopper assault began, or at least we began reporting on it about this time last night, just south of Baghdad. We now have a view of some of what went on. CNN's Karl Penhaul was the embedded correspondent with the 11th Attack Helicopter Regimen of the Army's 5th Corps, and he's filed now on that attack.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What I can tell you is that the other Apache helicopters that flew alongside that came under heavy anti-aircraft fire as they flew a mission to attack Republican Guard positions around the town of Karbala. The aim of the mission was to destroy some T-72 tank emplacements, up to 90 T-72 tanks in that region, and some heavy artillery pieces. But as the helicopters flew into the target area, they came under heavy anti-aircraft fire, both from military emplacements and also, commanders say, from residential areas.

In an effort not to target civilians or cause possible civilian deaths, many of the helicopters didn't unleash their hellfire missiles for fear of destroying homes and the like. On return to the airfield, where these Apache helicopters are now, the pilots throughout the day today have been assessing the damage that they received to their craft. Not one of them has escaped without a bullet impact. Most of them have anything between 10 and 20 bullet impacts. One even had an engine blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BROWN: Karl Penhaul, who is with that group. And we expect we'll be hearing more from him as we go along.

General Wesley Clark is here with us, as always. And we just showed, General, a shot of that helicopter sitting in a field. And we can tell our viewers now that that helicopter is no longer sitting in that field. It's been blown to bits because?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we're not going to allow that technology to fall into the hands of the Iraqis or whoever is back there working with the Iraqis, Aaron.

BROWN: Is that something that they send in -- how do they do that? Are there munitions on the helicopter that...

CLARK: No, we would have sent in an airplane to just put a guided weapon right on the top of the helicopter.

BROWN: How do you read this incident in the context of the overall plan? Because it -- again, we tend to focus a lot on those specific things that we are witness to and can report, and it doesn't necessarily provide the broad picture. The significance of it is good and bad, what?

CLARK: Well, two things here. First, the reports we've been hearing have only talked about what happened to the Apaches. Nobody's reporting what happened to the Medina Division.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: In fact, I've received information from -- indirectly from Army sources that the Apache raid was effective. We destroyed a number of tanks. We destroyed a number of artillery pieces, killed a lot of Iraqi troops out there.

That's been followed up today with more air strikes. This is part of the process of breaking down and destroying the Medina Division.

Now these Apache helicopters are built to take fire. And we knew when we designed them back 20-some-odd years ago that they were going to be in a tough ground environment. That's the reason why they came back with all those holes and an engine missing.

So the pilots are -- they expect to do that. That's not to say that we won't do things differently the next time. We'd rather not have any fire at all. But as part of it, this is part of the campaign. It's -- you know, it's a give and take thing. And it's basically on track.

BROWN: One more question on this before we move on. To any extent, do you think that our ability to report these things in the way that we are now able to report them through the embedding process places undue emphasis on any one incident -- this one in this case -- at the expense of the broader picture?

CLARK: Well, it's just -- it's very hard to -- when you get the information -- here you're not receiving all the information that the Army has available. And even then we don't know everything inside the Army. The soldiers there, the leaders don't know everything that's happened to the enemy. So you know your own losses better than the enemy's losses; you know your own movements better than the enemy's movements.

So you tend to go from exhilaration that we had with Walter Rodgers the other night, when they were dashing across the desert, to despair, when suddenly you take losses, you have people captured and so forth. When in reality, neither of these is tactically significant. What's -- is no more than of tactical significance. What's strategically significant is the force has moved up to close with the Iraqi guard, it's consolidating its positions, it's preparing while the Air Force is continuing to grind away on Iraqi command and control.

BROWN: All right. It's just a good thing to keep in mind that -- it seems to me that there is a large picture, and we'll deal a lot with the large picture tonight. But along the way, we also deal with these snapshots, and we ought not get -- all of us who are learning about this, and in our case reporting on it -- ought not get confused about it.

It's about 6:10 in the morning in Baghdad now on a Tuesday morning. Quiet there now. There has been some activity, some explosions heard last night Baghdad time, last night. And you heard in the update some reporting that the airport, Saddam Hussein airport, has been under attack.

I think it is generally believed that the coalition would rather not destroy that airport completely because they would only then have to go in and build it. But obviously, they have decided to do some damage to it or around to it, and we keep our eye on Baghdad as we go.

The other major story line tonight is, again, as it was last night, the story of prisoners of war. Two more Americans taken prisoner of war today, two helicopter pilots, technically. One would have been the weapons operator, sitting in the front seat, and the pilot sitting in the back seat. Though both are certainly capable of flying and both have controls to fly if they had to.

Those are the young men. Ronald Young, his family lives outside of Atlanta here. And CNN's Susan Candiotti has talked with them. She talked with the family earlier. I guess I just said that, Susan. So I've now repeated myself for the first time tonight. Susan, good evening.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. In fact, the family, as you can well imagine, has been glued around the television set all day long and all evening long, looking at everything they can possibly learn about their son, who they have now learned is a prisoner of war.

Joining me now is Ronald Young's father, Ronald Young, also joining us. And one of the things we saw just a moment ago is General Clark saying that overall his information is that the attack, the Apache attack was effective. But that also raises some questions in your mind, having seen your son's Apache helicopter.

