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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

War in Iraq: Jessica Lynch's Family Speaks Out

Aired April 01, 2003 - 23:00   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.


(NEWSBREAK)
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Heidi.

Jessica Lynch's family has spoken. We'll hear from them in a few moments but we realize that many of you are just joining us, especially out on the West Coast where you're settling in for the evening. We want to give you a broad sense of the day, some of the key developments, how it all looked this hour provided by Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): In the crosshairs of allied forces, Iraq's two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, first Baghdad.

The allies are focusing on the Iraqi capital. CENTCOM officials say battle plans call for a move on the city in the coming days and weeks. Walter Rodgers with the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry less than 60 miles away says that unit is being reinforced by other troops freed up from elsewhere to join the push.

But, Pentagon officials say Iraqi Republican Guard divisions are also being reinforced shoring up defensive positions south of the capital. CNN is told General Tommy Franks, the top allied commander, has been given the authority to decide when to move toward Baghdad.

In Basra, flares go op over the city. At least one large explosion is reported. CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports fierce fighting between British and Iraqi forces around the city. The British are operating in the southern and western outskirts but resistance is intense.

In south central Iraq U.S. forces still trying to root out pockets of resistance around Nasiriya with door-to-door searches by Marines and Special Operations forces destroying buildings believed to house local commanders.

In the north, Biara (ph) near the border with Iran, new pictures of the capture of a compound allegedly belonging to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked by the U.S. to al Qaeda. It's the first major battlefield operation where Kurdish forces fight side-by-side with U.S. Special Operations troops. An American in that unit claims a startling discovery. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have found various documents, equipment, et cetera, that would indicate a presence of chemical and/or biological weapons.

BLITZER: In western Iraq, an Iraqi official claims a U.S. war plane fires on two busses carrying human shields including Americans. The Iraqi says many are injured. U.S. Central Command is investigating.

Wolf Blitzer CNN, Kuwait City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: OK, that's the overview. Back now to the best story of the night, if not the most strategically important, the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch.

Private First Class Lynch and other members of her group, the 507 Maintenance Unit were attacked on the first Sunday of the war near Nasiriya when they apparently took a wrong turn. But there is much that is still not known and Jessica Lynch will be able to provide a lot of answers to what is one of the mysteries of the first couple of weeks.

Private First Class Lynch was rescued by Special Forces troops with the help of Marines. She's back with U.S. troops. She's getting medical treatment and just moments ago her parents talked about finding out that their 19-year-old daughter was alive and OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...Jessie's situation.

GREG LYNCH, SR., LYNCH'S FATHER: That she's safe in a hospital and they would debrief her and she's in good health.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nine days of not knowing. What was the feeling when you got the word?

G. LYNCH: Oh, joyous. I can't express what it was, couldn't talk, and we're just glad it happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had talked previously about you have not allowed yourself to think any negative thoughts. That obviously had to be very difficult and yet now on this side of it how can you look back at the ordeal about the way faith and hope brought you through it?

G. LYNCH: That's mainly what we had to keep up was a lot of hope and faith. We couldn't look towards capture at that point. We believed, still believe, that she was hiding out and she wasn't a capture, but you know that is wonderful news that we heard tonight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven't talked to Dee much because Dee hasn't been able to talk. Dee, what are your thoughts about what's going on this evening. DEE LYNCH, LYNCH'S MOTHER: I'm just so excited. I'm just speechless.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got a lot of friends and neighbors and family that strolled up here unannounced. What does that tell you about the community support that you have?

D. LYNCH: OH, I love their support. I mean they've been great, prayer, I knew it couldn't go wrong. I knew it had to be good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Greg, Jr., Special Forces guys went in, rescued her. You're a military man, what do you think about the success of an operation like this?

GREG LYNCH, JR., LYNCH'S BROTHER: I'll tell you what, Kenny (ph), they did a wonderful job out there. I knew they were going to bring her home safe but I didn't realize that it was going to be this soon and it's extremely good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And finally, Brandy, we haven't talked with you much. Just quickly how are you feeling tonight?

BRANDY LYNCH, LYNCH'S SISTER: Overwhelmed, extremely overwhelmed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I bet overwhelmed. Jessica Lynch comes from a small town, a town of about 900 in West Virginia, and the whole town we were told is celebrating tonight.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about what happened on that first Sunday of the war and there are eight soldiers who are still missing in action, five others from the 507th, which is based at Fort Bliss, are POWs in Iraq somewhere.

We'll go now back to Ryan Chilcote who's embedded with the 101st Airborne which just a short while ago was under the threat of an Iraqi missile attack, perhaps more than one missile and Ryan's back with us now.

You were pretty limited in what you could tell us. Add to it as you can.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, U.S. field commanders here on the ground now still confirming that two missiles, two surface-to-surface missiles landed, impacted in the vicinity of this area, of the city of Najaf in central Iraq.

Now, they are calling that a failed attempt to target U.S. servicemen. That is new, troops from the 101st Airborne getting woken up before dawn this morning by the so-called Scud alarm being told very frantically to don their gas masks. That's standard procedure if you have a missile attack. U.S. troops always immediately don their gas masks. They were later given the all clear, which is a very strong indication that those missiles that impacted in this area almost definitely did not have any kind of chemical weapons laced inside of them.

Now, I am currently following the 2nd Battalion better known as "no slack" of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne. They did a head count or a roll call immediately following the attack. All troops are accounted for, no casualties, so good news there.

Now, this Iraqi missile attack comes after a massive two day U.S. ground offensive into the outskirts of Najaf, the soldiers, more than 500 U.S. infantrymen, coming into the outskirts of the city yesterday to go after the paramilitary group Saddam Fedayeen.

Saddam Fedayeen a group very loyal to President Saddam Hussein. Its fighters in this area have been putting up a very fierce resistance to U.S. forces on the ground -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let me ask you and you answer if you can did the missile appear -- did the missile come from the city out or from outside the city in?

CHILCOTE: I can't tell you the exact trajectory of the missile.

BROWN: OK.

CHILCOTE: Because the commanders here believe that would compromise where we are. But what I can tell you, Aaron, there are some things that I can tell you. I can tell you that one of the missiles was sighted just after it landed. So far, one of the two have been sighted, the second simply heard.

The one that was sighted was sighted in the middle of the desert so obviously they either had bad intelligence about where U.S. troops are or it was just not a very accurate missile.

Unfortunately at this point I don't have any information about civilian casualties but the field commander, the U.S. field commander that I was speaking with, suspected that at least in the case of that first missile strike, that first area, there are probably no civilian casualties because he said there's basically nothing in that area whatsoever -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, Najaf itself is important strategically but it also has symbolic significance in Islam.

CHILCOTE: That's right. This is, of course, the holiest city to Shia Muslims. It is home to a very important mosque where Shia Muslims believe the remains of Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Mohammed are buried. It is a place where many Shia Muslims come on pilgrimages at least once in their life. It is something that U.S. troops are very sensitive about.

Initially they did not really want to come into the city of Najaf, some commanders telling me that they were reluctant to come into the city because of those sensitivities and because, of course, they suspect that the Shias here in the city are very sympathetic to the U.S. cause in any case.

Still, they say they were forced to come in because this group, the Fedayeen, the Saddam Fedayeen, they say have made the city into a safe haven and used it to launch attacks on U.S. troops moving through this area. So, they wanted to come in here, safeguard if you will the city and make sure that there are no more attacks from those Fedayeen and try to root them out of this area -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ryan, thank you, Ryan Chilcote with the group within the 101st on this missile attack tonight.

And we turn to General Wesley Clark who's with us tonight. General Clark is in New York. He's been with us most every night. General, there was a moment about ten or 15 minutes ago in the update when we saw young Lebanese men signing up to, they say, to go to Iraq and fight the fight. Whether they actually get to Iraq and fight the fight or not, that notwithstanding, that is a troubling scene because those young men can and perhaps will over time cause lots of problems.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FMR. NATO SUPREME CMDR.: It is troubling, Aaron, and it does bring back memories of the same kinds of scenes in October, November of 2001 when many Pakistanis and even from some other Islamic countries, people were signing up to go to Afghanistan to defend the Taliban. Many of them went there. Many died.

In this case, my guess is that it will be much more difficult for those throughout the Arab world to actually get to Iraq and given the state of defenses in and around Baghdad, it's going to be very difficult for them to be employed.

BROWN: But if...

CLARK: I take this as an indicator not of problems in this war but of what happens afterwards.

BROWN: That's what I was going to say that it's not so much the war itself it's the peace itself that, and we've often talked about winning the peace is going to be a very, very complicated piece of business and that's one picture of why.

