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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

War in Iraq: Missile Strikes Kuwait City

Aired March 28, 2003 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. 6:00 in the morning in Baghdad, a night where there were huge explosions in the city and again, we believe, daylight will allow us to confirm that perhaps it was the Information Ministry that was hit. What we saw and what we'll show you in little bit was an enormous explosion, particularly close to the canal locations that we have -- that's the scene in Baghdad.
It's 6:00 o'clock now on a Saturday morning. Good evening again, everyone. We begin as we do every night here with the big picture, and tonight the big picture includes American forces digging into -- short of Baghdad, racing supplies to catch up. It includes the 101st Airborne seeing its first action. We saw today an apparent Iraqi missile strike hit Kuwait. They had tried 13 times, and on the 13th time, apparently, they were successful.

The coalition air strikes go on around-the-clock and today again, Iraqi civilian causalities were shown to the world. Neighboring countries were accused of meddling by the secretary of defense, and all along the region, there were more indications that this war is neither easy nor is simple. As one Marine put it today, "It's not that easy to conquer a country. Is it?"

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): On day nine of the war, there was combat across the breadth of the theater. As convoys and supply lines continue to spread for hundreds of miles, about 40 percent of the country, according to the Pentagon, is now under coalition control. But the secretary of defense said another country; Syria was shipping critical equipment, night vision goggles across the border to the Iraqis.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and we will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments.

BROWN: The Syrians vigorously deny it. Inside Iraq, American units surrounding Baghdad seem to be settling in -- setting the force, in the military's term. The Army's 3rd Infantry and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are positioned near Karbala, 50 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

The 101st Airborne is to the west of that and nearly 200 American helicopters are bringing in scores of foot soldiers as reinforcements for what's expected to be a huge and critical battle with Iraq's Republican Guard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a -- airfield that has only been taken over for a few days but already it is quickly sprouting into what's going to become a major operation.

BROWN: To help mitigate thinly stretched supply lines, the Air Force has taken control of airfields deep inside of Iraq; bases from where re-supplies will be easier. In the air, American units work day and night as CNN's Ryan Chilcote reported.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The 101st Airborne has just executed its first deep attack. It used its Apache attack helicopters, specifically the Apache Longbow helicopters, sent dozens -- dozens of these helicopters southwest of Baghdad.

BROWN: Some Iraqis are welcoming the Americans, but the assaults against American and British troops by Iraqi guerrilla forces continue unabated. CNN's Alessio Vinci is near the embattled city of Nasiriyah, where the price of war is starkly clear.

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hostilities in Nasiriyah prevented the marines from recovering the bodies of their fallen comrades earlier.

BROWN: And Alex Perry of "Time" magazine talked to a local commander near Nasiriyah, who summed up the new American attitude.

ALEX PERRY, TIME MAGAZINE: One commander addressing his men yesterday -- his instructions to his men was if you see an Iraqi civilian comes towards you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just waving a stick.

BROWN: Death was present in Baghdad as well. Al-Jazeera television broadcast the aftermath of what the Iraqi government claims was an American air attack on a residential neighborhood. More than 50 civilians, according to Baghdad, were killed.

Over night, the explosions continued. Meantime, part of the south in Basra, there were reports from the British that Iraqi Fedayeen had fired mortar rounds on refugees trying to flee the city and protected by commandos.

The supply ship Galahad finally docked in the port of Umm Qasr, bringing badly needed stockpiles of food and water, intended for the civilian population.

And in Kuwait City, a missile that went undetected by the country's air defense system, exploded near one of the city's upscale shopping malls. Only one injury, no one badly hurt. Some physical damage though, but more damage, perhaps, to the Kuwaiti state of mind.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So that's the big picture. Those are the major stories we'll be covering over the next four hours and everything else that happens in front of us. The task here is to take these small pieces and to put them into the large picture. In the south of Iraq, which was supposed to fall quickly into coalition hands, there is still considerable fighting going on as British Marines on patrol outside the city of Basra discovered today. Here is 40 seconds of their very long day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, boys, keep digging. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The battle of Basra inside the city. Anarchy now seems to be setting in of a sort, there is looting reported, starvation, roving gangs of Iraqi government thugs, terrorizing civilians as they try to get out, or simply get out of the way. Juliet Bremner is the British pool correspondent there and she's filed for us tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIET BREMNER, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Too scared to stay. Families from Basra braved the crossing out of the city, despite the fact they were being hit by mortars just hours earlier. Shortly after dawn, a group of around 300 refugees emerged from behind the burning oil holes that marked the boundary of Basra toward this British-held bridge. Officers watched in horror as a barrage of mortars exploded around them. Almost certainly launched from paramilitaries who still control the port.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The troops were deployed forward as they have been for some time, again, checking and screening the transit of people through. And when they came under indirect fire from what we assessed to have been mortar fire, clearly they were, there were civilians in the area, too. And they dispersed very quickly. The rounds were landing relatively close to where they were.

BREMNER: This time, no one was killed. But security checks on all those leaving or entering have moved onto an even higher level.

(on camera): The attack on the convoy of refugees this morning only serves to underline the worst fears of British troops. That people are being held again their will in Basra, and the paramilitaries will use the most violent means possible to prevent them leaving.

(voice-over): Despite the British conviction that the refugees were deliberately targeted, it is possible that they were simply caught up in an attack on the front line. But the team securing the bridge have no doubt that irregular fighters are trying to slip in and out of Basra. Suspects are rounded up and escorted back to their base for interrogation.

The overall commander of the Desert Rats accused the paramilitaries of appalling brutality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been hearing stories of this kind of brutality. But this is the first occasion on which we've actually witnessed it.

BREMNER: So why wasn't he intervening to end the suffering?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm weighing the risk to my own forces, I'm weighing up the risk to the civilians who are being held hostage, effectively, in Basra.

BREMNER: For those risking this dangerous journey, the delay could be deadly. A bleak choice between running out of food or braving the crossfire.

Juliet Bremner, near Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: British pool report, Basra. Today, one of the dominant story lines of the day has been the image of civilian causalities. They were broadcast around the world, including here in the United States. Especially gruesome pictures were seen across Arab media. They came out of a market place in a Baghdad neighborhood. The Iraqi position is, according to the Information Ministry, that dozens of people died in a coalition air strike on their neighborhood. The Central Command -- the coalition side -- says they believe, for now, the damage may have been caused by an Iraqi aircraft fire that had somehow gone astray. This is what happens in war -- the two sides trying to argue their case in the international media.

CNN's Nic Robertson has been following this part of the story as it unfolds tonight. He's at the Iraqi-Jordanian border again and as always, good evening to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. And very, very difficult even for the journalists inside Baghdad to try and verify those figures and accounts of what happened in the early evenings hours last night, Baghdad time. And for us here, the CNN team stuck outside of Iraq doubly difficult but talking to reporters inside Baghdad, they told me they were called by Iraq's minister of information shortly after dusk and told to go to this residential neighborhood just west of the center of the city to investigate what the Iraqi officials told them, that there was a coalition bomb and certainly the images from this evening will further polarize positions on this war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): A brilliant flash illuminates the area around the Information Ministry in Baghdad, as what appears to be government buildings in the center of the city are targeted. Only a few hours earlier, crowds gathered around the crater in a suburban neighborhood. Impossible to see how deep it is or what caused it. According to Iraqi officials who rushed journalists to the site just after dusk, the damage was caused by a coalition bomb. In a nearby hospital, the injured were still being brought in, many clearly in pain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around 6 p.m. an enemy aircraft attacked the neighborhood while we were in the hospital assisting the wounded from this morning's attack. This coward (ph) aircraft attacked a popular market filled with residents.

ROBERTSON: According to the hospital staff, at least 51 people were killed and more than 50 injured. From these pictures alone, it is impossible to verify the number of casualties. Several children, however, seem to be victims.

Within hours of the blast, Iraq's information minister lambasted coalition forces.

MOHAMMED SAEED AL-SAHAF, IRAQI INFORMATION MINISTER (through translator): My explanation is that this is a heavy aggression on civilians to cover up for a series of defeat that our army caused them in the desert and different neighborhoods in Baghdad.

ROBERTSON: Coalition forces said they could not confirm an attack in this neighborhood. In a war whose images seem increasingly split between civilian casualties and frontline conflict, this latest incident looks set to widen the divide.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Indeed, as you say, Aaron, the Arab media in particularly in this region around Iraq are playing much stronger images than the images we have used. I saw on one station pictures in the mortuary apparently at the same hospital of some children, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, the images being seen in this region very, very emotive indeed, Aaron.

BROWN: It seems to me that we have to try and make a couple of points here. Number one, while certainly the Iraqis are using this moment to their best advantage, we ought never forget that these are real people who were -- however it happened, clearly wounded, some died, and that's a horrible thing.

The second is that the British side -- the American side also used the Basra situation to try and make their international argument that the Iraqi government is barbaric by using the shooting of the civilians, and what you end up having in the region is the war of words. Who wins the war of images. Do the Americans ever win that battle?

ROBERTSON: Certainly the Iraqi authorities know that this is perhaps one of the strongest elements they have in their arsenal against the United States, against Great Britain because it is so emotive. The injuries to civilians are used, as you rightly say, a very real people. I think, perhaps everyone knows the war is a very dirty and ugly business, but perhaps this war because the level of coverage that it has had from both sides, it's perhaps exposing to an audience that has never really seen it before, just how bad and ugly it is, and it happens in a very short timeframe on both sides because of the necessities of war. Both sides in this need to win the war. Both sides have a necessity to present in the best light their particular case, and certainly for the Iraqis, it is highlighting civilian casualties.