RONALD YOUNG SR., POW'S FATHER: Right. That helicopter looked like that he flew, they were talking about how it'll take a hit, but it didn't have any known hits on it. And I was just wondering why it didn't return too. Of course, I know engine malfunctions and things like that, things can go wrong, but it's still not easy, you know, when it's your son.

CANDIOTTI: We had talked about also that your wife had sort of a premonition when she initially heard the reports and saw the downed helicopter. Tell me about that.

YOUNG: Right. Well, she said about 12:00 she said she had this feeling that -- this just warm feeling that Ron was there with her. It was just like she was dreaming it or something like that. And she said that he had a soft smell, a sweet smell about him when he was a baby, and she could detect that at that time.

And I guess she felt like everything was, you know -- that maybe something had really happened to him. I think it has to do with mothers. I think maybe their closer to their children than fathers are because they care for them for so long. But she does have this connection with her children, and it seems like it did pay off. This morning we found out that he was, you know, captured, or was missing in action, is what they told us.

CANDIOTTI: Well, clearly, your entire family is very close. But when you were informed of this happening, I know your wife told me, she said, "I knew it. I knew it." And you were told that he was missing in action.

YOUNG: Right.

CANDIOTTI: Then you saw for the first time pictures of him on television. Describe how that made you feel. First, hearing that he was a prisoner of war, and then at least seeing him.

YOUNG: Well, at first I felt like I didn't know whether he was alive or not. And that was a real big question for me. As I went through the day, I said, well, he's got to be. I just feel like that's probably not him in the helicopter. And I convinced myself that it wasn't. You know that he had one out of six chances for it to be.

But then as -- when the Army came up and told us, you know, the bad news, that it was his helicopter, I had this sinking feeling, and I didn't know where -- they wouldn't give me any information, really. So I didn't know whether he was alive or dead. He was just missing. That's all it was. And then of course...

CANDIOTTI: And then you saw some of the insignias on the side of the helicopter.

YOUNG: Yes, ma'am.

CANDIOTTI: Then you knew it was his helicopter.

YOUNG: Well, I knew that -- we saw the insignias earlier, and I knew it was one out of his attachment.

CANDIOTTI: There are the pictures right now.

YOUNG: Right. And I knew that due to the fact those were his helicopters that he -- you know, there were six helicopters flying out of his attachment. So I knew...

CANDIOTTI: Because in fact you saw a bat wing on the side.

YOUNG: That's correct. That's right.

CANDIOTTI: That was one indicator that it might have been him.

YOUNG: Yes, ma'am.

CANDIOTTI: You've seen the tape. You've seen these people cheering. You've seen how he looks on television. How does he appear to you?

YOUNG: He looks good on -- you know, when I saw him, he looked like he's been treated well. It looked like it's just another day in the service for him. I mean he doesn't look like he's had anything noticeably done to him.

I mean he looks good. He looks like I'd expect him to look if he was coming home.

CANDIOTTI: I understand he always wanted to be a pilot. YOUNG: Always. Ever since he was a little boy, he talked about being a pilot and wanting to be a pilot. And of course he got a chance with the Army, so that's where he took the opportunity to be able to go on to flight school and warrant officer school and become a pilot. And it's something he wanted to do. Of course, I've always been kind of fretful for him because I know being a pilot and in the service is a dangerous occupation.

CANDIOTTI: You didn't always want him to be?

YOUNG: No. No. I was fine with him being a pilot, but I wasn't fine with it as going to war. I mean, you know, it was just a natural thing.

CANDIOTTI: How confident are you he'll come out of this all right?

YOUNG: Well, I feel better than I did. I mean, you know, he's alive. And that's one big thing that was a question in my mind at first.

So if the Iraqis will treat him right and we treat their prisoners of war honorably and right, then I think that we've got a chance to get them all back home. And that's what I hope for. Not just him but all of them, because they all have families just like me.

CANDIOTTI: Indeed. Why did you feel it was important to share with everyone how you feel about your son?

YOUNG: Because I know they would feel the same way. And it's not a bad -- it's not a good situation to be in whenever you lose contact with somebody that is close to you as your son or your daughter, or whatever.

CANDIOTTI: Mr. Young, did you ever talk about the possibility of capture with your son?

YOUNG: No, ma'am. I never even thought about the possibility. You know, that's something that you always think...

CANDIOTTI: That's hard to believe.

YOUNG: ... that happens to somebody else, not me. You know, and I felt like, well, the odds are, there's so many helicopters over there, that he'll get through it. But you know, you just never can tell. And this is one of those times that you can't tell.

CANDIOTTI: Do you feel he's prepared for it?

YOUNG: Well, he's a tough kid, and he's strong mentally. I think he's prepared for it, yes. He's got a -- I know he's got a long time and a tough road to hoe, but I believe he's prepared for it.

CANDIOTTI: Well, you certainly have a lot of people pulling for you, Mr. Young.

YOUNG: Well thank you very much. I hope so.

CANDIOTTI: Thank you very much for joining us. And as you heard him say, he not only wants his own son back, he also wants the other gentleman back also, who has also been taken prisoner, and everybody else for that matter, Aaron.