CLARK: Exactly, because if we're going to be successful afterwards it's got to be with the -- in earning the respect and the appreciation of not only people in Iraq but elsewhere in the Islamic world. Otherwise, how are we going to use the leverage we've attained in Iraq let's say to bring a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, to settle the problems between Lebanon and Syria and Israel?

And so, we've got to somehow transform military dominance into political acceptance and a reluctance -- and a reluctance of others to continue to engage in combat activities and this kind of hostility is worrisome. BROWN: There's a story out there tonight about growing tension between British and American commanders over what the British feel is American heavy handedness. You had some experience dealing with these complicated coalitions. This one's not an especially complicated coalition, but are you surprised it took this long for this sort of tension to appear?

CLARK: Well, I think they've done pretty well so far. Obviously the two forces are entirely different in terms of structure capabilities and missions and the Brits are working effectively, smoothly around Basra. They're not making a lot of headway in terms of quickly finishing off the job.

I'm not sure what the sources of tension are but in any alliance there are always differing interests, differing perspectives, different capabilities and officers have to work together, respect each other, and pull together for the common aim.

BROWN: When the march to Baghdad happens, it is Americans who are going into Baghdad, not British, correct?

CLARK: That's exactly right as of now. So far as any of us have been able to determine the entire British is still concentrated at Basra.

BROWN: And that has been going on, they've been sort of moving their way in but they can't quite close the deal, if you will.

CLARK: Well, the reports from Basra suggest the Ba'ath Party is still very much in charge, that there is no sign of an insurrection in the city. Life's pretty much going on as normal and the people are waiting for the British to make an impact.

On the other hand, I also have sympathy for the Brits because they could certainly smash their way into the city. In doing so, they'd do a lot of destruction. They'd kill a lot of people, make a lot of permanent enemies and be engaged in a real fight and it's not clear that Basra is independent.

In other words, once the attack takes place in Baghdad, how long will it be before the resistance in Basra collapses? My guess is, and we don't know this, but my guess is that it will collapse there once Saddam is gone and out of power in Baghdad.

And so, it makes sense strategically, hold, squeeze, contain, work against those missile launchers that might be down there, but don't go in and kill thousands of people in an effort to sort of run over the city. There's not the urgency to do that.

BROWN: Because it all has to go through Baghdad eventually anyway.

CLARK: I think so.

BROWN: General Clark, thank you, back to you in a moment, and we'll be back to you in a moment too. A short break first and our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Joined on the phone by Michael Gordon who's the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times." Michael is in Kuwait. Michael, as we have always done, I guess, what's the lead from where you are?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, there's an important development today which is that, well, the U.S. military's begun the battle of Baghdad, something that begins maybe a bit slowly but they've taken the first step by launching an attack on the Republican Guard defenders who are guarding the approaches to the city.

BROWN: And, when you talk about the approaches to the city, how far out of the city are we talking about?

GORDON: Yes, well I mean basically the situation is as follows. I mean, Saddam Hussein is making his final stand in Baghdad the best anybody can tell and he's arrayed forces inside the city and on the outskirts of the city as two rings of defenses and the outer ring of defenses includes Republican Guard troops, the Medina Division to the south, and the Baghdad which is an infantry division to the southeast.

So, we're talking, oh I don't know, anywhere from, you know, 50 miles to 60, 70 miles out but these are the forces that guard the highways leading to Baghdad and the forces the U.S. has to fight its way through to get to Baghdad proper.

BROWN: And which American units are engaged there?

GORDON: Well, what we have is pretty interesting. I mean you have Army and Marines. Really this is -- the area around Baghdad is known by the land war command which is where I'm embedded as the red zone and it's called that because this is the most strategically significant area.

And it's also potentially the most dangerous area, and it's the area in which the American forces expect to, if there's going to be a use of chemical weapons by the Iraqis it's almost certainly going to occur in this area and not before as the forces close in on the capital.

The American units which are now in the red zone for the first time in this war is basically the Army and the Marines. You're talking about the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and then the Marine 1st Division. They're both now in this red zone.

BROWN: Do you have any feel for what the sort of shape of this looks like, where these attacks are being made, or is it across a wide range?

GORDON: You're really talking about several axes. It's not -- you're talking about one attack that's coming up from the south, maybe the southwest, and another attack that's coming up from the southeast at this point in time. So, they're basically about two main routes that, you know, two to three main routes at this juncture.

BROWN: Are you surprised at all by the timing of it that it's happening right now as opposed to, I don't know, five days from now?

GORDON: Well, if they hadn't encountered the resistance in the south and the paramilitary units, it would have occurred already. But, you know, on any given day you can be surprised whether it's occurring, you know, today as opposed to tomorrow as opposed to two days ago.

But really, this is what the operation calls for. What they anticipated was a very quick march up to the outskirts of Baghdad and then, you know, what they're involved in now is what they call a deliberate attack. This is expected to be a pretty methodical series of battles as they methodically take down the Republican Guard piece by piece and advance to Baghdad.

Now, you know, the Republican Guard has been worked over pretty intensively already from the air so you're talking about some units which are maybe at 50 percent strength or less and judged to be combat ineffective. But the Iraqis have pushed in reinforcements, so what has happened is the Republican Guard's been hit hard from the air.

Now the Army and the Marines are coming at them. They're engaging them with land forces, tanks, artillery, helicopters. They're going to push through them, move closer to the capital, and eventually arrive on the outskirts of the city and at that point I guess there will be the final and most difficult phase of the battle which will be surrounding the city and venturing inside the capital itself.

BROWN: Michael, thank you. Michael Gordon, the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times" on the shape of the battle there.

Quickly, General Clark, how many soldiers, I guess, are we talking about on both sides here? How many -- what's your sense of how many American soldiers are there and what is your sense of how many Iraqi soldiers are there?

CLARK: Well, this is one of the real imponderables, Aaron, because as far as the Iraqis are concerned we would be counting equipment. We're hearing probably some radio transmissions. So, we've talked about these two Iraqi divisions that we're going after, the Medina Division, the Adnan Division, and maybe part of the Baghdad Division, and these divisions would normally have 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers.

They've probably been reinforced. They may have as many as 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers all tolled on these positions and they've been under constant attack. So, the number we're going against could be anywhere operationally from 25,000 up to maybe 40,000, and what we've got attacking them is actually a force at the point of the edge of the spear that may be only 5,000 or 10,000.

But it's not the numbers that are relevant here. What you do is you isolate a section of the battlefield. You mash your combat power against it. We've got overwhelming air and artillery. If the Iraqi artillery fires back, we locate it and destroy it. They can't stop the air power. All we really have to do is advance our troops, get the Iraqis to shoot back, fix their positions and destroy them, and then methodically move forward on and on.

The only difficulty comes if you have to get inside a built-up area with population and it soaks up a lot of people. Otherwise, the numbers really aren't as relevant as the overwhelming dominance of American combat power.

BROWN: That's the theory and, General Clark, we've got a half hour left with you tonight so we'll explore that some more. Thank you, sir.

We bring another voice into the mix. Joe Klein joins us. Mr. Klein writes politics for "TIME Magazine" and is a frequent guest on NEWSNIGHT and even in normal circumstances. Joe, it's nice to see you.

JOE KLEIN, "TIME MAGAZINE": Good to see you, Aaron.

BROWN: You know there are so many things that have gone on today. It's a little hard to know where to start. I wanted -- actually was going to talk a bit about how the coverage has looked to you because I know you have some criticisms there. But let me ask a political question.

There's a lot of political careers, in fact, on the line. It's a little unseemly I suppose to talk about it and most people are very quiet about it. Have the Democratic candidates been saying anything over the last week of significance, the last two weeks?

KLEIN: Well, no. I mean, you know, they have kept quiet in a very decorous sort of way. The one guy who might be in some trouble at this point is Howard Dean, the governor of Vermont who has been the most vocal antiwar candidate up until this point.

I interviewed him before an audience of 600 people at the Kennedy Library in Boston a week ago and I asked him, you know, what his position now and he says I support the troops, which is a kind of, you know, woosie, (unintelligible) sort of position.

I said well what does that mean? There are some people who would say that the best way to support the troops is to have them withdraw. Do you support that? He said no. I said and there are others who would say the best way to support them is to add a couple of hundred thousand more troops and he wouldn't go there either.

This is kind of ironic because he has been attacking the other Democrats for not being very specific about this war and he's in a position now where a lot of his opponents like Joe Lieberman, John Kerry who said that victory is the only exit strategy now, and others, have a more specific position on the war than he does but for the most part, you're seeing, you know, quiet. BROWN: All right, let's move on then to your criticism of television in particular, and the argument is we have put on a TV show, if you will, but we haven't shown a war.

