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CNN Live At Daybreak

U.S. Troops Take on Long Task of Destroying Stashed Ammunition

Aired February 26, 2002 - 05:14   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 COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In Afghanistan, the legacy of war is often hidden beneath the surface. Afghan fighters have stashed tons of ammunition across the country and the U.S. military must, is now on a search and destroy mission.

Our Martin Savidge joined some soldiers on demolition duty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, load up the vehicles. I'll be back in about three minutes.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A search and destroy mission heading out from the coalition military base in Kandahar. The road the convoy travels leads to both Afghanistan's past and to its future. Barely two miles away they find a huge stockpile of ammunition buried underground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.

Well, basically, what we've got going on here is a cache full of, I'll call it captured Afghani .82 millimeter recoilless rifle rounds, most of this stuff being of Chinese origin. The assumption is it was buried to hide it from the bombardment. It's extremely difficult to see this stuff from the air, but extremely easy to find it once we get on the ground.

SAVIDGE: It's not the first such discovery this disposal team has made, and it won't be the last.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd say within two kilometers of where we're standing, there's probably 10 or 15 more just like this.

SAVIDGE: War in Afghanistan hasn't gone away, it just lies dormant under the surface. What coalition forces find, they will destroy. If they don't, they know others will still use it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So kind of the biggest priority actually is what can be used against us.

SAVIDGE: This single stash will take hours to clear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, let's take a break, guys. Get some water. SAVIDGE: In the end, they run out of room in the trucks before they run out of ammunition. The team lumbers off to a heavily used demolition site less than five miles away and begin the process in reverse.

(on-camera): So the ammunition now has been divided into several piles, stacked up like so much firewood. Previous experience has shown the demolition team that tends to work best for destroying it and blocks of C-4 are placed on top.

(voice-over): Just dealing with this one find takes almost an entire day. For demolition teams, the job of diffusing Afghanistan cannot be measured by weeks or months.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My guess would be years. It's difficult for me to say for sure. I've seen this small area and there's got to be several tons in this area. Multiply that by the country as a whole, God only knows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire in the hole.

SAVIDGE: For Afghanistan, the road back from war will be long and dangerous.

Martin Savidge, CNN, Kandahar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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