Return to Transcripts main page
Live From...
Coalition Targets Insurgent Positions in Fallujah
Aired April 28, 2004 - 15:00 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, ANCHOR: The question I asked you, and you got only three words out, but I'll remind our viewers, was this whole notion of these joint patrols, Ken, which the Marines are calling suicide patrols.
What is the rationale behind them, and is this the time to engage in them?
KEN ROBINSON, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: There are three levels of war going on simultaneously, Miles.
As Barbara pointed out, there's a tactical level which we're seeing right now playing out on the green screen. There's an operational level that's trying to prevent this insurgency from spreading throughout Iraq. There's a strategic level, monitored by the national security apparatus of the United States, trying to prevent it spreading into the region.
These joint patrols are designed to try to give legitimacy to the presence of the coalition forces who are on the ground, as well as train the Iraqi forces and bring them up to a standard that will make them capable of doing it on their own after 30 June.
O'BRIEN: It seems as if, based on all we've been witnessing and the fact that the Marines have no presence at all inside the center of Fallujah, that patrols such as that are wishful thinking right now.
ROBINSON: They really are. And I don't -- I can't imagine that they're going to pursue that strategy in the short-term. That is a mid-term strategy that they still have. Once they can broken some kind of an agreement with tribal leaders and community leaders, in a block-by-block segment.
Not all of Fallujah is raging right now in combat. There are specific sections. This specific Jolan area in thenorthwest part of the town has been an area that's almost been described as a cockroach's nest of insurgency. And it's the center of attention right now for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets to support the targeting which you're seeing on the screen when the AC- 130 is then directed to a specific target of opportunity or actionable intelligence.
O'BRIEN: To spin this in a very positive light, if that is possible, half-full all the way, I suppose you could say this is a case where you have a lot of the insurgent forces encircled. I mean, in all of this, is there a sense of good news in the sense that they have been isolated or is that being a little Pollyanna?
ROBINSON: Well, they have been isolated and they have been observed.
And they're trying to identify their sources of supply, where they communicate from, where they stage logistically, so that they can deny them the oxygen that they require to survive. And that's access to the population. They don't want it to spread to the rest of the town or to the rest of the country. And they don't want the rest of the population supporting them.
But that's the same objective that this insurgency has had all throughout Iraq by attacking convoys, by attacking governance, by assassinating Iraqi governing leaders who are part of the Governing Council.
O'BRIEN: All right, Ken, hold that thought for a moment.
Back to U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul.
PENHAUL: ... the city and northeastern section back approximately two or three miles from the rooftop where we're now standing, you can see, you can make out in the night-vision scope on the camera the afterglow of what appears to be a very heavy fire.
We can also see plumes of black smoke drifting across the night sky. This is the aftermath of a strike by the coalition AC-130 Spectre gunships. About half an hour ago now, that gunship droned through the night sky and then unleashed a barrage of what sounded to be .105-millimeter cannon fire on that position.
Initially, after the initial explosions, we did make out secondary explosions, what appeared to be secondary explosions, as showers of sparks and flames leaping up into the night sky. No confirmation from coalition military commanders on the ground what the target may have been, but certainly we do know that in the course of the day in that northeastern section of Fallujah, there was heavy clashes between coalition forces and insurgent gunmen.
And then as night was falling, around dusk, we saw a coalition F- 15 fighter plane in action there, making around three passes and dropping three bombs very close to the location that we can now see in flames on fire where that black smoke is drifting through Fallujah's night sky. In the course of the day, there were also, of course, heavy clashes between coalition forces and insurgent gunmen, much closer to the rooftop where we're standing, in fact about 800 yards around the Fallujah train station.
That gun battle, which also involved Marine attack helicopters, lasted for about an hour and a half, although at this stage, there are no reports of any coalition personnel having been injured, nor any reports of any casualty toll that the insurgent forces may have taken. Again, as I say, we're looking east approximately two or three miles. From where the rooftop where we're standing, we can see on the horizon there the glow of what seems to be a very large fire and certainly a good deal of black smoke now drifting across the Fallujan night sky. Some more flames there just leaping up. It certainly seems that on the ground, what the AC-130 Spectre gunship has hit is certainly something very flammable. Those gunships were in action last night. And they took out, we're told by coalition commanders, an insurgent ammunition dump. Looking at the secondary explosions and the extent of the fires that we can now see blazing there on the horizon, one might also suspect that some kind of ammunition may have been being stored by insurgent forces there, although at this stage, no confirmation from coalition commanders here on the ground.