KLEIN: Well, I think that if you look at the images, and I know that this is a tough, tough thing to do, but if you look at the images that we've seen on the all news stations, by and large, they've been PG rated. There's nothing that you couldn't show to a child under the, you know, the age of 13, and as we all know war is far more brutal and ugly than that.

On the one hand the Arab stations and many of the other stations around the world are showing some pretty grisly pictures and I think that it's probably our responsibility in the media to let the American people see that.

Now there are good reasons why we shouldn't show dead bodies. You know, the privacy of those who have been killed in combat is paramount obviously, and you don't want to, you know, play into the propaganda of our enemies but the delicate sensibilities of our viewers and our readers shouldn't be among them.

I mean I published this week a photograph that occurred in World War II. Franklin Roosevelt purposefully lifted the censorship on American casualties because he thought that the people at home weren't getting a true sense of the brutality of war. And, here we have the irony of people reporting to you in real time, you know, reporting the war in real time and we're not seeing just how ugly a thing war is.

BROWN: This is difficult, as I know you know, and I hope you appreciate I'm involved in making some of these decisions and at the same time I don't want to argue the point.

KLEIN: Listen, we don't show these -- we don't show these photos in "TIME Magazine" either.

BROWN: Precisely, I mean there is on the one hand the argument we go through, as you know, is we're not in the business of sanitizing this. It needs to be at least some reflection of how ugly war is.

War is an ugly piece of business. Where is the line and how much do you show and particularly when it's live videotape? I mean it's -- they're complicated decisions, I guess. Would people rebel against the war itself if we showed more gruesome scenes?

KLEIN: Listen, Roosevelt had those photos published, because he thought it would stir up the people and make them especially angry about the kind of brutality being visited on American troops by the Germans and the Japanese. I don't think that anything's certain, but I don't know that it's on us to make those decisions, except for in very obvious cases where the privacy of a soldier and his or her family is involved. I mean, as I said, this is really difficult. But maybe we should be doing a little bit better job of reminding people that these big, beautiful, you know, bursts of ammunition that we're seeing going off in the night do cause casualties. I mean, you know, we've experienced 50 years of really gruesome Hollywood bang-bang. And, you know, the kind of stuff we're showing on the air now, you know, wouldn't get a rise out of a normal audience.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. Joe Klein.

KLEIN: My pleasure.

BROWN: It's a reasonable critique, I think, of the last few weeks. And we appreciate that. We'll take a break, we'll update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: Heidi, thank you. Have a good rest of the night. Heidi Collins. It's a Wednesday morning in Baghdad. And that is what it looks like on this Wednesday morning, coming up toward 9:00 in the morning there. There is still some haze, though the bombing came late in the evening, or late in the night, just a couple of hours before daylight in the city.

Outside the city, a ferocious battle is going on. The first step of the ground battle for Baghdad that will go on now for as long as it takes. The administration has made clear. But the battle of Baghdad is on by all accounts.

And where is Saddam? A speech was read in his name today, but he was not seen. Could it be that he is hiding in some bunker or some palace underneath the ground trying to stay away from the bombs? We'll look at that question after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Spies have a way of putting things. When the bad guy ducks out of sight, they call it going to ground. This is likely the case for Saddam Hussein, if he's alive -- and that's an open question to many. Many believe he spends most of his time deep in a bunker somewhere.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The decision to launch an attack on Iraq ahead of the major planned offensive came after intelligence revealed Saddam himself was in a vulnerable spot. It may have been a prime opportunity to take out the Iraqi leader, but in the days since the so-called decapitation strike, it is not clear it actually worked.

VICTORIA CLARKE, ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I know if I were an Iraqi citizen, I would be saying, huh, look what's been going on here for the last 10 days, or 12 days, and we haven't seen any of our leaders. That's pretty extraordinary when you think about it.

BROWN: In fact, it's been nearly two years since Saddam has made a clear public appearance. Some military analysts believe if he is alive, he is operating his command from one of his many bunkers underground. BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They were built for survivability, so they can continue to not only keep their leadership alive, but to continue to communicate orders, or propaganda, either -- in other words, to control military units or to control the civilian population.

BROWN: Saddam wouldn't be the first. The late Yugoslav dictator Marshal Tito understood this as well. From the outside, this looks like an ordinary mountain ridge, but inside it was one of Tito's secret bunkers, kept hidden until now for more than 30 years.

The facility is buried 800 feet below ground. Its winding tunnels lead to communications rooms, and an air filtering and air conditioning system capable of keeping 300 people alive for months.

RESAD FAZLIC, FORMER COL., YUGOSLAV PEOPLE'S AR (through translator): It could resist anything, no doubt. The destruction of these facilities can be achieved only by someone very professional, who has the project documentation so he could determine and detect the place and the way this site is to be hit.

BROWN: As Saddam's power grew, the idea of underground bunkers became of great interest to him.

STEFAN THEIL, NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE: Saddam visited Tito in the 1970s when Saddam was still vice president of Iraq, and Tito showed him his bunker in Bosnia, and Saddam was quite impressed, so impressed, in fact, that he had a Yugoslav company build something of a copy of that bunker in Baghdad.

BROWN: Engineer Resad Fazlic is a former military architect who helped plan out the Iraqi underground facilities, a project he says took 10 years to complete.

FAZLIC (through translator): Two of these are in Baghdad, one is at the very end of south Baghdad, in Mosul. This area is called Tuch (ph). Another big one is in downtown Baghdad and it is called Mullah (ph).

THIEL: It was clear even in the early '80s that Saddam was planning to have a complex system of secret bunkers to hide out in, and it was certainly likely that he was preparing for some sort of attack.

BROWN: Saddam feared a nuclear attack from neighboring Iran. While that never happened, Desert Storm did after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

But this war is different. The U.S.-led coalition has better firepower, better technology, better intelligence, it seems, and a different goal, this time to get Saddam. And there is, of course, the concern this time around that if the much-touted bunker-busting bombs don't work, or if Saddam decides to hole up in one of his secret rooms, the only way to get him out may be for coalition forces to fight their way in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Back to General Clark. It's been a couple of weeks, actually, since we talked about the difference between Saddam and Osama bin Laden and whether it mattered whether Saddam was actually gotten, whether Saddamism can survive. Has your thinking changed at all about whether he needs to be gotten, literally gotten?

CLARK: It has, Aaron. And I'll tell you why. Because as we've seen the level of resistance in the south, it's more clear than it was before that he does have a grip on the population. His personality, the people who extend his personality will continue to cause problems, I believe, in the post-war period if he somehow escapes. So I do believe that we need to get Saddam personally and take him out. It's not going to be enough to occupy the city of Baghdad if he is up in a mountain hideaway somewhere and still pulling the strings and calling for car bombs and assassinations of the people that work for us, then we're going to have a very difficult task afterwards. So let's get him.

BROWN: Just so people -- the argument you made a couple of weeks ago was that in in -- there is a difference between the two. Osama bin Laden is someone people follow, and Saddam in the argument is someone people fear.

CLARK: Right. And I think that's still valid. But what's changed is, I believed that at the time, if we could get into Baghdad and take over the government, that he wouldn't have the means and mechanisms to control. Now, after looking at this at close range and seeing the effectiveness of the Fedayeen and others, now I believe I have to revise my judgment on that. I think it's more important now that we take him out personally, because even if he's outside Baghdad and holed up in a mountain somewhere next to the Iranian border, he could still be a big problem for us.

BROWN: You were talking a few minutes ago about sort of the two approaches that the coalition, or the British and the Americans, however you want to frame this, could take -- they could go into the cities of the south, take them, or they could under the different theory, just go get Baghdad and take Baghdad, and then the fear would waste away, and these other cities would fall. That necessitates, doesn't it, getting Saddam?

CLARK: That's exactly right. I mean, if you expect the resistance in Basra to crumble, then you must also be planning to take out Saddam, because if Saddam relocates somewhere else and still has a bastion in Basra, then you're going to end up having to fight for Basra anyway. So let's get Saddam.

BROWN: One question of many that still needs to be answered. General, I'll talk to you again before you get away from us. We'll take a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time now to see how the battle, if you will, is playing across the country, in this case San Francisco, Cincinnati and New York. We do this about every -- about this time every night. Bringing together three voices from three different parts of the country. We'll go west to east tonight. Phil Bronstein is the editor and executive vice president of "The San Francisco Chronicle." Kitty Morgan edits "Cincinnati" magazine, a monthly in Cincinnati. And Todd Gitlin is an author and media critic, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University these days. And it's nice to have all of you.

