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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bombing Continues in Baghdad; Additional Troops Deployed to Gulf

Aired March 27, 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: Baghdad on a Friday morning, 6:00. And it is quiet now, but it was anything but a quiet night. Heavy bombing, perhaps the Information Ministry was hit. We'll have more on that coming up.
Good evening again, everyone. We begin, as we do, with a broad look at the day. More bombing, more troops heading into the theater. Some Marines missing tonight. Some developments on the diplomatic front as well, though still no clear picture of the timing and the tempo of things to come.

Will the battle for Baghdad begin in a matter of days, or will it be weeks? We expect only the Pentagon's generals know, and they're not talking. Not yet. But there are some clues. And we do know that Baghdad took another pounding today; an especially large one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): As week two of the war began, thunderous explosions near the Ministry of Information rocked Baghdad. They seemed to be the strongest in days. Preparation perhaps for what the American administration knows are crucial times ahead just outside the Iraqi capital.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Republican Guard forces are ringing Baghdad some 40, 50 miles away from it. And it's very likely that will be some of the toughest fighting that will occur. And that's yet ahead of us.

BROWN: On the ground, we can finally see some of those dots on the map. These are the outskirts of Najaf, a city where the Army's 7th Calvary took some of its heaviest fire. Peaceful enough for the moment, but just as in other parts of Iraq, the harassment by Iraqi irregulars was frightening.

SGT. TODD WOODHALL, U.S. ARMY 7TH CALVARY: With my hatch just closed, a little scared. I had to do it a couple times and reach in and talk to the man upstairs and say help out a little. I don't know if we can do it all ourselves. But it worked.

BROWN: As for those maps, here's what it looks like now. In the west, the Army's Airborne and 3rd Infantry continued to advance towards Baghdad. Meantime, the Marines are encountering tough resistance as they head toward the capital in the eastern part of the country. And a sizable American force, those paratroopers you watched land last night, are now in the north.

The Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade began to set up defensive perimeters outside an abandoned Iraqi airfield in the Kurdish- controlled area of the north. At the opposite end of the country, in Basra, the British Army is encircling the city. Refugees are pouring out to escape the fighting.

More food and water distributed today. But even with better crowd control, the scenes were chaotic. But for a pure public relations value, it is hard to beat this picture: an American tank flattening a portrait of Saddam Hussein.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A quick overview of the day, as you see the city of Baghdad in the big screen over there. Clear skies, a little clouds on the horizon, still some smoke from the nighttime bombing. What was hit? And why was it hit?

We turn to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is with us tonight on the Jordanian side of the border with Iraq. Nic, good evening to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Some of the buildings we could see being hit through the night, a little difficult to say exactly and precisely where some of the locations were. But one building quite familiar to me, the International Communications Center, just across the bridge from Iraq's Ministry of Information on the banks of the Tigris River, right in the heart of Baghdad.

This building, incidentally, was targeted on the first night of the coalition bombing during the 1991 Gulf War. A cruise missile went in on the seventh floor of the building. But what we saw tonight were huge flames and a huge plume (ph) of smoke erupting from the base of that building.

It does have communications facilities there. Iraq and the Iraqi authorities have other communications facilities elsewhere in Baghdad. So difficult to know what the impact of hitting that particular building will be.

Also, I was able to recognize another area of Baghdad, a presidential compound on the Tigris River, an area that we, when we've been in Baghdad last week, had watched being bombed. There is a very large building in that compound. The largest building spreads over an area of perhaps several soccer fields. Very big.

It had been targeted last weekend; one corner of it in particular we've seen flames and smokes coming from it. But, again, on this night, a huge explosion erupting from that same building in the presidential compound. This, quite a large compound, again, in the center of Baghdad.

When that compound was targeted last weekend, we did notice just outside that there was some minor collateral damage to a row of shops there, Aaron. Glass and windows blown out at some restaurants and store front there -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, talk about why the information ministry would be a target. What is the value of that to the coalition?

ROBERTSON: Well, perhaps the value is more important -- perhaps we can better analyze it if we look at the value to the Information Ministry to Iraqi officials. It is where they keep the international media. It's where international journalists base their work, where their satellite transmission facilities are.

Behind that is a satellite, or was a satellite transmission facility for Iraq's satellite television services. About a block away are Iraq's television studios. Very close to the Ministry of Information, a television transmitter about 50 or 150 feet high, a large UHF transmitter on top of it.

Its value to Iraq is that perhaps -- well, that is the building where Iraq's Ministry of Information generally works from. And he is the one who every day is briefing reporters, along with some of Iraq's other ministers, on all the issues put forward by the coalition forces. He's the one that raised the questions about whether or not -- about the targeting of what he claimed was targeting of a market in Baghdad by coalition cruise missiles.

He is the one who has said that, no, these towns in the south of Iraq aren't falling. That building and the function of the officials that work there is to continue to tell Iraqi people that the Iraqi leadership is still in control of the country. They are directly in charge of Iraq's news services and obviously have a huge input into what's covered on Iraq's news services -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, let me follow that up. If it is also where the international media is based, where the international satellite feeds come from, are you suggesting that they want to cut off coverage in total of Baghdad, or the Iraqi point of view, to the world at large?

ROBERTSON: Well, so far, the Ministry of Information building itself doesn't appear to have been targeted. Certainly, buildings close to it. Iraq's own satellite channel's uplink, the television studios, possibly a transmitter close by, that international communications building just across the bridge over the Tigris River on the north side of the river. But so far, that particular building itself doesn't appear to have been targeted.

So it would be -- I think the analysis at this stage would have to be that the coalition appears to be attempting to close down communication services used by Iraqi officials rather than those international -- rather than closing down the international news broadcasts -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson is on the border, the Jordanian-Iraqi border, having, I'm sure you know by now, having been expelled from Iraq a few days ago.

We have spent a lot of time on this program following the travels into Iraq of the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Calvary. We saw them race in a week ago, almost a full week ago now. We saw that rainy night.

We are aware of the combat they have seen. And all of that has been described to us by CNN's Walt Rodgers, who's embedded with the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Calvary. And Walt joins us now. Walt, good to see you.

WALT RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Nice talking with you.

Extraordinary record compiled by the 3rd Squadron U.S. Army 7th Calvary, especially over the past 72 hours, when it had to fight its way almost continuously northward. What it achieved was nothing short of remarkable. It built a bridgehead, established a bridgehead within 60 miles of Baghdad. That's darn near within shooting distance.

It held that bridgehead for 48 hours by itself until reinforcement elements of the 3rd Infantry Division have come up. That means a heavy contingent of the 3rd Infantry Division is now in firm control of Iraqi territory, just 60 miles south of Baghdad. A bridgehead northeast on Najaf.

But it was a fight all the way. The first night before the 3rd Calvary -- or 7th Calvary got to the Euphrates River bridges, it was ambushed. I have with me now Lieutenant -- excuse me, Captain Clay Lyle, the commander of Apache Troop of the 7th Calvary. Tell us a little about that first night when you were literally ambushed, both sides of the road in the dark.

You were atop your turret. What happened when the incoming came in?

CAPT. CLAY LYLE, 3-7TH CAVALRY: You saw it. Immediately tracers started coming in. The fireball, the RPGs from both sides of the road, intense fire.

Just -- we started returning fire in both directions with the vehicles, working grids to call indirect fire, and then additionally CAS, close air support, and the A-10s came in. Every troop returned fire. We continued to push north and engage. It was a significant defense they had there on that main route.

RODGERS: You were atop your tank turret with a machine gun. You had night vision goggles on. What could you see? What were you shooting at?

LYLE: Initially, we returned fire just at the tracers. And then throughout, that's what my loader would fire at with his 240. But myself and my gunner would drop down and use the night sight, the thermals to engage the dismounts that we could see.

RODGERS: How many Iraqis did you take out with your machine guns?

LYLE: It's hard to tell. Probably 15 to 20 from our tank. And then the next day, continued to engage them. RODGERS: When we -- we were the vehicle immediately behind your tank. We were no more than 20, 30 yards behind your tank. We saw tracer bullets bouncing off all the vehicles in front of us. Your tank was hit by some of those tracers, wasn't it?

LYLE: A few tracers hit it, and at some point either that night or the next day's fighting, had a box on the back of my tank. RPG or just rounds blew the box off. So it's close.

RODGERS: I was talking to Sergeant Wheatly (ph), one of your other tank commanders. He said they shot a hole right through his rucksack. He was pretty unhappy about that.

LYLE: I think all my bags are still in good condition.

RODGERS: The next day, as we were running up through machine gun alley, as 7th Calvary crossed the Euphrates River, Captain, tell us about that. That was something. We were taking -- we were going through another ambush, machine guns both sides of the road, mortars coming in.

What was it like fighting your way -- we were under fire for at least an hour then because I was looking at my watch. What was it like then?

LYLE: Well, it's very close. That's probably the best thing I can say. The sandstorm was starting to set in. So although it was daylight, the Iraqis were 50, 75, 100, 150 meters off the side of the road.

So both, again, my gunner with his co-ax and the Bradleys with their guns, and my loader with his 240, which is just a free gun, I saw him shoot five by himself, just because they were that close. And they were -- they just kept firing RPGs and AK-47s and machine guns.

RODGERS: You brought your 120 millimeter, the big tank gun, to bear during those first two days. What were you shooting at with that?

LYLE: They've mounted heavy machine guns and some A-2 (ph) systems in the back of trucks. So they'll bring those trucks in. And when we have the means to engage them a little further out, we'll use the main gun.

RODGERS: I've watched you, Captain. You've been unflinching throughout this. You've gone without sleep five, seven days. We've been right behind you the whole time. I've never seen a trace of fear, but what gives you most concern in these ambushes that we roll through?

LYLE: The ambushes, just the guys are trained to the point where they stay down. We're staggering our orientation and our fires. The only -- the tense moments were on the bridgehead, when we were pretty far out there. The ambushes, we just returned fire, keep moving, start to work the indirect fires and the close air support. RODGERS: Let me explain to our viewers what that bridgehead was. The 7th Calvary had moved northeast of Najaf. There was a time when the 7th Calvary was out there because the 3rd Infantry elements had not caught up with us.

That night -- actually, it was two nights ago now -- there was radio traffic saying there was a large convoy coming in from Baghdad. 7th Calvary was very much alone that night. You were across the bridge in your tank, small force. What were your orders against all odds?

LYLE: Well, for all those 48 hours, even if one troop had a break in contact, another troop was heavily engaged. So they were definitely trying to push us off of the Euphrates bridges and the bridges over the other canals that we had seized. Securing that bridgehead, we were -- there was a few tense moments when verifying some of the armor companies, mech companies were coming from the brigades to reinforce us. But we knew we had CAS, and we knew we had artillery to support us.

RODGERS: CAS is close air support. B-52s were called in that night, weren't they?

LYLE: Throughout, we had -- B-52s were on call when the largest column was in -- was spotted. But we had F-15s, F-16s, A-10s. We had a lot of different weapons at our disposal.

And collected there with me we had a Howitzer battery (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So I had several avenues of approach. I had a cover the vicinity of my bridges. So I spread my forces out best I could, and we were prepared for whatever might come.

RODGERS: That convoy was stopped, wasn't it?

LYLE: Roger. We could see and hear the B-52s destroying or either turning back elements of those forces.

RODGERS: Now, the 7th Calvary has pulled back to a rear echelon now, 72 hours of continuous fighting. What has to be done to these tanks at this point? You realign the bores and the gun barrels and clean the air filters. What has to be done to refit because you know the order is coming forward to go north again?

LYLE: Well you saw the discipline and the professionalism of the soldiers yesterday, as tired as they were. We parked, and all yesterday until sun went down the maintenance was their focus.

They worked on the suspensions, the tracks. We've driven a long, long way. You know that. So the suspensions, the tracks, the automation, getting the fluids back in.

All the gun systems are holding up very well. All the sites are crystal clear still. Re-upload ammo and food and water and be prepared to continue to push up north.

RODGERS: Were you surprised by the degree of Iraqi resistance during that 72 hours of continuous fighting? That shouldn't be underestimated what your unit was up against, should it?

LYLE: No. The dismounted personnel and the small arms and the RPGs, they just -- they keep coming.

RODGERS: They were kamikazes weren't they?

LYLE: In a lot of cases, other troops, and some reports from my guys. There are a lot of cases they would drive a truck or a bus or a motorcycle with explosives on it just right at the tanks of the Bradley, try to hit it, or just get close enough to jump out the last minute and start shooting. But I don't think -- they have no regard for themselves or us or the noncombatant Iraqi civilians in the area that this fighting is going on in.

RODGERS: Were they using human shields that you had seen throughout? I remember one incident where an Iraqi that first night took up a position behind a civilian building, and two children were killed in the firefight. You've seen them using civilians, have you not?

LYLE: I haven't to a great extent. In one of the towns we went through the first night, there were civilians out, and then they were also firing at us, the Iraqi soldiers. Once we really got up on machine gun alley and the bridgehead, it was pretty much just fighting soldier versus soldier. But they have been doing that. They did it in (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and I'm sure they continue to do it elsewhere.

RODGERS: When we get the orders to move forward, every time I've seen you call your officers and your sergeants around you, your NCOs, and say this is what lies ahead, what lies ahead as we push closer to Baghdad? What are you looking at?

LYLE: Right now, we'll determine exactly our next mission. Probably a lot of strategic value in what we did seizing those bridges, pushing that far north, drawing out the Medina Division so the Air Force could begin to destroy it.

I don't know where our next mission will take us. We'll be ready. I'm sure the dismounted and the RPG and small arms will continue, but we'll begin to see BMPs and tanks from the Republican Guard units.

RODGERS: Every one of your men seems considerably concerned about chemical-biological weapons. That really is the great concern if Saddam uses those as a last-ditch defense.

LYLE: It's always a concern. But we have trained that before we came here. It's a normal part of training. How to use the suits, masks, how to operate in that environment and continue to fight in that environment.

We trained on it constantly once we got here in country. And we've been in our protective suits since about 48 hours before we began this.

RODGERS: Captain Clay Lyle, Commander of Apache Troop, U.S. Army 7th Calvary, thank you very much.

By the way, he spoke of the protective suits. That's why you see me wearing this uniform. This is one of the Army's chemical- biological weapons protective suits. He's been fighting -- Captain Lyle's been fighting 72 hours continuously northward with the 7th Calvary.

He took a bridgehead 60 miles south of Baghdad. The 7th Cav's in the rear now resting, refitting, waiting for marching orders to go north again, pushing yet closer to Baghdad. Back to you, Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, is Captain Lyle still there? Is he still where you can get him?

RODGERS: Yes, he is.

BROWN: Would you just ask him if combat -- I'm sorry. Would you just ask him if combat was as he expected combat would be.

RODGERS: Our anchor, Aaron Brown, asked me to ask you, if you don't mind. Was combat what you expected it would be? Was this your first time under fire? And what was it like out there? Was it what you expected it would be?

LYLE: It's hard to tell now. We've been getting shot at for so many days, it's hard to remember what I thought it would be. It's not anything anyone wants to do ever do.

It's just constant, you know -- it's the luck of the draw which round are they not going to miss with, because everyone has been intense small arms, the RPGs flying. I told my guys, it seems you're more likely to get hit if you're the one they're not aiming at because the RPGs are just randomly flying.

If they can't see because it's night or because it's a sandstorm, they just fire at the sounds of the tracks as you drive by. So we just stay down in the turret and fight from there and use our sights and our weapons superiority and destroy them and keep moving.

RODGERS: You had more than a few soldiers praying through that.

LYLE: Oh, yes. We saw -- before we left the first night, I gathered them all in, and we all sat one together and had a little talk. So just a lot of people thinking, mainly watching out for each other's buddy and each other's wing man. In the troop, vehicle to vehicle, and then throughout the squadron, when one troop's in contact, another one wants to go down there and help them.

RODGERS: Captain Clay Lyle, thank you very much. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Walter, thank you very much. Walter Rodgers.

Clay Lyle is, as I recall, 30 years old. His wife Stephanie (ph) lives at Fort Stewart in Georgia. They have a young child. We have followed him and them now for a week. And as he said, it's not something anyone wants to go through.

Bob Franken is at a forward air base in Iraq. He joins us now on the phone, I believe. There you are, Bob. Good evening to you. And what can you tell us from your location?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Actually, what we're trying to do and have been trying to do now for -- this will be the third day, is to move to that forward air base. Aaron, it was a base that was captured from the Iraqis. It is now considered a vital part of the war effort.

If they can get it up and running, which is to say if they can get it supplied, the base is one that would be 150 miles closer to most of the hostilities. It would be a place that could be a launching pad for the A-10 missions. It would save 300 miles of the commander on any given mission.

Of course could make things much, much faster. And is also a place that would make combat search and rescue more effective. And also is going to be a launching pad for humanitarian efforts. And that's interesting.

We are right now at a place called Camp Bouka (ph), which is about, I would say, 60 miles south of that base. Trying to push forward. Bouka (ph) is where they're going to take the prisoners of war. They're trying to put it up.

What has stopped the push toward the air base and what might affect this establishment of this camp is the fact that there's still quite a bit of heavy fighting in the area, too much to get these different efforts through. The prisoner of war camp, in compliance with the Geneva Convention, is supposed to be set up out of the area of hostilities. But they're saying now that they may have to relocate. They may have to go further south so they can live up to the Geneva Convention.

As we're traveling along the roads, Aaron, we encounter millions of civilians, many of them children. They want water, they want food. It's not something that the group that we're with is able to provide for them, but it also illustrates the importance of this air base because it's going to be one of the major launching pads for humanitarian effort, which right now is very formative.

But first, before that air base can be reestablished as a base, it has to excavated, it has to be supplied, there has to be fuel there. None of which has been able to reach the base because of the hostilities of this region -- Aaron.

BROWN: So it's not the weather that's been the problem, it's been the war?

FRANKEN: It's been the war. That's right. And of course the irony is, is that if they get to this air base, they can prosecute the war much are effectively they say.

BROWN: Bob, thank you. Bob Franken, making his way toward an air base in Iraq. We're running a little bit behind on time. We'll take a break.

When we come back, we'll be joined by General Wes Clark, who joins us from Los Angeles tonight. We'll go to the Pentagon. It's a quiet morning so far in Baghdad, but it was anything but a quiet night. Our coverage continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Hard not to just reflect on that stunning description by Clay Lyle of what it seemed like to him and his young troops as they made their way.

