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173rd Airborne Securing Air Base
Aired March 28, 2003 - 14:32 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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We've been telling you in the last few days about the effort to open up a so-called northern front in Iraq. Elements of the Army's 173rd Airborne jumping out of airplanes, landing, trying to secure an airstrip.
Right now, Steve Nettleton, a CNN reporter is with the 173rd, at an airfield, one of the airfields in northern Iraq. That's the Kurdish-controlled area.
Steve, are you with us? Tell us what your unit is working on right now.
STEVE NETTLETON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, I'm standing at the runway here where the Air Force C-17s are landing and dropping off military hardware. As you can probably see, they are beginning to roll out some vehicles fairly shortly, including Humvees, weapons, troops, food, supplies, the whole works.
They are running quite a number through here. I see at least a two in a half an hour unloaded completely and then airborne again. BC-17s are flying from different locations in Europe, including in the -- either in these flights, or the next few days we'll be seeing armor -- tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, coming in from Germany, as well as other supplies for the 173rd Airborne Brigade coming out of Italy.
WOODRUFF: Steve, how much of an issue is security there? Is that considered completely secure around there because it is Kurdish controlled?
NETTLETON: Well, I think there's always concern. They are certainly putting on a certain amount of trust into the local Kurdish leaders. The 173rd Airborne can defend itself, at least in terms of defending this airfield from known threats - of course there's also a risk of a missile or terrorist threat, which are unpredictable.
But there are a number of Kurdish fighters around here. We see them interacting with the security forces, the U.S. forces here, walking around freely on the tarmac, smoking, talking. They even brought some food for the troops here. And they are also manning joint checkpoints out along the perimeters. And as we are told they control the mountainsides and are pretty strictly controlling all access to the airfield.
WOODRUFF: Steve, is there any way for you to describe the size of what has been delivered so far? You said armor - you expect armored tanks and other equipment to be coming in pretty soon. But at this point, how would you sum up what's been put down there? NETTLETON: Well, they've asked us not to say specific numbers. I can say obviously 1,000 parachuted in the 1st night. Since then you're looking at more than a dozen planes a day bringing in all kinds of people, so it is starting to build up rather quickly. They're definitely going to grow in size from the 1,000 that came in here.
In terms of vehicles this afternoon, we had the whole tarmac full of vehicles that had come in simply on one evening of airlifts, almost from one end of the tarmac to the other. They have since then moved all those off and redistributed them to the various forces that are in various parts around this airfield and cleared it out just in time for another round of airlifts to begin.
As you can probably see over there, it's a rather surreal site. You have the chemical lights over there, that people keep waving the troops off the plane, the vehicles are unlatched, and the product, the food and medicine and other supplies are unhooked as it rolls off pallets into waiting moving vehicles which speed across the runway. As you can probably see in night vision here, it's very dark. I can't see anything with the naked eye, except these green and blue lights, and of course, the red interior lights of the aircraft. The people who are moving this equipment are speeding across the runway with night vision.
I am told the plane - the runway has almost no lights whatsoever. The pilots land the plane using infrared markers and using night vision to accomplish the task. It's really quite remarkable how quickly and accurately they can accomplish this.
WOODRUFF: Well we don't have - we can't see what you're talking about, Steve, but you've certainly given us a detailed description that helps us understand what is going on there on the ground. Steve Nettleton with the 173rd Airborne, the Army, beginning - more than beginning building up what will be a northern front in the war in Iraq. Again that is in a Kurdish controlled area of northern Iraq.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 28, 2003 - 14:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We've been telling you in the last few days about the effort to open up a so-called northern front in Iraq. Elements of the Army's 173rd Airborne jumping out of airplanes, landing, trying to secure an airstrip.
Right now, Steve Nettleton, a CNN reporter is with the 173rd, at an airfield, one of the airfields in northern Iraq. That's the Kurdish-controlled area.
Steve, are you with us? Tell us what your unit is working on right now.
STEVE NETTLETON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, I'm standing at the runway here where the Air Force C-17s are landing and dropping off military hardware. As you can probably see, they are beginning to roll out some vehicles fairly shortly, including Humvees, weapons, troops, food, supplies, the whole works.
They are running quite a number through here. I see at least a two in a half an hour unloaded completely and then airborne again. BC-17s are flying from different locations in Europe, including in the -- either in these flights, or the next few days we'll be seeing armor -- tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, coming in from Germany, as well as other supplies for the 173rd Airborne Brigade coming out of Italy.
WOODRUFF: Steve, how much of an issue is security there? Is that considered completely secure around there because it is Kurdish controlled?
NETTLETON: Well, I think there's always concern. They are certainly putting on a certain amount of trust into the local Kurdish leaders. The 173rd Airborne can defend itself, at least in terms of defending this airfield from known threats - of course there's also a risk of a missile or terrorist threat, which are unpredictable.
But there are a number of Kurdish fighters around here. We see them interacting with the security forces, the U.S. forces here, walking around freely on the tarmac, smoking, talking. They even brought some food for the troops here. And they are also manning joint checkpoints out along the perimeters. And as we are told they control the mountainsides and are pretty strictly controlling all access to the airfield.
WOODRUFF: Steve, is there any way for you to describe the size of what has been delivered so far? You said armor - you expect armored tanks and other equipment to be coming in pretty soon. But at this point, how would you sum up what's been put down there? NETTLETON: Well, they've asked us not to say specific numbers. I can say obviously 1,000 parachuted in the 1st night. Since then you're looking at more than a dozen planes a day bringing in all kinds of people, so it is starting to build up rather quickly. They're definitely going to grow in size from the 1,000 that came in here.
In terms of vehicles this afternoon, we had the whole tarmac full of vehicles that had come in simply on one evening of airlifts, almost from one end of the tarmac to the other. They have since then moved all those off and redistributed them to the various forces that are in various parts around this airfield and cleared it out just in time for another round of airlifts to begin.
As you can probably see over there, it's a rather surreal site. You have the chemical lights over there, that people keep waving the troops off the plane, the vehicles are unlatched, and the product, the food and medicine and other supplies are unhooked as it rolls off pallets into waiting moving vehicles which speed across the runway. As you can probably see in night vision here, it's very dark. I can't see anything with the naked eye, except these green and blue lights, and of course, the red interior lights of the aircraft. The people who are moving this equipment are speeding across the runway with night vision.
I am told the plane - the runway has almost no lights whatsoever. The pilots land the plane using infrared markers and using night vision to accomplish the task. It's really quite remarkable how quickly and accurately they can accomplish this.
WOODRUFF: Well we don't have - we can't see what you're talking about, Steve, but you've certainly given us a detailed description that helps us understand what is going on there on the ground. Steve Nettleton with the 173rd Airborne, the Army, beginning - more than beginning building up what will be a northern front in the war in Iraq. Again that is in a Kurdish controlled area of northern Iraq.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