Phil, let's start with you. I guess people think San Francisco think anti-war town. Has anything over the last two weeks changed there in that regard?

PHIL BRONSTEIN, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: No, I think San Francisco has always been historically been a center of protest, of skepticism and of demonstration. And I think that that hasn't changed. It's been pretty quiet, I'd say for the last four or five days, but I think there's some things planned.

BROWN: If -- what would people in San Francisco consider victory to be?

BRONSTEIN: Well, I think, you know, San Francisco has been touched personally, as have many communities. There are three people who have died in the war from the Bay Area. So I think a quick end would be desirable. I think also that people, because of the healthy sense of skepticism, sometimes overdeveloped sense of skepticism, that for instance when Christiane Amanpour was asked on your network the other night what's going on in Basra, and she said, well, I don't know, all we can tell you is what we can see. I think that kind of unusual candor in the reporting on this war is something that people are expecting and appreciate. And beyond that, I think people just want it to be over quickly.

BROWN: And the end of the war would mean victory, at least in their view. Kitty, on the Midwest, baseball season started, this brand-new stadium seemed to be the center of attention. Are people glued to their TVs? Are they addicted to or obsessed with the war playing out?

KITTY MORGAN, CINCINNATI MAGAZINE: Actually, what I'm hearing more of is burnout on trying to pay attention, trying to pick up the shards and figure out exactly what's going on. You'll have family members saying to one another, no, no, please turn it off. I think there's, of course, a hope for a quick end. But I think there's also a sort of a -- just a fill to the brim with information that really can't be used.

BROWN: Do you think people in your part of the world are thinking about what comes after the war, the risks after the war? Are they -- have they focused on that at all?

MORGAN: Yes, they have. I mean, even though this part of the country is very squarely in the administration's camp, there is a lot of ambivalence and a lot of questions about what's going to happen afterwards. No one -- everyone understands that there are going to be consequences. What those are, everyone's very uncertain about. BROWN: Todd, this seems to be a night in some respects talking about the media and its role in all of this. Has, in your view, the media broadly, newspapers and television, paid enough attention to the complexities of the task after the war?

TODD GITLIN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Not at all. I don't think the media, television in particular, has paid enough attention to the difficulties that we've encountered politically. I was interested to see a few minutes ago that you weren't sure whether to call it the coalition or Britain and the U.S. And I was glad you were hesitant, because too much of television has been too quick to tell us that we're part of a coalition, when in fact the largest coalition in the world was opposed to the war and is still deeply doubtful of our sincerity and our capacity to bring democracy or freedom to Iraq. I think there's a whole lot of skepticism that needs to be on display as we go ahead.

BROWN: The students at Columbia, are they engaged in this?

GITLIN: They're intensely engaged. They seem to be deeply divided. I was having a conversation with somebody today, and a student I didn't know came over and said, well, this sounds like an interesting conversation, do you mind if I sit and listen? I've been teaching at universities for a quarter of a century or more. I've never seen such a thing take place before. There's a great deal of apprehension about the political future, about what the U.S. has gotten itself into. And there is also a great deal of eagerness to get the war over with, and to see Saddam Hussein dispatched.

BROWN: Just -- to get him dispatched -- and the fighting and then whatever is going to be, let's see what it is and deal with it? Is that what they're saying?

GITLIN: I don't think very many people believe that once Saddam Hussein is defeated, that the U.S. can sit back and crow in a triumphant spirit. I think some people are apprehensive that the U.S. then plans to establish a base that will position us to take on Syria, to take on Iran. Some people are deeply apprehensive of what becomes of the Turkish situation, and the Kurds, and the Shiites in the south and so on. People are, you know -- people have become reasonably well educated about what's at stake there. And they wonder what we're in for. I would say there's a whole lot of apprehension.

BROWN: Kitty, let's go back up the ladder here. Would you say in Cincinnati that their biggest concern, or one of their biggest concerns is whether there will be terrorist attacks in this country that are somehow related to the war, or is that sort of thing a -- an East Coast, or West Coast concern?

MORGAN: I think it's not entirely kept to the West Coast, or the East Coast. I think it's something that people in Cincinnati are concerned about. We have a major airport. We are a major trade center. But I actually also think that it does seem far away. I've heard many people talk about how nice it is to be in a city that might be below the radar for any sort of terrorist activity. But people are concerned. And people are connected to the coasts. And very concerned about that. I mean, just this evening I was talking to someone who could count on his hands the four people that he knew at the World Trade Center who had lost their lives. This is not something that happens separate from Cincinnati.

BROWN: And Phil, let me give you the last word. Anything about your community, has anything surprised you about the community over the last two weeks?

BRONSTEIN: No. As I said, I think it's a community that historically has been dissenting. It's interesting, you talk about the West Coast. I really think that people in the United States, when we talk about being at war, this is a country where war has never really hit us internally, except for New York, and if you were personally directly affected by the World Trade Center and the Pentagon incidents, I don't think people really understand what it means internally to be at war, because there's nothing that's really going on here at this point that tells people so they can go to the -- the Giants had a great opener, and they can go to the ball game, whether it's here or in the Midwest or on the East Coast and not feel directly affected. So I think that's -- you know, that's underlying all the protests and all the passion about our foreign policy, which is essentially what this is at this point. I think there's no sense that of what it's like to be at war if you're there.

BROWN: Life is going on. Phil, the rest, thank you. Good to have you with us. We'll talk to you again. Thank you very much. We'll take a break and our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The rescue of Jessica Lynch is a story that is still developing, but we do know a few things. Jason Bellini reports from Nasiriya that the Marines he's with created a diversion while the special forces went in to rescue her. It's the latest stop for Jason in his journey along with the members of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. His journal, where he's been so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've been traveling by helicopter. And that's not a bad way to go. I know they're dangerous, but you get such a great view when you fly in. They fly these helicopters very low. When we first entered Iraq, we saw villagers waving towards us. That's one of the very first things we saw entering the country.

They went in with tanks, with machine guns blazing. They used suppression fire. They fired up on the place for about 20 minutes before entering.

I remember what excited me about the opportunity to be an embedded reporter, and that was covering this war, to be able to be at the ground level, get to know the Marines who I'm with. Get to live this experience with them.

Right now I'm here with a first lieutenant who was part of the taking of this port a little while earlier. You were here and you encountered some of that -- you encountered some small arms fire, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we did.

BELLINI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) while you're sleeping under the same conditions they are. You're waking up at the same hour that they are. And I think that earns you respect. It earns you trust.

We're taking gunfire from them.

BELLINI: We're going to get things raw, the way things really are out here. And that's what we're really out here seeking.

There are very strict rules under which we operate. In the event of a casualty, we're not going to show the person's face, we're not going to give the person's name until the next of kin is notified. And you have to respect that. We have a job to do out here. We're here to be witnesses. We are here to report what's going on as accurately as we can.

We can't tell you specifically where we are, other than to say we're outside of Umm Qasr.

The first few days, they're very polite to us. They are very accommodating. They welcomed us in. As time has gone on, they started talking to us less like civilians and more like Marines, especially when we mess up. For example, they'll yell out, turn off the computer, you're going to get us killed! You're not supposed to use your computer at night in the dark because that could give away their position. And they won't say politely, Jason, will you please turn off your computer and here's why? They'll just yell at you by your last name. I haven't been yelled at by my last name since I was in PE class back in high school.

One of the things that has added to the richness of this experience for me personally is that fact that my father was a Marine. He served in the war in Vietnam. And from the moment he learned I was to be embedded with the Marines, he became very excited. So I kind of do him proud, in my reporting, in my behavior out here in the field. I just got an e-mail from him earlier today, and he said, sometimes these guys are going to need some encouragement, they are going to need a pat on the back from you, they're going to need to hear some news from home. Be good to these guys. They need it.

Down here we have some Marines who are listening to the radio trying to get a sense of the big picture in this war. It's often difficult when you're out here, when you're only hearing about your own mission, to know where you fit into the larger picture.

The Marines at first have seemed to us rather cavalier. They were excited about using their weapons, very proud of all the firepower that they have. In the last day or two, there's been a much more somber tone. The captain told them that there's a likelihood, a likelihood that they will take casualties, that their fellow Marines will be injured or killed on this next mission. And I think after that, it began to hit home for them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what it comes down to in my mind, at least, is we're through (EXPLETIVE DELETED) around.

BELLINI: It really hit home that this is really a war, this is not a video game going out there and shooting inanimate objects. You're going out there and you're going to be putting your life on the line in a very serious way. And that's been sobering in the last 24 hours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The journal of correspondent Jason Bellini who is with the Marines. Daryn Kagan joins us to update the day's headlines. After a short break, our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 1, 2003 - 23:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(NEWSBREAK)
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Heidi.