A couple of headlines from the Pentagon tonight. One being that 100,000 new troops are shipping out to the Gulf. The other that a very influential civilian adviser at the Pentagon is stepping aside. CNN's Jamie McIntyre has the duty, as our senior Pentagon correspondent, working both stories and probably three others tonight. Jamie, good evening to you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening, Aaron. Let's start with the 100,000 troops and put that in perspective for you. The Pentagon says that those 100,000 troops that we're talking about, which includes about 20,000 from the 4th Infantry Division that will be going to Kuwait and into Iraq sometime next month, are all troops that have been in the pipeline.

This Pentagon war plan as has been based on the idea of having a continuous movement of troops into the country as the troops move up. So when the troops get there, if the war is still going on, they'll be taking part in it. But many of them, the thought is, will be follow- on courses after the war is won.

As for the war now, what's happened most recently is that the weather has cleared. And that has provided a lot more opportunities for bombing, particularly dug-in Republican Guard divisions. Today, in downtown Baghdad, though, we saw a huge plume of smoke that rose from a target that was hit, a communications center, prompting speculation that perhaps that 21,000-pound mother of all bombs had been dropped.

But we learned tonight that, in fact, what was dropped was a 4,500-pound bomb. A GBU-37 (ph) satellite-guided bunker buster bomb dropped from a B-2 Stealth bomber. This is the first time they've used this big bunker buster bomb on a target in Baghdad in this campaign. And apparently two of them were dropped from the B-2. A B- 2, which normally carries 16 bombs, can carry eight of these bunker busters, and apparently two were dropped there.

Today on Capitol Hill, General Myers, the joint chiefs chairman, indicated that the U.S. is about to move in on some of those Republican Guard positions and give them a little taste of some of the firepower that the U.S. has been building up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: When they move, we try to hit them. We are bringing a lot of force against them, to include our Apaches and our fixed wing air. Having some effect, we think, in degrading their combat capability. And at some point, at a time of our choosing, we will engage them, and we'll see what kind of fight they have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: A time of our choosing is what Richard Myers said. And that time may be very close, according to Pentagon sources, because it looks like some of those Apache attack helicopters that are part of the 101st Airborne Division are on the move at this hour.

They may be moving to forward bases. They may be moving into attack, but we're not quite sure. But we do know that these are the weapons of choice with their thermal sights and hellfire missiles to go after some of those dug-in positions. They're excellent tank- killing minutes, according to the Pentagon. So we're looking for the pace to pick up fairly soon.

And about the last item you mentioned, Richard Perle, who is an unpaid senior adviser at the Pentagon, the chairman of the Defense Advisory Board, which is, as I said, a volunteer position, but very influential at the Pentagon, has stepped down after some people have questioned whether he had a conflict of interest with the arrangement he had with Global Crossing, the telecommunications company.

That company in bankruptcy is trying to get a sale approved to some investors with possibly links to China. The Pentagon is opposed to that. The charge was that Richard Perle might have been trying to use his influence to get the Pentagon to drop its objections.

He says it's absolutely not the case. But nevertheless, he said he didn't want Secretary Rumsfeld to have to deal with this and a war. He stepped down. Secretary Rumsfeld issued a statement saying that he's known Richard Perle a long time and considers him a man of great integrity -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, very briefly, the Iraqis say they shot down an Apache today. Does the Pentagon have anything to say on that?

MCINTYRE: They say that that Apache footage that was shown on Iraqi television was from some previous engagement when some Apaches got shot up. Nothing new today.

BROWN: OK. Jamie, thank you. Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

Ryan Chilcote with the 101st is waiting for us to get to him. We want to get you caught up on the day's major events.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues.

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: Ryan Chilcote's embedded with the 101st Airborne. We've also watched this group, the 3rd Brigade, as they made their way in. It's been a while since we have talked to Ryan.

Ryan, what can you tell us about where you are and what your group has been up to?

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

I'm at a forward operating base in central Iraq and happy to tell you that the sand and dust that had everyone hunkering down here for so long has finally settled. It's finally clear here. Jamie was talking about the weather improving. That is, indeed, good news, not before, however, a group of about six Iraqi soldiers literally lost their way and drove up on a position just outside the base here of U.S. soldiers from the 101st.

Those soldiers surrounded the SUV that the Iraqis were in and the Iraqis surrendered to them. They were taken into U.S. custody. I had the opportunity to both speak with the commanders who took them and them. They said that they believe these men are couriers for a group called Saddam Fedayeen, a group that the U.S. military is calling a paramilitary group that is very loyal to the Iraqi leader, to President Saddam Hussein.

They believe that the men are couriers because they found a large amount of money, particularly U.S. dollars, and some instructions inside the car in the cargo. They think that they might have been moving these messages and money to some Ba'ath Party leaders in nearby towns.

Now, I spoke with one of the soldiers who was guarding the Iraqis and I asked him -- because there's a lot of attention right now to the treatment of prisoners, I asked him how he would compare how they're treating these Iraqis with how the American POWs inside Iraq are being treated right now.

Here's what he had to say, Aaron. Pretty interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that, regardless of what they do, we're not them. And just because somebody else does that, that you know the golden rule. Do unto others as you had done unto them.

And I think it also makes our resolve to fight stronger, because we don't want to get captured. But it makes their resolve to fight less, because they know, if they get captured, they're going to get treated humanely. They're going to get fed. They're going to get blankets. They're going to get shelter and medical treatment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHILCOTE: And that strategy was really borne out in their actions. When the Iraqis were brought there, they got some medical attention. One of the men was complaining about an asthma problem. The doctor gave him some asthma medicine. They brought the Iraqis some blankets. They also were building a tent, which I understand they subsequently did do, to shelter them from the wind. It's all part of the strategy, really, like he said, to make things more comfortable for the Iraqis, the idea being that, the better the conditions are and the more that other Iraqis on the battlefield know about those conditions, the more likely they are to surrender to U.S. forces -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ryan, has the 101st 3rd Brigade, your group, have they been exposed to -- we just heard from Walt Rodgers a lot of enemy fire. What has it been like in that regard for your group?

CHILCOTE: No. They've been pretty -- unfortunately, they were pretty hunkered down because of that sandstorm. The 101st is primarily an air assault division, meaning they use helicopters to move their troops to the battlefield.

They also do deep attacks with their Apache helicopters. And that's something that, because of that sandstorm, they weren't able to do either. So, for the last week, basically, since they've been inside Iraq, they've been focusing on setting up this very large and very substantial forward operating base here in central Iraq. They have not really gotten out onto the battlefield yet.

BROWN: Ryan, thank you. Hopefully, we'll see you again before our night is done.

We've got a ways to go, though been a lot of places in the first 36 minutes. We need to catch up on a break here, a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk with Wesley Clark, General Wesley Clark. Also, Ralph Peters will talk a little bit about the troops in the area, what they need, what they do not have, a lot of questions being raised.

A break first. Our coverage continues in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're joined now by retired General Wesley Clark, who has been at our side for most of the last week. He's in Los Angeles tonight. And we're glad to have him with us. Also with us: retired Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who joins us as well.

General Clark, before we move forward, just one question on where we've been. I assume you were able to hear Captain Lyle's description of that, his last couple of days. I was just curious what was running through your mind. He sounds like a young man that grew up and matured pretty quickly out there.

RET. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think the thing that struck me most on it, Aaron, was that he has described the experience that so many of our soldiers lived through in Vietnam. In our armored cavalry unit in the 11th Cav, in the 1st Squadron 4th Cav, in the 3rd Squadron 4th Cav, I've heard those descriptions again and again and again.

But the difference here is that, our equipment is so much better and we've got such an overmatch over the Iraqis, that we handled this kind of an ambush. They didn't do it nearly as well. They didn't have the comparability with us that the north Vietnamese or the Viet Cong did in the late 1960s in Vietnam. But these guys are veterans now. They've been through it. And as you heard him say, the glory and the excitement's worn off. This is just tough work that's got to be done. And we need to do everything we can to give our troops every possible advantage.

BROWN: Well, that seems to be the question on the table.

So, Mr. Peters, let's look at that question. Lots of questions are being thrown around and a lot of those questions are being parried by saying, hey, look, we're just a week into this. Has there been a strategic miscalculation here?

RET. LT. COL. RALPH PETERS, U.S. ARMY: Well, Aaron, the first thing we all have to face -- and you've heard it many times -- is that this is an astonishingly successful campaign.

Those troops moved farther, faster than any force in history. And to put things into a brutally frank perspective, we have done this remarkable campaign with fewer casualties, by far, a fraction of the casualties suffered on American highways in the same timeframe.

Now, that said, what you've seen was the valor of our service men and women from all the services rescuing a badly flawed plan. Now, the idea of rushing to Baghdad, that daring, audacious, bold sweep, that's fine. But the military commanders and planners were not given the forces for which they asked.

General Franks is a good soldier. He would certainly never criticize the secretary of defense in wartime. People in uniform can't. So those of us who are retired sort of take that upon ourselves. But the secretary of defense himself kept the level of troops, did not give the planners at least one more armored division and armored cav regiment that they wanted and really needed for the buffer of safety and the full force of heavy metal going at the Iraqis in this campaign.

And, by the way, the only reason we have the forces in the Gulf that we have today is because General Franks and other military officers fought, argued, over months with Secretary Rumsfeld to get what we've got now. And, believe me, I want to stress, I am not predicting disaster, by no means. We're doing great. We're going to continue doing great.

But you had that clip of those young -- that young captain from the 3rd of the 7th Cav. Those are tired troops. They need real rest. They need replacements on line. And they're going to carry the ball for this country. They won't let us down, but they need more than they were given.

BROWN: General Clark, I think it was three nights ago I said, are there enough soldiers there? And you said, no. And I don't want to play -- certainly, I'm the last person to play armchair anything here. But you've got a southern flank that's more complicated than people imagine, and it does seem now that they can't do both, take Baghdad, or rush to Baghdad, and solve the problem in the south. Is that fair?

CLARK: It's fair. And one more thing, Aaron. They don't need to. We need to let the Air Force work over the Republican Guards, if they can. There is no indication now they can't, although we certainly learned a few lessons in Kosovo about tank-plinking.

And my Air Force colleagues, I think, took that to heart. I know Air Force General John Jumper went back. He worked these issues. And now is the chance to put it to the test. We should allow as much time as is necessary, as long as we're getting returns every day going from going after the Republican Guards, and finding them one by one, wherever they are out there in the Medina Division and the Hammurabi Division and all the rest of them around Baghdad.

Time is on our side in this as long as we maintain our forward momentum. So let's take the time we need and let's do the job right and give our troops on the ground every advantage.

BROWN: Mr. Peters, let me ask one more skeptical question, if I may. Do you think there was a miscalculation in terms of how the Iraqi soldiers individually would behave? Because there was an awful lot of talk about, the Iraqis will surrender, they'll fold up, and all of that. We are obviously very early on, but do you think there was a miscalculation there?

PETERS: I think there was a miscalculation on the part of overly optimistic civilians in the Pentagon, who were convinced that airpower alone could essentially win this war.

I suspect that the Army planners and General Franks looked at this and realized there could be a fight. And, again, Aaron, to put things in perspective, what we are seeing are desperate nuisance attacks. Now, that's not to say there won't be some tough combat to come or to say to that the 7th Cav didn't have a tough 72 hours. But what Saddam is doing is throwing away his fanatical loyalists, the Fedayeen and other security-service-type personnel, in desperate wave infantry attacks.

And he needs them to hold Baghdad and to hold guns to the heads of the Republican Guards and special Republican Guards. So he's bleeding his own regime dry. And, in the long run, he's making it easier on us. And I have to second what General Clark said. In the 24/7 world, we all get impatient and we lose sight of the fact that, yes, time is on our side. We have all the time in the world, if that's what it takes. Saddam's days are numbered.

BROWN: General, do you agree that this is -- this rear-guard business that's been going on all week is a desperation ploy or a very clever strategy on the part of the Iraqis?

CLARK: Well, I'm not saying that they're not desperate, in the sense of determined to hold onto their country. But it is an effective strategy. It was obviously our intent and our desire to fight in the open. We've done it before. We've honed our techniques. We're good at it. And now they've denied us that opportunity. They've gone into the cities, so good strategy. I think he's got a lot of Fedayeen. And Ralph says that he's throwing them away. He's throwing some away.

But I'm always skeptical of body counts. I've seen a lot of it in my time in the military. You never know what to believe. When you fire a machine gun, people fall down. They fall down before they're hit. They fall down when they're wounded and crawl away. And it's really hard to determine, as one of the troopers said there in the cav -- or maybe it was Captain Lyle -- that it's hard to determine exactly what you've done, how much damage you've done out there.

And so, this is an enemy we have to regard with respect. We've got to take our time, think it through, get the word down to the individual troops, so they know what they're doing. And then we've got to take the battle to him on our terms.

BROWN: Colonel Peters, I'll give you a quick last word, if you want, 20, 30 seconds or so.

PETERS: OK.

One thing we've all missed. Thank you, Turkey. The Turkish Parliament did us a great favor by refusing to let the 4th I.D. go through Turkey, an accident, because if they had let us go through Turkey, the 4th I.D. would be spinning their wheels up north, adding something to the campaign. But thanks to that, by sheer serendipity, we've got a reserve, an armored reserve coming in within the next couple of weeks in the south, where we need them, amazing how paradoxes happen.

BROWN: Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, it's good to finally talk to you. We've had some false starts over the months. Thank you.

PETERS: Been busy.

BROWN: And, General, your day's not done yet. Thank you, too.

We take a break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Iraqi capital of Baghdad on a Friday morning there.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is headed home tonight after a brief summit with President Bush. Some are calling it a war summit. But unlike the summit at Yalta or other places, the parties this time around the table pretty much agree on how to take the war. There are some differences, but, mostly, those differences have to do with what happens after the war.

CNN's Chris Burns covered the summit, or the meeting, or the dinner, however you want to frame it. And he joins us tonight.

Chris, good evening.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron.

Turn the clock back about 10 days ago, when they last met face to face. That was in the Azores, when there was a bit of doubt as to the resolve of the British government and the Spanish governments in supporting the United States, a lot of opposition back at home.

This was very important, this time again, to show that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were shoulder to shoulder still, despite some of these reports about setbacks on the battlefield and a lot of criticism that perhaps it's not going as well as it should, the two getting together and trying to dispel those setbacks, show their resolve, President Bush talking about steady progress on the battlefield, that they're advancing day by day, that the terror grip -- in his words, the terror grip of Saddam Hussein's regime is being loosened gradually.

Tony Blair talking -- said -- putting a positive spin also on what's going on in the battlefield, saying that, in less than a week, that the forces are now about 50 miles away from Baghdad, that the oil fields in the south are secure. But neither one could be pinned down on when they think this war will end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Let me restate our complete and total resolve. Saddam Hussein and his hateful regime will be removed from power. Iraq will be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction. And the Iraqi people will be free. That is our commitment; that is our determination; and we will see it done.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory. And the Iraqi people have got know that, see. They got to know that they will be liberated and Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long it takes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: Now, the two leaders also talking about what happens during the war in aiding the Iraqis. The two have been pushing for this oil-for-food program to be resumed by the United Nations. That's where the oil from Iraq would be sold to buy food and medicine for the Iraqis, that being interrupted by the war. They would like to start that again.

Dispute over that at the U.N., over whether that might legitimatize the war effort -- it does appear that they will be voting in the U.N. on that on Friday. The other issue is after Saddam and how to build a new government. There have been reports that perhaps the president and the prime minister do not exactly see eye to eye on that. However, there are reassurances, at least by administration officials, that they do agree that there should be a quick transition from a military kind of authority to some kind of indigenous government, a transitional government. The exact details of that, neither would like to go in to. A senior administration officials say it all depends on how it looks on the ground at the end of this conflict -- Aaron.

BROWN: Chris, thank you -- Chris Burns reporting on the White House.

Across the street from there, it is somewhat amazing that, a week and a day into the war, people are talking about -- or having to say that they'll continue the fight. We're an impatient society in many respects.

Chris mentioned the United Nations and the oil-for-food business. Mr. Blair went to the United Nations as well.

Richard Roth joins us from the U.N. tonight. We haven't seen Richard in a bit.

Busy day for you.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron.

Here at the United Nations, a face-off between Iraq and the United States. They've been dueling in the field in southern Iraq, but around the horseshoe Security Council table, harsh talk from Iraq's ambassador, forcing the U.S. delegate to walk out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: The warning I would like to make to the members of the august council is that the United States and the U.K. were hoodwinked when they were told that the Iraqi people will receive them with flowers and hugs and ululations, and the children and the mothers will come rejoice at the coming of the U.S. forces.

What happened is that the Iraqi army, up until now, has not confronted the United States forces. The Iraqi people, the women, the students, the peasants are now facing the American and U.K. forces in Iraq today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Iraq's ambassador charging British and U.S. forces were trying to exterminate the people of Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Negroponte hotly disputing the charges about legality of the war. And he explained to journalists outside why he walked out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN NEGROPONTE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I'd heard enough after a certain amount of time. And I didn't hear anything new in what he had to say and, of course, don't accept any of the kinds of allegations and preposterous propositions that he put forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The Security Council met behind closed doors, as Chris Burns mentioned, on the oil-for-food program. That pleased Tony Blair, who visited late in the day, and huddled with Secretary-general Annan, the two men notified that the German ambassador predicting a vote possibly on Friday, despite a week of disagreements.

Those divisions, Aaron, that we've seen in the Security Council before the war are still there. And no matter what the Iraqi-related issue that will come up, for days and weeks and months ahead, it's still going to be tinged by the bitterness of the conflict in the chamber prior to the conflict in the battlefield -- Aaron.

BROWN: Richard -- thank you, Richard Roth, in New York tonight.

General Clark, let's bring you back here to finish a point that was on the table a few minutes ago. Ralph Peters made the argument that it was somewhat, in his view, serendipitous that Turkey was not allowing American forces, coalition forces, to come in through the north. And we've talked about this. I'm not sure that you agree with that.

CLARK: Well, that's right.

I'm not sure -- I don't know if Ralph can still hear me or not. But I think it is serendipitous that they didn't allow it, but not for the reason Ralph said. It's serendipitous because the agreement that we negotiated with Turkey would have permitted Turkish forces inside northern Iraq and raised all kinds of tensions with the Kurds and would have caused more headaches than it would have resolved, politically.

But we would have had a strong armored force, a division and plus, maybe as many as two divisions, coming from the north down through Tikrit into Baghdad. It would have been a real squeeze play on Saddam. And the ships that would have off-loaded the 4th Infantry Division would have been moved smoothly around to pick up the next force and deliver it in the south. So we would have still had a reserve coming in.