This is Karl Penhaul reporting, with the camera John Templeton (ph) for the U.S. networks pool, Fallujah, Iraq.
O'BRIEN: U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul taking another breather. We'll keep that picture up. That's a live image coming from Fallujah, what appears to be a series of secondary explosions after what we believe was an AC-130 gunship. That is a four-engine turbo prop aircraft flies in orbit around a target and is able to put a tremendous amount of accurate firepower on a specific target. It has a .105-millimeter cannon, a .25-millimeter gun, a .40-millimeter gun and is used just for these types of circumstances, close air support, as they call it, urban scenarios, situations where the so called friendlies are not far away from the target or the enemy.
Colonel Pat Lang on the line with us. He's one of our analysts.
Colonel Lang, you've been watching this unfold. Just a simple question for you. Do you have the sense that what we're seeing here is perhaps secondary explosions and that would perhaps indicate that the AC-130 found its target?
RETIRED COL. PAT LANG, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, yes. They're working this set of targets like the ones they worked last night. And they clearly got some secondary explosions and fires here. But it's very hard to do bomb damage assessment on this kind of thing. And this could
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: What is that? Why is it hard to do bomb damage...
LANG: Well, it's dark and these structures are not clear as to their nature. And even tomorrow, when you look at them, they'll just show a bunch of burn marks on them and some damage to buildings.
This could just as easily be a gas station. It would blow up in much the same way. But the Marines and the Air Force are clearly here working on weakening the force inside this place against the time when they probably will have to go in and get the insurgents.
O'BRIEN: Well, let's back up for just a moment. As you say, it could be a gas station. Give us a sense, if you can, as to how the Marines, how the military in general is identifying targets in a situation like this.
LANG: I would think that they are probably running aerial surveillance during the daytime and looking at this and making judgments from the movements of people that they can see with these armed, you know, remotely piloted aircraft and other kinds of photography to make an inference as to what it is, is the activity in this particular place.
If they have some kind of a low-level agent they can send in on the ground to confirm it, they put those things together and that's probably how they're making a picture of where they want to strike.
O'BRIEN: OK.
And then you were talking about what this might be a prelude to. In the absence of a thunderbolt from the sky which allows a negotiated settlement, what's the next step militarily?
LANG: Well, the next step militarily is a political decision as to what to do.
Somebody has to make a decision that this can't go on forever, that in fact, it's detrimental to our position across the Arab world and in Iraq. I'm getting phone calls from people all over the Arab world and in Europe as well, Arabs who are telling me that these images of these mosques being damaged and of imams giving these cries for resistance from their pulpits is very, very damaging and that people are getting very excited about this.
So I don't think this can go on forever. If this can't be cleared up in the surrender of the insurgents arranged, then the Marines are going to have to go in.
O'BRIEN: And the reason we're seeing the Marines, the term that was you had by one of the captains on the ground there play patty-cake here is the concern for civilian losses. That's very clear.
But when you weigh that against the day-after-day imagery that we see here, I guess that could be used as an argument to say use overwhelming force and use it quickly. In other words, get this over with.
LANG: Well, if we're going to use force, I am all in favor of using overwhelming force, because this is a big city and very easy to get trapped in some of these little streets in between buildings and things like this.
I'd be in favor of using a lot of force. And the idea of getting it over quickly I think is probably a good idea because this is kind of a running sore politically. We can't just walk away and leave Fallujah in the hands of the insurgents, which I think it is. The idea that they're not in control of most of the town I think is probably illusory. We can't leave them in charge, so we have to do something about it and we might as well do it quickly.
O'BRIEN: And that could be at great cost, however. Play that out for just a moment. If in fact overwhelming force is used and there is a lot of -- the term the military uses is collateral damage, that's another way of saying innocent people killed, how does that play in the Arab world?
LANG: Well, it doesn't play very well.
Well, unfortunately, warfare often consists of the process of making choices between undesirable alternatives. And you have to decide which thing has the greater weight in your mind and the one thing I think we cannot do is go and leave Fallujah in the hands of insurgents. If they're not going to surrender, I think the -- we don't really have a choice.