BROWN: Susan, thank you. Susan Candiotti.

Let me quickly turn to General Clark. You and I were talking last night about the five young Army soldiers who were taken as POWs yesterday and that they would not have received any particular training to cope with that sort of situation. Would a helicopter pilot, an Apache helicopter pilot have?

CLARK: He will have received more. He may or may not have gone through a special escape and evasion course, but he will have received more training. He's been through his commissioning school. He knows more about how to conduct himself.

A little bit more mature is what you would expect from someone of that rank. And he'll make it.

BROWN: And just on the subject of rank, for people who don't keep track of such things, a chief warrant officer fits in where in the scheme of things?

CLARK: Well, warrant officers are technical. And so they're not in the sense -- in the leadership chain like officers...

BROWN: Like a lieutenant or a captain?

CLARK: Right. You expect a lieutenant to later become a captain, become a major and so forth. Warrant officers go from warrant officer 1 to warrant officer 2, 3, 4, and some warrant officer 5s. And so, for example, in the aviation field, they can stay and fly helicopters continuously, whereas an officer who's an aviator would rotate in and out of aviation assignments. These warrant officers are the real experts.

BROWN: That's a nice way to put it. Thank you. So add tonight into your thoughts the names of these two young men: Ronald Young -- Ronald D. Young, Jr., chief warrant officer, family living in the state of Georgia. And also put into your thoughts tonight David Williams -- David S. Williams, a Floridian. Both we know are in the custody of the Iraqi government, as are five other young Americans in the custody.

Their families now have all been notified. As you can see, one of them is a young woman, Shoshana Johnson. We've heard from her family. They represent in many respects the true cross-section of the country. They come from the East Coast and the West, from the Midwest.

They are African-American and Hispanic and Caucasian. They are very much a cross-section of the diversity of the country. And they ought be very much in all of our thoughts tonight. Out in Fort Bliss, Texas, there is plenty of heartache there because of the fact it is home of the 507th Maintenance Company. Seven soldiers there are still listed as missing in action. And then there are the five that we just showed you, who are we know prisoners of war. The fifth prisoner's family has now been notified. So now all five have been told formally by the Army that their son or daughter, husband, is a prisoner of war.

Ed Lavandera has been at Fort Bliss since this story broke, and he joins us again tonight -- Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Aaron. Well you mentioned just a short while ago that Shoshana Johnson being the female prisoner of war. Just a few hours ago we had the chance to speak with her father and sister. And we got into the issue of their concerns about her being a female prisoner of war and how that might or might not affect the situation she's in.

They're really not sure exactly what to make of it, but they do say that it is a concern. And they wonder just exactly how she's being treated and whether or not she's being treated any differently from the male prisoners of war. So for them, there is that issue outstanding.

As I mentioned, we got to speak with them just a few hours ago. We spent 45 minutes with them talking. They explained to us how they found out about this situation. Sunday morning about 8:00, Claude Johnson, Shoshana's father, said he's flipping on the TV, trying to find some cartoons for his grandchild to watch. Instead, he flips across a Spanish language network, Telemundo, and finds that that network is broadcasting images from the Iraqi front lines.

And that is when he sees the images of his daughter in the custody of Iraqi soldiers. He said it wasn't until six hours later that they found out, got the official word from the Army officials here at Fort Bliss that in fact his daughter was a prisoner of war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI JOHNSON, POW'S SISTER: And when she went over there, we knew that obviously this was a little bit more in depth and more intensive. But I'm sure she didn't think that -- I'm sure this is the last thing she thought was on her mind. And she's in -- maintenance is combat service support.

You're not really supposed to be on the front lines at all. You know what I mean? They bring things back to you. You don't think about that stuff when you're a support element.

CLAUDE JOHNSON, POW'S FATHER: What happened? Did they miss a checkpoint? They made a wrong turn? Were they supposed to turn?

What happened? Where's the breakdown?

N. JOHNSON: You know you're going over there, but you never really think, you know, that this is going to happen. My sister's kind of always had a little angel following her around. She always manages to get out of stuff. So this was not something we thought was going to happen to her at all. You know? And considering the whole situation in which some individuals did die, you know, and the fact that, you know, she was seen on TV, she looks to be staying strong, you know, hopefully her angel's still with her.

C. JOHNSON: I'm hoping that because it was a big televised issue that they will comply at least to show that they're not as -- not as much the animals that they're portrayed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Shoshana Johnson comes from a family, a military family. Her father, you just heard from, is a 20-year Army veteran. He's also a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War.

Her sister that you just heard from as well, Nikki Johnson, is an Army captain based out of Fort Lee, Virginia. So they say that that background helps them cope with what's going on. But at some point you just stop being a military person and you become family, a mother, father, and a sister as well. And that is when the tears start to flow, they say.

So as you've seen them very confident and stoic there, they do say that the last couple days have been extremely emotional for them. And they also say, Aaron, that they have had very little contact with the officials here at Fort Bliss. And, by the way, we've been here at Fort Bliss since Sunday.