But coalition forces, it is to show that they are being compassionate towards Iraqi civilians, which is absolutely their intended, stated purpose here, that is to remove the regime but not in any way to harm the population -- Aaron.

BROWN: And just one more point. It seems like now three days in a row, they have tried to take out the Iraqis' ability to communicate. There was the hit on state-run TV and there seemed to be over the last two nights attacks around the Information Ministry, so far unsuccessful. Correct?

ROBERTSON: So far Iraq's state-run television is still on the air; however, the channel that is run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday Saddam Hussein, we understand that is off the air. Iraq's third station, if you will, its satellite broadcast network, that appears to be off the air. The communications tower that was in the center of Baghdad, the communications building that was hit on the previous night, that apparently has affected some telephone services within the city. So, there does appear to be some degradation of Iraqi officialdom's ability to reach and communicate with their population. It is not entirely severed, and at this stage we still don't know what's happened to fully to Iraq's Information Ministry, but it appears that much of the superstructure of the building is still in place, because that's where those cameras stand that took the pictures we saw this evening.

BROWN: Right. Nic, thank you. As always, Nic Robertson who is still on the border of Iraq and Jordan, having been expelled by the Iraqi government and now several days ago, and we will talk to you later. We want to bring General Clark in in a moment to talk about this, but let me put one more piece on the table here, and that's this one. The residents in Kuwait got a reminder tonight as well that they are not yet safe from the Iraqi military machine, if you will. There was a huge explosion at a shopping mall there, as a result of what Kuwaiti authorities now believe was a missile attack. There is considerable evidence of that, including physical evidence in the hands of CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who was on the scene shortly after the explosion and joins us now from a safer place, if you will, our workspace there.

The last time when you and I talked you literally had in your hand piece of what almost certainly was the missile.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, and I actually brought those pieces over as well and I'll hold them up again while I am talking about them. First of all, let me just say that we were told that these pieces were safe to pick up before we picked them up. They were actually checked out. A greenish piece here in my left hand and a component, you can see both pieces there, probably pieces of the missile. One of them may be more of a sort of working component part of the missile, and this greenish sort of part is sort of, well interesting for me personally, Aaron, because I saw something fly over my head a week ago when I was at Camp Iwo-Jima that looked like a green missile. Got underneath the radar. There were no alarms or anything before that thing went right over our heads.

This was sort of a frightening reminiscent of that. There were no sirens or anything this time either. The first indication we got of anything going on certainly before 2 o'clock in the morning was a loud boom literally shaking our hotel, which is a good 10 minutes away from the Souq Sharq mall, which we have been hearing so much about -- Aaron.

BROWN: Earlier tonight, one of the pieces that you held up had some Chinese characters on it, which suggest very strongly the kind of there we go, the kind of missile it was and I know you are becoming very expert, very quickly on these missiles, and perhaps the reason they avoided detection is they come in so low.

GUPTA: And that's exactly what -- we talked to some of the Kuwaiti officials about that very point, and in fact they took that piece that people just saw with the Chinese writing on that for investigative purposes. We were glad to let them have it, but that's exactly what they said as well. These things maybe quite literally flying in under the radar as the one did a week ago, and maybe this one as well. Again, the first indication, the actual explosion itself.

BROWN: Couple more, who, what, wheres here. No serious injuries, correct?

GUPTA: No serious injuries. One minor injury, probably from debris falling on somebody's head.

BROWN: And I suspect that we said, in fact, at the top of the program the biggest casualty may be the Kuwaiti state of mind. After a week and half of this, they had come to believe perhaps that the Patriots will protect them from anything like this and that turns out not to be so.

GUPTA: Yes. You know, it's really interesting, a couple of things struck me. First of all, I guess, you know, any sort of situation like this -- it was a kind of there was pandemonium there. A lot of people who are really struggling and trying to get close to it, and then the authorities quickly coming in and then creating barriers around the explosion site.

But they moved with a lot of efficiency, the authorities, that almost as if, A, they have been through this before, which they had, and, B, almost is if they were expecting something like this. First, the civilian authorities followed by the military authorities; there were chemical and biological checks going on all the time. There was a lot of concern initially, but as people started to pick up a sense, A, that no one was hurt, and, B, that there was no chemical or biological weapons being detected by these censors, you could almost see the sense of relief coming over people despite this just horrible thing that just happened.

Again, no one being hurt, and this happening at 2 o'clock in the morning. No one being in the mall, that's the sort of a good things out of this very bad thing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sanjay, thank you. Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Kuwait.

And now we put a number of pieces on the table. Let's turn to General Wesley Clark, who is back with us in Atlanta. Back to front here. The significance that a week and a half into this, the Iraqis still have the capability to hit Kuwait city.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we haven't put enough forces to clear the zone in all of southern Iraq. We are still working around Basra. This missile was a Silkworm that was somewhere around Umm Qasr or Basra or somewhere like that, from which it was launched, not surprising. Until we fully clear that zone, there is a chance they could hit us again.

BROWN: Let's say, there is also -- would it not be standard reason, there is a chance they could just change direction and aim it at a concentration of coalition forces.

CLARK: They could. There is no doubt they could do that.

BROWN: So it is not simply a question they can hit Kuwait, it's that they still have the capability -- a military capability in an area that at this point there was a presumption would be clear?

CLARK: It's true. But this Silkworm strike on Kuwait City is essentially a terror weapon. This weapon launched inland is -- we don't believe accurate enough to hit any precision target, if they had targeting capability. They fired this to send a message to the Kuwaitis.

BROWN: They throw it up in the air and it comes down.

CLARK: Exactly.

BROWN: Well, we'll see what sort of message they send.

Now, on this subject we were talking with Nic about, this question of the image war, the political media war that's going on -- each side laid out, in a sense, its best argument today. The American argument and the British argument that the Iraqis will murder their own people, they'll use them as human shields; they are crossing the bridge in Basra, shooting them down. The Iraqis are talking about civilian casualties in the market. Do the Americans and the international -- you have been through this -- in the international community ever get the benefit of the doubt?

CLARK: Well, we did in the Kosovo campaign, Aaron. You may remember in that campaign that there were the scenes of collateral damage and people were injured occasionally in these bomb attacks. But, the scene of Milosevic forcefully expelling tens of thousands of Albanians from their own country turned world opinion so decisively against him that he couldn't recover.

There is a fundamental asymmetry here between what's happening to the Iraqis as a result of the American bombing and what's happening to the Iraqi population as a result of the Fedayeen.

The American bombing, this may have been an American bomb. We don't know right now, it hasn't been confirmed. If so, it was totally unintentional. We have done our best. The United States has done its best, I should say, to avoid striking civilian targets and hurting civilians. That's not the case with the Fedayeen, who must intentionally go after their own people because they have to -- their defense is the civilian population.

BROWN: There are, in fact, a lot of people in lots of parts of the world, the Arab part of the world certainly, but in a lot of parts of the world that actually don't believe that. They will believe that Americans targeted civilians.

CLARK: I am not sure about that.

BROWN: I get mail from them. I'll show it to you. I'm serious about this.

CLARK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) our way through starting with the countries that have doubts about us, in Europe, and we work from Europe outwards. You are going to find that they know from experience that the American bombing in Serbia was extraordinarily precise. It was extraordinarily limited, just as it has been in Baghdad, to strike military targets, and occasionally something goes wrong, and it's a terrible human tragedy for the families of the innocent people and for those victims.

But it's not intentional, whereas what the Iraqis must do is use the civilian population, and what's more likely to happen is that people in the Arab world and elsewhere are going to say, well, the Iraqis had no choice up against a superpower and they'll do anything, and it's OK for them to do anything, fine. But that's a different argument. And that's an argument that does violate the laws of war, which says that noncombatants must be protected.

BROWN: Not to mention any sense of human decency, I would say. Welcome back to Atlanta. It's really good to have you back. We will go to the Pentagon, check in with Jamie McIntyre. We need to take a break first. CNN's coverage of the war in Iraq after a short break continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Again today, there is a concerted effort by the Defense Department, by the Pentagon to knock down the notion that things are bogging down in any way, that things are not going as expected. The troops are facing an enemy that is different from the one they anticipated. What's new or at least new to us, some of those doubts were expressed openly by the man in charge of the ground war, and that does change the flavor of it all. That was the backdrop to the Pentagon briefing today. Here is our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, it's nice to see you tonight.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Nice to see you, Aaron.

The problem with trying to sort out what's going on at the Pentagon, is that the Pentagon always says things are right on plan, but you never exactly know what the plan is. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made that point today, even as he criticized some of the second guessing that's been going on over the last few days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Pentagon briefings have come the frontlines in a raging battle over how the war is perceived to be going. The Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld criticizing what he called massive volumes of television and breathless reporting.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We have seen mood swings in the media from highs to lows to highs and back again, sometimes in the single 24-hour period.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld said he'd only seen the headlines on "Washington Post" and "New York Times" articles, reporting that the commander of U.S. ground forces, Lieutenant General William Wallace answered "it's beginning to look that way," when asked if the war would be longer than expected. "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against," he also conceded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: F-16 (UNINTELLIGIBLE) precision-guided munition.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon countered with a montage of cockpit videos of successful air strikes and map showing that U.S. and British forces control as much as 40 percent of Iraqi territory and 95 percent of the skies.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: The plan is sound. It's been executed and it's on track, and that's essentially what General Wallace said too, he said we're about where we expected to be. That's one of his quotes as well.