What happened, I think, as it's described to me, is, the ships that were there with the 4th Infantry Division continued to just stay and drive in circles in the Med. And so we didn't use the month that they were there to move other forces in their place into the south, therefore, apparently, disrupting the deployment flow. Now, that's -- I don't have that on fact, and it may not be correct. It's just the way it's been described to me.

So, if that's the case, the Turks didn't do us a military favor, but they may have done us a political favor.

BROWN: General, thank you. We're back with you throughout the night, as we have been every night, retired General Wesley Clark, the former supreme NATO commander.

As you can see, there is thick smoke -- or as you could see, at least, there was thick smoke still moving across the skyline of Baghdad, after a busy night of 10 or more explosions.

Our coverage of the war in Iraq continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our regular NEWSNIGHT viewers know that we try, on the program, to make a home for the work of still photographers. Video tells one kind of story, but still photography, we have found, can tell quite another.

And tonight is the story of the Army's 5th Corps Field Artillery as seen through the lens of "Boston Globe" photographer David Kamerman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KAMERMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER, "BOSTON GLOBE": My name is David Kamerman. I'm a staff photographer for "The Boston Globe."

And I am in Iraq. And I am embedded with the U.S. Army's 5th Corps Field Artillery. Now, for the past three weeks, I've been photographing daily life of the soldiers out in the field. Their role is to support the other infantry divisions, like 3rd Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne. They shoot rockets from a long ways away at specific targets in support of these infantry divisions.

I think it was the unveiling of the colors. And what that is, that flag is the battalion flag. And those streamers in the top, those are each of the battles that they've fought. And the gentleman holding that is the colonel, in charge of about 500 men. And he's basically telling them that: You are a part of history, and what you do counts, and when you get done with this, that your ribbon will be placed alongside of all these other ribbons, which go back to like the First World War.

And that's actually the first night of the war. And those are missiles being fired by our battery. And we're shooting right up in the sky, lighting up the night. And then that's Captain Asmos (ph), Captain Carl (ph) Asmos. And I have given him my Arabic book, Arabic translating book. And he's actually trying to speak with that, just in very simple phrases, just: Who are you? What is your name?

And it was very interesting. They just wanted to take our stuff. They wanted like food and cigarettes.

For four days, they ate, they slept in their vehicles. And they had maybe an hour or two break at a time. And when we got here, we had a two-day sandstorm. There is just nothing you can do about it, absolutely nothing. The more you try to resist it and fight it, you just lose. So we were all in one of the tents. And somebody had a feather duster. And we just thought that was the funniest thing, because a feather duster in a sandstorm is just ridiculous. And he had actually dusted off his M-16 kind of jokingly. And this just made the best of the moment.

They want to go home. They want to get the job done, do their jobs, as best they can, and go home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Want to go to Jason Bellini. Jason is embedded with the 15th Marine Expeditionary unit. He's had a couple of extraordinary days -- Jason.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, we're just a few minutes away now from hopping on a helicopter and moving about 140 Miles north. It's a change in our original mission. A lot has changed in the last few days. We're going to go up there to support some other Marines, where we're told they need the support right now.

And one of the disadvantages of being an embedded reporter is that we're restricted on where we can go and what we can do. We're attached to our unit, and we have to stay with them. We're not allowed to go AWOL. If you go AWOL, that's it, you're out.

And one of the difficulties that causes is, we're not able to go out in the communities and talk to every day Iraqis, as we would normally want to.

The other day I had the chance, however, to talk an Iraqi doctor who happened to speak English. He was just, by chance, that I met him, and so it was an opportunity for me to ask some of the questions that were on my mind about what Iraqis are thinking about the Marines and the Americans and British who are here, who have invaded their cities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI (voice-over): Injured Iraqis hit by coalition shrapnel lay gravely wounded inside the U.N. compound in Umm Qasr, now under the control of U.S. Marines.

DR. WAHEL JASIM, UMM QASR HOSPITAL: Got about two pints of blood within two days, within two day. Within two days inside our hospital and we have no facilities to save him.

BELLINI: Dr. Wahel Jasim brought his patients by ambulance to the Marines at the U.N. because he didn't know what else to do, could offer them no further help from his hospital.

JASIM: They promised me. They promised me. And for -- This is the fifth hour of waiting for their promise.

BELLINI: The promise of help is not one he's confident the forces invading his country will keep.

JASIM: The Americans say that they will bring food, medicines and supply and freedom. But we find the missiles, we find people who are wounded.

BELLINI: Innocent Iraqis wounded, he says, in crossfire between coalition forces and the Iraqis attacking them from within civilian populated areas.

The Marines we're with say their is a humanitarian mission, but they're forced to fight to make the area secure for relief.

Do you believe them? In your heart, do you think that they're here to help you?

JASIM: In my heart, I don't believe anything now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they're going to come in...

BELLINI: Just moments after our conversation a Marine medic arrives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to grab the wounded and take them to a hospital.

JASIM: Now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Kuwait.

JASIM: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

BELLINI: What do you think?

JASIM: Thank you.

BELLINI: Do you feel better?

JASIM: What?

BELLINI: Do you feel better?

JASIM: I feel better because they will seek attention. Everyone give me any help, I'm so gratefully thankful from him.

BELLINI: Not 30 minutes later another casualty arrived, this one brought by the British royal Marines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to stay back. Do you know what? We don't want this to be seen, all right? You need to stay back.

BELLINI: You don't have a choice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is.

BELLINI: After explaining I had permission from the commander to be here, I was allowed to resume taking pictures.

This man, I'm told, will likely die, his intestines ripped from his abdomen by shrapnel. American and British medics will try to save him, they say, as if they were one of their own.

I asked the Dr. Jasim's patient if there's anything he'd want to say to people watching this. JASIM: He said that I can't. He said to American people only something, one word that we are people seeking for peace, seeking for life, justice.

BELLINI: The coalition says that is what they're seeking: life, peace for the Iraqi people. But first they need the Iraqis' trust.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(AUDIO GAP)

BROWN: Sounds like we probably lost Jason there. That he may -- he and his unit are pulling away. Jason mentioned that there are limitations in the embedding process and that is so. He mentioned one of them. You can't necessarily go -- well, you cannot leave your unit. That's the deal.

We would also say that there are lots of other reporters in country from all over the world, including the United States, organizations who are not embedded, who are free to go anywhere. And we'll be hearing their reporting, too.

General Clark, in your spare time -- and I'm not exactly sure when that is, to be honest, you've written a piece for "The Times" of London looking at some of the issues that the president and Mr. Blair face.

And the one that jumped out at me is, if I read this right, is the sort of key moment when we'll understand how bad the battle of Baghdad's going to be. And it has to do with how effective air support or air attack is?

CLARK: That's exactly right. Because if the air power is effectively applied against the Republican Guards, and that's a function both of the skill of our airmen and the incompetence of the Republican Guards, then we'll have a relatively easier and sooner opportunity to penetrate into Baghdad.

But if the air power can't come to grips with the Republican Guard, because they're dug in or camouflaged or using a lot of decoys, they're hidden in the basement of houses, they're dug into hospitals and schools, they're moving around with tanks camouflaged as buses and so forth, then it's going to be much more difficult to advance on the ground.

And we'll either have to get the read out from the battle damage assessment that the Air Force pilots return to us, or we'll have to probe with units like the 3-7th Cav or 315 Infantry, bumping back up into the enemy and seeing what the level of resistance is and sort of, to use British Field Marshal Montgomery's words, gnawing away at the enemy defense.

BROWN: And -- I'm sorry.

CLARK: And that's what we're facing.

BROWN: Has that started already, that sort of air attack of the Republican Guard?

CLARK: I think it has, but it's hard to know, because the reporting that's coming out of the theater is not clear. You know, what we've got is the cameras in Baghdad, which we're doing a very good job, I think, on the network, of following.

But what we don't have is anything that's out there in that 50- mile zone between the center of Baghdad and where the bridge over the Euphrates at Najaf was. And there must be strikes going into that area, but we don't know what they are, we don't know how accurate they are. And frankly, even our command may not know for sure.

BROWN: Are there signs that we should look for that will tell us that this stage is fully on? Or is it just one of those things that's happening beyond the camera range and that the embedded reporters who might be in and around the area aren't allowed to report because that would fall into the area of operational detail?

CLARK: Well, I think the embedded reporters will have some idea of what's happening. And I think that in order for this to work, actually, we will have to get the units back up in contact with the enemy.

One of the basic rules of warfare is gain and maintain contact. You never want to break contact. I know when 3-7th Cav was pulled back, I'm sure another unit took its place up there. We don't know what that unit's doing, but hopefully it is pushing and probing and maintaining pressure on the enemy. And by maintaining that pressure on by the ground force, we'll get some sense of whether the air power is effective.

And of course, the air power, you get pictures out of the cockpit. The only problem with the air BDA (ph), as I discovered in Kosovo, it's really hard, even with the best of visual assistance, to be able to see from 15,000 or 20,000 feet precisely what you've hit. It may look like a hot spot, it may look like a tank, but it may not be.

BROWN: General, thank you.

General Clark will be with us the whole way on this question of what they hit and what they don't. It's hard from 15,000 feet or whatever to see it, but the satellites that are floating over the area are extraordinary in their ability to pick up detail.

When we come back, Miles O'Brien will give us a close look at how this damage assessment is being done from the sky.

Our coverage on CNN continues, but a short break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: General Clark mentioned just before the break that of the bomb damage assessment, BDA, is done by the Air Force pilots flying over the area. Some of it's done by satellite. Miles O'Brien, over on the other side of the room, can show us, in fact, how this is done. And Miles, should you need General Clark's assistance, it's available to you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we might just do that. These days some of the BDA can be done by CNN. This is unprecedented. Never in the history of modern warfare have we had access to commercially available imagery, which gives us a real-time insight into what's happening, in this case in Baghdad, but in a situation where bombs have been dropped.

First of all, let's tell you how these pictures were gathered. Satellite called quick bird flying about 100 miles above the surface of the planet, early this morning, 2:45 a.m. eastern time, 10:45 a.m. Baghdad, flew over Baghdad and took this image. Fortunately it wasn't a cloudy day there. And as a result we got some very interesting images to show you.

Now, as we take a look at some of the satellite imagery, first of all, I'll give you a big wide shot here of Baghdad. You can see the Tigris River running through the middle there.

And as I toggle, you can see an image, which we've had, I think it was captured about a year ago. And as I move it in, you can see the image which was just captured by that quick bird satellite, operated by our friends at DigitalGlobe.com.

And as you can see, if you look over there in the corner, the top right and bottom right corners, you see that darkened area. Those are those oil fires that we've been telling you about. Let's move in on it quickly and give us a sense of what we're talking about.

Now I'm told by Major General Don Shepperd, who spent a lot of time in fighters, that this is not a truly significant thing for a fighter pilot these days, with all the equipment they have on there. It's not going to stop the weaponry of the U.S. Air Force. It's probably more of an annoyance to the people of Baghdad than anything else.

But nevertheless, you see how dramatic those fires are as they burn over the city of Baghdad.

Now let's look at some of the damage. Some of the damage is actually hard to pick out when you're talking about precision bombing. As we look down here, and maybe this is when we'll bring in General Clark. This is one of Saddam Hussein's numerous palaces. This one right on the Tigris River.

Let me do this little toggling for you, and I'll show you, if you can see the difference now. That is the older image, the clear image. This new image doesn't have quite the resolution just yet. We're working on that.

But as I slide this in, I want you to take note on the left-hand side here, if you take a look, it looks like a bite of this has been taken out. General Clark, is that your assessment as you see that?

CLARK: It is, but what we're not seeing, of course, is what's been done underground and inside that palace. And that's a much tougher BDA call. I think the satellite photos are remarkable but, as you say, they probably don't have the full resolution that a, you know, that a military battle damage assessment specialist would require.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Clearly we don't have the eyes and ears they do, in general. But take a look at this shot here. This building here was a building we saw burning on the first night of the bombing campaign.

And as I move to the new image, I want to call your attention to this spot right here. I think, General Clark, that looks like a hole for an entry for, perhaps, one of those bunker buster bombs. What do you think of that?

CLARK: I agree with you.

O'BRIEN: All right.

CLARK: I think it's been perforated.

O'BRIEN: Now here's something I really want to show you, General Clark. This is perhaps the most interesting image that we've got today.

Fifteen miles north of Baghdad, in a place mostly wooded, pretty far out of town, we have some fairly clear evidence, we think, of some treaded vehicles, probably tanks, that are nestled in this area. Now let me just give you the before and after. This is the new image here. That's the old image.

And as I bring it in, notice all the little dots that appear, those little white dots in there. I'm going to zoom down and show you a little bit closer. And I think General Clark will bear me out here. I think what we're seeing are some Iraqi tanks nestled in these trees some 15 miles north of Baghdad.

Look -- if you look closely here -- want to show you right over here -- that looks like a tank. And right over here in particular, that looks like a tank. Also, if you look through here, there's a lot of tread, very distinct treads all through there.

General Clark, am I right?

CLARK: Miles, you're right. And this is really the closest we've ever come, I think, to being able to do the work of a military headquarters for them.

O'BRIEN: Is that good or bad?

CLARK: That's what I'm debating here and wrestling with myself. On the one hand, it's some pretty clumsy efforts at camouflage. And on the other hand, I hope our -- well, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if other people have seen this.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Well, I'm sure it is probably accurate to say this is not a secret to the Pentagon. I do know that this is the first time that the government has allowed this kind of commercial imagery available in this short order.

So, we're kind of looking over their shoulder here in unprecedented ways, in so many ways during this conflict, Aaron. It's just one more little way that we're able to see this war unfold before our very eyes.

CLARK: But if I could just follow with one point on this, Miles, and Aaron.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CLARK: If you look at that, if we're correct and those are vehicles scattered out there in that field, you see a couple of vehicles. It's not exactly a target rich environment.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: It's the kind of -- I mean, if you're talking about destroying hundreds of armored vehicles, it would take a substantial period of time to locate hundreds of armored vehicles in that environment.

And this is -- this is the test we were talking about, Aaron, is how rapidly can we come to grips with these formations and take them out of action? What we'd like them all to do is line up on the road. We'll take care of them.

BROWN: Just in a nice clump there and deal with them.

CLARK: Right.

BROWN: But just, before we go to break here, this is what, perhaps though, in a much more sophisticated way the analysts, the BDA analysts, sit around and look at, right? The satellite images and cockpit images. And they know what they hit. And they also know what's out there. And that's pretty remarkable.

O'BRIEN: I think we can safely assume it's probably more so sophisticated than myself, Aaron. That's for sure.

BROWN: Thank you, Miles, very much.

O'BRIEN: My pleasure.

BROWN: That is something.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues in just a moment. This is CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: We're having a better picture of what lies ahead to make, clearly, as we saw, the difference on the battlefield. It's an edge American forces work hard to preserve.

Karl Penhaul is with a reconnaissance unit in central Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Armed and on the look out. This U.S. reconnaissance patrol is combing the desert for hiding spots that could be used by Iraqi guerrilla squads.

Dozens of Apache attack helicopters are parked nearby, many damaged in contact with Republican Guard units north of here earlier this week. Repairs are underway.

As a key part of the U.S. strike force, these choppers may be prime targets for Iraqi units. U.S. soldiers believe there's a risk of attack by Iraqi Fedayeen guerrilla units. Marauders were spotted close by last night.

What did you guys hear about today? This possible attack tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PENHAUL: Weapons drawn, extreme caution.

Just outside the perimeter of the makeshift U.S. air base sits this mud brick house. U.S. soldiers say it could serve as an Iraqi observation post.

Other huts and farmhouses are noted nearby, ideal spots to launch hit and run strikes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lot of cover and concealment. And a lot of positions for them to set up direct fire assets such as mortars, light artillery.

PENHAUL: Security is being beefed up. Infantry soldiers and tanks are rolling in.

(on camera): This dusty desert air field, just south of the U.S. forces' front lines, is one of several main staging posts for American troops. It will be one of the launch pads for an assault on Baghdad, but surrounded by flat open desert, it's also a potential target for Iraqi forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on where we're at right now, I anticipate seeing small, 12-man squads moving out through the desert on foot.

PENHAUL: Sergeant Moody's betting his colleagues a cold case of beer they'll see an Iraqi strike here soon. But alcohol is banned among the U.S. forces here, so whoever wins will have to wait for that drink. Karl Penhaul, CNN, central Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: General Clark, I want to go back to a point that came up very close to the beginning. All this talk about what hasn't been accomplished over the last several days because of this southern strategy of the Iraqis.

You always stress to us when we're talking, patience, patience, patience. Try and keep time on your side.

CLARK: Right. That's right. You know, it's -- we had a sense that the Iraqis would fall apart pretty quickly.

We pushed hard. We did the accurate strikes in Baghdad. We did the early strike on Saddam. We broke out of the encampment in Kuwait. They didn't fall apart. But we haven't lost anything significant in the risks that we took thus far.

The Marines are having a tough fight in Nasiriya, yes. And I feel bad we lost some troops in there, and apparently we've lost some to friendly fire, too. And the Brits are still tied up in Basra.

But the campaign hasn't had a strategic setback. It's just that we're adjusting the tempo of the operation. The force is going to have to get up toward Baghdad and set itself, anyway. And that means it's going to get rearmed, refuel, what we saw Walt Rodgers talking about with the 3-7th Cav today. The whole force has to go through that before it moves into the next phase of the operations.

So -- and it's the time when the Air Force should be working. So I think, you know, you have to see past the ups and downs of the particular incidents on the battlefield and look at the broad thrust here.

And the only real question, as we said before, is, can the Air Force grip and do the job for us from the air, or are we going to rely primarily on the ground forces? And if we are, then, you know, we may be seeing a much slower advance and indeed, we may wait until we get some more ground forces in there before we can be decisive.

BROWN: And it is -- What you described is a military strategy. And there is no evidence when we look at the polling, nor would we think there ought to be at this early age -- this early stage, that there's no evidence the American public is going to push political leadership to move more quickly. There's no impatience out there.

So at this point it does seem that the generals have the option of executing their plan in the order they want to execute it.

CLARK: I think that's right. But beyond the American public's view, Aaron, there's the international community. And I've talked to a number of people who are Arabists and were watching very closely the opinion in the Arab world. And there is a certain urgency in getting on with what we're about to do. Somewhere around the four- to six-week period, it seems like there's a break point. Up until then, the end of Saddam is inevitable.

After that, his stature will be perceived to be rising with the delays it takes that are imposed on the United States' mission. There's the prospect that Arab irregular forces from other countries will come in. And it will complicate, I think even though the end is inevitable, it's going to complicate the reconstruction and the new government that's put in place in Baghdad.

