Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Saddam's Revenge

Aired May 29, 2003 - 12:59   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: First this hour, a CNN exclusive for you. During the early days of the war in Iraq, the Iraqi regime came chillingly close to a paralyzing blow against the allies. An Iraqi missile penetrated Kuwait, and was seconds away from one of the coalition military nerve centers, the place where the ground forces were coordinated and controlled. Under agreement with the Pentagon, what occurred that day has not been reported to this moment, but today, we can show exactly what happened on March 27 at the headquarters of coalition ground forces.
Our reporter, CNN's Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, general?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just received a report that they are shooting civilians, trying to flee An Najaf.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A report from the front lines during the morning BUA -- the battlefield update assessment.

Suddenly, the headquarters in the rear is on the front lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missile launch from Iraq. Area abyss (ph) Kuwait. Lightning, lightning, lightning.

BOETTCHER: In a war that began with a strike aimed at killing Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi high command, the Iraqis are launching a counterattack.

KEN ROBINSON, CNN NATL. SECURITY ANALYST: It was Saddam's decapitation attempt.

BOETTCHER: Inside the operation center, General McKiernan and his crew keep going with their update, gas masks and all.

The Patriots on their way to intercept the Iraqi missile, a dull roar overhead.

LT. GEN. DAVID MCKIERNAN, CMDR., COALITION GROUND FORCES: The idea is just to, first of all, try to maintain a little calmness and continue on. And, by God, that Patriot knocked the missile down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missiles down. Missiles down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All missiles are down. All missiles are down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had it actually fall on this building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's awesome.

BOETTCHER: At the air missile defense command in the building next to the operation center, they plot the trajectory of the Iraqi missile, and realize it came within seconds of wiping out the war room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This right here, this the building we're standing in, where the arrow is. That was Seafleck (ph) headquarters.

BOETTCHER: General Webster believes the Iraqis have chosen their target and time carefully, and had very good intelligence.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM WEBSTER, DEP. GROUND FORCES COMMANDER: We've been operating out of these two buildings for 10 years, and so there's been a long time for that information to get back from agents to Saddam, and for him to lay that grid into his weapons systems and prepare to shoot it.

BOETTCHER: Now, it's the coalition's turn to hunt for the Iraqi missile crew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Point seven north.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Raises a lot of questions and answers a lot of questions.

Joining us now to talk about this is CNN's Analyst Ken Robinson, who was in the building, in the basement, at the time of that attack, thwarted by those Patriot missiles.

First of all, Ken, good to have you with us.

ROBINSON: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: How do you suppose the Iraqis had such good intelligence that they were able to identify that particular building so precisely?

ROBINSON: Well, the Camp Doha base was build after the first Gulf War, and there's a lot of guest workers on that base from foreign countries, and it's not unusual to think at least one of them possibly could have been penetration and was able to pace out and acquire the location where a lot of the senior brass meets.

O'BRIEN: All right. So obviously, those guest workers, as you called them, would be a potential security risk. And something like this would be probably pretty difficult to hide. I'm a little bit curious that it wasn't a hardened structure. Why not?

ROBINSON: Well, one of the things the military has to deal with all around the world is they're damned if they do, and they're damned if they don't. They can't establish a formal, deliberate, concrete hardened presence all the way around the world, because of the way bases are designed and the Status of Forces Agreement. You know, they designed that base as a way to defend Kuwait. It was never designed as a base to invade Iraq.

O'BRIEN: So there's some political sensibilities here. If you build a hardened structure, it makes a statement, doesn't it?

ROBINSON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about the Patriot for a moment. After the '91 Gulf War, there was, quite frankly, a lot of misinformation about the Patriot's success. This time around, it's an updated version of the Patriot. Whether a difference, I guess, a dozen years can make. Did it really perform as it was supposed to? And did it really do the job in this case, do you think?

ROBINSON: Well, the first Patriot missile in the first Gulf War was pressed into service. It was a surface-to-air missile, not really designed to go after other missiles. It homed in on the largest portion of the missile, which was the field component, and that caused the warhead to continue to fall down to the ground. About four out of 47 Scud missiles were knocked down in the first Gulf War. This time around, there was a larger success rate, but also some flaws. Two friendly fire incidents occurred, where a British Tornado aircraft and an F-18 aircraft were shot down by this same Patriot system that saved our lives on March 27th.

O'BRIEN: So is it a net, some safety gain, for the military, given the risks involved, including those friendly fire incidents you mentioned?

ROBINSON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's just talk about what the impact would have been. Had that Al Samoud dropped on that place, God forbid, we probably wouldn't even be talking today. But what would have been the implications in the big picture for the U.S.-lead campaign?

ROBINSON: The U.S. military always plans for worst-case scenarios. They always have two alternate command posts that are running simultaneously. So it would have caused quite a few problems, but it certainly would not have impeded their ability to accomplish the mission that they had of regime change. It would have killed quite a few people, and they would have picked up with the alternate command post, at a lower level possibly, and continued the fight.

O'BRIEN: All right. And final thought, you suggest a glimpse of the kind of access you had in this documentary, which we'll tell viewers about in a moment. What other kinds are we going to see? What other kinds of things are we going to see?

ROBINSON: You're going to see the actual general officers dealing with the frictions of war as they occur, unedited. The Department of Defense did not edit in any way this documentary. We were able to shoot as things occurred. And so you see the actual frictions of battle, and how these men and women come together and try to solve problems as they break.

O'BRIEN: Fogofwar.com, I guess you might call it. Ken Robinson, our analyst, thanks for being with us in Washington. We appreciate it. We look forward to seeing that documentary, and we invite you to watch it as well.

"INSIDE THE WAR ROOM," is our title. It's a "CNN PRESENTS." It airs first at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday. Fascinating access to a little piece of history.