MCINTYRE: After delays caused by mines in the harbor, humanitarian aid on a British ship has finally reached the port of Umm Qasr. The Pentagon insist delays in getting food, fuel and ammunition to U.S. troops on the frontlines in Iraq were mostly due to sandstorms and dismissed any attacks on the 300-mile long supply lines as, quote, "militarily insignificant." But even as the U.S. encircles Baghdad and moves Apache helicopters in position to pound Republican Guard troops, the Pentagon admits, there is a key unknown: The extent to which the Iraqi people may feel a patriotic fervor to resist U.S. forces sent to liberate them. Despite being a linchpin of U.S. policy, Rumsfeld insists the Iraqi mood is unknowable.

RUMSFELD: They might even feel a little different if the death squads are not standing next to them with guns to their heads, but why should I try to speculate as to what it will be since we'll see soon now?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Death squads is what the Pentagon is calling the Fedayeen Saddam now, and the U.S. has continued to try to target them. We are getting word tonight from U.S. Central Command that U.S. F-15 jets attacked a two-story building in Basra just about 300 yards away from the al-Basra Christian church. According to U.S. intelligence, about 200 of these Fedayeen fighters were meeting in a building there. They used a special bomb that has a delayed a fuse so that it will penetrate the building, explode inside and minimize the collateral damage. They say they don't believe they damaged the church that short since away -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do they have the bomb damage assessment on this yet?

MCINTYRE: Well, they just dropped the bomb a short time ago, and, of course, it always takes a little time to figure out if the pilot -- the pilots came back, they always have very optimistic reports about hitting their targets, but they have to check the videos and see what they actually show.

BROWN: So, we'll see what tomorrow brings on that, Jamie. Thank you, Jamie McIntyre. Well, another long day at the Pentagon. The president is at Camp David. Before he left, he once again tried to underscore the administration's view of things. Dana Bash has the White House watch tonight. Dana, good evening to you.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. And as you said, the president is at Camp David, but before he left he made clear that there could be more casualties ahead in the days to come in this war, and just as they did at the Pentagon, at the White House, they tried to retaliate against suggestions that the war isn't going as planned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Against this enemy we will accept no outcome except complete victory.

BASH (voice-over): Capping a week of public appearances to rally support and manage expectations, the president used the megaphone of his post to send the message the war is on track.

BUSH: The regime that once terrorized all of Iraq now controls a small portion of that country. Coalition troops continue their steady advance and are drawing near to Baghdad. We're inflicting severe damage on enemy forces.

BASH: Mr. Bush, speaking before war veterans at the White House, spoke of the brutality of the Iraqi regime towards prisoners of war and its own people and promised Americans will soon liberate.

BUSH: And we refuse to leave the Iraqi people in slavery under Saddam Hussein. When the war in Iraq is won, all who have joined this cause will be able to say to the Iraqi people, "We were proud to fight for your freedom."

BASH: Day nine of the conflict, a senior presidential aide says the commander in chief is irritated by, quote, "silly reporter questions of a flawed battle plan, talk of a longer war ahead than anticipated and constant television analysis."

CLARK: We haven't been welcomed as liberators yet. We haven't quite got rid of Saddam Hussein yet.

BASH: The White House says Mr. Bush never put a timetable on this war and did prepare the nation in speeches like this one in October.

BUSH: Military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: But just before the war began, Vice President Cheney said it would be "relatively quick, weeks rather than months." The White House today said that those comments should be put into context that he also said that things could get complicated and today, Aaron, a senior official admitted that they were reluctant to prepare the nation in detail for what this war would perhaps have ahead especially when they were still dealing with the diplomatic events. They were very reluctant to talk about the war -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dana, thank you. Dana Bash at the White House. We'll take a break here. We'll give you an update on the headlines and then we'll also be joined tonight by Jeff Greenfield. We have much to do. We're glad you're with us. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: More now on the president and the war, what he's saying, what the public is hearing. Jeff Greenfield joins us from New York tonight. Jeff, it's good to have you. I actually have a -- there's no theme in this in at least the things on my list today.

Let me start with the secretary of defense though because there is certain truth I think to his saying today that this intensive media coverage can -- has these incredible highs and these lows and these highs and these lows and they can happen in a period of a day or a half a day sometimes.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: We are now I think about to see the third or fourth mood swing in these nine days. The poo-pooing of the gloom has already begun and he is -- he is on this point absolutely right. It is one of the consequences of living in an era of instantaneously information. Everything gets compressed and I would suggest all of us, the political people, the retired generals, the active armed forces people and lord knows the media, know the steps. We know the questions to ask not months after a war starts but days. It occurred to me, Aaron, that during the Vietnam War we would watch the evening news at 6:30 or seven o'clock and the next piece of information we would get were in the morning papers the next day.

BROWN: Right.

GREENFIELD: Right? No CNN. No CSPAN. Lord knows no World Wide Web with the bloggers posting all during the night. No talk radio and so what happens is that, you know, by day three you're asking the questions that the Vietnam correspondents were asking about a year and a half after the escalation and it is truly astonishing, you know, to realize that in World War II for the first six months of that war, as I said before, there was nothing but bad news. German U boats sinking American ships within sight of the coast, the Japanese sweeping through Asia. What would have happened if we'd had this kind of coverage in the Second World War? I can't imagine it.

BROWN: The president has -- in the last three days, the president was at the Pentagon three days ago. Yesterday he was down at CentCom, Central Command. Today he was talking to a veterans' group. The president is surrounding himself in some ways to help get the message out, which is both political -- this is a question. Is it both political and strategic in a sense in terms of maintaining the country's optimism?

GREENFIELD: Yes. I think to be fair it's political, if I can say this with a small p, that is it's not political geared to the 19 -- to the 2004 election, but I think this White House really remembers what can happen to a president when the country turns against or gets suspicious or gets dubious about a war. I saw one piece, again seven days after the war, raising the famous phrase "credibility gap." That was a phrase that the former U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg coined around 1965 or 1966 to talk about the gap between -- the growing gap between the American public and the president. I think any notion that the public thinks the president or the administration isn't leveling with them is considered political nitroglycerin, highly dangerous and the White House, Lord knows, does not want to be in that position.

I would also suggest that I think it was pretty striking to watch the president and Tony Blair at that joint press conference because a lot of people who don't like the president were pointing out, you know, that which is now an old chestnut about, well, here's Tony Blair. He grew up in the House of Commons. He's a master on his feet of the spontaneous, unrehearsed debate, and here's the president who didn't look as eloquent. I think the White House wants the president to be using that bully pulpit and to be seen not only as the man in charge of the war but somebody who can explain the point of the war.

BROWN: The -- is this a time when the president perhaps not this week literally, but is this a time when the president can use his popularity? I think the poll number had it at about 64 or 65, somewhere in there to get other things, domestic things to Congress or is the country so focused on the war now in part because of the media that that's the only story and the only piece of business? GREENFIELD: Well, if that were true you can't prove it by what's happened on the domestic front not that anybody's paying a whole lot of attention but you did have his tax cut cut in half because three republican senators defected and there was an argument being made don't walk away from the president at this time, drilling in the Arctic preserve has been defeated and he can't get Judge Estrada confirmed, but he can't break that filibuster.

So I really don't think that there's much of a connection. I don't think that we're seeing a lot of that and if they were trying it, it doesn't seem to have had much impact.

The other part about that is you go back to 1991, George Bush the elder, I guess that's what we have to call him, Bush I, the father, riding on a wave of a victory. Remember victory parades through downtown New York and Washington, 91 percent approval ratings? Maybe if this George Bush winds up with that result because it's a more politically focused White House they will then try to leverage that popularity and that approval to a big domestic fight but as of now I think the war's got everybody's attention.

BROWN: It certainly does ours. Thank you. I think all of ours for a while yet. Jeff, thank you, Jeff Greenfield.

We wait for our embedded reporters to phone in, file for us and we're expecting more of that. We'll talk more about the shape of the battlefield. A lot of things still ahead, a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We'll talk a bit more about the shape of the war or the strategy, the underlying strategy in all of this because that seems to be one of the issues so prominently on the table right now.

We're joined from our Washington bureau by author and military historian, retired Colonel Walter Boyne. Nice to see you, sir.

COL. WALTER BOYNE (RET), U.S. AIR FORCE: Nice to see you.

BROWN: Do you have -- is it your concern here that the plan itself is too timid in its approach?

BOYNE: No, I'm concerned that we really didn't recognize that some other things have intervened since 1991. We came out of 1991 with a conceit that our technology would be such that we could fight a war without casualties and without inflicting many casualties. That's really quite a stretch and it played into the hands of the enemy because now if an ordinary set of casualties occurs, something that's in part of every war, they play it up as an atrocity. We made a mistake. I think that we should really announce that we're going to fight this war as we fight all wars and as all wars have always been fought through history with an utmost vigor and that if casualties occur, we regret them. We'll try to avoid them but it's not something that we wish to be placed on trial for.

BROWN: When you say casualties you're referring to civilian casualties, are you not?

BOYNE: Yes, to collateral damage and to civilian casualties. You know, every commander in the field is faced with troops that are advancing on him with women and children have got to decide does he attack them or does he risk his own troops. It's a tough decision to pass down. Everybody will make post mortems of whatever event occurs and I think we've put ourselves in really an artificial position. It's a war. It's not a video game and it's not a game of politeness. We should fight the war as we need to with utter vigor.

BROWN: That's the theoretical. Now I want to take it to the practical. Can you give me a practical example of where the coalition is not executing the war in the way that you think it would be best executed?

BOYNE: Well, we had the incidents in which we had people killed because they were sort of sand bagged by what we now we call thugs but were actually gorillas no matter whether you give them the credit of being a Czechoslovakian guerrilla against the Germans or a Russian guerrilla against the Germans. They're guerrilla fighters. And they have another thing going for them that we haven't really factored into the equation too. Since 9/11 there's really been somewhat of a holy war declared against us and I think that we are not only perceived as invaders but we are also perceived as infidels and so if you an Iraqi brought up a the system in which he's lead to believe that Saddam Hussein is, you know, correct in everything and that he must believe what Saddam Hussein has said and if he's got a guy who has a gun against his head, it's pretty hard to tear him away.

