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CNN Live Saturday

General Shepperd Discusses Misplaced Bombings and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

Aired October 27, 2001 - 17:18   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.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN ANCHOR: I want to turn now to Air Force General retired Don Shepperd who is, of course, a military analyst for CNN during this period, and I want to talk about, general, if we could, all the misplaced bombing. This is a really sensitive point for the Pentagon -- civilian casualties of course.

GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Bob, it saps the will of the American public, it saps the will of the international community, but it's a fact of life in war. A certain percentage of bombs are going to go astray.

Some of it is guidance errors in the bombs. Some of it is human errors and targeting wrong coordinates or wrong coordinates typed in. That's why war is so serious. Civilians are killed in any conflict. It's unfortunate, never intentional, Bob.

FRANKEN: But here we have a situation where there's such a sensitivity about claims among Muslims that, in fact, they are being targeted. Every time you have civilian casualties, some believe that that claim is reinforced to the detriment of the U.S.

SHEPPERD: Yes, any time you get those claims, it's detriment of the U.S. and its coalition partners, but we have assured them from the Pentagon repeatedly that this is not being done intentionally. But any time they're struck, it's going to be a front-page story, especially when the media cannot get into the country to verify these stories, or the other side of the story. It's unfortunate.

FRANKEN: Well, except there has been verification in many cases, and the verifications invariably seem to point to verification that, in fact, there (AUDIO GAP).

SHEPPERD: Yes, in fact, reportedly the same target hit the second time in the Kabul area, a Red Cross compound. We're going to have to wait to see what the Pentagon says about this in its Monday morning briefing. This is an area of concern that they need to get under control. But the longer you bomb, the more of these are going to take place, and it's a fact of life.

FRANKEN: There is a lot of talk -- constant talk from the administration, from the Pentagon, where officials say this is not like any other war. And yet, there certainly are some parallels with another war -- the Vietnam War. Guerrillas were hold up, hard to reach, who were resisting, in fact, the superior might of the United States. Let me ask you to comment on that.

SHEPPERD: Some important parallels and important differences. First of all, it's far away and it's a tough place to fight. Their jungle here, the mountains, caves, tunnels, and no set-piece battles -- guerrillas dug in. Those are the similarities.

The big difference, though, is we went to Vietnam for an esoteric idea of preventing the spread of communism in someone else's country to help them. This is different. They struck us on American soil and killed 5,000 plus of our citizens. We are angry in the United States, and we formed a worldwide coalition. That's different than what we had in Vietnam.

We also used to have a saying, you shake a tree for a possum and a wildcat might fall out. In Vietnam the wildcat was the North Vietnamese. Here it may be the American and coalition forces.

FRANKEN: So it's going to be a very difficult long war. The administration has said that almost from the beginning. We're finding out just how much truth there is to that. Air Force General retired Don Shepperd who has been joining us regularly as a military analyst.

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