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CNN Live At Daybreak
America's New War: The Logistics of Fighting a War
Aired September 24, 2001 - 08:20 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The logistics of waging war of any shape or variety in Afghanistan are tough for the Pentagon. This is as remote a place, as you can imagine, for the U.S. military to project its kind of force.
To talk a little bit more about military strategy, we turn now to the Lieutenant General Don Shepperd in Washington, who's been a military analyst with us all along.
We appreciate you joining us once again, General Shepperd.
MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: Good morning, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Good morning. Let's -- I want to go to a map real quickly and talk a little bit about Kazakhstan. The president of Kazakhstan today, Nursultan Nazarbayev, indicated that he is amenable to the idea of allowing the U.S. to use his airspace and perhaps stage some sort of troops on his border. Now that, according to this map we have right here, could bring U.S. forces as close to 200 miles to the Afghan border.
200 miles is not bad; right general?
SHEPPERD: Not only is it not bad, but what you are seeing as a result of masterful diplomacy here. The two enemies of military action are security, you need to be in a secure place that you can defend yourself, and also distance from the area that you are intending to strike. Kazakhstan, being only a couple of hundred miles from Afghanistan would be very, very convenient for launching strikes.
The distances from Turkey, as you reported earlier, around 1600 nautical miles, and from the Gulf around 1400, which means flights of 6 to 8 hours. We would like to be a lot closer, if we can.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now of course the ideal location might in fact be one of the other former Soviet states in that region, perhaps Uzbekistan, perhaps Tajikistan. Things get a little more complicated as you get involved in these countries diplomatically. You've got Russia claiming a sphere of influence there, and you also have the fact that these are Islamic countries, which might have some natural allegiance to the Taliban. Correct?
SHEPPERD: That is correct. We have to be very careful about our relationships with these countries, which are key to our success. The closer you get to the action, the better. So Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, even Kyrgyzstan are all key to the things that we may want to do. But you want to be very careful not to destabilize those governments. The same thing going on in the Middle East, it is very dicey.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, give us a sense because we have long range bombers that perhaps could be staged from Diego Garcia, or even from Missouri. As we look at a big wide shot of this region.
Why is it so important to have people up close, and you know here we're talking about Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, those all right on the border there. Why is that so important when we have all this long range capability?
SHEPPERD: Well, the long range capability that can be employed from the United States, from Great Britain, from Diego Garcia, the distance limits you in the number of what we call sorties, or flights, that you go to area. The Diego Garcia is around 2000 miles from the area, so the number of flights that you can get airborne by the time you go there, return, replenish the weapons on your airplane, refuel and get back is very limited.
So the further you get, the less flights you can put over the country. The ideal would be to have those closer, but likely you will still station the bombers a long way away, and you would station things like fighter aircraft in the closer areas that can generate a lot of flying, sorties, or a lot of flights in a short period of time.
O'BRIEN: All right. We're just about out of time general, but just in a word, it seems as if this sort of mission that's being described is not well suited for long range bombers, or for that matter even fighters. We're talking about probably special forces type operations.
SHEPPERD: There is going to be a lot of special forces action in this because of the target set. There's not a lot of infrastructure that lends itself to fighters and bombers. We have it all though, so we'll be able to take care of whatever is there. Special forces will be very important.
O'BRIEN: General Don Shepperd, as always, appreciate your insights.
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