I think once we win the battle and we will win it, once we bring in the humanitarian aid and we bring in the hospitals and they do see that we do -- are a good intent then things will change but on the battlefield I think that we ought to be very, very circumspect about admitting the enemy close to the camp or admitting them with any idea that they might possibly be soldiers. I'd much rather keep them out forcibly if necessary.

BROWN: The argument, of course, is that you win the war and lose the peace that these images are played across the Arab world and across Europe and elsewhere that while you undoubtedly can go take Baghdad in the long run you do -- the argument is made you do yourself more harm than good. Obviously if I hear you, you're saying look, let's do first things first here.

BOYNE: Well, not only that, we've already lost that battle. There's no way in the world we could come in with nothing but Hershey candy bars to hand out to everybody and nobody -- no Arab newspaper would change a thing. We've lost that war. The only way we can survive is to win this war in a way that we don't have to engage in another one in Syria or in some other country and also then do a marvelous job on the peace, really do you know a Marshall plan plus so that we get them back in the world then gradually, only gradually, will we ever get them to begin to like us. I think it's very much essential that they respect us first and then learn to like us later. We're not going to make them like us as we come in. BROWN: A final quick question, do you think there's any chance that the generals or the politicians involved in creating the war plan are going to have a change of heart and go the direction you're advocating they go?

BOYNE: Well, let me ask you this. If you find that you have three or four Iraqi divisions in Baghdad suburbs and they have chemical weapons, they probably won't have a choice but to do as I suggest.

BROWN: Nice to talk to you sir. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BOYNE: Right.

BROWN: Interesting conversation. CNN's Bob Franken -- excuse me -- is embedded within -- at a forward air base and he joins us by the videophone. Excuse me.

Bob, in Iraq what are you able to report today?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're going to have to tread very carefully but of course we are able to report that this is going to become a major staging area for the A-10s. We've become very familiar with that plane and it's major role in the protection of the ground forces and this space, which is 150 miles closer to the action, is going to be a place now where the A-10s and other aircraft operate.

With me now is the person who's here coordinating. He is the A- 10 commander. This is Lieutenant Colonel Baja. I have to explain that they only want their flight names known. They are not supposed to be identified personally.

Tell me what's going to be happening in the next day or so.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL BAJA, A-10 COMMANDER: Well, coming up shortly we're here to set up for A-10 operations out of here. We're looking to move forward and press the war north and having an A-10 in the fight closer is going to certainly be able to support the army and marines and take out critical enemy asset that will oppose them.

FRANKEN: Now is this going to be a place where they'll actually locate or is it going to be a staging area or a refueling area?

BAJA: For right now we're looking at refueling and building up in the future. No timeline set for that but things are moving quickly.

FRANKEN: The advantage being that it's 150 miles closer to everything, right?

BAJA: That's affirmative. We can give us a lot more loiter time in the area and allow us to employ our weapons.

FRANKEN: You're, in addition to being the commander; you are an A-10 pilot and are flying missions here. Tell me about the most recent ones. BAJA: Just a few days ago I was actually in this area here. As you know, this is one of the hot spots down in the south and we were over here working -- taking out a few of the tanks and bunkers and some of the various targets that were causing problems at that time so.

FRANKEN: Can you describe the actual mission, what you go through, what you went through on that?

BAJA: The mission itself, you know, there's a lot of planning going on. That particular day we were working with some of the ground assets out there. They were talking our eyes onto some targets that they thought were critical for their mission and then we go and support them by taking those two tanks in particular and then a couple of bunker storage areas full of ammunitions that they wanted taken out.

FRANKEN: And you go into your famous dive. What is that like?

BAJA: Well, flying is a lot of fun but you don't think too much about it because you're pretty focused at the time and you know, all the threats that are out there and you're busy looking out and performing your job and making sure that you're in the right parameters to deliver your weapon.

FRANKEN: And so Aaron that is the job that's going to be done from here. As I said, this was a place that had almost no operation yesterday when we arrived. It's really starting to be up and running now, a large number of people here.

Another thing overnight and it was too dark to have any view of this, they put some POWs in here. They moved them to other places. Earlier yesterday as we were arriving we saw a large group of them sitting on the tarmac. The moment we arrived they pulled them away. This is a busy place and it's going to get much busier -- Aaron.

BROWN: Bob, thank you, Bob Franken who's at that forward air base.

We need to check into Kuwait again where there was a missile hit. Colonel Boyne certainly put some things on the table we want to talk with General Clark about so we have a lot of business that's sort of hanging.

We need to take a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the first 52 minutes tonight, we've dealt with the military advance that have gone both in Kuwait and Iraq. We've looked at the political side of this, the Pentagon side of this. There is still a diplomatic side of this in play though it's really now all about humanitarian aide for the time. Richard Roth is at the United Nations and he covered that discussion I think is probably the right word for it today. Richard, good evening. RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well, they finally found something to agree on, 15 hands in the air, 15 votes in favor, the security counsel unanimously approving the resumption, security permitting, of the so-called oil for food program, the largest United Nations humanitarian benefits program for the people of Iraq. This was the program that Saddam Hussein didn't really want to have start but it finally began in 1996. Profits from Iraqi oil sales go to the people of Iraq, food and medicine and other badly needed supplies but the secretary general suspended the program because of the war and now they're trying to get it resumed but of course, Iraq is not really in control in parts of the country.

Previously Baghdad handled the distribution of a lot of the food and the medicine so now it's the "occupying powers," the U.S. and Britain who have to do it but to get to that point you need the United Nations security counsel to say OK. Russia and France objected for a while. It was finally smoothed over today -- Aaron.

BROWN: In any case, none of that can happen until it's safe for it to happen.

ROTH: That's correct. Maybe in some parts but not in a wide spread distribution so far.

BROWN: Richard, thank you, Richard Roth at the U.N. tonight.

General Clark, a number of things on the table. Colonel Boyne argues that the -- even in this media age you have to be prepared if you're a war planner to -- for the reality of war which is civilians die and you have to aggressively or more aggressively prosecute the war. Do you agree with that?

CLARK: Well, I do agree that you -- there are certain things you can't escape in war. You will take casualties if the enemy resists. You cannot control at the outset how stiffly the enemy resists and you know, you're going to have to deal with the fact that individuals, civilians, unfortunately will get hurt in this but war is different today because the media does change the conduct of warfare and military planners also have to know this. Our military planners do know this. That's why they're working so hard to avoid civilian casualties.

BROWN: But if -- I would think there would be people who are watching right now who are saying you mean the United States and the British are fighting this war with one hand tied behind their back?

CLARK: Well, they're fighting the war in the best way to achieve the overall objective. Remember when we first went into this we were saying the Iraqi people would probably welcome us as liberators and that was the information that was given out and the people who were talking to the Iraqis and others believed that otherwise they wouldn't have said it.

BROWN: Sure.

CLARK: And it hasn't happened yet. Now we're saying that they would welcome us as liberators except they're being maintained under the grip of the death squads. That could be very well be true. So it's in our interest to do as little damage as possible to the civilian infrastructure not because we want to fight with a hand tied behind our back but because we're going to ultimately have to help build a new country here and for every person who dies, his relatives will never -- they never get over what's happened. This is a human endeavor so I do think that our people are sensitive to it and still we're able to fight and fight hard and fight well.

BROWN: General, more as we go along. We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

Back to Kuwait. Kuwait was hit today by an Iraqi missile. There had been 12 attempts until today to hit Kuwait City with an Iraqi missile but the 13th one got through the defenses. John Vause is at the mall in Kuwait City where it hit. John, good evening to you. Good morning.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello Aaron. Well, it is now daylight here, dawn, and we can have a better idea of just the damage, which was done. It's kind of difficult to work out exactly where the missile hit but it is not difficult to work out just the amount of damage that it did. If we walk out on this pier, this was the pier that goes out into the Persian Gulf. We can see the damage there, the buckled steel which was a result of the explosion, the impact of this missile which we now understand it may have in fact been a seersucker missile like an anti-ship missile. It comes in at a very low trajectory, very low coming in at about 100 feet off the ground. The missile has hit. It sent a shock wave, which has basically gone through.

This is the mall. This is the entrance to the mall. We just take a look at this picture here. The shock wave has basically gone through the mall. It's hit the back and then it's come out again because we've seen a number of the doors have actually been blown outwards as well, quite a powerful blast. The officials here are telling us that luckily this missile struck around 1:45 in the morning otherwise if it had of been daytime, it's the weekend here. It's Friday yesterday so if it had of struck during the day on Friday or later today on Saturday; they have about 25,000 people that come to this mall over the weekend. The officials tell me that it would have been a whole lot worse had that missile struck during daylight hours, Aaron.

BROWN: There's still -- is the mall -- well, it's awfully early there. I guess the mall is not open yet anyway. It's not even seven o'clock yet, right, just coming up on seven?

VAUSE: Aaron, I'm having a little bit of trouble making out what you're saying but it's very noisy here but since I've still got you, I'll tell you a few other things that we've learned. We know that the missile was actually clean. They've had those crews out from the Czech Republic who've checked it for biological and chemical agents. They say there was none of that. It was in fact just a low explosive warhead and that is what is responsible for all the damage here. In fact, one other point of interest, the Ameers' (ph) residents, not far from here, about a mile or so away.

BROWN: That's a royal family. John, thank you, John Vause. There are Czech units, American units and German units who deal in chemical weapons and they are in the country. They are working together as part of the war on terrorism not the war against Iraq.