There have been several briefings that have been scheduled and canceled to talk about this. Officials here at this base say that that is per the guidance of the Pentagon that has asked them not to comment publicly on any of the details of this case until they get a little bit clearer picture as to what has happened with the five POWs there in Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, it's -- and correct me if I'm wrong here. It's not simply the five POWs, because they know about the five POWs. They've seen them. They've seen the tape in total that Iraqi state TV showed.

They have some sense of their condition. The broader concern, I assume, Ed, at Fort Bliss, and at the Pentagon. is the seven others, and there are some pictures. We started talking about this last night. But they want to be sure of where those seven are, whether they are alive or not, before they say very much. Is that -- it's not much of a question, but it...

LAVANDERA: Yes. Well, you're absolutely correct. The status of the other seven isn't clear. There were 12 soldiers in all, part of the 507th Maintenance Company that was part of this unit that was taken into Iraqi custody. So, yes, that's very much part of the concern. And a lot of the reason perhaps why they haven't been able to answer any questions here just yet.

BROWN: Thank you, Ed, very much. Ed Lavandera is down at Fort Bliss. General, two questions that were raised. Let me deal with the harder of the two first. I think when you talk about a woman and being held as prisoner of war, I mean there are certain obvious and horrible things that run through your mind. This happened during the first Gulf War.

There was a woman taken prisoner. She's now an army colonel, as I recall. Do we have any evidence one way or another that women in fact were treated any worse by the Iraqis than the men were?

CLARK: As far as I know, we don't.

BROWN: OK.

CLARK: But the risk is always there. And you know, it's a terrifying thing.

BROWN: And then the other part of this is there was this long national debate about whether women should be in combat, and that was answered in an interesting way. No, they are not involved in direct combat, but as we know now very clearly, we learned this in the first Gulf War and we see it again, women are very much engaged in military operations, including being helicopter pilots.

CLARK: Anywhere on that battlefield you're in danger of being in direct combat. And that means you're in danger of being killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. And it really doesn't matter what your military occupational specialty is. You're at risk.

And by the way, we have female pilots as well who are flying our strike aircraft in the Army, in the Navy, in the Air Force. So it's not just the rear area.

BROWN: It's funny that, while a lot of people would assume this debate has gone on, like a lot of other debates, this one's long settled in the military. The military has, in many ways, led the way in certain respects in these areas of diversity and the like. They have integrated women in all sorts of ways. And we still sit around and argue about whether it makes sense or not. They just do the job.

CLARK: We've moved past this.

BROWN: Way beyond it.

CLARK: I mean, women are great soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, and so forth. Can I just return for a second?

BROWN: Please.

CLARK: I think, as I recall, a story from the first -- from the Gulf war, there was -- there were some sexual connotations in some of the actions that the female aviator suffered. But she was badly injured. And I think that may have kept it from being worse than it was.

BROWN: Well, yes. I mean that's what you worry about. And honestly, we looked at the tape of Shoshana Johnson yesterday, and she was obviously, as you would be or I would be or any human being on the planet would be, she was scared, nervous. And we just hope that they are decent and treat her decently.

CLARK: My heart goes out to them.

BROWN: Yes. It's all tricky business.

We'll take a look at some of the politics of all of this as we go to the White House, other places, and obviously out to the battlefield too. We'll take a short break first. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: Heidi, thank you very much.

As Heidi indicated, the president will send up to the Hill soon his supplemental budget request to pay for the war. The cost of the war was a very hot topic in Washington for many days leading up to it. At one point, there were estimates of anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion. And it turns out the number they'll ask for is somewhere right in between, about $75 billion.

At least that's the indication that Suzanne Malveaux has gotten in her work today at the White House. Suzanne joins us tonight -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, I want to clarify a couple of things. A senior administration official briefed us on these numbers.

First of all, he said it's $74.7 billion total, approximately $75 billion. But he said this is not over a 30-day combat period. He said what it is, is based on a model based on six months, where you'd have the troops inside. You would also have the reconstruction relief and then you'd have the withdrawal of the troops. That is something the Pentagon had talked about before, that 30-day figure. But this is based on something else.

Within that $75 billion, you have $63 billion for operations for the prosecution of the war. You have $8 billion for international operations, including the relief and reconstruction, and then $4 billion for homeland security.

I also want to talk a bit about what happened today. President Bush called President Putin. It seems as if the two cannot seem to see things eye to eye. And today was no different.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Today, the Bush administration stated Russia was aiding the Iraqi military by allowing Russian companies to sell sensitive military technology to Iraqi forces, in violation of U.N. sanctions.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have credible evidence that Russian companies provided the assistance and the prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime. That's why we have found these actions to be disturbing.

MALVEAUX: The big concern is that the Iraqis now have equipment that can jam GPS-guided American missiles used in its bombing campaign. While the administration has raised this issue before, today, President Bush stepped in and called Russia's President Putin.

FLEISCHER: President Putin assured President Bush that he would look into it, and President Bush said he looked forward to hearing the results.

MALVEAUX: But Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, denied that Moscow had been involved in shipping illegally shipping sensitive military equipment to Iraq, including anti-tank guided missiles and night-vision goggles, saying...

IGOR IVANOV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Russia invariably follows all international agreements and did not supply Iraq with any equipment, including military that violated the sanctions.