O'BRIEN: And so we're talking inevitably as the way you put it here about street-to-street, alley-to-alley urban combat. This is something that U.S. forces have been training for for years. But on this level, it really hasn't happened at this scale, has it?
LANG: No, you haven't seen anything like this since way in the Vietnam War, which was a tremendous fight in the city of Hue.
And, you know, this is a very undesirable situation that we've gotten ourselves into here. And this should not have come to this, in fact. If we had used sufficient force in Iraq in the beginning, so we could have blanketed the country with troops, we could suppress resistance before it got serious, we wouldn't be there. But now we are there. And I hate to say that probably an awful lot of people are going to pay with their lives for this, but it sure looks like it..
O'BRIEN: Boy, that's quite a statement you just offered up there. If we'd used sufficient force in the beginning -- what you're talking about essentially is the Powell doctrine. If you're going to use force, use it quickly, use it in an overwhelming manner. Would you subscribe to that?
LANG: I have always been an admirer of Secretary Powell's thinking in this matter. And I think he's exactly correct. I think it was a terrible mistake not to use enough force to begin with.
O'BRIEN: I suppose, though, the argument goes that, if you can do it with less, why not?
LANG: Well, because you know, if you looked at Iraq from the beginning in the planning process, you could see that perhaps you could overrun the country using smaller forces of the high quality that we have, lots of high technology.
But clearly, we were going to have to occupy the country for an extended period of time to fix what we had broken, as I think Secretary Powell also is reported to have said. And so you're obviously going to need a lot of troops to do that because you have to be everywhere in order to be somebody to these people. And we never had anything like enough of this.
The 82nd Airborne Division, their presence in this town for about seven or eight months was 800 men up against a city of 300,000 people. Does that make any sense? It doesn't make any sense to me. And so I think you know, there should have been some better thinking about what this really took. O'BRIEN: And I guess when you put it that way, it's understandable why the 82nd Airborne wasn't engaged in any sort of active patrols on the streets of Fallujah.
LANG: No, because it was suicidal to do that. And I heard you say that the Marines are calling these supposed patrols they are going to do suicide patrols. I can understand that.
If the insurgents are free to wander around the city, which they appear to be, then in fact, you could have ambushes everywhere.
O'BRIEN: All right, Colonel Pat Lang, if you could just stand by for us, I want to bring in Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent.
Jamie, the word there at the Pentagon is that we're still witnessing a cease-fire and that this is merely a response, a defensive response. It sure seems a long way from a cease-fire, doesn't it?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, as I said yesterday, it's about 10 percent cease and 90 percent fire.
It's not -- this is not the offensive that the United States has been threatening, but it's a very aggressive counteroffensive or defensive effort. The U.S. is trying to take the initiative away from the insurgents and use the very precise firepower from these AC-130 gunships flying at night as a way to inflict some heavy casualties.
We learned of course today a little bit more about yesterday's strike in which they observed a truck driving without any lights on, making pickups and drop-offs. And that just shows the capability of this AC-130 gunship with its night-vision equipment. Even though the truck's driving with no lights on, they could spot it. They could monitor it. They could see what was going on. And then when they hit it -- and this was in yesterday's attack -- there were these big secondary explosions indicating or confirming what they thought,was that this truck was carrying large amounts of ammunition.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Well, wait.
Jamie let me ask you about that just for a moment, because that does sort of get into the whole issue of what a defensive attack here is. That clearly was a target of opportunity. I suppose there's a presumption there that there is ill will on the part of a truck like that. But is that truly firing in defense? They're saying they're returning fire.
MCINTYRE: Well, they were going after positions from which the Marines had taken fire about a half hour before. So the initial confrontation began when Marines reported that they were taking fire in dug-in defensive positions near the outskirts of Fallujah. And based on that intelligence on the ground, really reporting on the ground, the AC-130 gunships were called in against the targets. And once they were able to identify that they believed they were the people responsible for this hostile intent, they took them out.
Now, can there be a mistake in a situation like this? Yes, there can be. These are not 100 percent precise. But the U.S. is confident and there's no evidence today that they hit a wrong target and innocent civilians. In fact, those large secondary explosions which were far beyond what you would expect from say just the fuel on a truck indicated, again, that they had hit significant stores of ammunition that were being transported by the truck.