We take a break. We'll update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired March 28, 2003 - 22:00   ET
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AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. 6:00 in the morning in Baghdad, a night where there were huge explosions in the city and again, we believe, daylight will allow us to confirm that perhaps it was the Information Ministry that was hit. What we saw and what we'll show you in little bit was an enormous explosion, particularly close to the canal locations that we have -- that's the scene in Baghdad.
It's 6:00 o'clock now on a Saturday morning. Good evening again, everyone. We begin as we do every night here with the big picture, and tonight the big picture includes American forces digging into -- short of Baghdad, racing supplies to catch up. It includes the 101st Airborne seeing its first action. We saw today an apparent Iraqi missile strike hit Kuwait. They had tried 13 times, and on the 13th time, apparently, they were successful.

The coalition air strikes go on around-the-clock and today again, Iraqi civilian causalities were shown to the world. Neighboring countries were accused of meddling by the secretary of defense, and all along the region, there were more indications that this war is neither easy nor is simple. As one Marine put it today, "It's not that easy to conquer a country. Is it?"

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): On day nine of the war, there was combat across the breadth of the theater. As convoys and supply lines continue to spread for hundreds of miles, about 40 percent of the country, according to the Pentagon, is now under coalition control. But the secretary of defense said another country; Syria was shipping critical equipment, night vision goggles across the border to the Iraqis.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and we will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments.

BROWN: The Syrians vigorously deny it. Inside Iraq, American units surrounding Baghdad seem to be settling in -- setting the force, in the military's term. The Army's 3rd Infantry and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are positioned near Karbala, 50 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

The 101st Airborne is to the west of that and nearly 200 American helicopters are bringing in scores of foot soldiers as reinforcements for what's expected to be a huge and critical battle with Iraq's Republican Guard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a -- airfield that has only been taken over for a few days but already it is quickly sprouting into what's going to become a major operation.

BROWN: To help mitigate thinly stretched supply lines, the Air Force has taken control of airfields deep inside of Iraq; bases from where re-supplies will be easier. In the air, American units work day and night as CNN's Ryan Chilcote reported.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The 101st Airborne has just executed its first deep attack. It used its Apache attack helicopters, specifically the Apache Longbow helicopters, sent dozens -- dozens of these helicopters southwest of Baghdad.

BROWN: Some Iraqis are welcoming the Americans, but the assaults against American and British troops by Iraqi guerrilla forces continue unabated. CNN's Alessio Vinci is near the embattled city of Nasiriyah, where the price of war is starkly clear.

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hostilities in Nasiriyah prevented the marines from recovering the bodies of their fallen comrades earlier.

BROWN: And Alex Perry of "Time" magazine talked to a local commander near Nasiriyah, who summed up the new American attitude.

ALEX PERRY, TIME MAGAZINE: One commander addressing his men yesterday -- his instructions to his men was if you see an Iraqi civilian comes towards you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just waving a stick.

BROWN: Death was present in Baghdad as well. Al-Jazeera television broadcast the aftermath of what the Iraqi government claims was an American air attack on a residential neighborhood. More than 50 civilians, according to Baghdad, were killed.

Over night, the explosions continued. Meantime, part of the south in Basra, there were reports from the British that Iraqi Fedayeen had fired mortar rounds on refugees trying to flee the city and protected by commandos.

The supply ship Galahad finally docked in the port of Umm Qasr, bringing badly needed stockpiles of food and water, intended for the civilian population.

And in Kuwait City, a missile that went undetected by the country's air defense system, exploded near one of the city's upscale shopping malls. Only one injury, no one badly hurt. Some physical damage though, but more damage, perhaps, to the Kuwaiti state of mind.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So that's the big picture. Those are the major stories we'll be covering over the next four hours and everything else that happens in front of us. The task here is to take these small pieces and to put them into the large picture. In the south of Iraq, which was supposed to fall quickly into coalition hands, there is still considerable fighting going on as British Marines on patrol outside the city of Basra discovered today. Here is 40 seconds of their very long day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, boys, keep digging. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The battle of Basra inside the city. Anarchy now seems to be setting in of a sort, there is looting reported, starvation, roving gangs of Iraqi government thugs, terrorizing civilians as they try to get out, or simply get out of the way. Juliet Bremner is the British pool correspondent there and she's filed for us tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIET BREMNER, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Too scared to stay. Families from Basra braved the crossing out of the city, despite the fact they were being hit by mortars just hours earlier. Shortly after dawn, a group of around 300 refugees emerged from behind the burning oil holes that marked the boundary of Basra toward this British-held bridge. Officers watched in horror as a barrage of mortars exploded around them. Almost certainly launched from paramilitaries who still control the port.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The troops were deployed forward as they have been for some time, again, checking and screening the transit of people through. And when they came under indirect fire from what we assessed to have been mortar fire, clearly they were, there were civilians in the area, too. And they dispersed very quickly. The rounds were landing relatively close to where they were.

BREMNER: This time, no one was killed. But security checks on all those leaving or entering have moved onto an even higher level.

(on camera): The attack on the convoy of refugees this morning only serves to underline the worst fears of British troops. That people are being held again their will in Basra, and the paramilitaries will use the most violent means possible to prevent them leaving.

(voice-over): Despite the British conviction that the refugees were deliberately targeted, it is possible that they were simply caught up in an attack on the front line. But the team securing the bridge have no doubt that irregular fighters are trying to slip in and out of Basra. Suspects are rounded up and escorted back to their base for interrogation.

The overall commander of the Desert Rats accused the paramilitaries of appalling brutality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been hearing stories of this kind of brutality. But this is the first occasion on which we've actually witnessed it.

BREMNER: So why wasn't he intervening to end the suffering?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm weighing the risk to my own forces, I'm weighing up the risk to the civilians who are being held hostage, effectively, in Basra.

BREMNER: For those risking this dangerous journey, the delay could be deadly. A bleak choice between running out of food or braving the crossfire.

Juliet Bremner, near Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: British pool report, Basra. Today, one of the dominant story lines of the day has been the image of civilian causalities. They were broadcast around the world, including here in the United States. Especially gruesome pictures were seen across Arab media. They came out of a market place in a Baghdad neighborhood. The Iraqi position is, according to the Information Ministry, that dozens of people died in a coalition air strike on their neighborhood. The Central Command -- the coalition side -- says they believe, for now, the damage may have been caused by an Iraqi aircraft fire that had somehow gone astray. This is what happens in war -- the two sides trying to argue their case in the international media.

CNN's Nic Robertson has been following this part of the story as it unfolds tonight. He's at the Iraqi-Jordanian border again and as always, good evening to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. And very, very difficult even for the journalists inside Baghdad to try and verify those figures and accounts of what happened in the early evenings hours last night, Baghdad time. And for us here, the CNN team stuck outside of Iraq doubly difficult but talking to reporters inside Baghdad, they told me they were called by Iraq's minister of information shortly after dusk and told to go to this residential neighborhood just west of the center of the city to investigate what the Iraqi officials told them, that there was a coalition bomb and certainly the images from this evening will further polarize positions on this war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): A brilliant flash illuminates the area around the Information Ministry in Baghdad, as what appears to be government buildings in the center of the city are targeted. Only a few hours earlier, crowds gathered around the crater in a suburban neighborhood. Impossible to see how deep it is or what caused it. According to Iraqi officials who rushed journalists to the site just after dusk, the damage was caused by a coalition bomb. In a nearby hospital, the injured were still being brought in, many clearly in pain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around 6 p.m. an enemy aircraft attacked the neighborhood while we were in the hospital assisting the wounded from this morning's attack. This coward (ph) aircraft attacked a popular market filled with residents.

ROBERTSON: According to the hospital staff, at least 51 people were killed and more than 50 injured. From these pictures alone, it is impossible to verify the number of casualties. Several children, however, seem to be victims.

Within hours of the blast, Iraq's information minister lambasted coalition forces.

MOHAMMED SAEED AL-SAHAF, IRAQI INFORMATION MINISTER (through translator): My explanation is that this is a heavy aggression on civilians to cover up for a series of defeat that our army caused them in the desert and different neighborhoods in Baghdad.

ROBERTSON: Coalition forces said they could not confirm an attack in this neighborhood. In a war whose images seem increasingly split between civilian casualties and frontline conflict, this latest incident looks set to widen the divide.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Indeed, as you say, Aaron, the Arab media in particularly in this region around Iraq are playing much stronger images than the images we have used. I saw on one station pictures in the mortuary apparently at the same hospital of some children, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, the images being seen in this region very, very emotive indeed, Aaron.

BROWN: It seems to me that we have to try and make a couple of points here. Number one, while certainly the Iraqis are using this moment to their best advantage, we ought never forget that these are real people who were -- however it happened, clearly wounded, some died, and that's a horrible thing.

The second is that the British side -- the American side also used the Basra situation to try and make their international argument that the Iraqi government is barbaric by using the shooting of the civilians, and what you end up having in the region is the war of words. Who wins the war of images. Do the Americans ever win that battle?

ROBERTSON: Certainly the Iraqi authorities know that this is perhaps one of the strongest elements they have in their arsenal against the United States, against Great Britain because it is so emotive. The injuries to civilians are used, as you rightly say, a very real people. I think, perhaps everyone knows the war is a very dirty and ugly business, but perhaps this war because the level of coverage that it has had from both sides, it's perhaps exposing to an audience that has never really seen it before, just how bad and ugly it is, and it happens in a very short timeframe on both sides because of the necessities of war. Both sides in this need to win the war. Both sides have a necessity to present in the best light their particular case, and certainly for the Iraqis, it is highlighting civilian casualties.

But coalition forces, it is to show that they are being compassionate towards Iraqi civilians, which is absolutely their intended, stated purpose here, that is to remove the regime but not in any way to harm the population -- Aaron.