So I think there's a strategic urgency, but it's not right now.

BROWN: All right. Let's come back to that point, because that raised a lot of questions. But Michael Gordon, who's the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times" and joins us about this time every evening, or every evening we can corral him, at least.

He's on the phone now, and we always start the same way. Michael, is there a clear lead today?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES:" Well, not as far as I'm concerned.

But I mean, basically, I was hearing the tail end of your conversation, and I do think that, even though it's clear that the United States has pretty much underestimated the threat from the irregulars in the south and has basically involved in a two front war, looking toward the Republican Guard in Baghdad and looking to the threat in the rear, I do think that they seem to be proceeding with the plan.

And I do sense here that there's not much interest in a long delay, even though a delay could be advantageous to them in terms of building up forces.

BROWN: When -- When you talk about a long delay, or not wanting a long delay, what sort of time frame does the word "long" mean to you?

GORDON: Well, since I don't think they are interested in one...

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: ... I haven't really focused on it.

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: But I think that -- I mean, I just see things are sort of proceeding. I mean, you know, there are more forces en route, you know.

There's -- One of the interesting facets of this odd war is that there are a lot of forces that have been earmarked for this campaign. But they're not all here. This is sort of a two-stage process, where one compliment is in country and still actually getting ready and the force that's involved in this battle, and there's a whole other deployment involving, you know, a couple cavalry regiments and the 4th Infantry, which is getting in next week, and a force from Europe and 1st Cav from the United States.

But this is a so-called stabilization force that's supposed to pacify and occupy Iraq after Saddam is gone. But the same stabilization force can also become part of the combat force, should the war drag on.

But the point I'm trying to make is that, clearly, the war's turned out to be a bit more complicated than anticipated. There is a reserve force, build up their combat tower, but it's not here. It's the force that's en route.

And so a logical question would be, do you want to wait for that force to get here and then proceed in earnest to go to Baghdad? Or do you want to proceed anyway, depending heavily on air power and maintaining the momentum that they believe they have now and then let that force filter in?

I don't know what they're planning but it seems to me that they're pretty much on track and still keeping their focus on Baghdad and moving ahead.

BROWN: So even as this southern problem has sapped them of some forces, they still must believe they have enough forces free to set up and continue on the plan roughly on schedule? Is that right?

GORDON: Well, my personal view is that they're stretched pretty thin to take care of all these different tasks in the country, to take care of the southern threat, to build up with Baghdad to deal with the whole multitude of problems that confront them.

There are more forces on the way but not forces that are here. Despite all that, and you know, with the caveat that I'm not in on the plan, I do get the sense that they don't want to lose momentum. That they feel that they, despite all the problems, that they have the initiative, that they don't want to leave their forces sitting out there in the desert for some period of time, waiting for more to arrive, and that they are trying to find a way to keep pressing on.

I mean, this sort of gets to the point that, you know, the character of this force is just so different than the one that was fought in the last Gulf War. It's not the overwhelming force that Colin Powell deployed. It's something less than that.

It's a force that depends, you know, more on its capabilities of its weapons, on its command and control, on air power, on the synergy of all its different elements for its combat power.

That can make it a very potent force when it's fighting force-on- force as an enemy. But when you have to take care of a whole lot of different tasks -- escorting convoys, the urban warfare in southern cities, preparing for battle in Baghdad -- it's still a fairly small force and a force that's stretched a bit thin.

That said, I get the feeling that, you know, they're determined to find a way to make it work.

BROWN: Do you get the feeling they have made significant progress in dealing with these southern cities that have been such a problem for the coalition over the last several days?

GORDON: I get the feeling they're making incremental progress.

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: I mean, it's hard to deal with this threat, because you're dealing with basically -- it's almost a counterinsurgency. You're dealing with guys who have a bit of a refuge or a sanctuary in these cities, who come out at night to shoot at the American forces, or snipe at one of our columns, who dress in civilian clothes. I don't think it's a threat that's so easily eradicated.

But I think, probably, what their goal is, is recognizing that they'll never get every one last one of these people. I think probably the strategy is to reduce it and get it to sort of manageable proportions, to contain it as best they can. Proceed then with the Baghdad scenario as they anticipate it.

And then of course, once the regime is gone, well, I think the guys in the south will pretty much fall of their own weight. They won't be connected to the regime. They'll lose the source of their authority and power. The Shiites in the south won't be afraid of them any more. Then you can go back down and clean them up.

I mean, to me that's, at least, a logical way of going about all of this and trying -- you know, essentially what we have is a two- front war and a force that is somewhat less than optimal for dealing with these two fronts.

But I think, you know, managing the problem in the south without maybe eradicating it, proceeding in the north and then, you know, ultimately the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, you know, represents a solution to the problems in the south, as well.

BROWN: There was some reporting in "The Times" today that some Iraqi soldiers may be literally being forced to fight, that officers are putting, literally, guns to head. Do you know anything about that? Can you talk about that at all?

GORDON: Well, they think that the function of some of these forces in the south, basically the so-called irregular forces, Fedayeen, whatever you want to call them, is not merely to coerce the population in the cities and keep them in line. And not only to launch guerrilla raids against the Americans, but also to stiffen the spine of some of the regular Iraqi Army units, along with the special security organization, to make it harder for them to capitulate a surrender to the Americans.

So that's believed to be part of their role and that may be one reason why, you know, the number of soldiers that have been taken prisoner or surrendered is really pretty small compared to the last war. It's just several thousand compared with the tens and tens of thousands that there were last time.

BROWN: And Michael, a final question tonight. Is it your feeling, in talking to the people, you're talking to there in the command, that they are somewhat surprised at the strategy the Iraqi generals developed? That that really wasn't how they believed the Iraqis would fight this war?

GORDON: Yes. I think General Wallace, 5th Corps commander, and that's the Army unit that basically is leading the Army side of the invasion of Iraq, and which we'll have responsibility, a large measure of the responsibility for the attack on Baghdad. He said on the record yesterday that he was surprised by this approach.

I think basically it was anticipated that they would run into these sorts of units. But they pretty much thought they'd run into them in Baghdad. That when they going up to Baghdad, they would have pretty much free sailing.

That's why they did not make extensive preparations regarding their lines of communication. They thought that a lot of the Iraqi people would welcome them and basically rise up against the regime.

And I think they were surprised that, instead of meeting these irregular forces in Baghdad, in effect Baghdad came to them, and that as they were on their way up, they encountered all these different elements in their rear. And that these same elements are more or less coercing the population or at least they're making the population question who might win the war and then making a lot of people reluctant to rebel against the regime.

So I think -- yes. I think as General Wallace said, it's a tactic that they didn't anticipate, didn't really plan for.

But, you know, part of the art of war, from what I've seen, is not just developing a plan and rigidly sticking to it. It's having a plan that lasts about as long as until the war begins and then adapting it for the contingencies.

So they're changing their plan to deal with this, and no doubt the Iraqis are going to have to adapt their plan to deal with the Americans later and their newest tactics.

BROWN: Michael, thank you as always. Chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times." It's not a chess game, it's a war, but there are elements of that, as Michael just described and as General Clark has described.

We send it over to Heidi Collins to update the headlines of the day and our coverage continues in a bit.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: War seems to change most everything one way or the other, and today -- lost my thought there -- today it changed a stretch of one of the world's most elegant streets, Fifth Avenue in New York, into something else entirely.

Some other places, too, were changed by demonstrators. Here's a report from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It happened in New York and Oakland, California, and Indianapolis. It was a day where the debate over the war took to the streets.

In Indiana, one group could barely keep up with the demand for signs of support for the troops and the war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew people would be supportive, but boy, this is really an incredible outpouring.

CARROLL: While here in New York, there were signs and sounds of discontent.

Anti-war protesters disrupted business as usual for about two hours.

Dozens staged a die-in, lying down in the center of Fifth Avenue, taken to civil disobedience in hopes more people will hear their message, one they say the media ignore.

LESLIE CAGAN, ANTI-WAR ORGANIZER: The media will cover our anti- war activities, but when it comes time to analyze what's going on in the war and why it happened, you see a lot of retired generals, you see a lot of ex-State Department people, people from right-wing think tanks, you don't see the anti-war movement in that part of the discussion.

CARROLL: More than 200 were cuffed and carried away.

A small number of those who were not arrested moved uptown to Tiffany's to stage a die-in there, meeting some resistance along the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Peace! Peace! Peace!

CARROLL: Less vocal in Clovis (ph), New Mexico, where high school students formed an American flag during a pro-troops rally.

While in Oakland, seventh grade students carried pictures of pen pals from Baghdad during a peace march.

JEFF GRUBLER, ACTIVIST: These are there pen pals; these are their friends -- watch your back -- and they're very afraid for them.

CARROLL: A battle of words...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-five percent of this nation believes in what they're doing.

CARROLL: ... one that is not likely to be resolved in the streets.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thought we'd talk a bit about the mood of the country, a week and a day into this.

Our panel tonight includes Gideon Yago, who's with MTV news, has been with us before, as has Robert George, a columnist for "The New York Post" and others. And we're also joined tonight by syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington. It's also nice to see her again.

All of you, welcome.

Let me start, Arianna, with you, if I may. Do you think -- you look at all the polls and support for the president and support for the effort is quite strong. Do you think it is quite deep?

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: No, I don't, Aaron. You know, I have been in the middle of college tour. I'm here in Manchester, New Hampshire. I spoke at Dartmouth today, the 15th college in this tour.

And I have been amazed by the anger and the pain at what's happening. It's not just those who are absolutely and equivocally against the war. It's those who also went along with the idea that perhaps Iraq is a clear and present danger, as the administration was arguing and now are kind of suffering from a kind of buyer's remorse.

One student at Dartmouth today said to me that every time there's another report of casualties, she feels guilty, as though she shouldn't have gone along with this war. And with every day that passes and with every day that Saddam is still in power and there are more casualties, that feeling grows.

BROWN: Robert, that's a pretty impatient view of how to prosecute a war, I would think, that a week in, we have to be worrying about this. Do you agree?

ROBERT GEORGE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Absolutely. Absolutely, Aaron. And I would also say to my good friend Arianna that I don't know if going to a number of colleges you're going to find -- you should be surprised to find a certain amount of anti-war spirit. It tends to fester in the college ranks.

But exactly. I mean, we've -- the war has been going on for, you know, about seven or eight days, and the casualties, at least on our -- on the coalition side have been very minor. And we're about, what, 40 or 50 miles outside of Baghdad, and I think the war is going as well as can be expected.

BROWN: But, Mr. George, let me ask the question slightly differently then. Do you think that we're in -- because of the way the intense media coverage of all of this, that we're in an odd sort of time compression? It makes every day more than one day? Every week is more than one week somehow just because of the media?

GEORGE: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, CNN -- CNN came of age in the first Gulf War. But this is the Gulf War that is -- you now have saturation coverage. You've got three 24-hour cable stations covering it, plus all kinds of media. Al-Jazeera, obviously, is covering it from the Arab side.

And it's true, complete and total immersion. And as somebody said, you know, it's the ultimate -- it's the ultimate reality show.

But because of that, you want to have -- reality shows space themselves out over the space of a week or several weeks. Now because it's every single day, 24/7, people want an immediate conclusion.

BROWN: Gideon, we never ask any guest to speak somehow for the demographic group they may seem to represent. So as I ask you this, you don't have to speak for just young people.

But I'm curious if you have a feeling that young people actually young people as in your age, in their mid 20s and so, are watching this war play out on TV the way their parents are because I'm not so sure.

GIDEON YAGO, MTV NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, that's exactly, I mean, it's pretty interesting that you bring that up.

Just on Friday we had a poll over on our web site, basically asking that question that Robert brought up. You know, is this the reality TV war? And growing up on things like reality television and growing up with CGI graphics and Hollywood basically making war seem more real than it could ever possibly be, how are you approaching this?

And you know, we got a really mixed bag of responses from people. It was pretty much evenly, you know, evenly divided: about 33 percent of them said, this makes me appreciate the realities of war more and more, but pretty much the majority of them said, you know, this can't go up against, you know, what I've been grown up on watching in Hollywood.

So you know, the onus on us now becomes, how do we put a human face on this? How do we help that demographic that's used to reality TV, that's used to Hollywood versions of war, understand that there are real people being affected here in very real ways?

BROWN: Well, Gideon, if the week's coverage has not, and the embedded process has not put a human face on at least the young American and British soldiers, it's simply not possible to do it.

YAGO: But I think the danger with embeds is that you're only getting a small facet of the bigger picture. And I don't think we're ever -- you know, even with all of the media blanket coverage that we've got right now, I don't think it's even possible to get the bigger picture.

But if you can make that bigger picture understandable, you know, by attaching a human face on it, so be it, you know. Whatever can help people get a better handle on it.

BROWN: Back down at the bottom. Arianna, what do you think would change in a significant way the rather considerable support the president has right now for the policy? Would it take a large number of casualties or might it be something less than that?

HUFFINGTON: Well, a large number of casualties would obviously do that. We've seen that from the beginning that the poll numbers changed dramatically when large numbers of casualties are taken into consideration.

But there's all something else, Aaron. And this is the way that contracts to rebuild Iraq are being divvied out to companies with ties to the White House and the administration, especially Halliburton.

That's also a cause for alarm. This kind of profiteering from this war is very disturbing, and not just to young people. To answer Robert's question that, of course, colleges are going to be more politicized and there's going to be more anger there. It's across the board.

And what is interesting about this movement, this anti-war movement, is that it's not the movement of the '60s counterculture. These are not people who want to leave their spouses and have free sex. I mean, these are ordinary Americans, they are lawyers and accountants and teachers among them. And they come to the colleges because they want to hear more than one, want to understand more. And we cannot just dismiss them.

And also, it's the first time that many of these young people have been politicized. And here they are being confronted with these contracts going to Halliburton without any competitive bidding.

BROWN: Yes.

HUFFINGTON: With what's happened with Richard Perle. That's very interesting. As you may know, Richard Perle resigned from his position tonight...

BROWN: Right.

HUFFINGTON: ... as chairman of the defense board. Here is somebody who is one of the architects of the war on Iraq being caught in a very sleazy agreement with Global Crossing, one of the major corporate crooks.

BROWN: Actually, I would like to talk about that, but I don't want to talk about it now. I just feel like we're veering off here. I want to try and get us back.

Robert, let me -- let me end this with you if I may. But actually, want to ask two questions. So if you answer them quickly for me.

First of all, you're a conservative columnist. And would you agree with Arianna's characterization that the anti-war movement is a kind of mainstream American movement? It seems to me the right has been arguing that it's actually way fringe left?

GEORGE: Well, I think it's a mixture. I think you do have regular Joe and Jane American who, for different reasons, are against the war. But you also do -- you also have a fringe element.

You've got this proto-socialist group, ANSWER who, their previous -- one of their previous major causes was, you know, freeing Mumia Jamal, the guy who killed the cop in Philadelphia.

So it's -- I think you've got a fringe anti-American element that is funding it, but you do have -- you do have ordinary Americans who have their own deep felt anti-war views.

BROWN: Now, just -- I need to ask you this. You and I have talked about this before. All of the polls show that African- Americans support the war in a much smaller number than any other group. Why is that, Robert?

GEORGE: Well, though I hesitate to speak for all African- Americans...

BROWN: I know you do. That's fair.

GEORGE: I will say that it's -- I think it's partly you obviously do have a large number of minorities, black, Hispanic and so forth, who are in the military and see the military as a way of success in society. Many of them look at, say, somebody like Colin Powell as a true role model.

So their families realize they've got kids over there and they're very hesitant about this.

And there's also, I think, there's also a class issue. Many people, you know, go to the military either instead of going to college or to help pay for college. That often falls along minority groups. And so again there's a sensibility that it's disproportionately minority.

But I think, even though there may be a lower percentage of people who feel that we should be over there, I wouldn't in a sense say that they are necessarily, you know, anti-American in their views towards whether the -- whether military power -- American military power should be used on certain occasions.

BROWN: Thank you all. Gideon, please come back. We didn't quite balance this out as I imagined I would. You're all welcome back. It does appear if anything is true, we're going to be at this for awhile. It's good to talk to you all. Again, we take a break.

YAGO: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In reality those of us here at CNN Center in Atlanta can tell you a lot about what life is like 1,000 miles away in the Persian Gulf. As for what life is actually like in the country, we don't get out much any more, so we asked Candy Crowley to check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Springtime and a game of catch on the Washington mall.

A gentle breeze and a good meal beside the Pacific Ocean.

That other place, the one on TV all the time might as well be on another planet. And that may be the point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We happen to be at a very nice spot by the beach, where this is a chance for people to get away from CNN coverage, everything, and kind of relax.

CROWLEY: Time to redefine normal again which, on the home front now, seems to mean life as you live it, only weirder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm amazed at how unaffected I am by things. How I'm still coming to work and doing the same things, and going for a walk in the morning. And -- and it just seems so strange to me that it's almost a parallel universe.

CROWLEY: More than 70 percent of Americans say they are sad about the war. The barber in Hengeville (ph), Georgia, hears that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They seem more depressed. A lot of them are afraid they're going to lose their jobs. You know, the economy's down and all kind of stuff.

CROWLEY: Life on the home front seems the same at farmers market in Los Angeles, but it's more angst ridden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that it's really affecting our business as much as I was worried that it would. But you never know what's going to happen, if there's any kind of terrorism that happens here, that would definitely put a damper on everything.

CROWLEY: Nationwide, people shopped a little less in the first week of the war. One survey found retail sales fell two percent from the previous week. Air travel has fallen 10 percent since the war began. And some hotel chains say cancellations are up.

Sixty-seven percent of people say they're watching the war.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My boyfriend's been watching the TV, like, every single day. Every time it comes on, he's watching it.

CROWLEY: Maybe fewer people are shopping because they're watching TV. Maybe fewer are flying because they worry about terrorism, or maybe they worry what the war will do to the economy, or maybe it's everything.

GREG VALLIERE, SCHWAB WASHINGTON RESEARCH GROUP: There's no one economic statistic to point to a downturn. It's just an overall feeling, a psychological feeling that everything's frozen. Everything's on hold.

Consumers aren't spending, people aren't buying stock. Everyone's waiting for this to be over.

CROWLEY: Which is pretty much the view from a diner in the middle of Kansas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the sooner this gets done and gets over with, the better, for the economy. I think just the uncertainty of it all beforehand was a drag on the economy, and airlines, which is big here in Kansas.