Jessica Lynch's family has spoken. We'll hear from them in a few moments but we realize that many of you are just joining us, especially out on the West Coast where you're settling in for the evening. We want to give you a broad sense of the day, some of the key developments, how it all looked this hour provided by Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): In the crosshairs of allied forces, Iraq's two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, first Baghdad.

The allies are focusing on the Iraqi capital. CENTCOM officials say battle plans call for a move on the city in the coming days and weeks. Walter Rodgers with the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry less than 60 miles away says that unit is being reinforced by other troops freed up from elsewhere to join the push.

But, Pentagon officials say Iraqi Republican Guard divisions are also being reinforced shoring up defensive positions south of the capital. CNN is told General Tommy Franks, the top allied commander, has been given the authority to decide when to move toward Baghdad.

In Basra, flares go op over the city. At least one large explosion is reported. CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports fierce fighting between British and Iraqi forces around the city. The British are operating in the southern and western outskirts but resistance is intense.

In south central Iraq U.S. forces still trying to root out pockets of resistance around Nasiriya with door-to-door searches by Marines and Special Operations forces destroying buildings believed to house local commanders.

In the north, Biara (ph) near the border with Iran, new pictures of the capture of a compound allegedly belonging to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked by the U.S. to al Qaeda. It's the first major battlefield operation where Kurdish forces fight side-by-side with U.S. Special Operations troops. An American in that unit claims a startling discovery. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have found various documents, equipment, et cetera, that would indicate a presence of chemical and/or biological weapons.

BLITZER: In western Iraq, an Iraqi official claims a U.S. war plane fires on two busses carrying human shields including Americans. The Iraqi says many are injured. U.S. Central Command is investigating.

Wolf Blitzer CNN, Kuwait City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: OK, that's the overview. Back now to the best story of the night, if not the most strategically important, the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch.

Private First Class Lynch and other members of her group, the 507 Maintenance Unit were attacked on the first Sunday of the war near Nasiriya when they apparently took a wrong turn. But there is much that is still not known and Jessica Lynch will be able to provide a lot of answers to what is one of the mysteries of the first couple of weeks.

Private First Class Lynch was rescued by Special Forces troops with the help of Marines. She's back with U.S. troops. She's getting medical treatment and just moments ago her parents talked about finding out that their 19-year-old daughter was alive and OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...Jessie's situation.

GREG LYNCH, SR., LYNCH'S FATHER: That she's safe in a hospital and they would debrief her and she's in good health.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nine days of not knowing. What was the feeling when you got the word?

G. LYNCH: Oh, joyous. I can't express what it was, couldn't talk, and we're just glad it happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had talked previously about you have not allowed yourself to think any negative thoughts. That obviously had to be very difficult and yet now on this side of it how can you look back at the ordeal about the way faith and hope brought you through it?

G. LYNCH: That's mainly what we had to keep up was a lot of hope and faith. We couldn't look towards capture at that point. We believed, still believe, that she was hiding out and she wasn't a capture, but you know that is wonderful news that we heard tonight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven't talked to Dee much because Dee hasn't been able to talk. Dee, what are your thoughts about what's going on this evening. DEE LYNCH, LYNCH'S MOTHER: I'm just so excited. I'm just speechless.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got a lot of friends and neighbors and family that strolled up here unannounced. What does that tell you about the community support that you have?

D. LYNCH: OH, I love their support. I mean they've been great, prayer, I knew it couldn't go wrong. I knew it had to be good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Greg, Jr., Special Forces guys went in, rescued her. You're a military man, what do you think about the success of an operation like this?

GREG LYNCH, JR., LYNCH'S BROTHER: I'll tell you what, Kenny (ph), they did a wonderful job out there. I knew they were going to bring her home safe but I didn't realize that it was going to be this soon and it's extremely good news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And finally, Brandy, we haven't talked with you much. Just quickly how are you feeling tonight?

BRANDY LYNCH, LYNCH'S SISTER: Overwhelmed, extremely overwhelmed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I bet overwhelmed. Jessica Lynch comes from a small town, a town of about 900 in West Virginia, and the whole town we were told is celebrating tonight.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about what happened on that first Sunday of the war and there are eight soldiers who are still missing in action, five others from the 507th, which is based at Fort Bliss, are POWs in Iraq somewhere.

We'll go now back to Ryan Chilcote who's embedded with the 101st Airborne which just a short while ago was under the threat of an Iraqi missile attack, perhaps more than one missile and Ryan's back with us now.

You were pretty limited in what you could tell us. Add to it as you can.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, U.S. field commanders here on the ground now still confirming that two missiles, two surface-to-surface missiles landed, impacted in the vicinity of this area, of the city of Najaf in central Iraq.

Now, they are calling that a failed attempt to target U.S. servicemen. That is new, troops from the 101st Airborne getting woken up before dawn this morning by the so-called Scud alarm being told very frantically to don their gas masks. That's standard procedure if you have a missile attack. U.S. troops always immediately don their gas masks. They were later given the all clear, which is a very strong indication that those missiles that impacted in this area almost definitely did not have any kind of chemical weapons laced inside of them.

Now, I am currently following the 2nd Battalion better known as "no slack" of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne. They did a head count or a roll call immediately following the attack. All troops are accounted for, no casualties, so good news there.

Now, this Iraqi missile attack comes after a massive two day U.S. ground offensive into the outskirts of Najaf, the soldiers, more than 500 U.S. infantrymen, coming into the outskirts of the city yesterday to go after the paramilitary group Saddam Fedayeen.

Saddam Fedayeen a group very loyal to President Saddam Hussein. Its fighters in this area have been putting up a very fierce resistance to U.S. forces on the ground -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let me ask you and you answer if you can did the missile appear -- did the missile come from the city out or from outside the city in?

CHILCOTE: I can't tell you the exact trajectory of the missile.

BROWN: OK.

CHILCOTE: Because the commanders here believe that would compromise where we are. But what I can tell you, Aaron, there are some things that I can tell you. I can tell you that one of the missiles was sighted just after it landed. So far, one of the two have been sighted, the second simply heard.

The one that was sighted was sighted in the middle of the desert so obviously they either had bad intelligence about where U.S. troops are or it was just not a very accurate missile.

Unfortunately at this point I don't have any information about civilian casualties but the field commander, the U.S. field commander that I was speaking with, suspected that at least in the case of that first missile strike, that first area, there are probably no civilian casualties because he said there's basically nothing in that area whatsoever -- Aaron.

BROWN: And, Najaf itself is important strategically but it also has symbolic significance in Islam.

CHILCOTE: That's right. This is, of course, the holiest city to Shia Muslims. It is home to a very important mosque where Shia Muslims believe the remains of Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Mohammed are buried. It is a place where many Shia Muslims come on pilgrimages at least once in their life. It is something that U.S. troops are very sensitive about.

Initially they did not really want to come into the city of Najaf, some commanders telling me that they were reluctant to come into the city because of those sensitivities and because, of course, they suspect that the Shias here in the city are very sympathetic to the U.S. cause in any case.

Still, they say they were forced to come in because this group, the Fedayeen, the Saddam Fedayeen, they say have made the city into a safe haven and used it to launch attacks on U.S. troops moving through this area. So, they wanted to come in here, safeguard if you will the city and make sure that there are no more attacks from those Fedayeen and try to root them out of this area -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ryan, thank you, Ryan Chilcote with the group within the 101st on this missile attack tonight.

And we turn to General Wesley Clark who's with us tonight. General Clark is in New York. He's been with us most every night. General, there was a moment about ten or 15 minutes ago in the update when we saw young Lebanese men signing up to, they say, to go to Iraq and fight the fight. Whether they actually get to Iraq and fight the fight or not, that notwithstanding, that is a troubling scene because those young men can and perhaps will over time cause lots of problems.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FMR. NATO SUPREME CMDR.: It is troubling, Aaron, and it does bring back memories of the same kinds of scenes in October, November of 2001 when many Pakistanis and even from some other Islamic countries, people were signing up to go to Afghanistan to defend the Taliban. Many of them went there. Many died.

In this case, my guess is that it will be much more difficult for those throughout the Arab world to actually get to Iraq and given the state of defenses in and around Baghdad, it's going to be very difficult for them to be employed.

BROWN: But if...

CLARK: I take this as an indicator not of problems in this war but of what happens afterwards.

BROWN: That's what I was going to say that it's not so much the war itself it's the peace itself that, and we've often talked about winning the peace is going to be a very, very complicated piece of business and that's one picture of why.