MALVEAUX: But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, as recently as within the last 48 hours, the U.S. has discovered new evidence Russian officials have allowed the illegal equipment to slip through.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So, Aaron, it's just the latest flare-up in what has become an increasingly bumpy relationship between the United States and Russia. Today, President Putin said that the United States' war with Iraq was creating what he called a humanitarian catastrophe.

But aides for both leaders say that they are good friends, that they will continue these discussions and they will work out their differences -- Aaron.

BROWN: Has the president himself publicly said anything about this? I didn't recall anything -- I don't recall he did yesterday. Has he at all?

MALVEAUX: Well, we actually heard from Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, when it comes to this particular issue.

But I have to tell you that discussions have been going on for at least six months or so, that they've been complaining about this. But it's something that has been really lower level in the administration. This is really the first time that the president has picked up the phone and said directly to President Putin that this was an issue and a problem.

BROWN: There are levels -- I mean, part of the way you sort of judge how things -- the level of anger or anything else in covering the White House is who says it. If the spokesman says it, that's pretty high-level. But if the president says it, if it literally comes from the president's lips, then it's raised another notch. Have we heard -- we have not yet heard that, right?

MALVEAUX: We haven't heard that yet, Aaron. And we'll see if the president actually says that. In the week to come, it will be very interesting to see if it raises to that level. There has been quite a bit of tension between the two leaders, anywhere from issues of NATO expansion. Of course, you know the differences in their opinions about the war on terror, as well as the role of the U.N. in humanitarian aid and reconstruction.

So it will be very interesting to see if the president actually brings that up publicly.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you very much -- Suzanne Malveaux at the White House tonight.

There was, as we showed you a little bit ago, another taped message from Saddam Hussein. It appeared early Monday morning, with it, of course, another round of questions. This has become almost an obsessive cottage industry. When was is it taped? Is he alive? Was it taped beforehand? This, that, and another. It's not an inconsequential question, of course.

Here is CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the taped speech, Saddam Hussein refers to the biggest southern city, now encircled by coalition forces which are bypassing it on the way to Baghdad.

SADDAM HUSSEIN, IRAQI PRESIDENT (through translator): In Basra, the beloved Basra, I say to them, be patient, you brethren. Victory is imminent.

ENSOR: U.S. intelligence officials, analyzing the tape, say it is the Iraqi leader, but there is nothing said that proves when he recorded it.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We cannot be sure whether these recordings are prerecorded and some of them appear to be dated, but I don't think there is an exact science in this.

ENSOR: Another cause of suspicion about when the tape was made, U.S. officials say Hussein credits some Iraqi units that, in fact, have had nothing to do with the fighting so far.

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: He may have created these tapes ahead of time to make sure that no matter what happened to him and his regime, he could maintain both the morale of his supporters and the fear of the Iraqi population for as long as it was possible to do so. ENSOR: In Baghdad, Iraq's deputy prime minister angrily denounced as lies any suggestion that Saddam Hussein might not be in full control.

TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Saddam Hussein has full control of his country and over the armed forces and the Iraqi people and all the resources of Iraq.

ENSOR: Full control or not, some intelligence suggests he display been wounded in the first bombing, U.S. officials say, but most analysts believe he is alive.

POLLACK: The expectation is that if he were dead, we would see the whole place starting to come apart at the seams.

ENSOR: Concerning the Americans taken prisoner in Nasiriyah, U.S. officials say they were seized by the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group known for their black uniforms, now spread throughout the country in plain clothes.

POLLACK: The Saddam Fedayeen are by and large street thugs. They are recruited from among young city men, many of whom couldn't make it in the military, many of whom have ties of one sort or another to Saddam.

ENSOR (on camera): Iraq's government may soon show Saddam Hussein in a way that's proof-positive he's still alive and in control. U.S. officials say it has not done so yet. In the meantime, his fate has become the subject of a public-relations battle.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: CNN's Nic Robertson has -- as we take a look at Baghdad on a Tuesday morning, over on the right, in the big box, CNN's Nic Robertson has been following this part of the story since the Iraqi government threw him out of Baghdad a couple of days ago. He's made his way to Amman, Jordan.

Nic, it's good to see you. In Jordan and across the Arab world, I assume you're paying some attention to how this is being reported. Is this even an issue? Is anybody even discussing whether Saddam Hussein is alive, dead, in control, or not in control?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not in the way that it's being discussed in the United States and Great Britain.

But perhaps that's all -- that discussion and debate is all moot, really, because much of Saddam Hussein's appearance on Iraqi television is really for the Iraqi people's consumption. If they see him on television, whether it's taped or whether it's live or whether they think he was speaking last week, yesterday morning, or even that morning, to them, it's really immaterial.

To them, it's a signal, a clear sign, that the Iraqi leadership is still in control, that the ruling Baath Party is in control, that all the ministers that we see every day coming out and saying that this is President Saddam Hussein, he isn't injured and he is alive, for them, it's just a very clear signal that nothing has changed, that the Iraqi leadership is in place. And it's the sort of thing that the government in Iraq really needs at this time, because, if it does look like they're wavering, if it does look like they're crumbling, then it's much more likely that the soldiers of the army, of the Republican Guard and other units may begin to lay down their weapons.