CROWLEY: On the home front, life is pretty normal, only with an undertow.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Candy's view of the country. We take a break. We'll update the headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

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





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Aired March 27, 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: Baghdad on a Friday morning, 6:00. And it is quiet now, but it was anything but a quiet night. Heavy bombing, perhaps the Information Ministry was hit. We'll have more on that coming up.
Good evening again, everyone. We begin, as we do, with a broad look at the day. More bombing, more troops heading into the theater. Some Marines missing tonight. Some developments on the diplomatic front as well, though still no clear picture of the timing and the tempo of things to come.

Will the battle for Baghdad begin in a matter of days, or will it be weeks? We expect only the Pentagon's generals know, and they're not talking. Not yet. But there are some clues. And we do know that Baghdad took another pounding today; an especially large one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): As week two of the war began, thunderous explosions near the Ministry of Information rocked Baghdad. They seemed to be the strongest in days. Preparation perhaps for what the American administration knows are crucial times ahead just outside the Iraqi capital.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Republican Guard forces are ringing Baghdad some 40, 50 miles away from it. And it's very likely that will be some of the toughest fighting that will occur. And that's yet ahead of us.

BROWN: On the ground, we can finally see some of those dots on the map. These are the outskirts of Najaf, a city where the Army's 7th Calvary took some of its heaviest fire. Peaceful enough for the moment, but just as in other parts of Iraq, the harassment by Iraqi irregulars was frightening.

SGT. TODD WOODHALL, U.S. ARMY 7TH CALVARY: With my hatch just closed, a little scared. I had to do it a couple times and reach in and talk to the man upstairs and say help out a little. I don't know if we can do it all ourselves. But it worked.

BROWN: As for those maps, here's what it looks like now. In the west, the Army's Airborne and 3rd Infantry continued to advance towards Baghdad. Meantime, the Marines are encountering tough resistance as they head toward the capital in the eastern part of the country. And a sizable American force, those paratroopers you watched land last night, are now in the north.

The Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade began to set up defensive perimeters outside an abandoned Iraqi airfield in the Kurdish- controlled area of the north. At the opposite end of the country, in Basra, the British Army is encircling the city. Refugees are pouring out to escape the fighting.

More food and water distributed today. But even with better crowd control, the scenes were chaotic. But for a pure public relations value, it is hard to beat this picture: an American tank flattening a portrait of Saddam Hussein.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A quick overview of the day, as you see the city of Baghdad in the big screen over there. Clear skies, a little clouds on the horizon, still some smoke from the nighttime bombing. What was hit? And why was it hit?

We turn to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is with us tonight on the Jordanian side of the border with Iraq. Nic, good evening to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Some of the buildings we could see being hit through the night, a little difficult to say exactly and precisely where some of the locations were. But one building quite familiar to me, the International Communications Center, just across the bridge from Iraq's Ministry of Information on the banks of the Tigris River, right in the heart of Baghdad.

This building, incidentally, was targeted on the first night of the coalition bombing during the 1991 Gulf War. A cruise missile went in on the seventh floor of the building. But what we saw tonight were huge flames and a huge plume (ph) of smoke erupting from the base of that building.

It does have communications facilities there. Iraq and the Iraqi authorities have other communications facilities elsewhere in Baghdad. So difficult to know what the impact of hitting that particular building will be.

Also, I was able to recognize another area of Baghdad, a presidential compound on the Tigris River, an area that we, when we've been in Baghdad last week, had watched being bombed. There is a very large building in that compound. The largest building spreads over an area of perhaps several soccer fields. Very big.

It had been targeted last weekend; one corner of it in particular we've seen flames and smokes coming from it. But, again, on this night, a huge explosion erupting from that same building in the presidential compound. This, quite a large compound, again, in the center of Baghdad.

When that compound was targeted last weekend, we did notice just outside that there was some minor collateral damage to a row of shops there, Aaron. Glass and windows blown out at some restaurants and store front there -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, talk about why the information ministry would be a target. What is the value of that to the coalition?

ROBERTSON: Well, perhaps the value is more important -- perhaps we can better analyze it if we look at the value to the Information Ministry to Iraqi officials. It is where they keep the international media. It's where international journalists base their work, where their satellite transmission facilities are.

Behind that is a satellite, or was a satellite transmission facility for Iraq's satellite television services. About a block away are Iraq's television studios. Very close to the Ministry of Information, a television transmitter about 50 or 150 feet high, a large UHF transmitter on top of it.

Its value to Iraq is that perhaps -- well, that is the building where Iraq's Ministry of Information generally works from. And he is the one who every day is briefing reporters, along with some of Iraq's other ministers, on all the issues put forward by the coalition forces. He's the one that raised the questions about whether or not -- about the targeting of what he claimed was targeting of a market in Baghdad by coalition cruise missiles.

He is the one who has said that, no, these towns in the south of Iraq aren't falling. That building and the function of the officials that work there is to continue to tell Iraqi people that the Iraqi leadership is still in control of the country. They are directly in charge of Iraq's news services and obviously have a huge input into what's covered on Iraq's news services -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, let me follow that up. If it is also where the international media is based, where the international satellite feeds come from, are you suggesting that they want to cut off coverage in total of Baghdad, or the Iraqi point of view, to the world at large?

ROBERTSON: Well, so far, the Ministry of Information building itself doesn't appear to have been targeted. Certainly, buildings close to it. Iraq's own satellite channel's uplink, the television studios, possibly a transmitter close by, that international communications building just across the bridge over the Tigris River on the north side of the river. But so far, that particular building itself doesn't appear to have been targeted.

So it would be -- I think the analysis at this stage would have to be that the coalition appears to be attempting to close down communication services used by Iraqi officials rather than those international -- rather than closing down the international news broadcasts -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson is on the border, the Jordanian-Iraqi border, having, I'm sure you know by now, having been expelled from Iraq a few days ago.

We have spent a lot of time on this program following the travels into Iraq of the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Calvary. We saw them race in a week ago, almost a full week ago now. We saw that rainy night.

We are aware of the combat they have seen. And all of that has been described to us by CNN's Walt Rodgers, who's embedded with the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Calvary. And Walt joins us now. Walt, good to see you.

WALT RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Nice talking with you.

Extraordinary record compiled by the 3rd Squadron U.S. Army 7th Calvary, especially over the past 72 hours, when it had to fight its way almost continuously northward. What it achieved was nothing short of remarkable. It built a bridgehead, established a bridgehead within 60 miles of Baghdad. That's darn near within shooting distance.

It held that bridgehead for 48 hours by itself until reinforcement elements of the 3rd Infantry Division have come up. That means a heavy contingent of the 3rd Infantry Division is now in firm control of Iraqi territory, just 60 miles south of Baghdad. A bridgehead northeast on Najaf.

But it was a fight all the way. The first night before the 3rd Calvary -- or 7th Calvary got to the Euphrates River bridges, it was ambushed. I have with me now Lieutenant -- excuse me, Captain Clay Lyle, the commander of Apache Troop of the 7th Calvary. Tell us a little about that first night when you were literally ambushed, both sides of the road in the dark.

You were atop your turret. What happened when the incoming came in?

CAPT. CLAY LYLE, 3-7TH CAVALRY: You saw it. Immediately tracers started coming in. The fireball, the RPGs from both sides of the road, intense fire.

Just -- we started returning fire in both directions with the vehicles, working grids to call indirect fire, and then additionally CAS, close air support, and the A-10s came in. Every troop returned fire. We continued to push north and engage. It was a significant defense they had there on that main route.

RODGERS: You were atop your tank turret with a machine gun. You had night vision goggles on. What could you see? What were you shooting at?

LYLE: Initially, we returned fire just at the tracers. And then throughout, that's what my loader would fire at with his 240. But myself and my gunner would drop down and use the night sight, the thermals to engage the dismounts that we could see.

RODGERS: How many Iraqis did you take out with your machine guns?

LYLE: It's hard to tell. Probably 15 to 20 from our tank. And then the next day, continued to engage them. RODGERS: When we -- we were the vehicle immediately behind your tank. We were no more than 20, 30 yards behind your tank. We saw tracer bullets bouncing off all the vehicles in front of us. Your tank was hit by some of those tracers, wasn't it?

LYLE: A few tracers hit it, and at some point either that night or the next day's fighting, had a box on the back of my tank. RPG or just rounds blew the box off. So it's close.

RODGERS: I was talking to Sergeant Wheatly (ph), one of your other tank commanders. He said they shot a hole right through his rucksack. He was pretty unhappy about that.

LYLE: I think all my bags are still in good condition.

RODGERS: The next day, as we were running up through machine gun alley, as 7th Calvary crossed the Euphrates River, Captain, tell us about that. That was something. We were taking -- we were going through another ambush, machine guns both sides of the road, mortars coming in.

What was it like fighting your way -- we were under fire for at least an hour then because I was looking at my watch. What was it like then?

LYLE: Well, it's very close. That's probably the best thing I can say. The sandstorm was starting to set in. So although it was daylight, the Iraqis were 50, 75, 100, 150 meters off the side of the road.

So both, again, my gunner with his co-ax and the Bradleys with their guns, and my loader with his 240, which is just a free gun, I saw him shoot five by himself, just because they were that close. And they were -- they just kept firing RPGs and AK-47s and machine guns.

RODGERS: You brought your 120 millimeter, the big tank gun, to bear during those first two days. What were you shooting at with that?

LYLE: They've mounted heavy machine guns and some A-2 (ph) systems in the back of trucks. So they'll bring those trucks in. And when we have the means to engage them a little further out, we'll use the main gun.

RODGERS: I've watched you, Captain. You've been unflinching throughout this. You've gone without sleep five, seven days. We've been right behind you the whole time. I've never seen a trace of fear, but what gives you most concern in these ambushes that we roll through?

LYLE: The ambushes, just the guys are trained to the point where they stay down. We're staggering our orientation and our fires. The only -- the tense moments were on the bridgehead, when we were pretty far out there. The ambushes, we just returned fire, keep moving, start to work the indirect fires and the close air support. RODGERS: Let me explain to our viewers what that bridgehead was. The 7th Calvary had moved northeast of Najaf. There was a time when the 7th Calvary was out there because the 3rd Infantry elements had not caught up with us.

That night -- actually, it was two nights ago now -- there was radio traffic saying there was a large convoy coming in from Baghdad. 7th Calvary was very much alone that night. You were across the bridge in your tank, small force. What were your orders against all odds?

LYLE: Well, for all those 48 hours, even if one troop had a break in contact, another troop was heavily engaged. So they were definitely trying to push us off of the Euphrates bridges and the bridges over the other canals that we had seized. Securing that bridgehead, we were -- there was a few tense moments when verifying some of the armor companies, mech companies were coming from the brigades to reinforce us. But we knew we had CAS, and we knew we had artillery to support us.

RODGERS: CAS is close air support. B-52s were called in that night, weren't they?

LYLE: Throughout, we had -- B-52s were on call when the largest column was in -- was spotted. But we had F-15s, F-16s, A-10s. We had a lot of different weapons at our disposal.

And collected there with me we had a Howitzer battery (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So I had several avenues of approach. I had a cover the vicinity of my bridges. So I spread my forces out best I could, and we were prepared for whatever might come.

RODGERS: That convoy was stopped, wasn't it?

LYLE: Roger. We could see and hear the B-52s destroying or either turning back elements of those forces.

RODGERS: Now, the 7th Calvary has pulled back to a rear echelon now, 72 hours of continuous fighting. What has to be done to these tanks at this point? You realign the bores and the gun barrels and clean the air filters. What has to be done to refit because you know the order is coming forward to go north again?

LYLE: Well you saw the discipline and the professionalism of the soldiers yesterday, as tired as they were. We parked, and all yesterday until sun went down the maintenance was their focus.

They worked on the suspensions, the tracks. We've driven a long, long way. You know that. So the suspensions, the tracks, the automation, getting the fluids back in.

All the gun systems are holding up very well. All the sites are crystal clear still. Re-upload ammo and food and water and be prepared to continue to push up north.

RODGERS: Were you surprised by the degree of Iraqi resistance during that 72 hours of continuous fighting? That shouldn't be underestimated what your unit was up against, should it?

LYLE: No. The dismounted personnel and the small arms and the RPGs, they just -- they keep coming.

RODGERS: They were kamikazes weren't they?

LYLE: In a lot of cases, other troops, and some reports from my guys. There are a lot of cases they would drive a truck or a bus or a motorcycle with explosives on it just right at the tanks of the Bradley, try to hit it, or just get close enough to jump out the last minute and start shooting. But I don't think -- they have no regard for themselves or us or the noncombatant Iraqi civilians in the area that this fighting is going on in.

RODGERS: Were they using human shields that you had seen throughout? I remember one incident where an Iraqi that first night took up a position behind a civilian building, and two children were killed in the firefight. You've seen them using civilians, have you not?

LYLE: I haven't to a great extent. In one of the towns we went through the first night, there were civilians out, and then they were also firing at us, the Iraqi soldiers. Once we really got up on machine gun alley and the bridgehead, it was pretty much just fighting soldier versus soldier. But they have been doing that. They did it in (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and I'm sure they continue to do it elsewhere.

RODGERS: When we get the orders to move forward, every time I've seen you call your officers and your sergeants around you, your NCOs, and say this is what lies ahead, what lies ahead as we push closer to Baghdad? What are you looking at?

LYLE: Right now, we'll determine exactly our next mission. Probably a lot of strategic value in what we did seizing those bridges, pushing that far north, drawing out the Medina Division so the Air Force could begin to destroy it.

I don't know where our next mission will take us. We'll be ready. I'm sure the dismounted and the RPG and small arms will continue, but we'll begin to see BMPs and tanks from the Republican Guard units.

RODGERS: Every one of your men seems considerably concerned about chemical-biological weapons. That really is the great concern if Saddam uses those as a last-ditch defense.

LYLE: It's always a concern. But we have trained that before we came here. It's a normal part of training. How to use the suits, masks, how to operate in that environment and continue to fight in that environment.

We trained on it constantly once we got here in country. And we've been in our protective suits since about 48 hours before we began this.

RODGERS: Captain Clay Lyle, Commander of Apache Troop, U.S. Army 7th Calvary, thank you very much.

By the way, he spoke of the protective suits. That's why you see me wearing this uniform. This is one of the Army's chemical- biological weapons protective suits. He's been fighting -- Captain Lyle's been fighting 72 hours continuously northward with the 7th Calvary.

He took a bridgehead 60 miles south of Baghdad. The 7th Cav's in the rear now resting, refitting, waiting for marching orders to go north again, pushing yet closer to Baghdad. Back to you, Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, is Captain Lyle still there? Is he still where you can get him?

RODGERS: Yes, he is.

BROWN: Would you just ask him if combat -- I'm sorry. Would you just ask him if combat was as he expected combat would be.

RODGERS: Our anchor, Aaron Brown, asked me to ask you, if you don't mind. Was combat what you expected it would be? Was this your first time under fire? And what was it like out there? Was it what you expected it would be?

LYLE: It's hard to tell now. We've been getting shot at for so many days, it's hard to remember what I thought it would be. It's not anything anyone wants to do ever do.

It's just constant, you know -- it's the luck of the draw which round are they not going to miss with, because everyone has been intense small arms, the RPGs flying. I told my guys, it seems you're more likely to get hit if you're the one they're not aiming at because the RPGs are just randomly flying.

If they can't see because it's night or because it's a sandstorm, they just fire at the sounds of the tracks as you drive by. So we just stay down in the turret and fight from there and use our sights and our weapons superiority and destroy them and keep moving.

RODGERS: You had more than a few soldiers praying through that.

LYLE: Oh, yes. We saw -- before we left the first night, I gathered them all in, and we all sat one together and had a little talk. So just a lot of people thinking, mainly watching out for each other's buddy and each other's wing man. In the troop, vehicle to vehicle, and then throughout the squadron, when one troop's in contact, another one wants to go down there and help them.

RODGERS: Captain Clay Lyle, thank you very much. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Walter, thank you very much. Walter Rodgers.

Clay Lyle is, as I recall, 30 years old. His wife Stephanie (ph) lives at Fort Stewart in Georgia. They have a young child. We have followed him and them now for a week. And as he said, it's not something anyone wants to go through.

Bob Franken is at a forward air base in Iraq. He joins us now on the phone, I believe. There you are, Bob. Good evening to you. And what can you tell us from your location?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Actually, what we're trying to do and have been trying to do now for -- this will be the third day, is to move to that forward air base. Aaron, it was a base that was captured from the Iraqis. It is now considered a vital part of the war effort.

If they can get it up and running, which is to say if they can get it supplied, the base is one that would be 150 miles closer to most of the hostilities. It would be a place that could be a launching pad for the A-10 missions. It would save 300 miles of the commander on any given mission.

Of course could make things much, much faster. And is also a place that would make combat search and rescue more effective. And also is going to be a launching pad for humanitarian efforts. And that's interesting.

We are right now at a place called Camp Bouka (ph), which is about, I would say, 60 miles south of that base. Trying to push forward. Bouka (ph) is where they're going to take the prisoners of war. They're trying to put it up.

What has stopped the push toward the air base and what might affect this establishment of this camp is the fact that there's still quite a bit of heavy fighting in the area, too much to get these different efforts through. The prisoner of war camp, in compliance with the Geneva Convention, is supposed to be set up out of the area of hostilities. But they're saying now that they may have to relocate. They may have to go further south so they can live up to the Geneva Convention.

As we're traveling along the roads, Aaron, we encounter millions of civilians, many of them children. They want water, they want food. It's not something that the group that we're with is able to provide for them, but it also illustrates the importance of this air base because it's going to be one of the major launching pads for humanitarian effort, which right now is very formative.

But first, before that air base can be reestablished as a base, it has to excavated, it has to be supplied, there has to be fuel there. None of which has been able to reach the base because of the hostilities of this region -- Aaron.

BROWN: So it's not the weather that's been the problem, it's been the war?

FRANKEN: It's been the war. That's right. And of course the irony is, is that if they get to this air base, they can prosecute the war much are effectively they say.

BROWN: Bob, thank you. Bob Franken, making his way toward an air base in Iraq. We're running a little bit behind on time. We'll take a break.

When we come back, we'll be joined by General Wes Clark, who joins us from Los Angeles tonight. We'll go to the Pentagon. It's a quiet morning so far in Baghdad, but it was anything but a quiet night. Our coverage continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Hard not to just reflect on that stunning description by Clay Lyle of what it seemed like to him and his young troops as they made their way.