CLARK: Exactly, because if we're going to be successful afterwards it's got to be with the -- in earning the respect and the appreciation of not only people in Iraq but elsewhere in the Islamic world. Otherwise, how are we going to use the leverage we've attained in Iraq let's say to bring a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, to settle the problems between Lebanon and Syria and Israel?

And so, we've got to somehow transform military dominance into political acceptance and a reluctance -- and a reluctance of others to continue to engage in combat activities and this kind of hostility is worrisome. BROWN: There's a story out there tonight about growing tension between British and American commanders over what the British feel is American heavy handedness. You had some experience dealing with these complicated coalitions. This one's not an especially complicated coalition, but are you surprised it took this long for this sort of tension to appear?

CLARK: Well, I think they've done pretty well so far. Obviously the two forces are entirely different in terms of structure capabilities and missions and the Brits are working effectively, smoothly around Basra. They're not making a lot of headway in terms of quickly finishing off the job.

I'm not sure what the sources of tension are but in any alliance there are always differing interests, differing perspectives, different capabilities and officers have to work together, respect each other, and pull together for the common aim.

BROWN: When the march to Baghdad happens, it is Americans who are going into Baghdad, not British, correct?

CLARK: That's exactly right as of now. So far as any of us have been able to determine the entire British is still concentrated at Basra.

BROWN: And that has been going on, they've been sort of moving their way in but they can't quite close the deal, if you will.

CLARK: Well, the reports from Basra suggest the Ba'ath Party is still very much in charge, that there is no sign of an insurrection in the city. Life's pretty much going on as normal and the people are waiting for the British to make an impact.

On the other hand, I also have sympathy for the Brits because they could certainly smash their way into the city. In doing so, they'd do a lot of destruction. They'd kill a lot of people, make a lot of permanent enemies and be engaged in a real fight and it's not clear that Basra is independent.

In other words, once the attack takes place in Baghdad, how long will it be before the resistance in Basra collapses? My guess is, and we don't know this, but my guess is that it will collapse there once Saddam is gone and out of power in Baghdad.

And so, it makes sense strategically, hold, squeeze, contain, work against those missile launchers that might be down there, but don't go in and kill thousands of people in an effort to sort of run over the city. There's not the urgency to do that.

BROWN: Because it all has to go through Baghdad eventually anyway.

CLARK: I think so.

BROWN: General Clark, thank you, back to you in a moment, and we'll be back to you in a moment too. A short break first and our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Joined on the phone by Michael Gordon who's the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times." Michael is in Kuwait. Michael, as we have always done, I guess, what's the lead from where you are?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, there's an important development today which is that, well, the U.S. military's begun the battle of Baghdad, something that begins maybe a bit slowly but they've taken the first step by launching an attack on the Republican Guard defenders who are guarding the approaches to the city.

BROWN: And, when you talk about the approaches to the city, how far out of the city are we talking about?

GORDON: Yes, well I mean basically the situation is as follows. I mean, Saddam Hussein is making his final stand in Baghdad the best anybody can tell and he's arrayed forces inside the city and on the outskirts of the city as two rings of defenses and the outer ring of defenses includes Republican Guard troops, the Medina Division to the south, and the Baghdad which is an infantry division to the southeast.

So, we're talking, oh I don't know, anywhere from, you know, 50 miles to 60, 70 miles out but these are the forces that guard the highways leading to Baghdad and the forces the U.S. has to fight its way through to get to Baghdad proper.

BROWN: And which American units are engaged there?

GORDON: Well, what we have is pretty interesting. I mean you have Army and Marines. Really this is -- the area around Baghdad is known by the land war command which is where I'm embedded as the red zone and it's called that because this is the most strategically significant area.

And it's also potentially the most dangerous area, and it's the area in which the American forces expect to, if there's going to be a use of chemical weapons by the Iraqis it's almost certainly going to occur in this area and not before as the forces close in on the capital.

The American units which are now in the red zone for the first time in this war is basically the Army and the Marines. You're talking about the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and then the Marine 1st Division. They're both now in this red zone.

BROWN: Do you have any feel for what the sort of shape of this looks like, where these attacks are being made, or is it across a wide range?

GORDON: You're really talking about several axes. It's not -- you're talking about one attack that's coming up from the south, maybe the southwest, and another attack that's coming up from the southeast at this point in time. So, they're basically about two main routes that, you know, two to three main routes at this juncture.

BROWN: Are you surprised at all by the timing of it that it's happening right now as opposed to, I don't know, five days from now?

GORDON: Well, if they hadn't encountered the resistance in the south and the paramilitary units, it would have occurred already. But, you know, on any given day you can be surprised whether it's occurring, you know, today as opposed to tomorrow as opposed to two days ago.

But really, this is what the operation calls for. What they anticipated was a very quick march up to the outskirts of Baghdad and then, you know, what they're involved in now is what they call a deliberate attack. This is expected to be a pretty methodical series of battles as they methodically take down the Republican Guard piece by piece and advance to Baghdad.

Now, you know, the Republican Guard has been worked over pretty intensively already from the air so you're talking about some units which are maybe at 50 percent strength or less and judged to be combat ineffective. But the Iraqis have pushed in reinforcements, so what has happened is the Republican Guard's been hit hard from the air.

Now the Army and the Marines are coming at them. They're engaging them with land forces, tanks, artillery, helicopters. They're going to push through them, move closer to the capital, and eventually arrive on the outskirts of the city and at that point I guess there will be the final and most difficult phase of the battle which will be surrounding the city and venturing inside the capital itself.

BROWN: Michael, thank you. Michael Gordon, the chief military affairs writer for "The New York Times" on the shape of the battle there.

Quickly, General Clark, how many soldiers, I guess, are we talking about on both sides here? How many -- what's your sense of how many American soldiers are there and what is your sense of how many Iraqi soldiers are there?

CLARK: Well, this is one of the real imponderables, Aaron, because as far as the Iraqis are concerned we would be counting equipment. We're hearing probably some radio transmissions. So, we've talked about these two Iraqi divisions that we're going after, the Medina Division, the Adnan Division, and maybe part of the Baghdad Division, and these divisions would normally have 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers.

They've probably been reinforced. They may have as many as 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers all tolled on these positions and they've been under constant attack. So, the number we're going against could be anywhere operationally from 25,000 up to maybe 40,000, and what we've got attacking them is actually a force at the point of the edge of the spear that may be only 5,000 or 10,000.

But it's not the numbers that are relevant here. What you do is you isolate a section of the battlefield. You mash your combat power against it. We've got overwhelming air and artillery. If the Iraqi artillery fires back, we locate it and destroy it. They can't stop the air power. All we really have to do is advance our troops, get the Iraqis to shoot back, fix their positions and destroy them, and then methodically move forward on and on.

The only difficulty comes if you have to get inside a built-up area with population and it soaks up a lot of people. Otherwise, the numbers really aren't as relevant as the overwhelming dominance of American combat power.

BROWN: That's the theory and, General Clark, we've got a half hour left with you tonight so we'll explore that some more. Thank you, sir.

We bring another voice into the mix. Joe Klein joins us. Mr. Klein writes politics for "TIME Magazine" and is a frequent guest on NEWSNIGHT and even in normal circumstances. Joe, it's nice to see you.

JOE KLEIN, "TIME MAGAZINE": Good to see you, Aaron.

BROWN: You know there are so many things that have gone on today. It's a little hard to know where to start. I wanted -- actually was going to talk a bit about how the coverage has looked to you because I know you have some criticisms there. But let me ask a political question.

There's a lot of political careers, in fact, on the line. It's a little unseemly I suppose to talk about it and most people are very quiet about it. Have the Democratic candidates been saying anything over the last week of significance, the last two weeks?

KLEIN: Well, no. I mean, you know, they have kept quiet in a very decorous sort of way. The one guy who might be in some trouble at this point is Howard Dean, the governor of Vermont who has been the most vocal antiwar candidate up until this point.

I interviewed him before an audience of 600 people at the Kennedy Library in Boston a week ago and I asked him, you know, what his position now and he says I support the troops, which is a kind of, you know, woosie, (unintelligible) sort of position.

I said well what does that mean? There are some people who would say that the best way to support the troops is to have them withdraw. Do you support that? He said no. I said and there are others who would say the best way to support them is to add a couple of hundred thousand more troops and he wouldn't go there either.

This is kind of ironic because he has been attacking the other Democrats for not being very specific about this war and he's in a position now where a lot of his opponents like Joe Lieberman, John Kerry who said that victory is the only exit strategy now, and others, have a more specific position on the war than he does but for the most part, you're seeing, you know, quiet. BROWN: All right, let's move on then to your criticism of television in particular, and the argument is we have put on a TV show, if you will, but we haven't shown a war.