BROWN: And just one more point. It seems like now three days in a row, they have tried to take out the Iraqis' ability to communicate. There was the hit on state-run TV and there seemed to be over the last two nights attacks around the Information Ministry, so far unsuccessful. Correct?

ROBERTSON: So far Iraq's state-run television is still on the air; however, the channel that is run by President Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday Saddam Hussein, we understand that is off the air. Iraq's third station, if you will, its satellite broadcast network, that appears to be off the air. The communications tower that was in the center of Baghdad, the communications building that was hit on the previous night, that apparently has affected some telephone services within the city. So, there does appear to be some degradation of Iraqi officialdom's ability to reach and communicate with their population. It is not entirely severed, and at this stage we still don't know what's happened to fully to Iraq's Information Ministry, but it appears that much of the superstructure of the building is still in place, because that's where those cameras stand that took the pictures we saw this evening.

BROWN: Right. Nic, thank you. As always, Nic Robertson who is still on the border of Iraq and Jordan, having been expelled by the Iraqi government and now several days ago, and we will talk to you later. We want to bring General Clark in in a moment to talk about this, but let me put one more piece on the table here, and that's this one. The residents in Kuwait got a reminder tonight as well that they are not yet safe from the Iraqi military machine, if you will. There was a huge explosion at a shopping mall there, as a result of what Kuwaiti authorities now believe was a missile attack. There is considerable evidence of that, including physical evidence in the hands of CNN's Sanjay Gupta, who was on the scene shortly after the explosion and joins us now from a safer place, if you will, our workspace there.

The last time when you and I talked you literally had in your hand piece of what almost certainly was the missile.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, and I actually brought those pieces over as well and I'll hold them up again while I am talking about them. First of all, let me just say that we were told that these pieces were safe to pick up before we picked them up. They were actually checked out. A greenish piece here in my left hand and a component, you can see both pieces there, probably pieces of the missile. One of them may be more of a sort of working component part of the missile, and this greenish sort of part is sort of, well interesting for me personally, Aaron, because I saw something fly over my head a week ago when I was at Camp Iwo-Jima that looked like a green missile. Got underneath the radar. There were no alarms or anything before that thing went right over our heads.

This was sort of a frightening reminiscent of that. There were no sirens or anything this time either. The first indication we got of anything going on certainly before 2 o'clock in the morning was a loud boom literally shaking our hotel, which is a good 10 minutes away from the Souq Sharq mall, which we have been hearing so much about -- Aaron.

BROWN: Earlier tonight, one of the pieces that you held up had some Chinese characters on it, which suggest very strongly the kind of there we go, the kind of missile it was and I know you are becoming very expert, very quickly on these missiles, and perhaps the reason they avoided detection is they come in so low.

GUPTA: And that's exactly what -- we talked to some of the Kuwaiti officials about that very point, and in fact they took that piece that people just saw with the Chinese writing on that for investigative purposes. We were glad to let them have it, but that's exactly what they said as well. These things maybe quite literally flying in under the radar as the one did a week ago, and maybe this one as well. Again, the first indication, the actual explosion itself.

BROWN: Couple more, who, what, wheres here. No serious injuries, correct?

GUPTA: No serious injuries. One minor injury, probably from debris falling on somebody's head.

BROWN: And I suspect that we said, in fact, at the top of the program the biggest casualty may be the Kuwaiti state of mind. After a week and half of this, they had come to believe perhaps that the Patriots will protect them from anything like this and that turns out not to be so.

GUPTA: Yes. You know, it's really interesting, a couple of things struck me. First of all, I guess, you know, any sort of situation like this -- it was a kind of there was pandemonium there. A lot of people who are really struggling and trying to get close to it, and then the authorities quickly coming in and then creating barriers around the explosion site.

But they moved with a lot of efficiency, the authorities, that almost as if, A, they have been through this before, which they had, and, B, almost is if they were expecting something like this. First, the civilian authorities followed by the military authorities; there were chemical and biological checks going on all the time. There was a lot of concern initially, but as people started to pick up a sense, A, that no one was hurt, and, B, that there was no chemical or biological weapons being detected by these censors, you could almost see the sense of relief coming over people despite this just horrible thing that just happened.

Again, no one being hurt, and this happening at 2 o'clock in the morning. No one being in the mall, that's the sort of a good things out of this very bad thing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sanjay, thank you. Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Kuwait.

And now we put a number of pieces on the table. Let's turn to General Wesley Clark, who is back with us in Atlanta. Back to front here. The significance that a week and a half into this, the Iraqis still have the capability to hit Kuwait city.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we haven't put enough forces to clear the zone in all of southern Iraq. We are still working around Basra. This missile was a Silkworm that was somewhere around Umm Qasr or Basra or somewhere like that, from which it was launched, not surprising. Until we fully clear that zone, there is a chance they could hit us again.

BROWN: Let's say, there is also -- would it not be standard reason, there is a chance they could just change direction and aim it at a concentration of coalition forces.

CLARK: They could. There is no doubt they could do that.

BROWN: So it is not simply a question they can hit Kuwait, it's that they still have the capability -- a military capability in an area that at this point there was a presumption would be clear?

CLARK: It's true. But this Silkworm strike on Kuwait City is essentially a terror weapon. This weapon launched inland is -- we don't believe accurate enough to hit any precision target, if they had targeting capability. They fired this to send a message to the Kuwaitis.

BROWN: They throw it up in the air and it comes down.

CLARK: Exactly.

BROWN: Well, we'll see what sort of message they send.

Now, on this subject we were talking with Nic about, this question of the image war, the political media war that's going on -- each side laid out, in a sense, its best argument today. The American argument and the British argument that the Iraqis will murder their own people, they'll use them as human shields; they are crossing the bridge in Basra, shooting them down. The Iraqis are talking about civilian casualties in the market. Do the Americans and the international -- you have been through this -- in the international community ever get the benefit of the doubt?

CLARK: Well, we did in the Kosovo campaign, Aaron. You may remember in that campaign that there were the scenes of collateral damage and people were injured occasionally in these bomb attacks. But, the scene of Milosevic forcefully expelling tens of thousands of Albanians from their own country turned world opinion so decisively against him that he couldn't recover.

There is a fundamental asymmetry here between what's happening to the Iraqis as a result of the American bombing and what's happening to the Iraqi population as a result of the Fedayeen.

The American bombing, this may have been an American bomb. We don't know right now, it hasn't been confirmed. If so, it was totally unintentional. We have done our best. The United States has done its best, I should say, to avoid striking civilian targets and hurting civilians. That's not the case with the Fedayeen, who must intentionally go after their own people because they have to -- their defense is the civilian population.

BROWN: There are, in fact, a lot of people in lots of parts of the world, the Arab part of the world certainly, but in a lot of parts of the world that actually don't believe that. They will believe that Americans targeted civilians.

CLARK: I am not sure about that.

BROWN: I get mail from them. I'll show it to you. I'm serious about this.

CLARK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) our way through starting with the countries that have doubts about us, in Europe, and we work from Europe outwards. You are going to find that they know from experience that the American bombing in Serbia was extraordinarily precise. It was extraordinarily limited, just as it has been in Baghdad, to strike military targets, and occasionally something goes wrong, and it's a terrible human tragedy for the families of the innocent people and for those victims.

But it's not intentional, whereas what the Iraqis must do is use the civilian population, and what's more likely to happen is that people in the Arab world and elsewhere are going to say, well, the Iraqis had no choice up against a superpower and they'll do anything, and it's OK for them to do anything, fine. But that's a different argument. And that's an argument that does violate the laws of war, which says that noncombatants must be protected.

BROWN: Not to mention any sense of human decency, I would say. Welcome back to Atlanta. It's really good to have you back. We will go to the Pentagon, check in with Jamie McIntyre. We need to take a break first. CNN's coverage of the war in Iraq after a short break continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Again today, there is a concerted effort by the Defense Department, by the Pentagon to knock down the notion that things are bogging down in any way, that things are not going as expected. The troops are facing an enemy that is different from the one they anticipated. What's new or at least new to us, some of those doubts were expressed openly by the man in charge of the ground war, and that does change the flavor of it all. That was the backdrop to the Pentagon briefing today. Here is our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, it's nice to see you tonight.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Nice to see you, Aaron.

The problem with trying to sort out what's going on at the Pentagon, is that the Pentagon always says things are right on plan, but you never exactly know what the plan is. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made that point today, even as he criticized some of the second guessing that's been going on over the last few days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Pentagon briefings have come the frontlines in a raging battle over how the war is perceived to be going. The Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld criticizing what he called massive volumes of television and breathless reporting.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We have seen mood swings in the media from highs to lows to highs and back again, sometimes in the single 24-hour period.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld said he'd only seen the headlines on "Washington Post" and "New York Times" articles, reporting that the commander of U.S. ground forces, Lieutenant General William Wallace answered "it's beginning to look that way," when asked if the war would be longer than expected. "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against," he also conceded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: F-16 (UNINTELLIGIBLE) precision-guided munition.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon countered with a montage of cockpit videos of successful air strikes and map showing that U.S. and British forces control as much as 40 percent of Iraqi territory and 95 percent of the skies.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: The plan is sound. It's been executed and it's on track, and that's essentially what General Wallace said too, he said we're about where we expected to be. That's one of his quotes as well.