A couple of headlines from the Pentagon tonight. One being that 100,000 new troops are shipping out to the Gulf. The other that a very influential civilian adviser at the Pentagon is stepping aside. CNN's Jamie McIntyre has the duty, as our senior Pentagon correspondent, working both stories and probably three others tonight. Jamie, good evening to you.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening, Aaron. Let's start with the 100,000 troops and put that in perspective for you. The Pentagon says that those 100,000 troops that we're talking about, which includes about 20,000 from the 4th Infantry Division that will be going to Kuwait and into Iraq sometime next month, are all troops that have been in the pipeline.

This Pentagon war plan as has been based on the idea of having a continuous movement of troops into the country as the troops move up. So when the troops get there, if the war is still going on, they'll be taking part in it. But many of them, the thought is, will be follow- on courses after the war is won.

As for the war now, what's happened most recently is that the weather has cleared. And that has provided a lot more opportunities for bombing, particularly dug-in Republican Guard divisions. Today, in downtown Baghdad, though, we saw a huge plume of smoke that rose from a target that was hit, a communications center, prompting speculation that perhaps that 21,000-pound mother of all bombs had been dropped.

But we learned tonight that, in fact, what was dropped was a 4,500-pound bomb. A GBU-37 (ph) satellite-guided bunker buster bomb dropped from a B-2 Stealth bomber. This is the first time they've used this big bunker buster bomb on a target in Baghdad in this campaign. And apparently two of them were dropped from the B-2. A B- 2, which normally carries 16 bombs, can carry eight of these bunker busters, and apparently two were dropped there.

Today on Capitol Hill, General Myers, the joint chiefs chairman, indicated that the U.S. is about to move in on some of those Republican Guard positions and give them a little taste of some of the firepower that the U.S. has been building up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: When they move, we try to hit them. We are bringing a lot of force against them, to include our Apaches and our fixed wing air. Having some effect, we think, in degrading their combat capability. And at some point, at a time of our choosing, we will engage them, and we'll see what kind of fight they have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: A time of our choosing is what Richard Myers said. And that time may be very close, according to Pentagon sources, because it looks like some of those Apache attack helicopters that are part of the 101st Airborne Division are on the move at this hour.

They may be moving to forward bases. They may be moving into attack, but we're not quite sure. But we do know that these are the weapons of choice with their thermal sights and hellfire missiles to go after some of those dug-in positions. They're excellent tank- killing minutes, according to the Pentagon. So we're looking for the pace to pick up fairly soon.

And about the last item you mentioned, Richard Perle, who is an unpaid senior adviser at the Pentagon, the chairman of the Defense Advisory Board, which is, as I said, a volunteer position, but very influential at the Pentagon, has stepped down after some people have questioned whether he had a conflict of interest with the arrangement he had with Global Crossing, the telecommunications company.

That company in bankruptcy is trying to get a sale approved to some investors with possibly links to China. The Pentagon is opposed to that. The charge was that Richard Perle might have been trying to use his influence to get the Pentagon to drop its objections.

He says it's absolutely not the case. But nevertheless, he said he didn't want Secretary Rumsfeld to have to deal with this and a war. He stepped down. Secretary Rumsfeld issued a statement saying that he's known Richard Perle a long time and considers him a man of great integrity -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, very briefly, the Iraqis say they shot down an Apache today. Does the Pentagon have anything to say on that?

MCINTYRE: They say that that Apache footage that was shown on Iraqi television was from some previous engagement when some Apaches got shot up. Nothing new today.

BROWN: OK. Jamie, thank you. Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

Ryan Chilcote with the 101st is waiting for us to get to him. We want to get you caught up on the day's major events.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues.

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: Ryan Chilcote's embedded with the 101st Airborne. We've also watched this group, the 3rd Brigade, as they made their way in. It's been a while since we have talked to Ryan.

Ryan, what can you tell us about where you are and what your group has been up to?

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

I'm at a forward operating base in central Iraq and happy to tell you that the sand and dust that had everyone hunkering down here for so long has finally settled. It's finally clear here. Jamie was talking about the weather improving. That is, indeed, good news, not before, however, a group of about six Iraqi soldiers literally lost their way and drove up on a position just outside the base here of U.S. soldiers from the 101st.

Those soldiers surrounded the SUV that the Iraqis were in and the Iraqis surrendered to them. They were taken into U.S. custody. I had the opportunity to both speak with the commanders who took them and them. They said that they believe these men are couriers for a group called Saddam Fedayeen, a group that the U.S. military is calling a paramilitary group that is very loyal to the Iraqi leader, to President Saddam Hussein.

They believe that the men are couriers because they found a large amount of money, particularly U.S. dollars, and some instructions inside the car in the cargo. They think that they might have been moving these messages and money to some Ba'ath Party leaders in nearby towns.

Now, I spoke with one of the soldiers who was guarding the Iraqis and I asked him -- because there's a lot of attention right now to the treatment of prisoners, I asked him how he would compare how they're treating these Iraqis with how the American POWs inside Iraq are being treated right now.

Here's what he had to say, Aaron. Pretty interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that, regardless of what they do, we're not them. And just because somebody else does that, that you know the golden rule. Do unto others as you had done unto them.

And I think it also makes our resolve to fight stronger, because we don't want to get captured. But it makes their resolve to fight less, because they know, if they get captured, they're going to get treated humanely. They're going to get fed. They're going to get blankets. They're going to get shelter and medical treatment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHILCOTE: And that strategy was really borne out in their actions. When the Iraqis were brought there, they got some medical attention. One of the men was complaining about an asthma problem. The doctor gave him some asthma medicine. They brought the Iraqis some blankets. They also were building a tent, which I understand they subsequently did do, to shelter them from the wind. It's all part of the strategy, really, like he said, to make things more comfortable for the Iraqis, the idea being that, the better the conditions are and the more that other Iraqis on the battlefield know about those conditions, the more likely they are to surrender to U.S. forces -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ryan, has the 101st 3rd Brigade, your group, have they been exposed to -- we just heard from Walt Rodgers a lot of enemy fire. What has it been like in that regard for your group?

CHILCOTE: No. They've been pretty -- unfortunately, they were pretty hunkered down because of that sandstorm. The 101st is primarily an air assault division, meaning they use helicopters to move their troops to the battlefield.

They also do deep attacks with their Apache helicopters. And that's something that, because of that sandstorm, they weren't able to do either. So, for the last week, basically, since they've been inside Iraq, they've been focusing on setting up this very large and very substantial forward operating base here in central Iraq. They have not really gotten out onto the battlefield yet.

BROWN: Ryan, thank you. Hopefully, we'll see you again before our night is done.

We've got a ways to go, though been a lot of places in the first 36 minutes. We need to catch up on a break here, a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk with Wesley Clark, General Wesley Clark. Also, Ralph Peters will talk a little bit about the troops in the area, what they need, what they do not have, a lot of questions being raised.

A break first. Our coverage continues in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're joined now by retired General Wesley Clark, who has been at our side for most of the last week. He's in Los Angeles tonight. And we're glad to have him with us. Also with us: retired Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who joins us as well.

General Clark, before we move forward, just one question on where we've been. I assume you were able to hear Captain Lyle's description of that, his last couple of days. I was just curious what was running through your mind. He sounds like a young man that grew up and matured pretty quickly out there.

RET. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think the thing that struck me most on it, Aaron, was that he has described the experience that so many of our soldiers lived through in Vietnam. In our armored cavalry unit in the 11th Cav, in the 1st Squadron 4th Cav, in the 3rd Squadron 4th Cav, I've heard those descriptions again and again and again.

But the difference here is that, our equipment is so much better and we've got such an overmatch over the Iraqis, that we handled this kind of an ambush. They didn't do it nearly as well. They didn't have the comparability with us that the north Vietnamese or the Viet Cong did in the late 1960s in Vietnam. But these guys are veterans now. They've been through it. And as you heard him say, the glory and the excitement's worn off. This is just tough work that's got to be done. And we need to do everything we can to give our troops every possible advantage.

BROWN: Well, that seems to be the question on the table.

So, Mr. Peters, let's look at that question. Lots of questions are being thrown around and a lot of those questions are being parried by saying, hey, look, we're just a week into this. Has there been a strategic miscalculation here?

RET. LT. COL. RALPH PETERS, U.S. ARMY: Well, Aaron, the first thing we all have to face -- and you've heard it many times -- is that this is an astonishingly successful campaign.

Those troops moved farther, faster than any force in history. And to put things into a brutally frank perspective, we have done this remarkable campaign with fewer casualties, by far, a fraction of the casualties suffered on American highways in the same timeframe.

Now, that said, what you've seen was the valor of our service men and women from all the services rescuing a badly flawed plan. Now, the idea of rushing to Baghdad, that daring, audacious, bold sweep, that's fine. But the military commanders and planners were not given the forces for which they asked.

General Franks is a good soldier. He would certainly never criticize the secretary of defense in wartime. People in uniform can't. So those of us who are retired sort of take that upon ourselves. But the secretary of defense himself kept the level of troops, did not give the planners at least one more armored division and armored cav regiment that they wanted and really needed for the buffer of safety and the full force of heavy metal going at the Iraqis in this campaign.

And, by the way, the only reason we have the forces in the Gulf that we have today is because General Franks and other military officers fought, argued, over months with Secretary Rumsfeld to get what we've got now. And, believe me, I want to stress, I am not predicting disaster, by no means. We're doing great. We're going to continue doing great.

But you had that clip of those young -- that young captain from the 3rd of the 7th Cav. Those are tired troops. They need real rest. They need replacements on line. And they're going to carry the ball for this country. They won't let us down, but they need more than they were given.

BROWN: General Clark, I think it was three nights ago I said, are there enough soldiers there? And you said, no. And I don't want to play -- certainly, I'm the last person to play armchair anything here. But you've got a southern flank that's more complicated than people imagine, and it does seem now that they can't do both, take Baghdad, or rush to Baghdad, and solve the problem in the south. Is that fair?

CLARK: It's fair. And one more thing, Aaron. They don't need to. We need to let the Air Force work over the Republican Guards, if they can. There is no indication now they can't, although we certainly learned a few lessons in Kosovo about tank-plinking.

And my Air Force colleagues, I think, took that to heart. I know Air Force General John Jumper went back. He worked these issues. And now is the chance to put it to the test. We should allow as much time as is necessary, as long as we're getting returns every day going from going after the Republican Guards, and finding them one by one, wherever they are out there in the Medina Division and the Hammurabi Division and all the rest of them around Baghdad.

Time is on our side in this as long as we maintain our forward momentum. So let's take the time we need and let's do the job right and give our troops on the ground every advantage.

BROWN: Mr. Peters, let me ask one more skeptical question, if I may. Do you think there was a miscalculation in terms of how the Iraqi soldiers individually would behave? Because there was an awful lot of talk about, the Iraqis will surrender, they'll fold up, and all of that. We are obviously very early on, but do you think there was a miscalculation there?

PETERS: I think there was a miscalculation on the part of overly optimistic civilians in the Pentagon, who were convinced that airpower alone could essentially win this war.

I suspect that the Army planners and General Franks looked at this and realized there could be a fight. And, again, Aaron, to put things in perspective, what we are seeing are desperate nuisance attacks. Now, that's not to say there won't be some tough combat to come or to say to that the 7th Cav didn't have a tough 72 hours. But what Saddam is doing is throwing away his fanatical loyalists, the Fedayeen and other security-service-type personnel, in desperate wave infantry attacks.

And he needs them to hold Baghdad and to hold guns to the heads of the Republican Guards and special Republican Guards. So he's bleeding his own regime dry. And, in the long run, he's making it easier on us. And I have to second what General Clark said. In the 24/7 world, we all get impatient and we lose sight of the fact that, yes, time is on our side. We have all the time in the world, if that's what it takes. Saddam's days are numbered.

BROWN: General, do you agree that this is -- this rear-guard business that's been going on all week is a desperation ploy or a very clever strategy on the part of the Iraqis?

CLARK: Well, I'm not saying that they're not desperate, in the sense of determined to hold onto their country. But it is an effective strategy. It was obviously our intent and our desire to fight in the open. We've done it before. We've honed our techniques. We're good at it. And now they've denied us that opportunity. They've gone into the cities, so good strategy. I think he's got a lot of Fedayeen. And Ralph says that he's throwing them away. He's throwing some away.

But I'm always skeptical of body counts. I've seen a lot of it in my time in the military. You never know what to believe. When you fire a machine gun, people fall down. They fall down before they're hit. They fall down when they're wounded and crawl away. And it's really hard to determine, as one of the troopers said there in the cav -- or maybe it was Captain Lyle -- that it's hard to determine exactly what you've done, how much damage you've done out there.

And so, this is an enemy we have to regard with respect. We've got to take our time, think it through, get the word down to the individual troops, so they know what they're doing. And then we've got to take the battle to him on our terms.

BROWN: Colonel Peters, I'll give you a quick last word, if you want, 20, 30 seconds or so.

PETERS: OK.

One thing we've all missed. Thank you, Turkey. The Turkish Parliament did us a great favor by refusing to let the 4th I.D. go through Turkey, an accident, because if they had let us go through Turkey, the 4th I.D. would be spinning their wheels up north, adding something to the campaign. But thanks to that, by sheer serendipity, we've got a reserve, an armored reserve coming in within the next couple of weeks in the south, where we need them, amazing how paradoxes happen.

BROWN: Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, it's good to finally talk to you. We've had some false starts over the months. Thank you.

PETERS: Been busy.

BROWN: And, General, your day's not done yet. Thank you, too.

We take a break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Iraqi capital of Baghdad on a Friday morning there.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is headed home tonight after a brief summit with President Bush. Some are calling it a war summit. But unlike the summit at Yalta or other places, the parties this time around the table pretty much agree on how to take the war. There are some differences, but, mostly, those differences have to do with what happens after the war.

CNN's Chris Burns covered the summit, or the meeting, or the dinner, however you want to frame it. And he joins us tonight.

Chris, good evening.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron.

Turn the clock back about 10 days ago, when they last met face to face. That was in the Azores, when there was a bit of doubt as to the resolve of the British government and the Spanish governments in supporting the United States, a lot of opposition back at home.

This was very important, this time again, to show that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were shoulder to shoulder still, despite some of these reports about setbacks on the battlefield and a lot of criticism that perhaps it's not going as well as it should, the two getting together and trying to dispel those setbacks, show their resolve, President Bush talking about steady progress on the battlefield, that they're advancing day by day, that the terror grip -- in his words, the terror grip of Saddam Hussein's regime is being loosened gradually.

Tony Blair talking -- said -- putting a positive spin also on what's going on in the battlefield, saying that, in less than a week, that the forces are now about 50 miles away from Baghdad, that the oil fields in the south are secure. But neither one could be pinned down on when they think this war will end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Let me restate our complete and total resolve. Saddam Hussein and his hateful regime will be removed from power. Iraq will be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction. And the Iraqi people will be free. That is our commitment; that is our determination; and we will see it done.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory. And the Iraqi people have got know that, see. They got to know that they will be liberated and Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long it takes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: Now, the two leaders also talking about what happens during the war in aiding the Iraqis. The two have been pushing for this oil-for-food program to be resumed by the United Nations. That's where the oil from Iraq would be sold to buy food and medicine for the Iraqis, that being interrupted by the war. They would like to start that again.

Dispute over that at the U.N., over whether that might legitimatize the war effort -- it does appear that they will be voting in the U.N. on that on Friday. The other issue is after Saddam and how to build a new government. There have been reports that perhaps the president and the prime minister do not exactly see eye to eye on that. However, there are reassurances, at least by administration officials, that they do agree that there should be a quick transition from a military kind of authority to some kind of indigenous government, a transitional government. The exact details of that, neither would like to go in to. A senior administration officials say it all depends on how it looks on the ground at the end of this conflict -- Aaron.

BROWN: Chris, thank you -- Chris Burns reporting on the White House.

Across the street from there, it is somewhat amazing that, a week and a day into the war, people are talking about -- or having to say that they'll continue the fight. We're an impatient society in many respects.

Chris mentioned the United Nations and the oil-for-food business. Mr. Blair went to the United Nations as well.

Richard Roth joins us from the U.N. tonight. We haven't seen Richard in a bit.

Busy day for you.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron.

Here at the United Nations, a face-off between Iraq and the United States. They've been dueling in the field in southern Iraq, but around the horseshoe Security Council table, harsh talk from Iraq's ambassador, forcing the U.S. delegate to walk out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: The warning I would like to make to the members of the august council is that the United States and the U.K. were hoodwinked when they were told that the Iraqi people will receive them with flowers and hugs and ululations, and the children and the mothers will come rejoice at the coming of the U.S. forces.

What happened is that the Iraqi army, up until now, has not confronted the United States forces. The Iraqi people, the women, the students, the peasants are now facing the American and U.K. forces in Iraq today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Iraq's ambassador charging British and U.S. forces were trying to exterminate the people of Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Negroponte hotly disputing the charges about legality of the war. And he explained to journalists outside why he walked out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN NEGROPONTE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I'd heard enough after a certain amount of time. And I didn't hear anything new in what he had to say and, of course, don't accept any of the kinds of allegations and preposterous propositions that he put forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The Security Council met behind closed doors, as Chris Burns mentioned, on the oil-for-food program. That pleased Tony Blair, who visited late in the day, and huddled with Secretary-general Annan, the two men notified that the German ambassador predicting a vote possibly on Friday, despite a week of disagreements.

Those divisions, Aaron, that we've seen in the Security Council before the war are still there. And no matter what the Iraqi-related issue that will come up, for days and weeks and months ahead, it's still going to be tinged by the bitterness of the conflict in the chamber prior to the conflict in the battlefield -- Aaron.

BROWN: Richard -- thank you, Richard Roth, in New York tonight.

General Clark, let's bring you back here to finish a point that was on the table a few minutes ago. Ralph Peters made the argument that it was somewhat, in his view, serendipitous that Turkey was not allowing American forces, coalition forces, to come in through the north. And we've talked about this. I'm not sure that you agree with that.

CLARK: Well, that's right.

I'm not sure -- I don't know if Ralph can still hear me or not. But I think it is serendipitous that they didn't allow it, but not for the reason Ralph said. It's serendipitous because the agreement that we negotiated with Turkey would have permitted Turkish forces inside northern Iraq and raised all kinds of tensions with the Kurds and would have caused more headaches than it would have resolved, politically.

But we would have had a strong armored force, a division and plus, maybe as many as two divisions, coming from the north down through Tikrit into Baghdad. It would have been a real squeeze play on Saddam. And the ships that would have off-loaded the 4th Infantry Division would have been moved smoothly around to pick up the next force and deliver it in the south. So we would have still had a reserve coming in.

