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CNN Live At Daybreak

Final Route Taken by Opposition Forces into Kabul Not an Easy One; Afghanistan Faces Political Power Vacuum

Aired November 13, 2001 - 07:20   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The final route taken by opposition forces into Kabul was not an easy one, but then there are no easy routes into Afghanistan. Northern Alliance forces traveled some 30 miles to claim their prize.

Miles O'Brien is on duty in the war room with a closer look at that rutted road from Bagram -- Miles, good morning.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Paula.

We'll take a quick look at that, and more importantly, the route ahead now that this significant turn of events has occurred, the taking of Kabul, apparently, by the Northern Alliance.

Joining me to help us out in all of this is our military analyst, General Don Shepperd. Good to have you with us again, General Shepperd.

First of all, let's talk, we just saw Matthew Chance reporting from Kabul exclusively and he was talking about how the Northern Alliance troops as they moved into Kabul were, among other things, chanting anti-Pakistani slogans. That is a little clue as to the political dynamics in this situation.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's the first piece of bad news in quite a while here. Pakistan still remains key because of its location to resupply, retreating Taliban forces that might retreat down into the southern area. You can see where they're located. It provides sanctuary. It provides resupply. So Pakistan is still key and this march into Kabul was not good news.

O'BRIEN: The point was the U.S. would have preferred, Pakistan would have preferred if the Northern Alliance had held back somewhat until some kind of coalition was built. That has not happened. Clearly we're talking about troops that had just won a significant string of victories, almost impossible for them to stop.

SHEPPERD: Yes, almost impossible to resist. But what happened is the military outran diplomacy here and again, that's not good news. We had all hoped for a political solution before they marched in, but the rapid collapse of the entire country just made it impossible. O'BRIEN: All right, as we look at our close-up map of Afghanistan and we have the sense now that the Taliban is moving in and around Kandahar, at least the southern reaches of Afghanistan, the plains down there. How does that change the strategy on the part of the U.S. as it continues this war?

SHEPPERD: Well, first of all, we're going to continue to support the Northern Alliance and other opposition forces. Other opposition forces, this is the Pashtun area south of Kabul in Afghanistan. We want the Pashtuns to rise up against the Taliban as well as the other forces.

Basically, this is mop up actions here and consolidation will take some time. Lots of guerrilla action will take place and now it appears the Taliban are withdrawing down into the Kandahar area. So this is the focus of action for the next few days.

O'BRIEN: I guess the concern would be is in doing this is it some sort of tactical move to lure Northern Alliance along with U.S. air support into this area and could it be some kind of trap?

SHEPPERD: If you had time to do strategy and tactics in the middle of a retreat, you could say it's a strategic move. The Taliban have no choice. It's the only place left to go when the entire population appears to be rising up against them and joining the Northern Alliance. That's the only place they can go. So there's very little strategic and tactics remaining.

O'BRIEN: All right, Don Shepperd, our military analyst, retired major general, U.S. Air Force, thanks very much, as always, for your insights on all this. We'll send it back to Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you, gentlemen.

Afghanistan faces a political power vacuum this morning. While the Taliban have pulled out of Kabul and Northern Alliance forces have moved in, who will ultimately take charge in Afghanistan? Is the Northern Alliance the right team to lead a new government? Well, U.S. leaders had expressed reservations about the Alliance advancing all the way to Kabul.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will encourage our friends to head south across the Shamali Plains, but not into the city of Kabul itself. And we believe we can accomplish our military missions by that strategy.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It isn't a matter of whether or not you want the Northern Alliance to take Kabul. The Northern Alliance is going to do that which it wishes to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: The administration had hoped that a broad-based government could be put in place first. Joining us now to talk about plans for a post-Taliban government, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It's always good to see you. Welcome.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: So what is your reaction to the developments overnight?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it's a mixed bag because clearly it's very good that the Northern Alliance has the kind of momentum that we've seen. But they have gone beyond what the United States and the rest of the international community wanted. And I think it really portends the fact that this is not going to be easy to set up an interim government and also shows the difficulties that we had over the last years in terms of trying to get a broad-based government because these are quite stubborn people and they want to have the kind of government that one of their group wants without really having a careful working alliance.

ZAHN: Should the government have been surprised at all that the Northern Alliance didn't listen and advanced anyway?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I think, as was said, you know, troops on the move develop their own momentum. But I think it also shows the difficulty of micro managing this. And the unfortunate aspect of not having been able to do enough of the diplomatic work, political work, as the military campaign was going forward.

ZAHN: I want to replay a small part of what the Northern Alliance foreign minister said two days ago as the prospect of a move on Kabul was being considered. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, NORTHERN ALLIANCE FOREIGN MINISTER: We do not want to see any conflict in Kabul. Kabul should serve as a venue for talks, for negotiations, for peace, for the construction of Afghanistan, for the different, different building institutions in Afghanistan. That part is understandable for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Do you take Abdullah Abdullah at his word, there, that Kabul should be a neutral city?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that it would be better, in fact, if they saw it that way and were able to have a government that included the south. This is called the Northern Alliance for a reason. And but the majority of the Afghan people are Pashtun and they are in the south and they have to be a part of this and being in Kabul in some form where the interim government is formed is essential, because otherwise it will just split the country down the middle.