MCINTYRE: After delays caused by mines in the harbor, humanitarian aid on a British ship has finally reached the port of Umm Qasr. The Pentagon insist delays in getting food, fuel and ammunition to U.S. troops on the frontlines in Iraq were mostly due to sandstorms and dismissed any attacks on the 300-mile long supply lines as, quote, "militarily insignificant." But even as the U.S. encircles Baghdad and moves Apache helicopters in position to pound Republican Guard troops, the Pentagon admits, there is a key unknown: The extent to which the Iraqi people may feel a patriotic fervor to resist U.S. forces sent to liberate them. Despite being a linchpin of U.S. policy, Rumsfeld insists the Iraqi mood is unknowable.

RUMSFELD: They might even feel a little different if the death squads are not standing next to them with guns to their heads, but why should I try to speculate as to what it will be since we'll see soon now?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Death squads is what the Pentagon is calling the Fedayeen Saddam now, and the U.S. has continued to try to target them. We are getting word tonight from U.S. Central Command that U.S. F-15 jets attacked a two-story building in Basra just about 300 yards away from the al-Basra Christian church. According to U.S. intelligence, about 200 of these Fedayeen fighters were meeting in a building there. They used a special bomb that has a delayed a fuse so that it will penetrate the building, explode inside and minimize the collateral damage. They say they don't believe they damaged the church that short since away -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do they have the bomb damage assessment on this yet?

MCINTYRE: Well, they just dropped the bomb a short time ago, and, of course, it always takes a little time to figure out if the pilot -- the pilots came back, they always have very optimistic reports about hitting their targets, but they have to check the videos and see what they actually show.

BROWN: So, we'll see what tomorrow brings on that, Jamie. Thank you, Jamie McIntyre. Well, another long day at the Pentagon. The president is at Camp David. Before he left, he once again tried to underscore the administration's view of things. Dana Bash has the White House watch tonight. Dana, good evening to you.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. And as you said, the president is at Camp David, but before he left he made clear that there could be more casualties ahead in the days to come in this war, and just as they did at the Pentagon, at the White House, they tried to retaliate against suggestions that the war isn't going as planned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Against this enemy we will accept no outcome except complete victory.

BASH (voice-over): Capping a week of public appearances to rally support and manage expectations, the president used the megaphone of his post to send the message the war is on track.

BUSH: The regime that once terrorized all of Iraq now controls a small portion of that country. Coalition troops continue their steady advance and are drawing near to Baghdad. We're inflicting severe damage on enemy forces.

BASH: Mr. Bush, speaking before war veterans at the White House, spoke of the brutality of the Iraqi regime towards prisoners of war and its own people and promised Americans will soon liberate.

BUSH: And we refuse to leave the Iraqi people in slavery under Saddam Hussein. When the war in Iraq is won, all who have joined this cause will be able to say to the Iraqi people, "We were proud to fight for your freedom."

BASH: Day nine of the conflict, a senior presidential aide says the commander in chief is irritated by, quote, "silly reporter questions of a flawed battle plan, talk of a longer war ahead than anticipated and constant television analysis."

CLARK: We haven't been welcomed as liberators yet. We haven't quite got rid of Saddam Hussein yet.

BASH: The White House says Mr. Bush never put a timetable on this war and did prepare the nation in speeches like this one in October.

BUSH: Military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: But just before the war began, Vice President Cheney said it would be "relatively quick, weeks rather than months." The White House today said that those comments should be put into context that he also said that things could get complicated and today, Aaron, a senior official admitted that they were reluctant to prepare the nation in detail for what this war would perhaps have ahead especially when they were still dealing with the diplomatic events. They were very reluctant to talk about the war -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dana, thank you. Dana Bash at the White House. We'll take a break here. We'll give you an update on the headlines and then we'll also be joined tonight by Jeff Greenfield. We have much to do. We're glad you're with us. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: More now on the president and the war, what he's saying, what the public is hearing. Jeff Greenfield joins us from New York tonight. Jeff, it's good to have you. I actually have a -- there's no theme in this in at least the things on my list today.

Let me start with the secretary of defense though because there is certain truth I think to his saying today that this intensive media coverage can -- has these incredible highs and these lows and these highs and these lows and they can happen in a period of a day or a half a day sometimes.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: We are now I think about to see the third or fourth mood swing in these nine days. The poo-pooing of the gloom has already begun and he is -- he is on this point absolutely right. It is one of the consequences of living in an era of instantaneously information. Everything gets compressed and I would suggest all of us, the political people, the retired generals, the active armed forces people and lord knows the media, know the steps. We know the questions to ask not months after a war starts but days. It occurred to me, Aaron, that during the Vietnam War we would watch the evening news at 6:30 or seven o'clock and the next piece of information we would get were in the morning papers the next day.

BROWN: Right.

GREENFIELD: Right? No CNN. No CSPAN. Lord knows no World Wide Web with the bloggers posting all during the night. No talk radio and so what happens is that, you know, by day three you're asking the questions that the Vietnam correspondents were asking about a year and a half after the escalation and it is truly astonishing, you know, to realize that in World War II for the first six months of that war, as I said before, there was nothing but bad news. German U boats sinking American ships within sight of the coast, the Japanese sweeping through Asia. What would have happened if we'd had this kind of coverage in the Second World War? I can't imagine it.

BROWN: The president has -- in the last three days, the president was at the Pentagon three days ago. Yesterday he was down at CentCom, Central Command. Today he was talking to a veterans' group. The president is surrounding himself in some ways to help get the message out, which is both political -- this is a question. Is it both political and strategic in a sense in terms of maintaining the country's optimism?

GREENFIELD: Yes. I think to be fair it's political, if I can say this with a small p, that is it's not political geared to the 19 -- to the 2004 election, but I think this White House really remembers what can happen to a president when the country turns against or gets suspicious or gets dubious about a war. I saw one piece, again seven days after the war, raising the famous phrase "credibility gap." That was a phrase that the former U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg coined around 1965 or 1966 to talk about the gap between -- the growing gap between the American public and the president. I think any notion that the public thinks the president or the administration isn't leveling with them is considered political nitroglycerin, highly dangerous and the White House, Lord knows, does not want to be in that position.

I would also suggest that I think it was pretty striking to watch the president and Tony Blair at that joint press conference because a lot of people who don't like the president were pointing out, you know, that which is now an old chestnut about, well, here's Tony Blair. He grew up in the House of Commons. He's a master on his feet of the spontaneous, unrehearsed debate, and here's the president who didn't look as eloquent. I think the White House wants the president to be using that bully pulpit and to be seen not only as the man in charge of the war but somebody who can explain the point of the war.

BROWN: The -- is this a time when the president perhaps not this week literally, but is this a time when the president can use his popularity? I think the poll number had it at about 64 or 65, somewhere in there to get other things, domestic things to Congress or is the country so focused on the war now in part because of the media that that's the only story and the only piece of business? GREENFIELD: Well, if that were true you can't prove it by what's happened on the domestic front not that anybody's paying a whole lot of attention but you did have his tax cut cut in half because three republican senators defected and there was an argument being made don't walk away from the president at this time, drilling in the Arctic preserve has been defeated and he can't get Judge Estrada confirmed, but he can't break that filibuster.

So I really don't think that there's much of a connection. I don't think that we're seeing a lot of that and if they were trying it, it doesn't seem to have had much impact.

The other part about that is you go back to 1991, George Bush the elder, I guess that's what we have to call him, Bush I, the father, riding on a wave of a victory. Remember victory parades through downtown New York and Washington, 91 percent approval ratings? Maybe if this George Bush winds up with that result because it's a more politically focused White House they will then try to leverage that popularity and that approval to a big domestic fight but as of now I think the war's got everybody's attention.

BROWN: It certainly does ours. Thank you. I think all of ours for a while yet. Jeff, thank you, Jeff Greenfield.

We wait for our embedded reporters to phone in, file for us and we're expecting more of that. We'll talk more about the shape of the battlefield. A lot of things still ahead, a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We'll talk a bit more about the shape of the war or the strategy, the underlying strategy in all of this because that seems to be one of the issues so prominently on the table right now.

We're joined from our Washington bureau by author and military historian, retired Colonel Walter Boyne. Nice to see you, sir.

COL. WALTER BOYNE (RET), U.S. AIR FORCE: Nice to see you.

BROWN: Do you have -- is it your concern here that the plan itself is too timid in its approach?

BOYNE: No, I'm concerned that we really didn't recognize that some other things have intervened since 1991. We came out of 1991 with a conceit that our technology would be such that we could fight a war without casualties and without inflicting many casualties. That's really quite a stretch and it played into the hands of the enemy because now if an ordinary set of casualties occurs, something that's in part of every war, they play it up as an atrocity. We made a mistake. I think that we should really announce that we're going to fight this war as we fight all wars and as all wars have always been fought through history with an utmost vigor and that if casualties occur, we regret them. We'll try to avoid them but it's not something that we wish to be placed on trial for.

BROWN: When you say casualties you're referring to civilian casualties, are you not?

BOYNE: Yes, to collateral damage and to civilian casualties. You know, every commander in the field is faced with troops that are advancing on him with women and children have got to decide does he attack them or does he risk his own troops. It's a tough decision to pass down. Everybody will make post mortems of whatever event occurs and I think we've put ourselves in really an artificial position. It's a war. It's not a video game and it's not a game of politeness. We should fight the war as we need to with utter vigor.

BROWN: That's the theoretical. Now I want to take it to the practical. Can you give me a practical example of where the coalition is not executing the war in the way that you think it would be best executed?

BOYNE: Well, we had the incidents in which we had people killed because they were sort of sand bagged by what we now we call thugs but were actually gorillas no matter whether you give them the credit of being a Czechoslovakian guerrilla against the Germans or a Russian guerrilla against the Germans. They're guerrilla fighters. And they have another thing going for them that we haven't really factored into the equation too. Since 9/11 there's really been somewhat of a holy war declared against us and I think that we are not only perceived as invaders but we are also perceived as infidels and so if you an Iraqi brought up a the system in which he's lead to believe that Saddam Hussein is, you know, correct in everything and that he must believe what Saddam Hussein has said and if he's got a guy who has a gun against his head, it's pretty hard to tear him away.