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 May 29, 2003 - 12:59   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: First this hour, a CNN exclusive for you. During the early days of the war in Iraq, the Iraqi regime came chillingly close to a paralyzing blow against the allies. An Iraqi missile penetrated Kuwait, and was seconds away from one of the coalition military nerve centers, the place where the ground forces were coordinated and controlled. Under agreement with the Pentagon, what occurred that day has not been reported to this moment, but today, we can show exactly what happened on March 27 at the headquarters of coalition ground forces.
Our reporter, CNN's Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, general?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just received a report that they are shooting civilians, trying to flee An Najaf.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A report from the front lines during the morning BUA -- the battlefield update assessment.

Suddenly, the headquarters in the rear is on the front lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missile launch from Iraq. Area abyss (ph) Kuwait. Lightning, lightning, lightning.

BOETTCHER: In a war that began with a strike aimed at killing Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi high command, the Iraqis are launching a counterattack.

KEN ROBINSON, CNN NATL. SECURITY ANALYST: It was Saddam's decapitation attempt.

BOETTCHER: Inside the operation center, General McKiernan and his crew keep going with their update, gas masks and all.

The Patriots on their way to intercept the Iraqi missile, a dull roar overhead.

LT. GEN. DAVID MCKIERNAN, CMDR., COALITION GROUND FORCES: The idea is just to, first of all, try to maintain a little calmness and continue on. And, by God, that Patriot knocked the missile down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missiles down. Missiles down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All missiles are down. All missiles are down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had it actually fall on this building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's awesome.

BOETTCHER: At the air missile defense command in the building next to the operation center, they plot the trajectory of the Iraqi missile, and realize it came within seconds of wiping out the war room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This right here, this the building we're standing in, where the arrow is. That was Seafleck (ph) headquarters.

BOETTCHER: General Webster believes the Iraqis have chosen their target and time carefully, and had very good intelligence.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM WEBSTER, DEP. GROUND FORCES COMMANDER: We've been operating out of these two buildings for 10 years, and so there's been a long time for that information to get back from agents to Saddam, and for him to lay that grid into his weapons systems and prepare to shoot it.

BOETTCHER: Now, it's the coalition's turn to hunt for the Iraqi missile crew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Point seven north.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Raises a lot of questions and answers a lot of questions.

Joining us now to talk about this is CNN's Analyst Ken Robinson, who was in the building, in the basement, at the time of that attack, thwarted by those Patriot missiles.

First of all, Ken, good to have you with us.

ROBINSON: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: How do you suppose the Iraqis had such good intelligence that they were able to identify that particular building so precisely?

ROBINSON: Well, the Camp Doha base was build after the first Gulf War, and there's a lot of guest workers on that base from foreign countries, and it's not unusual to think at least one of them possibly could have been penetration and was able to pace out and acquire the location where a lot of the senior brass meets.

O'BRIEN: All right. So obviously, those guest workers, as you called them, would be a potential security risk. And something like this would be probably pretty difficult to hide. I'm a little bit curious that it wasn't a hardened structure. Why not?

ROBINSON: Well, one of the things the military has to deal with all around the world is they're damned if they do, and they're damned if they don't. They can't establish a formal, deliberate, concrete hardened presence all the way around the world, because of the way bases are designed and the Status of Forces Agreement. You know, they designed that base as a way to defend Kuwait. It was never designed as a base to invade Iraq.

O'BRIEN: So there's some political sensibilities here. If you build a hardened structure, it makes a statement, doesn't it?

ROBINSON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about the Patriot for a moment. After the '91 Gulf War, there was, quite frankly, a lot of misinformation about the Patriot's success. This time around, it's an updated version of the Patriot. Whether a difference, I guess, a dozen years can make. Did it really perform as it was supposed to? And did it really do the job in this case, do you think?

ROBINSON: Well, the first Patriot missile in the first Gulf War was pressed into service. It was a surface-to-air missile, not really designed to go after other missiles. It homed in on the largest portion of the missile, which was the field component, and that caused the warhead to continue to fall down to the ground. About four out of 47 Scud missiles were knocked down in the first Gulf War. This time around, there was a larger success rate, but also some flaws. Two friendly fire incidents occurred, where a British Tornado aircraft and an F-18 aircraft were shot down by this same Patriot system that saved our lives on March 27th.

O'BRIEN: So is it a net, some safety gain, for the military, given the risks involved, including those friendly fire incidents you mentioned?

ROBINSON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's just talk about what the impact would have been. Had that Al Samoud dropped on that place, God forbid, we probably wouldn't even be talking today. But what would have been the implications in the big picture for the U.S.-lead campaign?

ROBINSON: The U.S. military always plans for worst-case scenarios. They always have two alternate command posts that are running simultaneously. So it would have caused quite a few problems, but it certainly would not have impeded their ability to accomplish the mission that they had of regime change. It would have killed quite a few people, and they would have picked up with the alternate command post, at a lower level possibly, and continued the fight.

O'BRIEN: All right. And final thought, you suggest a glimpse of the kind of access you had in this documentary, which we'll tell viewers about in a moment. What other kinds are we going to see? What other kinds of things are we going to see?

ROBINSON: You're going to see the actual general officers dealing with the frictions of war as they occur, unedited. The Department of Defense did not edit in any way this documentary. We were able to shoot as things occurred. And so you see the actual frictions of battle, and how these men and women come together and try to solve problems as they break.

O'BRIEN: Fogofwar.com, I guess you might call it. Ken Robinson, our analyst, thanks for being with us in Washington. We appreciate it. We look forward to seeing that documentary, and we invite you to watch it as well.

"INSIDE THE WAR ROOM," is our title. It's a "CNN PRESENTS." It airs first at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday. Fascinating access to a little piece of history.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com