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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Strikes Back: Military Strategy in Airstrikes

Aired October 11, 2001 - 08:11   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to Miles for more on the attacks and the airstrikes that do continue -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Bill, it's time for our daily briefing. Ours won't be canceled --General Don Shepperd joining me.

We're going to talk a little bit about the strategy involved in taking on an airfield, and these were some of the early targets, of course, in the first couple of nights of this air attack over Afghanistan.

Now, let's just give you a sense of how this one unfolded. General Shepperd, first of all, we're going to talk about B-2 bombers here. They launch from Whiteman Air Force Base. Help folks understand why such a long run.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the B-2 takes special care to maintain. You can only operate it from certain facilities. We've done it overseas, but right now the best way to do it is from Whiteman; 14 to 18 hour flight all the way.

O'BRIEN: Fourteen to 18 hour flight after they have been on station, so to speak, on to Diego Garcia to be replenished. The aircraft goes back, and the cycle goes around again.

SHEPPERD: Correct.

O'BRIEN: Now let's talk a little bit how this might unfold once those B-2s arrive at a target. We've put some of the major cities there -- Herat. And Shindand is the one I want you to focus on. That's the one we're going to hone in on here, as we take a closer look at some of the actual bomb damage assessment images, which we saw at that previous frame. There's the airfield. If you're trying to -- if you're a targeteer, as the term is ...

SHEPPERD: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... how do you go about taking out an airfield? It's a lot of concrete there.

SHEPPERD: Here's the thing you're concerned about: You're concerned about the airplanes taking off. We have right here HASes or hardened aircraft shelters. You don't know which airplanes -- which ones the airplanes are in, so you want to take out the airplanes. But one of the easiest ways to do it is to hit the taxiways and the runway to keep those airplanes from taking off, so you don't have to hit every shelter or every decoy on the field, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, let me ask a silly question. If the ground is hard, they can always bypass the taxiways and take off on the dirt. That is another option, I suppose.

SHEPPERD: Yes, it used to be an option, but with jet aircraft, you're ingesting rocks and stuff -- not really a real option.

O'BRIEN: Bad situation. All right.

Let's talk about what might happen then -- once again, going back to those B-2s -- we're following some bombs down J-DAMs (ph). These would be guided by satellite. Exactly how are they released? How do they pinpoint targets?

SHEPPERD: Well, notice you can't see the B-2s, so the B-2 is protected from missile sites and may be defending this airfield. And so what you want to do is hit key runway and taxiway intersections and the ramp. All of this spreads debris and keeps the airplanes from being able to take off and operate from that field.

O'BRIEN: All right. It seems as if, though, it's very strategic in location. Is the idea here that you could use a portion of that runway for some other aircraft, once you've gained control of that location perhaps?

SHEPPERD: Yes, it probably would take maybe up to a couple of days to fill a hole like that, depending on how deep you dug it. So this can be very quickly repaired and put back in for your own use or for the economy afterwards.

O'BRIEN: So you don't want to completely wipe it out necessarily.

SHEPPERD: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's move a little farther ahead here. Oh, that takes us back to Whiteman Air Force Base, but we do have some still images, I believe, of the actual after pictures of that Shindand Air Field, if we can bring them up for you -- there we go.

And that's pretty much what you just saw in that graphic. You see this. Would you label that one a success, General?

SHEPPERD: Absolute success. No airplane can taxi out of shelters and be -- feel safe to operate or take off from those runways or taxiways.

O'BRIEN: All right. So is it safe to assume that you have air superiority when that occurs?

SHEPPERD: Well, you've got air superiority as far as this airfield goes. (CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: All right. There is one other thing to consider and that is the surface-to-air missiles. This is a surface-to-air missile site before -- this is near Kandahar. Just help us understand what the spokes and the center are of all of this.

SHEPPERD: All right. The circle there that you circled is the low-blow radar. It's the commanding control center -- the guts -- the head, if you will. The spokes out from it -- the three spokes that you've got are missiles. On each end of each of those lines is what we call a TEL -- a transporter erector launcher. They have three missiles, in this case GOA missiles from this SA-3 site -- a very dangerous site below about 30,000 feet.

O'BRIEN: All right. And let's look at the after shot of this one. It doesn't look like much is left. You can see the arrows the put on there. That appears to be the center. These are some of the spokes we are talking about. Safe to assume, then, that that is ...

SHEPPERD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... a disabled SAM site?

SHEPPERD: Indeed. And from Whiteman Air Base in the United States on a 14-18 hour flight, one airplane could have attacked the airfield and this missile site on the right azimuth and taken all of this out and done this damage -- one airplane.

O'BRIEN: All right. One aircraft with 16 weapons -- they probably wouldn't have used all of them at that one location, but that's an astounding statement of efficiency if nothing else there. All right. General ...

SHEPPERD: It used to be a bunch of airplanes would attack this airfield, and we'd lose a couple.

O'BRIEN: All right. General Don Shepperd -- let's tell you, we want to remind you that our Web site, CNN.com, has a lot of interesting information about this kind of thing if this is your interest.

There, in fact, is what's called the J-DAM -- that is the satellite-guided weapon similar to what was used in the attacks we were just talking about. It's hanging beneath an F-15 there, but nevertheless from the B-2 bombers. That's at CNN.com. We invite you to check that out to learn a little bit more.

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