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CNN Live Saturday

U.S. Military Recovers Bodies of Five Marines

Aired January 12, 2002 - 15:05   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: After days of searching in steep, remote terrain, the U.S. military has recovered the remains of five of the seven Marines who died this week in Pakistan. They were killed, as you know, Wednesday, when their KC-130 refueling plane crashed in Pakistan. Let's go now to CNN's Jonathan Aiken who is joining us from the Pentagon.

Jonathan, a grim task for these -- for those that taking process in the recovery process.

JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Catherine, it certainly is a grim duty, a sad duty to be performed by these rescue teams. As you mentioned, five of the seven bodies from that plane have been recovered. And investigative teams are on the scene as well as they try to retrace the final moment of that KC-130 flight.

The plane went down, as you mentioned, Wednesday, not far from the Chamsee (ph) air base in southwestern Pakistan. We can tell you that once all the remains are recovered, once the other two bodies are recovered, all of them will be sent to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and from Ramstein they're going to go to Dover Air Force base in Dover, Delaware. Dover has the facilities for postmortems, and it is there that the bodies of men and women killed in combat or in theater are generally taken prior to being released to the families, and such will be the case.

We are anticipating that the bodies should reach Dover, in fact, sometime Sunday, or perhaps Monday, and they could be released to the families as early as mid-week.

Now as for investigators who were on the scene of that crash Wednesday, still no cause being determined. They don't think that hostile fire was involved. But again, they don't want to rule anything out either.

Meanwhile, we have some detainees to tell you about. Twenty of them spending their first night at the Guantanamo Naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. They arrived manacled, shackled, and wearing blacked-out goggles so they couldn't really see exactly where they were going. Their first night there on the island described as calm and peaceful. Their accommodations are somewhat Spartan, and security is tight. We are told they're staying in six by eight foot chain link cells. They have been given a foam rubber sleeping mat, two towels, one to wash with and one to use as a prayer mat. They have also been given a copy of the Koran, a toiletry kit, a pair of flip-flops so they can go back and forth to take showers.

The man who was described as the warden of what is being called camp X-ray says the detainees will be treated humanely.

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COL. TERRY CARRICO, U.S. ARMY: Firm and fair. We have positive control of these individuals. We have a layered security set up, where there is multi layers, from internal to external security forces, and we are treating them to maintain positive control. And most of the time, we were outnumbered them, and whenever they are out of their cells, so positive control, firm and fair, and I am very confident, very confident that we have the situation well in hand.

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AIKEN: And Catherine, more detainees to speak of actually in Afghanistan itself, 444 in total. Most of them are being kept at the Marine and Army facility at Kandahar Airport in Kandahar. There is another 52 being kept at the Bagram Air Base, which is not far from Kabul, and there is one detainee, one detainee only, on board the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, and that is the American Taliban John Walker Lindh -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Let's get back to what's going on now inside Afghanistan, Jonathan. We were reporting now that the U.S. bombers are back over the al Qaeda training camp facilities there, really close to the Pakistani border.

AIKEN: Yes, indeed. These targets keep coming up as they look to see where al Qaeda and Taliban forces are moving on the ground. If there is any indication that they are going to head back to these camps that have existed in the past to try to resurrect them, then U.S. aircraft are going to hit them, and such was the case today -- about four hours of airstrikes taking place early morning Eastern time, late afternoon-early evening Afghanistan time.

We are told that bombs hit at a place called Shwakili (ph), which is southwest by about 30 miles of the city of Khowst. We are told that the strikes, Catherine, focused primarily on tunnel complexes and above-ground camps. These are what the Pentagon has always called "targets of opportunity." And again, as they see troops beginning to regroup, al Qaeda and Taliban fighters beginning to shift their positions and possibly head back to places that were hit once before, Pentagon says they are going to go in and hit them again -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Not letting up at all, are they? CNN's Jonathan Aiken at the Pentagon. Thank you, Jonathan.

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