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CNN Live Saturday

Defense Department Consultant Discusses Importance of Surveillance

Aired April 14, 2001 - 17:09   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.
FRAZIER: This month's encounter as cast a bit of a pall over relations between Washington and Beijing. But is it permanent? Joining us now to discuss that Retired Army Major General Paul Vallely, who's now a senior consultant with the Defense Department. General, welcome. Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

MAJ. GEN. PAUL VALLELY (RETIRED): Thanks, Stephen. It's a pleasure to be here.

FRAZIER: You've spent a lot of time in that part of the world and we talked to you earlier about the sanitizing of the plane, and how important that is. It was your sense that these newer planes are faster to clean up and faster to destroy sensitive information.

VALLELY: Well they are. As I understand it, this particular model has the latest high-tech gear on it, so with that comes the ability to sanitize, or cleaning and destroying, the information as well as some of the systems in a very rapid frame of time.

FRAZIER: You have said to us that the pilot did the right thing by saving the crew. They are much more important than the plane or the technology onboard.

VALLELY: Well, I think we're all trained as commanders in the military that our people really come first and in this case, in a peace time environment, not a wartime, that he did the right thing, and he salvaged that crew, landed safely. And it really is a miracle.

He did two things: To maintain control of that aircraft after the dive and then also to land that aircraft very safely, preserving the lives of 24 very important service people out there.

FRAZIER: Yes, this is not the most maneuverable of planes. I know that it's fondly called, by the people who fly it, the flying pig. So he did a good job bringing it down.

VALLELY: He did a great job -- he did a great job.

FRAZIER: Let's talk a little bit about looking forward now, and, you know, weather there's going to be a winner and a loser in this situation. What do you think?

VALLELY: Well, I think at this point in time, I think cooler heads prevailed. I think President Bush and Secretary Powell and the entire national security team did a magnificent professional job here. And they are to be congratulated along with the actions of the crew. But, obviously, the world has seen that the fabrication, the lies that were put out by the China propaganda machine, and believe me, that propaganda machine was working at maximum efficiency.

FRAZIER: But -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

VALLELY: So I think, in the short term here, China is the loser, if you want to look at it that way. I think it is a win for the red, white, and blue, but there's a lot of things in the future here we have to be prepared for.

FRAZIER: We expect there will be some discussion of how much airspace is Chinese air space, how much is international. But you were telling us, in our initial chat, that the Chinese are flying reconnaissance flights of a very similar nature in other parts of the world, and they do it as close to the coast as the United States does.

VALLELY: Well, that is the intelligence information that I have received. They fly, if you had a map here, you could look all the way up to Japan, south, by Okinawa, the Philippines Islands through the South China Sea, down to the Spratly Islands and the Paracels. Of course that's one of the most important sea routes in the world, going through the Straits of Malaca.

So, with their expansionist, their wanting to expand their sphere of influence out into that area, they certainly run reconnaissance flights and surveillance flights all the time. And, of course, we do it in international airspace, so you know, it is done by many countries. It's not something that's new and it's not a secret. It's very overt. We're out there in international airspace doing a job to maintain world peace.

FRAZIER: Well, it will be interesting to see how those issues are discussed on Wednesday. General, thank you for those insights tonight.

VALLELY: Thank you, Stephen.

FRAZIER: General Paul Vallely, talking to us from Washington.

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