KLEIN: Well, I think that if you look at the images, and I know that this is a tough, tough thing to do, but if you look at the images that we've seen on the all news stations, by and large, they've been PG rated. There's nothing that you couldn't show to a child under the, you know, the age of 13, and as we all know war is far more brutal and ugly than that.

On the one hand the Arab stations and many of the other stations around the world are showing some pretty grisly pictures and I think that it's probably our responsibility in the media to let the American people see that.

Now there are good reasons why we shouldn't show dead bodies. You know, the privacy of those who have been killed in combat is paramount obviously, and you don't want to, you know, play into the propaganda of our enemies but the delicate sensibilities of our viewers and our readers shouldn't be among them.

I mean I published this week a photograph that occurred in World War II. Franklin Roosevelt purposefully lifted the censorship on American casualties because he thought that the people at home weren't getting a true sense of the brutality of war. And, here we have the irony of people reporting to you in real time, you know, reporting the war in real time and we're not seeing just how ugly a thing war is.

BROWN: This is difficult, as I know you know, and I hope you appreciate I'm involved in making some of these decisions and at the same time I don't want to argue the point.

KLEIN: Listen, we don't show these -- we don't show these photos in "TIME Magazine" either.

BROWN: Precisely, I mean there is on the one hand the argument we go through, as you know, is we're not in the business of sanitizing this. It needs to be at least some reflection of how ugly war is.

War is an ugly piece of business. Where is the line and how much do you show and particularly when it's live videotape? I mean it's -- they're complicated decisions, I guess. Would people rebel against the war itself if we showed more gruesome scenes?

KLEIN: Listen, Roosevelt had those photos published, because he thought it would stir up the people and make them especially angry about the kind of brutality being visited on American troops by the Germans and the Japanese. I don't think that anything's certain, but I don't know that it's on us to make those decisions, except for in very obvious cases where the privacy of a soldier and his or her family is involved. I mean, as I said, this is really difficult. But maybe we should be doing a little bit better job of reminding people that these big, beautiful, you know, bursts of ammunition that we're seeing going off in the night do cause casualties. I mean, you know, we've experienced 50 years of really gruesome Hollywood bang-bang. And, you know, the kind of stuff we're showing on the air now, you know, wouldn't get a rise out of a normal audience.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. Joe Klein.

KLEIN: My pleasure.

BROWN: It's a reasonable critique, I think, of the last few weeks. And we appreciate that. We'll take a break, we'll update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: Heidi, thank you. Have a good rest of the night. Heidi Collins. It's a Wednesday morning in Baghdad. And that is what it looks like on this Wednesday morning, coming up toward 9:00 in the morning there. There is still some haze, though the bombing came late in the evening, or late in the night, just a couple of hours before daylight in the city.

Outside the city, a ferocious battle is going on. The first step of the ground battle for Baghdad that will go on now for as long as it takes. The administration has made clear. But the battle of Baghdad is on by all accounts.

And where is Saddam? A speech was read in his name today, but he was not seen. Could it be that he is hiding in some bunker or some palace underneath the ground trying to stay away from the bombs? We'll look at that question after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Spies have a way of putting things. When the bad guy ducks out of sight, they call it going to ground. This is likely the case for Saddam Hussein, if he's alive -- and that's an open question to many. Many believe he spends most of his time deep in a bunker somewhere.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The decision to launch an attack on Iraq ahead of the major planned offensive came after intelligence revealed Saddam himself was in a vulnerable spot. It may have been a prime opportunity to take out the Iraqi leader, but in the days since the so-called decapitation strike, it is not clear it actually worked.

VICTORIA CLARKE, ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I know if I were an Iraqi citizen, I would be saying, huh, look what's been going on here for the last 10 days, or 12 days, and we haven't seen any of our leaders. That's pretty extraordinary when you think about it.

BROWN: In fact, it's been nearly two years since Saddam has made a clear public appearance. Some military analysts believe if he is alive, he is operating his command from one of his many bunkers underground. BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They were built for survivability, so they can continue to not only keep their leadership alive, but to continue to communicate orders, or propaganda, either -- in other words, to control military units or to control the civilian population.

BROWN: Saddam wouldn't be the first. The late Yugoslav dictator Marshal Tito understood this as well. From the outside, this looks like an ordinary mountain ridge, but inside it was one of Tito's secret bunkers, kept hidden until now for more than 30 years.

The facility is buried 800 feet below ground. Its winding tunnels lead to communications rooms, and an air filtering and air conditioning system capable of keeping 300 people alive for months.

RESAD FAZLIC, FORMER COL., YUGOSLAV PEOPLE'S AR (through translator): It could resist anything, no doubt. The destruction of these facilities can be achieved only by someone very professional, who has the project documentation so he could determine and detect the place and the way this site is to be hit.

BROWN: As Saddam's power grew, the idea of underground bunkers became of great interest to him.

STEFAN THEIL, NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE: Saddam visited Tito in the 1970s when Saddam was still vice president of Iraq, and Tito showed him his bunker in Bosnia, and Saddam was quite impressed, so impressed, in fact, that he had a Yugoslav company build something of a copy of that bunker in Baghdad.

BROWN: Engineer Resad Fazlic is a former military architect who helped plan out the Iraqi underground facilities, a project he says took 10 years to complete.

FAZLIC (through translator): Two of these are in Baghdad, one is at the very end of south Baghdad, in Mosul. This area is called Tuch (ph). Another big one is in downtown Baghdad and it is called Mullah (ph).

THIEL: It was clear even in the early '80s that Saddam was planning to have a complex system of secret bunkers to hide out in, and it was certainly likely that he was preparing for some sort of attack.

BROWN: Saddam feared a nuclear attack from neighboring Iran. While that never happened, Desert Storm did after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

But this war is different. The U.S.-led coalition has better firepower, better technology, better intelligence, it seems, and a different goal, this time to get Saddam. And there is, of course, the concern this time around that if the much-touted bunker-busting bombs don't work, or if Saddam decides to hole up in one of his secret rooms, the only way to get him out may be for coalition forces to fight their way in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Back to General Clark. It's been a couple of weeks, actually, since we talked about the difference between Saddam and Osama bin Laden and whether it mattered whether Saddam was actually gotten, whether Saddamism can survive. Has your thinking changed at all about whether he needs to be gotten, literally gotten?

CLARK: It has, Aaron. And I'll tell you why. Because as we've seen the level of resistance in the south, it's more clear than it was before that he does have a grip on the population. His personality, the people who extend his personality will continue to cause problems, I believe, in the post-war period if he somehow escapes. So I do believe that we need to get Saddam personally and take him out. It's not going to be enough to occupy the city of Baghdad if he is up in a mountain hideaway somewhere and still pulling the strings and calling for car bombs and assassinations of the people that work for us, then we're going to have a very difficult task afterwards. So let's get him.

BROWN: Just so people -- the argument you made a couple of weeks ago was that in in -- there is a difference between the two. Osama bin Laden is someone people follow, and Saddam in the argument is someone people fear.

CLARK: Right. And I think that's still valid. But what's changed is, I believed that at the time, if we could get into Baghdad and take over the government, that he wouldn't have the means and mechanisms to control. Now, after looking at this at close range and seeing the effectiveness of the Fedayeen and others, now I believe I have to revise my judgment on that. I think it's more important now that we take him out personally, because even if he's outside Baghdad and holed up in a mountain somewhere next to the Iranian border, he could still be a big problem for us.

BROWN: You were talking a few minutes ago about sort of the two approaches that the coalition, or the British and the Americans, however you want to frame this, could take -- they could go into the cities of the south, take them, or they could under the different theory, just go get Baghdad and take Baghdad, and then the fear would waste away, and these other cities would fall. That necessitates, doesn't it, getting Saddam?

CLARK: That's exactly right. I mean, if you expect the resistance in Basra to crumble, then you must also be planning to take out Saddam, because if Saddam relocates somewhere else and still has a bastion in Basra, then you're going to end up having to fight for Basra anyway. So let's get Saddam.

BROWN: One question of many that still needs to be answered. General, I'll talk to you again before you get away from us. We'll take a short break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time now to see how the battle, if you will, is playing across the country, in this case San Francisco, Cincinnati and New York. We do this about every -- about this time every night. Bringing together three voices from three different parts of the country. We'll go west to east tonight. Phil Bronstein is the editor and executive vice president of "The San Francisco Chronicle." Kitty Morgan edits "Cincinnati" magazine, a monthly in Cincinnati. And Todd Gitlin is an author and media critic, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University these days. And it's nice to have all of you.