And as long as the Iraqi leadership can show, and do it visibly on Iraqi television, without raising the sorts of questions that we hear coming from the United States or Great Britain about whether or not this is Saddam and whether or not he is alive, the answer is, Iraqi people believe he is still in control. And that's the message they want to get across, Aaron.

BROWN: And there's -- actually, as I sit here, at least, it seems like there's almost a two-pronged way to look at this. If you are a Saddam loyalist and you see him, that rallies to you his side, I presume. And on the other hand, if you're someone who thinks this might be an interesting time to turn on the government, Saddam's control of the government might make you think twice.

ROBERTSON: Absolutely.

It's designed to dissuade anyone that would think that this is a time to revolt, that now they can rise up, the way is clear. And the government knows it. And that's why it's so critical. They absolutely know that, if there's a chink that appears in the armor like that, then people will begin to fill that vacuum, if you will, much as they did at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

We haven't seen this so far, the mass surrenderings. Perhaps less than 1 percent of the force, about 3,000 or so, is reported to have surrendered so far. The big surrenders, when they thought that the leadership, the Iraqi leadership was on the run and defeated in 1991, haven't happened. And the government knows that there's the potential for that at this time, Aaron.

BROWN: Where you are in Amman, you're a few hundred miles, I guess, from Baghdad. Is the war a subject of constant conversation? Is it being widely shown on television in Jordan? Is that the lead story every day now?

ROBERTSON: It's certainly on the front pages of the newspapers, yesterday morning leading with the stiff resistance by the Iraqi forces. So it is being followed here and people are watching it. And, of course, they will be very sensitive to if they see what they view as their fellow Arab brothers, civilians being injured and killed.

And the fact that a number of Syrian civilian workers returning from Baghdad to Syria on the main highway were killed in a bus as they drove up that main highway back to Syria, that again will strike a chord with people in the region, who very much don't want to see this war taking place. They don't view it necessarily as a positive event, certainly in their lives and certainly the lives the Iraqis. So it is watched with a very critical eye at this time.

BROWN: Nic Robertson, thank you. Nic Robertson, in Amman, Jordan, always good to talk with you.

We're joined now by James Woolsey, the former CIA director. He can talk to us about the Saddam matter. And, hopefully, we'll get him to talk about a couple of other things, too, that have come up.

It's nice to see you again, sir.

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: Do you have a feeling one way or another whether -- I think that -- well, let me ask this differently, because it seems to me pretty clear he's alive. I don't think anybody's questioning that. I think the question really is, how much control does he have? The administration will say there is evidence that the Iraqi government is crumbling, is in disarray, this and that.

Do you see any evidence of that in the way the war is being conducted or anything else?

WOOLSEY: Well, so far, they seem to be holding together and fighting.

But there is one important footnote -- and David Ensor mentioned it -- which is that, in this videotape, Saddam gives credit to divisions, including one that caved very early and surrendered in the fighting. So it is at least possible that this was prerecorded, and perhaps in the window of time after President Bush said he was going within 48 hours and before the bombing of the bunker. So, although I guess I'd say you're more likely to be right than not that he's still alive, I don't know that it's a sure thing.

BROWN: OK. I was going to ask you that. Honestly, perhaps that was an unfair assumption that -- I could make it, but you're absolutely entitled to -- and you're a lot wiser on this than I am.

How do CIA analysts go about determining this? What are they looking at? What are they looking for? What are they listening to?

WOOLSEY: Well, they listen to voice patterns. They listen to past examples of the voice. This is not a science. It's more an art. It's a little like polygraphy or something. It's something that people read and get different things out of it. But some people are better at it than others.

They look at the facial features. I'm sure they use computerized techniques to try to detect if the face looks different or anything that is often distinctive about people, such as the ears. But after you go through all that, sometimes, you have to say, more likely than not, it was him or not. It's not a science. It's an art.

BROWN: Just on -- you mentioned facial features. Just looking at what almost looked like two different Saddams, the Saddam that was shown on Iraqi television the night of the initial attack -- that's the picture on the left -- and the Saddam that appeared on Iraqi TV yesterday, I wouldn't say they look like completely different people, but they don't look like a guy who's in the same shape.

WOOLSEY: That's right.

There's a curious pattern here. The first one that came out after the strike on the bunker didn't really look like him that much. And then the second one does, but there is this curious reference to a -- a positive reference to a unit that surrendered very, very early. It's complicated. If he were really there and healthy, you would think it would be relatively easy to record something that quite obviously indicated that it was being done live and he was fine. And it's messy. And that's what continues, I think, to raise people's suspicions.

BROWN: Let me ask one more question on this and then move on.

If part of what he's trying to do is just say to his -- to the people in the country, "We're doing great; our army's doing great," what difference does it make if he mentions a unit that surrendered or not, because the only information that the Iraqi citizens are getting anyway is the information the government is giving out?

WOOLSEY: Well, insofar as they're lying -- I mean, if it is in fact the case that he was badly injured or even killed in that bombing attack and that this was prerecorded and -- the reference to the unit might suggest that -- then, yes, temporarily, the Iraqi people may be fooled and rallied because they think he's alive and holding firm and everything is in control. But, in time, this could slip and cascade on them.