ZAHN: Walk us through the challenge now for the administration. So immediately there is a call to get some sort of international peacekeeping force on the ground in Kabul. How quickly can that come together?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that also will be difficult because there were not any clear discussions yet about what that kind of a force would look like, would it be a U.N. force, would it be a coalition of the willing, would it be a Muslim force? So there are a lot of questions about that.

I think also diplomatically yesterday there was a meeting at the United Nations of this group called the six plus two that we were a part of. I think that needs to be broadened. I think the Turks need to be brought into it, the British, the Japanese, the Indians, in order to show that there is a greater support in the region for trying to create some kind of an interim government.

ZAHN: The message yesterday from Secretary of State Colin Powell, your successor, was that we've got to speed this process along. Realistically, how quickly can this six plus two group come up with a legitimate idea for a government that reflects all the ethnic groups that make up Afghanistan?

ALBRIGHT: Well, they know what they are and they know who the people are. And I think that if there is more push internationally it can happen more rapidly. Also, the role of the former king is important, not so much that he be reinstated as king but that he be the one that provides some kind of leadership in terms of getting this government together, a legitimate force.

So I do think they need to move more rapidly and perhaps the movement into Kabul will also speed up the diplomatic part so that there isn't a vacuum. There's a difference between neutral and a vacuum and I think that having a vacuum in Kabul would be a mistake. It will be very hard to keep order and so moving as rapidly as possible is essential. Plus doing what you said, is trying to get some kind of a force together as quickly as possible.

ZAHN: But are we talking about weeks to get the international peacekeeping force in place and then months to get a government in place or is it going to be quicker than that?

ALBRIGHT: Maybe the other way around. I think that, I hope that they can get a government in place as soon as possible. The thing that I have to tell you, Paula, from having worked on some of these peacekeeping operations, when they have to start from scratch and you have to figure out who the members are and how quickly they can get people there, I think that is an issue that always takes more time and needs to be done more quickly, because otherwise we're going to have the Northern Alliance running Kabul and I think that that is in the long run not a healthy situation.

ZAHN: Now that the Taliban is on the run, there is great concern that what America and its coalition partners will be subjected to is guerrilla warfare. What does that mean long-term for the search for Osama bin Laden?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it's possible that with the Northern Alliance in ascendancy now that there may be some way to try to get Osama bin Laden more quickly and al Qaeda taken apart. But I think we need to keep in mind what President Bush has been saying all along, which is that this is still going to take a long time. It's not over. You know, we have a tendency to celebrate and there are wonderful things, obviously, happening with -- I understand that some women are taking off their veils and the men are shaving and so that is important.

And the other thing that's going to be very important is to now use both Kabul and the other cities that have been liberated in order to develop humanitarian bridgeheads and try to get food and assistance into the population of Afghanistan. That will help to calm things down and also to make sure that the refugee camps are properly fed and that we're not concerned about the poverty and hunger going on there.

ZAHN: I wanted to give you the chance to respond to a front page story that ran in "USA Today" yesterday suggesting that although your boss, President Clinton, attempted to fight terrorism, he could have done more had he not been distracted by the Monica Lewinsky mess and the ensuing impeachment controversy. Is that fair?

ALBRIGHT: I think it's totally unfair because we had fighting terrorism at the top of our list. We did everything that we could given the intelligence information that we had. I've said we kind of consumed all the intelligence information that we had. I think it is evident how difficult this fight is. We brought to justice the people that had bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and we worked on this constantly. And the thing that people don't know are the number of terrorist attempts that we foiled and we put into place under President Clinton's direction the things that are being built on now, the freezing of the assets, the putting of terrorist groups on a terrorist list, training a lot of people, putting more money into the intelligence budgets and trying to get the FBI and the CIA to cooperate more.

The question, you know, I think that we worked very hard. This administration was very much involved in the investigation of the USS Cole. That happened in October. The elections were in November. We were out of office in January. So the question is what has been happening between January and September.

So I think the point is that things are very hard to do and I am, I think that we did a very good job given what the situation was at the time. And then the great tragedy, Paula, and I don't know how one says this exactly, but the embassy bombings, there were people killed, but only 12 Americans were killed and 17 Americans in the USS Cole and now we have this huge tragedy of 5,000 people killed and missing and I think that that brings a whole different level of support from Congress for the kind of action that President Bush has been able to take that we have been supporting.

ZAHN: Secretary of State Powell has the same specter of Osama bin Laden hanging over him as you did. Any final words of advice for him this morning?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I told him...

ZAHN: I know the man still pains you now, not Secretary of State Powell, but Osama bin Laden.

ALBRIGHT: Well, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and I think that, as I told Secretary Powell, being a secretary of state is the best job in the world, but it is a lot harder than it looks and it requires very detailed diplomatic work in order to keep these coalitions together, because that is what will be necessary in order to get Osama bin Laden and patience. And then also working on other parts of this huge terrorist network, and that requires international cooperation that this administration has now learned. I mean the first months were very unilateral and I think now Secretary Powell is really pursuing a multilateral policy that is necessary to deal with this kind of a specter hanging over you.

ZAHN: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, of course, during the Clinton administration. Good to see you. Good luck on your book.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you. Thanks a lot.

ZAHN: She continues to work on that and teach and run a business and all sorts of things.

ALBRIGHT: Thanks, Paula. Appreciate it.

ZAHN: Appreciate your taking time out of your morning to be with us.

Still to come, Rudy the rock -- a live interview with Mayor Rudy Giuliani when we come back.

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