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CNN Live Saturday

Afghan Vice President Gunned Down in Broad Daylight

Aired July 06, 2002 - 18:05   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: Well, one of Afghanistan's new vice-presidents was gunned down on a cobble street today. Government officials say that the assassination of Haji Abdul Qadir a terrorist act. CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace is with the president in Kennebunkport, Maine with U.S. reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vacationing for the weekend in Maine, President Bush condemns the killing of an Afghan vice-president, but says it is too soon to know if terrorists were behind the attack.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It could be (UNINTELLIGIBLE), it could be drug lords, and it could be long-time rivals. Who knows? All we know is a good man is dead, and we mourn his loss.

WALLACE: A member of the president's national security team called Afghan president Karzai, offering American help to track down those responsible. It is the second assassination of an Afghan government leader this year. The tourism minister was killed at the Kabul airport in February.

Mr. Bush said the U.S. will not be deterred.

BUSH: We are more resolved than ever to bring stability to the country.

WALLACE: But, some Democratic lawmakers say the Bush administration needs to do more, such as supporting the expansion of a multi-national peacekeeping force beyond Kabul to the entire country, something the U.S. has been reluctant to do.

SEN, EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: I think that we are seeing here a need for a broader presence, if we're really going to get the job done. This is something we probably can't do halfway or on the cheap, so to speak.

WALLACE: Adding to the challenges, anger following the deaths of at least 48 Afghans in a U.S. military operation, the Pentagon says was targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.

Saturday, the U.S. acknowledges for the first time that civilians were unintentionally killed. President Karzai facing criticism he is too close to the West, calls for better coordination between U.S. and Afghan forces. Mr. Bush tried to heal any wounds.

BUSH: Any time innocent life is lost, we're sad. Our country values life, all life, and we'll find out what the facts are and then address it accordingly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: But this all shows the administration's were trying to prevent Afghanistan from sinking back into a haven for terrorists won't be easy or wrapped up anytime soon. A reality that could complicate the president's plans to expand the war on terrorism even further -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Kelly, I know this is also the president's birthday. Bad news he's receiving on his birthday. Any plans? What's been going on there re: celebration?

WALLACE: That is right, the president adjusting to being a year older. He turned 56 today. He started the day on the golf course with his father, the former president. He told reporters he'd spend the rest of the day running, enjoying lunch with his family, and then he said a surprise party might be planned, but we'll have to find out if that party took place after all. Not likely to be a surprise, though. Catherine.

CALLAWAY: He's going to be really embarrassed if there's not one after saying that, right? All right. Thanks Kelly. That's Kelly Wallace with the president.

Well, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said that Lebanon is hosting terror-training camps on par with Al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan. Bayh, a Democrat, and a member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee said on CNN's Saturday Edition today he called for elimination of the Lebanon camps.

SENATOR BAYH: One of the lessons that we learned in Afghanistan is we waited too long to clean those camps out and you allowed thousands of individuals to get training, disperse around the world, to then come back and attack us. There are camps in Lebanon that serve a similar function, and we have to look very carefully at those along with any countries whose pressure we can bring to bear to try to eliminate that long-term threat to our country.

CALLAWAY: Joining us now to talk about all of these developments is CNN Military Analyst, Retired General Wesley Clark. Sir, thank you for being with us again.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, RET.: Good to be with you, Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Bad news the president received today of another assassination. Your reaction, first, to that.

CLARK: I think this illustrates the extraordinary difficulty of the task of trying to bring stability to Afghanistan. This is the second assassination as reports have indicated and the mission of the international security and assistance force, the peacekeeping force under Turkish control is to protect those government ministers and Hamid Karzai.

Of course, they're being assisted by the United States troops and our intelligence there. It's just an enormous task. It's a big challenge in that country. I do think we have to do a lot more, but even if we do more, there's no foolproof way to provide individual protection when you're a foreign force inside a country like this.

CALLAWAY: Right, but now we understand there are reports that Qadir did not have any personal security guards with him at the time, that he didn't really like that idea. But, certainly that has to be something down the road considered now. The death of Qadir and of course with the minister of civil aviation, that assassination happening in February. Do you think there will be a change in how the leaders there are operating?

CLARK: I think first, there has to be a thorough investigation of this to determine exactly what happened and what caused it. But, clearly, it will be followed as you suggest by changes in operating procedures. What I would hope is that we'll be working with the Afghans, helping them develop their own police capabilities, their own police intelligence sources, because this is something that's going to be very hard for Americans as outsiders to really do. They have to do this themselves. They really have to protect their own people themselves.

CALLAWAY: Well, but General, doesn't this make a bigger statement about just how unsettled the situation still is there in Afghanistan?

CLARK: It certainly does, Catherine. The situation is very difficult in Afghanistan and we shouldn't be misled by the fact that we've only got about 4,500 to 5,000 troops there. And that we only occasionally hear about combat activities. The simple truth is that the warlords are still in charge, the economy is in a shambles, aid is very slow in arriving, there's a tremendous dislocation, more refugees are returning each week, and the pressures to fractionate the country are very strong.

And so what we occasionally see is the tip of the iceberg, the occasional incident, the terrible unfortunate bombing that occurred and so forth that draws our attention back there. But, this is a day- by-day, hour-by-hour struggle for the hearts and minds of the people in Afghanistan. Are they going to really be able to form a democratic government under Hamid Karzai? Or is it just going to disintegrate into lawlessness again?

CALLAWAY: Right, and you know, looking from the outside it is hard to understand that there could be so many troops there and these types of assassinations still taking place.

CLARK: Well, it's a very, very large country. And, of course, they don't have the means of population control is the actual term that we would use in counterinsurgency warfare. And what we would like to see is that everybody has a name, everybody has a street address. We know who people are.

But in this country, there's tremendous dislocation. We don't know who everybody is, we certainly don't, and not even the Afghans themselves with the fledgling police effort that they put forward. So people are essentially nameless and faceless and moving unencumbered throughout the countryside and through the cities and so it's very easy for those who want to cause trouble to organize and do so.

CALLAWAY: All right, and we also know that when a group or someone even one person decides to target someone it's very difficult to keep them entirely protected. And, also, let me quickly get your reaction to Senator Bayh's suggestion concerning the camps, or so- called camps, in Lebanon.

CLARK: I think Senator Bayh is exactly right on this point. If we've had a long term -- a long term awareness of these camps. We've been unable to really take them out effectively.

But, I think he's making the larger point also that when we focus on Al Qaeda, we really have to focus worldwide on Al Qaeda. That job is not done yet. I know there's a lot of discussion in the media about Iraq, but

I would hope that we'll not lose sight of the fact that what our real effort areas is are these terrorists moving from camp to camp, receiving diplomatic assistance from various governments, transferring money, getting explosives, planning operations against us. And, this is a very difficult target. It's much easier to focus on someone we don't like, like Sadaam Hussein. But I think Senator Bayh is making a very solid point in the importance of going after these camps in Lebanon.

CALLAWAY: All right, sir, thank you for being with us, General.

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