What happened, I think, as it's described to me, is, the ships that were there with the 4th Infantry Division continued to just stay and drive in circles in the Med. And so we didn't use the month that they were there to move other forces in their place into the south, therefore, apparently, disrupting the deployment flow. Now, that's -- I don't have that on fact, and it may not be correct. It's just the way it's been described to me.

So, if that's the case, the Turks didn't do us a military favor, but they may have done us a political favor.

BROWN: General, thank you. We're back with you throughout the night, as we have been every night, retired General Wesley Clark, the former supreme NATO commander.

As you can see, there is thick smoke -- or as you could see, at least, there was thick smoke still moving across the skyline of Baghdad, after a busy night of 10 or more explosions.

Our coverage of the war in Iraq continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our regular NEWSNIGHT viewers know that we try, on the program, to make a home for the work of still photographers. Video tells one kind of story, but still photography, we have found, can tell quite another.

And tonight is the story of the Army's 5th Corps Field Artillery as seen through the lens of "Boston Globe" photographer David Kamerman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KAMERMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER, "BOSTON GLOBE": My name is David Kamerman. I'm a staff photographer for "The Boston Globe."

And I am in Iraq. And I am embedded with the U.S. Army's 5th Corps Field Artillery. Now, for the past three weeks, I've been photographing daily life of the soldiers out in the field. Their role is to support the other infantry divisions, like 3rd Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne. They shoot rockets from a long ways away at specific targets in support of these infantry divisions.

I think it was the unveiling of the colors. And what that is, that flag is the battalion flag. And those streamers in the top, those are each of the battles that they've fought. And the gentleman holding that is the colonel, in charge of about 500 men. And he's basically telling them that: You are a part of history, and what you do counts, and when you get done with this, that your ribbon will be placed alongside of all these other ribbons, which go back to like the First World War.

And that's actually the first night of the war. And those are missiles being fired by our battery. And we're shooting right up in the sky, lighting up the night. And then that's Captain Asmos (ph), Captain Carl (ph) Asmos. And I have given him my Arabic book, Arabic translating book. And he's actually trying to speak with that, just in very simple phrases, just: Who are you? What is your name?

And it was very interesting. They just wanted to take our stuff. They wanted like food and cigarettes.

For four days, they ate, they slept in their vehicles. And they had maybe an hour or two break at a time. And when we got here, we had a two-day sandstorm. There is just nothing you can do about it, absolutely nothing. The more you try to resist it and fight it, you just lose. So we were all in one of the tents. And somebody had a feather duster. And we just thought that was the funniest thing, because a feather duster in a sandstorm is just ridiculous. And he had actually dusted off his M-16 kind of jokingly. And this just made the best of the moment.

They want to go home. They want to get the job done, do their jobs, as best they can, and go home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Want to go to Jason Bellini. Jason is embedded with the 15th Marine Expeditionary unit. He's had a couple of extraordinary days -- Jason.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, we're just a few minutes away now from hopping on a helicopter and moving about 140 Miles north. It's a change in our original mission. A lot has changed in the last few days. We're going to go up there to support some other Marines, where we're told they need the support right now.

And one of the disadvantages of being an embedded reporter is that we're restricted on where we can go and what we can do. We're attached to our unit, and we have to stay with them. We're not allowed to go AWOL. If you go AWOL, that's it, you're out.

And one of the difficulties that causes is, we're not able to go out in the communities and talk to every day Iraqis, as we would normally want to.

The other day I had the chance, however, to talk an Iraqi doctor who happened to speak English. He was just, by chance, that I met him, and so it was an opportunity for me to ask some of the questions that were on my mind about what Iraqis are thinking about the Marines and the Americans and British who are here, who have invaded their cities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI (voice-over): Injured Iraqis hit by coalition shrapnel lay gravely wounded inside the U.N. compound in Umm Qasr, now under the control of U.S. Marines.

DR. WAHEL JASIM, UMM QASR HOSPITAL: Got about two pints of blood within two days, within two day. Within two days inside our hospital and we have no facilities to save him.

BELLINI: Dr. Wahel Jasim brought his patients by ambulance to the Marines at the U.N. because he didn't know what else to do, could offer them no further help from his hospital.

JASIM: They promised me. They promised me. And for -- This is the fifth hour of waiting for their promise.

BELLINI: The promise of help is not one he's confident the forces invading his country will keep.

JASIM: The Americans say that they will bring food, medicines and supply and freedom. But we find the missiles, we find people who are wounded.

BELLINI: Innocent Iraqis wounded, he says, in crossfire between coalition forces and the Iraqis attacking them from within civilian populated areas.

The Marines we're with say their is a humanitarian mission, but they're forced to fight to make the area secure for relief.

Do you believe them? In your heart, do you think that they're here to help you?

JASIM: In my heart, I don't believe anything now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they're going to come in...

BELLINI: Just moments after our conversation a Marine medic arrives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to grab the wounded and take them to a hospital.

JASIM: Now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Kuwait.

JASIM: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

BELLINI: What do you think?

JASIM: Thank you.

BELLINI: Do you feel better?

JASIM: What?

BELLINI: Do you feel better?

JASIM: I feel better because they will seek attention. Everyone give me any help, I'm so gratefully thankful from him.

BELLINI: Not 30 minutes later another casualty arrived, this one brought by the British royal Marines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to stay back. Do you know what? We don't want this to be seen, all right? You need to stay back.

BELLINI: You don't have a choice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is.

BELLINI: After explaining I had permission from the commander to be here, I was allowed to resume taking pictures.

This man, I'm told, will likely die, his intestines ripped from his abdomen by shrapnel. American and British medics will try to save him, they say, as if they were one of their own.

I asked the Dr. Jasim's patient if there's anything he'd want to say to people watching this. JASIM: He said that I can't. He said to American people only something, one word that we are people seeking for peace, seeking for life, justice.

BELLINI: The coalition says that is what they're seeking: life, peace for the Iraqi people. But first they need the Iraqis' trust.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(AUDIO GAP)

BROWN: Sounds like we probably lost Jason there. That he may -- he and his unit are pulling away. Jason mentioned that there are limitations in the embedding process and that is so. He mentioned one of them. You can't necessarily go -- well, you cannot leave your unit. That's the deal.

We would also say that there are lots of other reporters in country from all over the world, including the United States, organizations who are not embedded, who are free to go anywhere. And we'll be hearing their reporting, too.

General Clark, in your spare time -- and I'm not exactly sure when that is, to be honest, you've written a piece for "The Times" of London looking at some of the issues that the president and Mr. Blair face.

And the one that jumped out at me is, if I read this right, is the sort of key moment when we'll understand how bad the battle of Baghdad's going to be. And it has to do with how effective air support or air attack is?

CLARK: That's exactly right. Because if the air power is effectively applied against the Republican Guards, and that's a function both of the skill of our airmen and the incompetence of the Republican Guards, then we'll have a relatively easier and sooner opportunity to penetrate into Baghdad.

But if the air power can't come to grips with the Republican Guard, because they're dug in or camouflaged or using a lot of decoys, they're hidden in the basement of houses, they're dug into hospitals and schools, they're moving around with tanks camouflaged as buses and so forth, then it's going to be much more difficult to advance on the ground.

And we'll either have to get the read out from the battle damage assessment that the Air Force pilots return to us, or we'll have to probe with units like the 3-7th Cav or 315 Infantry, bumping back up into the enemy and seeing what the level of resistance is and sort of, to use British Field Marshal Montgomery's words, gnawing away at the enemy defense.

BROWN: And -- I'm sorry.

CLARK: And that's what we're facing.

BROWN: Has that started already, that sort of air attack of the Republican Guard?

CLARK: I think it has, but it's hard to know, because the reporting that's coming out of the theater is not clear. You know, what we've got is the cameras in Baghdad, which we're doing a very good job, I think, on the network, of following.

But what we don't have is anything that's out there in that 50- mile zone between the center of Baghdad and where the bridge over the Euphrates at Najaf was. And there must be strikes going into that area, but we don't know what they are, we don't know how accurate they are. And frankly, even our command may not know for sure.

BROWN: Are there signs that we should look for that will tell us that this stage is fully on? Or is it just one of those things that's happening beyond the camera range and that the embedded reporters who might be in and around the area aren't allowed to report because that would fall into the area of operational detail?

CLARK: Well, I think the embedded reporters will have some idea of what's happening. And I think that in order for this to work, actually, we will have to get the units back up in contact with the enemy.

One of the basic rules of warfare is gain and maintain contact. You never want to break contact. I know when 3-7th Cav was pulled back, I'm sure another unit took its place up there. We don't know what that unit's doing, but hopefully it is pushing and probing and maintaining pressure on the enemy. And by maintaining that pressure on by the ground force, we'll get some sense of whether the air power is effective.

And of course, the air power, you get pictures out of the cockpit. The only problem with the air BDA (ph), as I discovered in Kosovo, it's really hard, even with the best of visual assistance, to be able to see from 15,000 or 20,000 feet precisely what you've hit. It may look like a hot spot, it may look like a tank, but it may not be.

BROWN: General, thank you.

General Clark will be with us the whole way on this question of what they hit and what they don't. It's hard from 15,000 feet or whatever to see it, but the satellites that are floating over the area are extraordinary in their ability to pick up detail.

When we come back, Miles O'Brien will give us a close look at how this damage assessment is being done from the sky.

Our coverage on CNN continues, but a short break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: General Clark mentioned just before the break that of the bomb damage assessment, BDA, is done by the Air Force pilots flying over the area. Some of it's done by satellite. Miles O'Brien, over on the other side of the room, can show us, in fact, how this is done. And Miles, should you need General Clark's assistance, it's available to you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we might just do that. These days some of the BDA can be done by CNN. This is unprecedented. Never in the history of modern warfare have we had access to commercially available imagery, which gives us a real-time insight into what's happening, in this case in Baghdad, but in a situation where bombs have been dropped.

First of all, let's tell you how these pictures were gathered. Satellite called quick bird flying about 100 miles above the surface of the planet, early this morning, 2:45 a.m. eastern time, 10:45 a.m. Baghdad, flew over Baghdad and took this image. Fortunately it wasn't a cloudy day there. And as a result we got some very interesting images to show you.

Now, as we take a look at some of the satellite imagery, first of all, I'll give you a big wide shot here of Baghdad. You can see the Tigris River running through the middle there.

And as I toggle, you can see an image, which we've had, I think it was captured about a year ago. And as I move it in, you can see the image which was just captured by that quick bird satellite, operated by our friends at DigitalGlobe.com.

And as you can see, if you look over there in the corner, the top right and bottom right corners, you see that darkened area. Those are those oil fires that we've been telling you about. Let's move in on it quickly and give us a sense of what we're talking about.

Now I'm told by Major General Don Shepperd, who spent a lot of time in fighters, that this is not a truly significant thing for a fighter pilot these days, with all the equipment they have on there. It's not going to stop the weaponry of the U.S. Air Force. It's probably more of an annoyance to the people of Baghdad than anything else.

But nevertheless, you see how dramatic those fires are as they burn over the city of Baghdad.

Now let's look at some of the damage. Some of the damage is actually hard to pick out when you're talking about precision bombing. As we look down here, and maybe this is when we'll bring in General Clark. This is one of Saddam Hussein's numerous palaces. This one right on the Tigris River.

Let me do this little toggling for you, and I'll show you, if you can see the difference now. That is the older image, the clear image. This new image doesn't have quite the resolution just yet. We're working on that.

But as I slide this in, I want you to take note on the left-hand side here, if you take a look, it looks like a bite of this has been taken out. General Clark, is that your assessment as you see that?

CLARK: It is, but what we're not seeing, of course, is what's been done underground and inside that palace. And that's a much tougher BDA call. I think the satellite photos are remarkable but, as you say, they probably don't have the full resolution that a, you know, that a military battle damage assessment specialist would require.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Clearly we don't have the eyes and ears they do, in general. But take a look at this shot here. This building here was a building we saw burning on the first night of the bombing campaign.

And as I move to the new image, I want to call your attention to this spot right here. I think, General Clark, that looks like a hole for an entry for, perhaps, one of those bunker buster bombs. What do you think of that?

CLARK: I agree with you.

O'BRIEN: All right.

CLARK: I think it's been perforated.

O'BRIEN: Now here's something I really want to show you, General Clark. This is perhaps the most interesting image that we've got today.

Fifteen miles north of Baghdad, in a place mostly wooded, pretty far out of town, we have some fairly clear evidence, we think, of some treaded vehicles, probably tanks, that are nestled in this area. Now let me just give you the before and after. This is the new image here. That's the old image.

And as I bring it in, notice all the little dots that appear, those little white dots in there. I'm going to zoom down and show you a little bit closer. And I think General Clark will bear me out here. I think what we're seeing are some Iraqi tanks nestled in these trees some 15 miles north of Baghdad.

Look -- if you look closely here -- want to show you right over here -- that looks like a tank. And right over here in particular, that looks like a tank. Also, if you look through here, there's a lot of tread, very distinct treads all through there.

General Clark, am I right?

CLARK: Miles, you're right. And this is really the closest we've ever come, I think, to being able to do the work of a military headquarters for them.

O'BRIEN: Is that good or bad?

CLARK: That's what I'm debating here and wrestling with myself. On the one hand, it's some pretty clumsy efforts at camouflage. And on the other hand, I hope our -- well, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if other people have seen this.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Well, I'm sure it is probably accurate to say this is not a secret to the Pentagon. I do know that this is the first time that the government has allowed this kind of commercial imagery available in this short order.

So, we're kind of looking over their shoulder here in unprecedented ways, in so many ways during this conflict, Aaron. It's just one more little way that we're able to see this war unfold before our very eyes.

CLARK: But if I could just follow with one point on this, Miles, and Aaron.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CLARK: If you look at that, if we're correct and those are vehicles scattered out there in that field, you see a couple of vehicles. It's not exactly a target rich environment.

BROWN: Right.

CLARK: It's the kind of -- I mean, if you're talking about destroying hundreds of armored vehicles, it would take a substantial period of time to locate hundreds of armored vehicles in that environment.

And this is -- this is the test we were talking about, Aaron, is how rapidly can we come to grips with these formations and take them out of action? What we'd like them all to do is line up on the road. We'll take care of them.

BROWN: Just in a nice clump there and deal with them.

CLARK: Right.

BROWN: But just, before we go to break here, this is what, perhaps though, in a much more sophisticated way the analysts, the BDA analysts, sit around and look at, right? The satellite images and cockpit images. And they know what they hit. And they also know what's out there. And that's pretty remarkable.

O'BRIEN: I think we can safely assume it's probably more so sophisticated than myself, Aaron. That's for sure.

BROWN: Thank you, Miles, very much.

O'BRIEN: My pleasure.

BROWN: That is something.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues in just a moment. This is CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: We're having a better picture of what lies ahead to make, clearly, as we saw, the difference on the battlefield. It's an edge American forces work hard to preserve.

Karl Penhaul is with a reconnaissance unit in central Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Armed and on the look out. This U.S. reconnaissance patrol is combing the desert for hiding spots that could be used by Iraqi guerrilla squads.

Dozens of Apache attack helicopters are parked nearby, many damaged in contact with Republican Guard units north of here earlier this week. Repairs are underway.

As a key part of the U.S. strike force, these choppers may be prime targets for Iraqi units. U.S. soldiers believe there's a risk of attack by Iraqi Fedayeen guerrilla units. Marauders were spotted close by last night.

What did you guys hear about today? This possible attack tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PENHAUL: Weapons drawn, extreme caution.

Just outside the perimeter of the makeshift U.S. air base sits this mud brick house. U.S. soldiers say it could serve as an Iraqi observation post.

Other huts and farmhouses are noted nearby, ideal spots to launch hit and run strikes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lot of cover and concealment. And a lot of positions for them to set up direct fire assets such as mortars, light artillery.

PENHAUL: Security is being beefed up. Infantry soldiers and tanks are rolling in.

(on camera): This dusty desert air field, just south of the U.S. forces' front lines, is one of several main staging posts for American troops. It will be one of the launch pads for an assault on Baghdad, but surrounded by flat open desert, it's also a potential target for Iraqi forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on where we're at right now, I anticipate seeing small, 12-man squads moving out through the desert on foot.

PENHAUL: Sergeant Moody's betting his colleagues a cold case of beer they'll see an Iraqi strike here soon. But alcohol is banned among the U.S. forces here, so whoever wins will have to wait for that drink. Karl Penhaul, CNN, central Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: General Clark, I want to go back to a point that came up very close to the beginning. All this talk about what hasn't been accomplished over the last several days because of this southern strategy of the Iraqis.

You always stress to us when we're talking, patience, patience, patience. Try and keep time on your side.

CLARK: Right. That's right. You know, it's -- we had a sense that the Iraqis would fall apart pretty quickly.

We pushed hard. We did the accurate strikes in Baghdad. We did the early strike on Saddam. We broke out of the encampment in Kuwait. They didn't fall apart. But we haven't lost anything significant in the risks that we took thus far.

The Marines are having a tough fight in Nasiriya, yes. And I feel bad we lost some troops in there, and apparently we've lost some to friendly fire, too. And the Brits are still tied up in Basra.

But the campaign hasn't had a strategic setback. It's just that we're adjusting the tempo of the operation. The force is going to have to get up toward Baghdad and set itself, anyway. And that means it's going to get rearmed, refuel, what we saw Walt Rodgers talking about with the 3-7th Cav today. The whole force has to go through that before it moves into the next phase of the operations.

So -- and it's the time when the Air Force should be working. So I think, you know, you have to see past the ups and downs of the particular incidents on the battlefield and look at the broad thrust here.

And the only real question, as we said before, is, can the Air Force grip and do the job for us from the air, or are we going to rely primarily on the ground forces? And if we are, then, you know, we may be seeing a much slower advance and indeed, we may wait until we get some more ground forces in there before we can be decisive.

BROWN: And it is -- What you described is a military strategy. And there is no evidence when we look at the polling, nor would we think there ought to be at this early age -- this early stage, that there's no evidence the American public is going to push political leadership to move more quickly. There's no impatience out there.

So at this point it does seem that the generals have the option of executing their plan in the order they want to execute it.

CLARK: I think that's right. But beyond the American public's view, Aaron, there's the international community. And I've talked to a number of people who are Arabists and were watching very closely the opinion in the Arab world. And there is a certain urgency in getting on with what we're about to do. Somewhere around the four- to six-week period, it seems like there's a break point. Up until then, the end of Saddam is inevitable.

After that, his stature will be perceived to be rising with the delays it takes that are imposed on the United States' mission. There's the prospect that Arab irregular forces from other countries will come in. And it will complicate, I think even though the end is inevitable, it's going to complicate the reconstruction and the new government that's put in place in Baghdad.