So, right now, that may be right. But if he's badly injured or dead, it could make a difference here during this battle for Baghdad, which may take place within the next few days.

BROWN: I'm going to move on to both this Russian thing and the chemical attacks. But let me just -- because I'll just turn to General Clark for a second. And you want to weigh in on any part of this conversation that has gone on so far?

RET. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think Jim is exactly right in terms of the command-and-control.

It always appears at the start of this -- and I felt the same way at the start of the Kosovo campaign -- that you get indications that you've done something significant to their command-and-control. The pattern is disrupted, and maybe it is temporarily. But I agree with Jim. We haven't seen any significant breakdown in Iraqi command-and- control or resolve to fight at this point.

BROWN: And, in fact, one of the things you said to me the other day, I believe, is that they probably went to different frequencies and whether -- so, the fact that we haven't heard as much -- we, the government, the United States government, the Pentagon hadn't heard as much -- may or may not be as significant as it sounds. CLARK: That, plus we put a lot of chatter on our nets. And we always keep saying, do we have to say this much? Do we have to say this much? Maybe they're not chattering as much as we are.

BROWN: Mr. Woolsey, the report that one of the Republican Guard units or that Republican Guard units have been given permission, if not directly ordered, to use chemical weapons if a certain line is crossed, does that -- I would suspect you would say that is a credible piece of intelligence? Do you?

WOOLSEY: Well, it's hard to know where it comes from. But, certainly, if it has any plausibility, they're going to prepare for the worst.

They have the chemical gear with them. Wes knows a lot more about this than I do. Frankly, I would be more worried over the mid to long term about biological weapons, because the chemical gear, we're -- I think we're pretty well equipped to deal with. But there have been stories about the possibility that Saddam has been working on genetically modifying some of these biological agents, making anthrax, for example, resistant to vaccines or antibiotics.

And if they should use something like that, it could be, maybe not immediately on the battlefield, but within a week or two, a lot more trouble even than chemical weapons.

BROWN: And just to interrupt this for a moment, we're getting some reporting from one of our embeds that there's heavy fighting going on around Nasiriyah right now. We're trying to get him up on the phone. And we'll update that as we go. This has been an area that, as most of these areas have been, has been a bit more difficult than perhaps some of us and some of the Pentagon officials suspected it might be.

Mr. Woolsey, one more area: This thing about the Russians and whether Russian companies are supplying the Iraqis with equipment allowing them to jam GPS missiles and the rest, that surprise you at all?

WOOLSEY: No. The Russians have advertised this sort of thing at international trade fairs. They're not particularly expensive. It is a problem, could be a serious problem for GPS, but we do have some ways of countering it.

The Russian military industrial complex is still pretty hostile to the United States and likes to make money a lot. And the fact that they might be selling things like this would disappoint me, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

BROWN: And, briefly on that, is it possible that the president of Russia would not know about it?

WOOLSEY: I suppose it's possible. As time goes on, it becomes less credible, because a lot of these are the same institutions and firms that have done this kind of thing before. But any given sale, maybe he didn't know about it in advance. But it's starting to wear a bit thin, I think.

BROWN: Well, Mr. Woolsey, we covered a lot of ground tonight. Thank you. It's good to talk to you. Thank you. I hope you'll...

WOOLSEY: Good to be with you, Aaron, Wes.

BROWN: Thank you, sir. I hope you'll come back again.

WOOLSEY: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Jim Woolsey, former CIA director. And we did cover a lot of ground.

We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another messy, frustrating combat situation for the Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, this time outside the port city of Umm Qasr, where they have been for the last three days.

They have moved out and are encountering another fight, this time with a similar situation: armed men coming from the town, firing at them, firing at them sporadically, and then running and hiding back in the residential areas, men who are not in Iraqi military uniforms. They tried to draw them out of the urban area using suppression fire. They fired TWO missiles, several artillery rounds, and machine gun fire in the direction from which these men are coming. At one point, the men came out and waved a white flight. But then, shortly thereafter, they took off again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're trying to figure out who's who and make sure that we don't shoot civilians. But those folks that are military, but aren't in uniform, we're going to go ahead and take care of them.

BELLINI: They went back behind the building where they had been firing from, leaving the Marines to try to suss them out some more, leaving them, again, an hour after this all began, in their same position, in their same battle position, at their machine guns hiding behind a berm here in the desert.

The other thing we saw was an ambulance coming up. And it appeared that some individuals were picked up by that ambulance. Again, this adds to the complexity of their situation in that they know they're dealing with civilians in the area from which they're being fired upon, making very difficult calls for the Marines here at the ground level who have to decide how much force to use.

I'm Jason Bellini with the Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit outside the port city of Umm Qasr.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: We've got Michael Gordon of "The New York Times" on the line. But just go ahead and open up the line. Michael can hear this, too.

Michael, it's good to have you with us.

General, while you were watching that, you reacted to it. Just quickly what you were thinking.

CLARK: Got to have another combat power there to finish that fight, isolated compartment by compartment. Somebody's got to work around the back of that building. Somebody's got to keep the whole thing under 360-degree observation. Somebody's got to stop that ambulance when it leaves and see who is in it, where they're going, how they got called.

BROWN: You are a general all the time here.

Michael, it's good to have you with us.