Phil, let's start with you. I guess people think San Francisco think anti-war town. Has anything over the last two weeks changed there in that regard?

PHIL BRONSTEIN, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: No, I think San Francisco has always been historically been a center of protest, of skepticism and of demonstration. And I think that that hasn't changed. It's been pretty quiet, I'd say for the last four or five days, but I think there's some things planned.

BROWN: If -- what would people in San Francisco consider victory to be?

BRONSTEIN: Well, I think, you know, San Francisco has been touched personally, as have many communities. There are three people who have died in the war from the Bay Area. So I think a quick end would be desirable. I think also that people, because of the healthy sense of skepticism, sometimes overdeveloped sense of skepticism, that for instance when Christiane Amanpour was asked on your network the other night what's going on in Basra, and she said, well, I don't know, all we can tell you is what we can see. I think that kind of unusual candor in the reporting on this war is something that people are expecting and appreciate. And beyond that, I think people just want it to be over quickly.

BROWN: And the end of the war would mean victory, at least in their view. Kitty, on the Midwest, baseball season started, this brand-new stadium seemed to be the center of attention. Are people glued to their TVs? Are they addicted to or obsessed with the war playing out?

KITTY MORGAN, CINCINNATI MAGAZINE: Actually, what I'm hearing more of is burnout on trying to pay attention, trying to pick up the shards and figure out exactly what's going on. You'll have family members saying to one another, no, no, please turn it off. I think there's, of course, a hope for a quick end. But I think there's also a sort of a -- just a fill to the brim with information that really can't be used.

BROWN: Do you think people in your part of the world are thinking about what comes after the war, the risks after the war? Are they -- have they focused on that at all?

MORGAN: Yes, they have. I mean, even though this part of the country is very squarely in the administration's camp, there is a lot of ambivalence and a lot of questions about what's going to happen afterwards. No one -- everyone understands that there are going to be consequences. What those are, everyone's very uncertain about. BROWN: Todd, this seems to be a night in some respects talking about the media and its role in all of this. Has, in your view, the media broadly, newspapers and television, paid enough attention to the complexities of the task after the war?

TODD GITLIN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Not at all. I don't think the media, television in particular, has paid enough attention to the difficulties that we've encountered politically. I was interested to see a few minutes ago that you weren't sure whether to call it the coalition or Britain and the U.S. And I was glad you were hesitant, because too much of television has been too quick to tell us that we're part of a coalition, when in fact the largest coalition in the world was opposed to the war and is still deeply doubtful of our sincerity and our capacity to bring democracy or freedom to Iraq. I think there's a whole lot of skepticism that needs to be on display as we go ahead.

BROWN: The students at Columbia, are they engaged in this?

GITLIN: They're intensely engaged. They seem to be deeply divided. I was having a conversation with somebody today, and a student I didn't know came over and said, well, this sounds like an interesting conversation, do you mind if I sit and listen? I've been teaching at universities for a quarter of a century or more. I've never seen such a thing take place before. There's a great deal of apprehension about the political future, about what the U.S. has gotten itself into. And there is also a great deal of eagerness to get the war over with, and to see Saddam Hussein dispatched.

BROWN: Just -- to get him dispatched -- and the fighting and then whatever is going to be, let's see what it is and deal with it? Is that what they're saying?

GITLIN: I don't think very many people believe that once Saddam Hussein is defeated, that the U.S. can sit back and crow in a triumphant spirit. I think some people are apprehensive that the U.S. then plans to establish a base that will position us to take on Syria, to take on Iran. Some people are deeply apprehensive of what becomes of the Turkish situation, and the Kurds, and the Shiites in the south and so on. People are, you know -- people have become reasonably well educated about what's at stake there. And they wonder what we're in for. I would say there's a whole lot of apprehension.

BROWN: Kitty, let's go back up the ladder here. Would you say in Cincinnati that their biggest concern, or one of their biggest concerns is whether there will be terrorist attacks in this country that are somehow related to the war, or is that sort of thing a -- an East Coast, or West Coast concern?

MORGAN: I think it's not entirely kept to the West Coast, or the East Coast. I think it's something that people in Cincinnati are concerned about. We have a major airport. We are a major trade center. But I actually also think that it does seem far away. I've heard many people talk about how nice it is to be in a city that might be below the radar for any sort of terrorist activity. But people are concerned. And people are connected to the coasts. And very concerned about that. I mean, just this evening I was talking to someone who could count on his hands the four people that he knew at the World Trade Center who had lost their lives. This is not something that happens separate from Cincinnati.

BROWN: And Phil, let me give you the last word. Anything about your community, has anything surprised you about the community over the last two weeks?

BRONSTEIN: No. As I said, I think it's a community that historically has been dissenting. It's interesting, you talk about the West Coast. I really think that people in the United States, when we talk about being at war, this is a country where war has never really hit us internally, except for New York, and if you were personally directly affected by the World Trade Center and the Pentagon incidents, I don't think people really understand what it means internally to be at war, because there's nothing that's really going on here at this point that tells people so they can go to the -- the Giants had a great opener, and they can go to the ball game, whether it's here or in the Midwest or on the East Coast and not feel directly affected. So I think that's -- you know, that's underlying all the protests and all the passion about our foreign policy, which is essentially what this is at this point. I think there's no sense that of what it's like to be at war if you're there.

BROWN: Life is going on. Phil, the rest, thank you. Good to have you with us. We'll talk to you again. Thank you very much. We'll take a break and our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The rescue of Jessica Lynch is a story that is still developing, but we do know a few things. Jason Bellini reports from Nasiriya that the Marines he's with created a diversion while the special forces went in to rescue her. It's the latest stop for Jason in his journey along with the members of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. His journal, where he's been so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've been traveling by helicopter. And that's not a bad way to go. I know they're dangerous, but you get such a great view when you fly in. They fly these helicopters very low. When we first entered Iraq, we saw villagers waving towards us. That's one of the very first things we saw entering the country.

They went in with tanks, with machine guns blazing. They used suppression fire. They fired up on the place for about 20 minutes before entering.

I remember what excited me about the opportunity to be an embedded reporter, and that was covering this war, to be able to be at the ground level, get to know the Marines who I'm with. Get to live this experience with them.

Right now I'm here with a first lieutenant who was part of the taking of this port a little while earlier. You were here and you encountered some of that -- you encountered some small arms fire, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we did.

BELLINI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) while you're sleeping under the same conditions they are. You're waking up at the same hour that they are. And I think that earns you respect. It earns you trust.

We're taking gunfire from them.

BELLINI: We're going to get things raw, the way things really are out here. And that's what we're really out here seeking.

There are very strict rules under which we operate. In the event of a casualty, we're not going to show the person's face, we're not going to give the person's name until the next of kin is notified. And you have to respect that. We have a job to do out here. We're here to be witnesses. We are here to report what's going on as accurately as we can.

We can't tell you specifically where we are, other than to say we're outside of Umm Qasr.

The first few days, they're very polite to us. They are very accommodating. They welcomed us in. As time has gone on, they started talking to us less like civilians and more like Marines, especially when we mess up. For example, they'll yell out, turn off the computer, you're going to get us killed! You're not supposed to use your computer at night in the dark because that could give away their position. And they won't say politely, Jason, will you please turn off your computer and here's why? They'll just yell at you by your last name. I haven't been yelled at by my last name since I was in PE class back in high school.

One of the things that has added to the richness of this experience for me personally is that fact that my father was a Marine. He served in the war in Vietnam. And from the moment he learned I was to be embedded with the Marines, he became very excited. So I kind of do him proud, in my reporting, in my behavior out here in the field. I just got an e-mail from him earlier today, and he said, sometimes these guys are going to need some encouragement, they are going to need a pat on the back from you, they're going to need to hear some news from home. Be good to these guys. They need it.

Down here we have some Marines who are listening to the radio trying to get a sense of the big picture in this war. It's often difficult when you're out here, when you're only hearing about your own mission, to know where you fit into the larger picture.

The Marines at first have seemed to us rather cavalier. They were excited about using their weapons, very proud of all the firepower that they have. In the last day or two, there's been a much more somber tone. The captain told them that there's a likelihood, a likelihood that they will take casualties, that their fellow Marines will be injured or killed on this next mission. And I think after that, it began to hit home for them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what it comes down to in my mind, at least, is we're through (EXPLETIVE DELETED) around.

BELLINI: It really hit home that this is really a war, this is not a video game going out there and shooting inanimate objects. You're going out there and you're going to be putting your life on the line in a very serious way. And that's been sobering in the last 24 hours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The journal of correspondent Jason Bellini who is with the Marines. Daryn Kagan joins us to update the day's headlines. After a short break, our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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