So I think there's a strategic urgency, but it's not right now.

BROWN: All right. Let's come back to that point, because that raised a lot of questions. But Michael Gordon, who's the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times" and joins us about this time every evening, or every evening we can corral him, at least.

He's on the phone now, and we always start the same way. Michael, is there a clear lead today?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES:" Well, not as far as I'm concerned.

But I mean, basically, I was hearing the tail end of your conversation, and I do think that, even though it's clear that the United States has pretty much underestimated the threat from the irregulars in the south and has basically involved in a two front war, looking toward the Republican Guard in Baghdad and looking to the threat in the rear, I do think that they seem to be proceeding with the plan.

And I do sense here that there's not much interest in a long delay, even though a delay could be advantageous to them in terms of building up forces.

BROWN: When -- When you talk about a long delay, or not wanting a long delay, what sort of time frame does the word "long" mean to you?

GORDON: Well, since I don't think they are interested in one...

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: ... I haven't really focused on it.

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: But I think that -- I mean, I just see things are sort of proceeding. I mean, you know, there are more forces en route, you know.

There's -- One of the interesting facets of this odd war is that there are a lot of forces that have been earmarked for this campaign. But they're not all here. This is sort of a two-stage process, where one compliment is in country and still actually getting ready and the force that's involved in this battle, and there's a whole other deployment involving, you know, a couple cavalry regiments and the 4th Infantry, which is getting in next week, and a force from Europe and 1st Cav from the United States.

But this is a so-called stabilization force that's supposed to pacify and occupy Iraq after Saddam is gone. But the same stabilization force can also become part of the combat force, should the war drag on.

But the point I'm trying to make is that, clearly, the war's turned out to be a bit more complicated than anticipated. There is a reserve force, build up their combat tower, but it's not here. It's the force that's en route.

And so a logical question would be, do you want to wait for that force to get here and then proceed in earnest to go to Baghdad? Or do you want to proceed anyway, depending heavily on air power and maintaining the momentum that they believe they have now and then let that force filter in?

I don't know what they're planning but it seems to me that they're pretty much on track and still keeping their focus on Baghdad and moving ahead.

BROWN: So even as this southern problem has sapped them of some forces, they still must believe they have enough forces free to set up and continue on the plan roughly on schedule? Is that right?

GORDON: Well, my personal view is that they're stretched pretty thin to take care of all these different tasks in the country, to take care of the southern threat, to build up with Baghdad to deal with the whole multitude of problems that confront them.

There are more forces on the way but not forces that are here. Despite all that, and you know, with the caveat that I'm not in on the plan, I do get the sense that they don't want to lose momentum. That they feel that they, despite all the problems, that they have the initiative, that they don't want to leave their forces sitting out there in the desert for some period of time, waiting for more to arrive, and that they are trying to find a way to keep pressing on.

I mean, this sort of gets to the point that, you know, the character of this force is just so different than the one that was fought in the last Gulf War. It's not the overwhelming force that Colin Powell deployed. It's something less than that.

It's a force that depends, you know, more on its capabilities of its weapons, on its command and control, on air power, on the synergy of all its different elements for its combat power.

That can make it a very potent force when it's fighting force-on- force as an enemy. But when you have to take care of a whole lot of different tasks -- escorting convoys, the urban warfare in southern cities, preparing for battle in Baghdad -- it's still a fairly small force and a force that's stretched a bit thin.

That said, I get the feeling that, you know, they're determined to find a way to make it work.

BROWN: Do you get the feeling they have made significant progress in dealing with these southern cities that have been such a problem for the coalition over the last several days?

GORDON: I get the feeling they're making incremental progress.

BROWN: OK.

GORDON: I mean, it's hard to deal with this threat, because you're dealing with basically -- it's almost a counterinsurgency. You're dealing with guys who have a bit of a refuge or a sanctuary in these cities, who come out at night to shoot at the American forces, or snipe at one of our columns, who dress in civilian clothes. I don't think it's a threat that's so easily eradicated.

But I think, probably, what their goal is, is recognizing that they'll never get every one last one of these people. I think probably the strategy is to reduce it and get it to sort of manageable proportions, to contain it as best they can. Proceed then with the Baghdad scenario as they anticipate it.

And then of course, once the regime is gone, well, I think the guys in the south will pretty much fall of their own weight. They won't be connected to the regime. They'll lose the source of their authority and power. The Shiites in the south won't be afraid of them any more. Then you can go back down and clean them up.

I mean, to me that's, at least, a logical way of going about all of this and trying -- you know, essentially what we have is a two- front war and a force that is somewhat less than optimal for dealing with these two fronts.

But I think, you know, managing the problem in the south without maybe eradicating it, proceeding in the north and then, you know, ultimately the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, you know, represents a solution to the problems in the south, as well.

BROWN: There was some reporting in "The Times" today that some Iraqi soldiers may be literally being forced to fight, that officers are putting, literally, guns to head. Do you know anything about that? Can you talk about that at all?

GORDON: Well, they think that the function of some of these forces in the south, basically the so-called irregular forces, Fedayeen, whatever you want to call them, is not merely to coerce the population in the cities and keep them in line. And not only to launch guerrilla raids against the Americans, but also to stiffen the spine of some of the regular Iraqi Army units, along with the special security organization, to make it harder for them to capitulate a surrender to the Americans.

So that's believed to be part of their role and that may be one reason why, you know, the number of soldiers that have been taken prisoner or surrendered is really pretty small compared to the last war. It's just several thousand compared with the tens and tens of thousands that there were last time.

BROWN: And Michael, a final question tonight. Is it your feeling, in talking to the people, you're talking to there in the command, that they are somewhat surprised at the strategy the Iraqi generals developed? That that really wasn't how they believed the Iraqis would fight this war?

GORDON: Yes. I think General Wallace, 5th Corps commander, and that's the Army unit that basically is leading the Army side of the invasion of Iraq, and which we'll have responsibility, a large measure of the responsibility for the attack on Baghdad. He said on the record yesterday that he was surprised by this approach.

I think basically it was anticipated that they would run into these sorts of units. But they pretty much thought they'd run into them in Baghdad. That when they going up to Baghdad, they would have pretty much free sailing.

That's why they did not make extensive preparations regarding their lines of communication. They thought that a lot of the Iraqi people would welcome them and basically rise up against the regime.

And I think they were surprised that, instead of meeting these irregular forces in Baghdad, in effect Baghdad came to them, and that as they were on their way up, they encountered all these different elements in their rear. And that these same elements are more or less coercing the population or at least they're making the population question who might win the war and then making a lot of people reluctant to rebel against the regime.

So I think -- yes. I think as General Wallace said, it's a tactic that they didn't anticipate, didn't really plan for.

But, you know, part of the art of war, from what I've seen, is not just developing a plan and rigidly sticking to it. It's having a plan that lasts about as long as until the war begins and then adapting it for the contingencies.

So they're changing their plan to deal with this, and no doubt the Iraqis are going to have to adapt their plan to deal with the Americans later and their newest tactics.

BROWN: Michael, thank you as always. Chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times." It's not a chess game, it's a war, but there are elements of that, as Michael just described and as General Clark has described.

We send it over to Heidi Collins to update the headlines of the day and our coverage continues in a bit.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: War seems to change most everything one way or the other, and today -- lost my thought there -- today it changed a stretch of one of the world's most elegant streets, Fifth Avenue in New York, into something else entirely.

Some other places, too, were changed by demonstrators. Here's a report from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It happened in New York and Oakland, California, and Indianapolis. It was a day where the debate over the war took to the streets.

In Indiana, one group could barely keep up with the demand for signs of support for the troops and the war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew people would be supportive, but boy, this is really an incredible outpouring.

CARROLL: While here in New York, there were signs and sounds of discontent.

Anti-war protesters disrupted business as usual for about two hours.

Dozens staged a die-in, lying down in the center of Fifth Avenue, taken to civil disobedience in hopes more people will hear their message, one they say the media ignore.

LESLIE CAGAN, ANTI-WAR ORGANIZER: The media will cover our anti- war activities, but when it comes time to analyze what's going on in the war and why it happened, you see a lot of retired generals, you see a lot of ex-State Department people, people from right-wing think tanks, you don't see the anti-war movement in that part of the discussion.

CARROLL: More than 200 were cuffed and carried away.

A small number of those who were not arrested moved uptown to Tiffany's to stage a die-in there, meeting some resistance along the way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Peace! Peace! Peace!

CARROLL: Less vocal in Clovis (ph), New Mexico, where high school students formed an American flag during a pro-troops rally.

While in Oakland, seventh grade students carried pictures of pen pals from Baghdad during a peace march.

JEFF GRUBLER, ACTIVIST: These are there pen pals; these are their friends -- watch your back -- and they're very afraid for them.

CARROLL: A battle of words...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-five percent of this nation believes in what they're doing.

CARROLL: ... one that is not likely to be resolved in the streets.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thought we'd talk a bit about the mood of the country, a week and a day into this.

Our panel tonight includes Gideon Yago, who's with MTV news, has been with us before, as has Robert George, a columnist for "The New York Post" and others. And we're also joined tonight by syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington. It's also nice to see her again.

All of you, welcome.

Let me start, Arianna, with you, if I may. Do you think -- you look at all the polls and support for the president and support for the effort is quite strong. Do you think it is quite deep?

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: No, I don't, Aaron. You know, I have been in the middle of college tour. I'm here in Manchester, New Hampshire. I spoke at Dartmouth today, the 15th college in this tour.

And I have been amazed by the anger and the pain at what's happening. It's not just those who are absolutely and equivocally against the war. It's those who also went along with the idea that perhaps Iraq is a clear and present danger, as the administration was arguing and now are kind of suffering from a kind of buyer's remorse.

One student at Dartmouth today said to me that every time there's another report of casualties, she feels guilty, as though she shouldn't have gone along with this war. And with every day that passes and with every day that Saddam is still in power and there are more casualties, that feeling grows.

BROWN: Robert, that's a pretty impatient view of how to prosecute a war, I would think, that a week in, we have to be worrying about this. Do you agree?

ROBERT GEORGE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Absolutely. Absolutely, Aaron. And I would also say to my good friend Arianna that I don't know if going to a number of colleges you're going to find -- you should be surprised to find a certain amount of anti-war spirit. It tends to fester in the college ranks.

But exactly. I mean, we've -- the war has been going on for, you know, about seven or eight days, and the casualties, at least on our -- on the coalition side have been very minor. And we're about, what, 40 or 50 miles outside of Baghdad, and I think the war is going as well as can be expected.

BROWN: But, Mr. George, let me ask the question slightly differently then. Do you think that we're in -- because of the way the intense media coverage of all of this, that we're in an odd sort of time compression? It makes every day more than one day? Every week is more than one week somehow just because of the media?

GEORGE: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, CNN -- CNN came of age in the first Gulf War. But this is the Gulf War that is -- you now have saturation coverage. You've got three 24-hour cable stations covering it, plus all kinds of media. Al-Jazeera, obviously, is covering it from the Arab side.

And it's true, complete and total immersion. And as somebody said, you know, it's the ultimate -- it's the ultimate reality show.

But because of that, you want to have -- reality shows space themselves out over the space of a week or several weeks. Now because it's every single day, 24/7, people want an immediate conclusion.

BROWN: Gideon, we never ask any guest to speak somehow for the demographic group they may seem to represent. So as I ask you this, you don't have to speak for just young people.

But I'm curious if you have a feeling that young people actually young people as in your age, in their mid 20s and so, are watching this war play out on TV the way their parents are because I'm not so sure.

GIDEON YAGO, MTV NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, that's exactly, I mean, it's pretty interesting that you bring that up.

Just on Friday we had a poll over on our web site, basically asking that question that Robert brought up. You know, is this the reality TV war? And growing up on things like reality television and growing up with CGI graphics and Hollywood basically making war seem more real than it could ever possibly be, how are you approaching this?

And you know, we got a really mixed bag of responses from people. It was pretty much evenly, you know, evenly divided: about 33 percent of them said, this makes me appreciate the realities of war more and more, but pretty much the majority of them said, you know, this can't go up against, you know, what I've been grown up on watching in Hollywood.

So you know, the onus on us now becomes, how do we put a human face on this? How do we help that demographic that's used to reality TV, that's used to Hollywood versions of war, understand that there are real people being affected here in very real ways?

BROWN: Well, Gideon, if the week's coverage has not, and the embedded process has not put a human face on at least the young American and British soldiers, it's simply not possible to do it.

YAGO: But I think the danger with embeds is that you're only getting a small facet of the bigger picture. And I don't think we're ever -- you know, even with all of the media blanket coverage that we've got right now, I don't think it's even possible to get the bigger picture.

But if you can make that bigger picture understandable, you know, by attaching a human face on it, so be it, you know. Whatever can help people get a better handle on it.

BROWN: Back down at the bottom. Arianna, what do you think would change in a significant way the rather considerable support the president has right now for the policy? Would it take a large number of casualties or might it be something less than that?

HUFFINGTON: Well, a large number of casualties would obviously do that. We've seen that from the beginning that the poll numbers changed dramatically when large numbers of casualties are taken into consideration.

But there's all something else, Aaron. And this is the way that contracts to rebuild Iraq are being divvied out to companies with ties to the White House and the administration, especially Halliburton.

That's also a cause for alarm. This kind of profiteering from this war is very disturbing, and not just to young people. To answer Robert's question that, of course, colleges are going to be more politicized and there's going to be more anger there. It's across the board.

And what is interesting about this movement, this anti-war movement, is that it's not the movement of the '60s counterculture. These are not people who want to leave their spouses and have free sex. I mean, these are ordinary Americans, they are lawyers and accountants and teachers among them. And they come to the colleges because they want to hear more than one, want to understand more. And we cannot just dismiss them.

And also, it's the first time that many of these young people have been politicized. And here they are being confronted with these contracts going to Halliburton without any competitive bidding.

BROWN: Yes.

HUFFINGTON: With what's happened with Richard Perle. That's very interesting. As you may know, Richard Perle resigned from his position tonight...

BROWN: Right.

HUFFINGTON: ... as chairman of the defense board. Here is somebody who is one of the architects of the war on Iraq being caught in a very sleazy agreement with Global Crossing, one of the major corporate crooks.

BROWN: Actually, I would like to talk about that, but I don't want to talk about it now. I just feel like we're veering off here. I want to try and get us back.

Robert, let me -- let me end this with you if I may. But actually, want to ask two questions. So if you answer them quickly for me.

First of all, you're a conservative columnist. And would you agree with Arianna's characterization that the anti-war movement is a kind of mainstream American movement? It seems to me the right has been arguing that it's actually way fringe left?

GEORGE: Well, I think it's a mixture. I think you do have regular Joe and Jane American who, for different reasons, are against the war. But you also do -- you also have a fringe element.

You've got this proto-socialist group, ANSWER who, their previous -- one of their previous major causes was, you know, freeing Mumia Jamal, the guy who killed the cop in Philadelphia.

So it's -- I think you've got a fringe anti-American element that is funding it, but you do have -- you do have ordinary Americans who have their own deep felt anti-war views.

BROWN: Now, just -- I need to ask you this. You and I have talked about this before. All of the polls show that African- Americans support the war in a much smaller number than any other group. Why is that, Robert?

GEORGE: Well, though I hesitate to speak for all African- Americans...

BROWN: I know you do. That's fair.

GEORGE: I will say that it's -- I think it's partly you obviously do have a large number of minorities, black, Hispanic and so forth, who are in the military and see the military as a way of success in society. Many of them look at, say, somebody like Colin Powell as a true role model.

So their families realize they've got kids over there and they're very hesitant about this.

And there's also, I think, there's also a class issue. Many people, you know, go to the military either instead of going to college or to help pay for college. That often falls along minority groups. And so again there's a sensibility that it's disproportionately minority.

But I think, even though there may be a lower percentage of people who feel that we should be over there, I wouldn't in a sense say that they are necessarily, you know, anti-American in their views towards whether the -- whether military power -- American military power should be used on certain occasions.

BROWN: Thank you all. Gideon, please come back. We didn't quite balance this out as I imagined I would. You're all welcome back. It does appear if anything is true, we're going to be at this for awhile. It's good to talk to you all. Again, we take a break.

YAGO: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In reality those of us here at CNN Center in Atlanta can tell you a lot about what life is like 1,000 miles away in the Persian Gulf. As for what life is actually like in the country, we don't get out much any more, so we asked Candy Crowley to check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Springtime and a game of catch on the Washington mall.

A gentle breeze and a good meal beside the Pacific Ocean.

That other place, the one on TV all the time might as well be on another planet. And that may be the point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We happen to be at a very nice spot by the beach, where this is a chance for people to get away from CNN coverage, everything, and kind of relax.

CROWLEY: Time to redefine normal again which, on the home front now, seems to mean life as you live it, only weirder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm amazed at how unaffected I am by things. How I'm still coming to work and doing the same things, and going for a walk in the morning. And -- and it just seems so strange to me that it's almost a parallel universe.

CROWLEY: More than 70 percent of Americans say they are sad about the war. The barber in Hengeville (ph), Georgia, hears that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They seem more depressed. A lot of them are afraid they're going to lose their jobs. You know, the economy's down and all kind of stuff.

CROWLEY: Life on the home front seems the same at farmers market in Los Angeles, but it's more angst ridden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think that it's really affecting our business as much as I was worried that it would. But you never know what's going to happen, if there's any kind of terrorism that happens here, that would definitely put a damper on everything.

CROWLEY: Nationwide, people shopped a little less in the first week of the war. One survey found retail sales fell two percent from the previous week. Air travel has fallen 10 percent since the war began. And some hotel chains say cancellations are up.

Sixty-seven percent of people say they're watching the war.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My boyfriend's been watching the TV, like, every single day. Every time it comes on, he's watching it.

CROWLEY: Maybe fewer people are shopping because they're watching TV. Maybe fewer are flying because they worry about terrorism, or maybe they worry what the war will do to the economy, or maybe it's everything.

GREG VALLIERE, SCHWAB WASHINGTON RESEARCH GROUP: There's no one economic statistic to point to a downturn. It's just an overall feeling, a psychological feeling that everything's frozen. Everything's on hold.

Consumers aren't spending, people aren't buying stock. Everyone's waiting for this to be over.

CROWLEY: Which is pretty much the view from a diner in the middle of Kansas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the sooner this gets done and gets over with, the better, for the economy. I think just the uncertainty of it all beforehand was a drag on the economy, and airlines, which is big here in Kansas.

CROWLEY: On the home front, life is pretty normal, only with an undertow.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Candy's view of the country. We take a break. We'll update the headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

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