What's the lead from where you are, as you see it tonight?

Michael's the chief military writer for "The New York Times."

Michael?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, the Iraqis are trying to disrupt the allied attack by creating a lot of problems in their rear areas. They're trying to get them to focus their attention south instead of north. But, basically, the solution to all these problems, from the United States' point of view is -- United States' military point of view -- is through Baghdad. And they're preparing to move on Baghdad and move ahead with that over the next week.

BROWN: What I hear you say is that they refuse to be distracted by this. Is that a fair way to put it?

GORDON: Well, they've already had to make some adjustments. I mean, they're making more of an effort to guard their convoys, which they have to do of necessity, both by putting people with them and helicopters over them.

But they can't really be deflected from the Baghdad goal. I mean, that's the whole purpose of this operation. And it's really the only way, ultimately, to deal with the disruptions in the south. You can't go into every single city in southern Iraq and dig out the people there who are causing problems. What their strategy is, so to speak, is to cut off the head of the snake and let these people just wither.

BROWN: General, jump in.

(CROSSTALK)

CLARK: I think Michael's reading it exactly right. And I think that is the key thing. You have to focus on the objective here. But I think it's worth noting that some -- we've got three U.S. Army divisions and a Marine division -- and a British division in there -- sorry -- two U.S. Army divisions, a Marine division, and a British division. The British division and some of the Marines are still tied up back there. So that's 25 percent of your combat power is still trying to finish what was begun four, five days ago.

Got to get it finished enough to be able to go ahead and concentrate on the head of the snake. I wouldn't recommend diverting any more combat power to it. But, still, the people that are there in the rear have to be effective in doing their job to free the command to focus on its main mission.

BROWN: Michael, is there a sense that this part has taken longer and has not gone ex -- I don't mean exactly literally -- but has not gone as they suspected it would?

GORDON: Nothing ever goes the way it's expected to go. That's a given. It doesn't happen in journalism any more than it happens in military affairs.

I do think that the spin out of Washington was too optimistic. And Don Rumsfeld did play off the -- what he thought would be the great effects of the air campaign and Shock and Awe and all of that. And, clearly, there are some benefits from that. But they're not nearly as dramatic as they were portended to be, presented to be at the Pentagon. And I do think the Iraqis have thrown a few curve balls at them.

These people in the rear areas, this sort of irregular militia, is one. There were some tactics last night -- well, actually, not last night my time, but 24 hours ago -- that they used to basically thwart an Apache attack on the Republican Guard. It was the first attack, ground attack, attack by a ground unit on the Republican Guard. And the Iraqis used some fairly primitive, but effective techniques to thwart it.

They basically put lots and lots of guys in the field with machine guns and small arms and threw up a wall of lead and managed to hit 30 out of 32 Apache helicopters. So they're being clever on that level. I don't think it will change the ultimate result, but I think they can complicate things.

BROWN: And the Pentagon briefer in Washington today described that, the Apache assault, as essentially successful. Is that -- would that be your view also?

GORDON: Well, I wouldn't say it was unsuccessful, but I would say it was more difficult than the people who carried out the assault anticipated.

I mean, they had gone through fairly extensive preparations to disrupt the radars and take into account the surface-to-air missile threat. And then they flew in very low and they encountered what was for them an unexpected defense, hundreds of guys firing -- whatever the number was -- submachine guns and small arms, probably cued by somebody near the airfield, an Iraqi agent of some kind or just -- who told them the attack was coming. The end result, as I mentioned, was, they got 30 out of 32 helicopters shot up. They lost an Apache Longbow helicopter, which they had to go back and try to destroy. They had a pilot wounded who flew home.

I think the Pentagon is using what the Pentagon usually does, which is to put things in the most favorable light. I think the more accurate way to present it is that the military here encountered something that surprised it a bit and they're going to go back and rethink their tactics a bit. And I think they'll probably come up with a better way to do it in the future.

BROWN: The British Prime Minister said today that a decisive battle is coming soon. Do you have a feeling that a major moment is just about upon us?

GORDON: Well, I mean, it's all - it all centers on Baghdad. That's the so-called center of gravity in military-speak. That's where it all starts and where it's all going to end, in terms of - it's where Saddam has decided to make his last stand. And that's where the U.S. has decided to let him make his last stand.

And so they're putting the Army and Marine forces into play here, and gearing them up.

I mean, I think this will go through a couple of phases. They're going to continue to hit Baghdad from the air. They're going to pound the Republican Guard from the air.

Then there will be the attack on the Republican Guard to get to Baghdad. Then there'll be the fight inside Baghdad proper, which they're trying to do in a clever way.

I don't think this is something that happens tomorrow, for the simple reason that the weather is not very good tomorrow. But I do think it's building to its natural climax.

BROWN: Michael, thank you. As always, it's good to talk to you, and we'll talk to you again soon.

Michael Gordon is the chief military affairs writer for the "New York Times." He's at Camp Doha in Kuwait.

He has - he has much experience in these matters. And, General, you dealt with him in the war that you were running. And he knows an awful lot about Chechnya, as well. A very fine reporter.

We'll pick up some of that in a moment. We need to do an update first. Heidi Collins takes care of that.

Our coverage continues from here in a minute.

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