I think once we win the battle and we will win it, once we bring in the humanitarian aid and we bring in the hospitals and they do see that we do -- are a good intent then things will change but on the battlefield I think that we ought to be very, very circumspect about admitting the enemy close to the camp or admitting them with any idea that they might possibly be soldiers. I'd much rather keep them out forcibly if necessary.

BROWN: The argument, of course, is that you win the war and lose the peace that these images are played across the Arab world and across Europe and elsewhere that while you undoubtedly can go take Baghdad in the long run you do -- the argument is made you do yourself more harm than good. Obviously if I hear you, you're saying look, let's do first things first here.

BOYNE: Well, not only that, we've already lost that battle. There's no way in the world we could come in with nothing but Hershey candy bars to hand out to everybody and nobody -- no Arab newspaper would change a thing. We've lost that war. The only way we can survive is to win this war in a way that we don't have to engage in another one in Syria or in some other country and also then do a marvelous job on the peace, really do you know a Marshall plan plus so that we get them back in the world then gradually, only gradually, will we ever get them to begin to like us. I think it's very much essential that they respect us first and then learn to like us later. We're not going to make them like us as we come in. BROWN: A final quick question, do you think there's any chance that the generals or the politicians involved in creating the war plan are going to have a change of heart and go the direction you're advocating they go?

BOYNE: Well, let me ask you this. If you find that you have three or four Iraqi divisions in Baghdad suburbs and they have chemical weapons, they probably won't have a choice but to do as I suggest.

BROWN: Nice to talk to you sir. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BOYNE: Right.

BROWN: Interesting conversation. CNN's Bob Franken -- excuse me -- is embedded within -- at a forward air base and he joins us by the videophone. Excuse me.

Bob, in Iraq what are you able to report today?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're going to have to tread very carefully but of course we are able to report that this is going to become a major staging area for the A-10s. We've become very familiar with that plane and it's major role in the protection of the ground forces and this space, which is 150 miles closer to the action, is going to be a place now where the A-10s and other aircraft operate.

With me now is the person who's here coordinating. He is the A- 10 commander. This is Lieutenant Colonel Baja. I have to explain that they only want their flight names known. They are not supposed to be identified personally.

Tell me what's going to be happening in the next day or so.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL BAJA, A-10 COMMANDER: Well, coming up shortly we're here to set up for A-10 operations out of here. We're looking to move forward and press the war north and having an A-10 in the fight closer is going to certainly be able to support the army and marines and take out critical enemy asset that will oppose them.

FRANKEN: Now is this going to be a place where they'll actually locate or is it going to be a staging area or a refueling area?

BAJA: For right now we're looking at refueling and building up in the future. No timeline set for that but things are moving quickly.

FRANKEN: The advantage being that it's 150 miles closer to everything, right?

BAJA: That's affirmative. We can give us a lot more loiter time in the area and allow us to employ our weapons.

FRANKEN: You're, in addition to being the commander; you are an A-10 pilot and are flying missions here. Tell me about the most recent ones. BAJA: Just a few days ago I was actually in this area here. As you know, this is one of the hot spots down in the south and we were over here working -- taking out a few of the tanks and bunkers and some of the various targets that were causing problems at that time so.

FRANKEN: Can you describe the actual mission, what you go through, what you went through on that?

BAJA: The mission itself, you know, there's a lot of planning going on. That particular day we were working with some of the ground assets out there. They were talking our eyes onto some targets that they thought were critical for their mission and then we go and support them by taking those two tanks in particular and then a couple of bunker storage areas full of ammunitions that they wanted taken out.

FRANKEN: And you go into your famous dive. What is that like?

BAJA: Well, flying is a lot of fun but you don't think too much about it because you're pretty focused at the time and you know, all the threats that are out there and you're busy looking out and performing your job and making sure that you're in the right parameters to deliver your weapon.

FRANKEN: And so Aaron that is the job that's going to be done from here. As I said, this was a place that had almost no operation yesterday when we arrived. It's really starting to be up and running now, a large number of people here.

Another thing overnight and it was too dark to have any view of this, they put some POWs in here. They moved them to other places. Earlier yesterday as we were arriving we saw a large group of them sitting on the tarmac. The moment we arrived they pulled them away. This is a busy place and it's going to get much busier -- Aaron.

BROWN: Bob, thank you, Bob Franken who's at that forward air base.

We need to check into Kuwait again where there was a missile hit. Colonel Boyne certainly put some things on the table we want to talk with General Clark about so we have a lot of business that's sort of hanging.

We need to take a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the first 52 minutes tonight, we've dealt with the military advance that have gone both in Kuwait and Iraq. We've looked at the political side of this, the Pentagon side of this. There is still a diplomatic side of this in play though it's really now all about humanitarian aide for the time. Richard Roth is at the United Nations and he covered that discussion I think is probably the right word for it today. Richard, good evening. RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well, they finally found something to agree on, 15 hands in the air, 15 votes in favor, the security counsel unanimously approving the resumption, security permitting, of the so-called oil for food program, the largest United Nations humanitarian benefits program for the people of Iraq. This was the program that Saddam Hussein didn't really want to have start but it finally began in 1996. Profits from Iraqi oil sales go to the people of Iraq, food and medicine and other badly needed supplies but the secretary general suspended the program because of the war and now they're trying to get it resumed but of course, Iraq is not really in control in parts of the country.

Previously Baghdad handled the distribution of a lot of the food and the medicine so now it's the "occupying powers," the U.S. and Britain who have to do it but to get to that point you need the United Nations security counsel to say OK. Russia and France objected for a while. It was finally smoothed over today -- Aaron.

BROWN: In any case, none of that can happen until it's safe for it to happen.

ROTH: That's correct. Maybe in some parts but not in a wide spread distribution so far.

BROWN: Richard, thank you, Richard Roth at the U.N. tonight.

General Clark, a number of things on the table. Colonel Boyne argues that the -- even in this media age you have to be prepared if you're a war planner to -- for the reality of war which is civilians die and you have to aggressively or more aggressively prosecute the war. Do you agree with that?

CLARK: Well, I do agree that you -- there are certain things you can't escape in war. You will take casualties if the enemy resists. You cannot control at the outset how stiffly the enemy resists and you know, you're going to have to deal with the fact that individuals, civilians, unfortunately will get hurt in this but war is different today because the media does change the conduct of warfare and military planners also have to know this. Our military planners do know this. That's why they're working so hard to avoid civilian casualties.

BROWN: But if -- I would think there would be people who are watching right now who are saying you mean the United States and the British are fighting this war with one hand tied behind their back?

CLARK: Well, they're fighting the war in the best way to achieve the overall objective. Remember when we first went into this we were saying the Iraqi people would probably welcome us as liberators and that was the information that was given out and the people who were talking to the Iraqis and others believed that otherwise they wouldn't have said it.

BROWN: Sure.

CLARK: And it hasn't happened yet. Now we're saying that they would welcome us as liberators except they're being maintained under the grip of the death squads. That could be very well be true. So it's in our interest to do as little damage as possible to the civilian infrastructure not because we want to fight with a hand tied behind our back but because we're going to ultimately have to help build a new country here and for every person who dies, his relatives will never -- they never get over what's happened. This is a human endeavor so I do think that our people are sensitive to it and still we're able to fight and fight hard and fight well.

BROWN: General, more as we go along. We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

Back to Kuwait. Kuwait was hit today by an Iraqi missile. There had been 12 attempts until today to hit Kuwait City with an Iraqi missile but the 13th one got through the defenses. John Vause is at the mall in Kuwait City where it hit. John, good evening to you. Good morning.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello Aaron. Well, it is now daylight here, dawn, and we can have a better idea of just the damage, which was done. It's kind of difficult to work out exactly where the missile hit but it is not difficult to work out just the amount of damage that it did. If we walk out on this pier, this was the pier that goes out into the Persian Gulf. We can see the damage there, the buckled steel which was a result of the explosion, the impact of this missile which we now understand it may have in fact been a seersucker missile like an anti-ship missile. It comes in at a very low trajectory, very low coming in at about 100 feet off the ground. The missile has hit. It sent a shock wave, which has basically gone through.

This is the mall. This is the entrance to the mall. We just take a look at this picture here. The shock wave has basically gone through the mall. It's hit the back and then it's come out again because we've seen a number of the doors have actually been blown outwards as well, quite a powerful blast. The officials here are telling us that luckily this missile struck around 1:45 in the morning otherwise if it had of been daytime, it's the weekend here. It's Friday yesterday so if it had of struck during the day on Friday or later today on Saturday; they have about 25,000 people that come to this mall over the weekend. The officials tell me that it would have been a whole lot worse had that missile struck during daylight hours, Aaron.

BROWN: There's still -- is the mall -- well, it's awfully early there. I guess the mall is not open yet anyway. It's not even seven o'clock yet, right, just coming up on seven?

VAUSE: Aaron, I'm having a little bit of trouble making out what you're saying but it's very noisy here but since I've still got you, I'll tell you a few other things that we've learned. We know that the missile was actually clean. They've had those crews out from the Czech Republic who've checked it for biological and chemical agents. They say there was none of that. It was in fact just a low explosive warhead and that is what is responsible for all the damage here. In fact, one other point of interest, the Ameers' (ph) residents, not far from here, about a mile or so away.

BROWN: That's a royal family. John, thank you, John Vause. There are Czech units, American units and German units who deal in chemical weapons and they are in the country. They are working together as part of the war on terrorism not the war against Iraq.

We take a break. We'll update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

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