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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: USS Kitty Hawk Headed in General Vicinity

Aired October 01, 2001 - 08:08   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: Now onto the Pentagon where military planners there are sending more forces to the general vicinity of all the trouble.

Our Bob Franken is at the Pentagon with more on deployments of yet another carrier battle group, although we don't know exactly sure where it's headed, right, Bob?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Miles. The general vicinity these days is just about Earth, just about anywhere on the globe, the military deployment is fanning out. Of course there is a special focus on the area around central Asia, around Afghanistan to be blunt about it, and of course the Persian Gulf area.

The USS Kitty Hawk is an aircraft carrier that had just completed exercises of nine days duration, was steaming into Japan when the orders came, no, don't go to Japan, stay there then turnaround and head back to sea, points unknown, of course, although it seems to be heading for the region but the region could be the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, et cetera, et cetera.

The Kitty Hawk has, of course, had long experience. It was commissioned in 1961. It is the only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. Now that is Pentagon speak. What that means is it doesn't really have a home port, it is always at sea, always somewhere out at the point of where the military action might be. It includes a crew of 5,500 and an aircraft capacity of 75. So of course it brings a formidable punch to the military deployment.

Now the question is what military action is contemplated and that is still something that might be very secret or it might be at some point very visible. There is a suspicion among people that there will be something visible given the fact that there is such an appetite in the United States, as reflected in the polls, for some sort of visible retaliation for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But add to the mix now the USS Kitty Hawk, which is now steaming to sea to points unknown ready to participate in whatever there is to participate in -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Bob, the Pentagon obviously keeping very tight wraps on everything it does in the course of this whole action with the Kitty Hawk steaming on its way to wherever that may be. Of course it's difficult to keep something like that a secret, nevertheless, it seems to me the Pentagon would like the world to know that the Kitty Hawk is on its way. Is -- are they sort of having it both ways, if you will?

FRANKEN: Well, you exactly hit the nail on the head. On the one hand, the Pentagon says there will be matters and actions that will be visible, such as this, and in all probability some sort of military action at some point which will be designed, although they would probably disagree with it, will be designed to in fact satisfy an appetite in the United States. But they are really concerned that they would fail in whatever that would be so they're being very methodical in making plans for it. They're on the one hand letting us see sort of the tip of the iceberg but making sure we know that there are all kinds of things going on, some of them military, some of them otherwise, that will not be seen, at least until they develop more fully.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken at the Pentagon, thanks very much.

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