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CNN Live At Daybreak
Political Pressure Mounting For Bin Laden to Be Found; Three Marines Treated for Mine Injuries
Aired December 17, 2001 - 06:31 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: With the war in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. is under increased pressure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
CNN's Bob Constantini is at the Pentagon with more on this story.
Bob, they may want to bring him to justice, but first they have to find him.
BOB CONSTANTINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT, THE PENTAGON: Well, yes, Carol. Since Osama bin Laden is considered the most wanted man in the world by the U.S., the fact that he has so far eluded capture has political as well as military implications here in Washington.
Now, the Pentagon released the home video of bin Laden last week, hoping to shore up international opinion for bringing him to justice. But it's pressure of American people seeing the Saudi exile laughing about the September 11 attacks that is being strongly felt in Washington.
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COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Sure, we'd like to have seen him in irons today, but he will be in irons in due course, one way or the other.
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CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We're not going to set a deadline. We say to ourselves at every meeting that our deadline is when the mission is accomplished.
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CONSTANTINI: However, a key Democrats reflects what a new "Newsweek" survey shows. A vast majority of the American public would consider the mission in Afghanistan not accomplished if bin Laden remains at large.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: Well, I think that our goal was appropriate at the beginning, which was to find him and bring him to justice. Anything short of that would be a failure, and we certainly can't afford to fail in this case. This is too high a profile, too important for so many other reasons.
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CONSTANTINI: What ever becomes of bin Laden, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thinks the battles in Afghanistan are far from over.
He says, despite the proclaimed successes of the U.S.-backed Alliance fighters in the Tora Bora region, there are still some holdouts.
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DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There is at the present time, not a fierce battle taking place. There are people who are attempting to escape and are being run down.
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CONSTANTINI: Rumsfeld met with Hamid Karzai, the incoming leader of the provisional Afghan government, and then made an unannounced visit to American troops Sunday at the Bagram air base near Kabul.
Later this week he goes to Brussels for meetings with NATO allies, and of course, the main topic will be the war on terrorism -- Carol.
LIN: All right. Thank you very much for that report live from the Pentagon.
And meantime, we want to take a closer look at how dangerous this mission is for U.S. Marines working inside of Afghanistan.
You've already heard that three of them were wounded during a mine clearing operation at Kandahar's airport.
CNN's Mike Chinoy updates their condition.
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MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT, KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN: The three Marines injured in Sunday's land mine incident are now reported to be in stable condition.
The most seriously injured, the one who actually stepped on the mine, has now been transferred to a hospital outside Afghanistan in another country. We're not being told which one.
The other two, both of whom received less serious shrapnel wounds, are still at the medical field hospital at Camp Rhino, the Marines' other base about 70 miles south from Kandahar airport. Meanwhile, there has been intensive activity here at Kandahar airport throughout the night. Twelve C-130 transport planes arrived, despite a very unusual rainstorm in this normally desert-like climate, bringing in more men and more materiel, among the materiel brought in was materiel that will help repair the runways here. The runway is still full of craters from U.S. bombing. That work is expected to get underway immediately.
Meanwhile, the detention facility that the Marines had been constructing, now, here is ready and should be available for use in the event that prisoners captured during the fighting for Tora Bora are brought here.
I'm Mike Chinoy with the U.S. Marines in Kandahar airport.
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