The other location they hit yesterday was a building, again, where they had intelligence that they were taking fire from the insurgents in that building. So the U.S. is contending that they're using very precise application of combat power, even though this is from an aircraft firing a gun, as you pointed out, circling overhead.
O'BRIEN: Of course, yes, and the gun is .105-millimeter cannon. It is no small amount of armament that can be laid on the ground by an AC-130 Spectre.
You know, it was interesting. Colonel Pat Lang was just saying a moment ago how difficult it is to do bomb damage assessment in the wake of an attack like this because you see scorched windows and so forth. The Pentagon has a pretty good idea that yesterday's effort was successful?
MCINTYRE: Yes, absolutely.
And, of course, it is difficult to do it right now, particularly for us to do it by looking through this picture from a videophone. But it's much easier to do the following morning, and that's essentially what happens when daylight comes. They'll make another assessment. They do have troops on the ground. It's also hard to do bomb damage if you don't have troops on the ground.
That's often a case where you are trying to rely on just satellite imagery. But a combination of overhead imagery from Predator drones, the fact that they do have troops on the ground and they can overfly the area and inspect it, they get a pretty good idea of how they're doing.
O'BRIEN: All right, and as this was unfolding and earlier in the day as well, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were on Capitol Hill.
Jamie, tell me a little bit about the conversations they had today.
MCINTYRE: Well, of course, those were private conversations. But what we're told is that members of the administration, including the defense secretary, who's up on the Hill now to meet with members of the Senate and earlier some of the other administration officials, going up to reassure members of Congress that there is a plan, that there is an idea of how to deal with this insurgency, that these pictures that we're seeing here are not representative of everything that's going on in Iraq, and to try essentially to reassure members of Congress that things are on track.
And I have to say that after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice met with members this morning, some of the Democrats came out afterwards and were decidedly underwhelmed by the presentation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: I heard nothing in Dr. Rice's presentation whether in her opening statement or in answers to questions that give us any greater sense of security about where we're headed on Iraq. There is no insight here. There is no end game. There is not a clear question as to who -- a clear answer as to who we're transferring power to.
And the reality is that it continues to be American lives, overwhelmingly, and American taxpayers' dollars overwhelmingly that are fueling this conflict in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Now, the criticism does seem to cut down partisan lines, that is, Republicans are much more supportive of the administration and their plans.
But we're told even today that sources say that the U.S. commander in charge, General John Abizaid, is worried about how things are going, is the way one official put it. Another said he was concerned, not so much about the military operations, because he has convinced he has the military power to resolve the situation in Fallujah and also in Najaf, but more about some of the political pieces that aren't falling into place, specifically the lack of moderate Iraqis coming forward to counter some of these anti-American and anti-coalition messages that you're seeing in Fallujah and Najaf these days.
That's something that is concerning General Abizaid as he is looking at the countdown to the turnover of sovereignty June 30. And that's something, presumably, he would have discussed with President Bush today in a conference call he had with President Bush and other top members of the national security team, including Secretary Rumsfeld and the joint chiefs chairman, General Richard Myers.
O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, stand by there, please.
Let's get back to Ken Robinson, our security and military analyst who's in our Washington bureau.
Ken, this whole notion that really the solution in Iraq is political and yet what we see unfolding is our military options. And the military option IN this case described by those on the ground, leathernecks on the ground, is patty-cake. And to what extent, Ken, is patty-cake and watching patty-cake unfold day after day on live television, to what extent is each and every one of those days a victory for the insurgents?
ROBINSON: Well is, patty-cake is a euphemism for, we're not using our A game.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Why not use the A game?
ROBINSON: Well, I think what Brigadier General Kimmitt has said and what the coalition is attempting to do is honestly make the political situation work, if it can work, because they know how costly urban combat is.
If they have to go in there with a full combat power, with a large ratio of forces and take that place block by block, no matter what, in the best of circumstances, it's incredibly bloody. It's incredibly dangerous. And the potential for it spreading in terms of Arab outrage in the rest of the country and the rest of the region is great. That will occur.
They already hate the United States for being there. And their objective is to try to have something on 30 June to turn over. And they don't want to create Fallujah as, remember the Alamo. And so they want to be very careful with how they proceed. That's why they're trying to use this tough tactic of pinpointed, targeted neutralization of threats and simultaneously continue to communicate with tribal leaders and community leaders, who shouldn't be confused as being mutually inclusive.
O'BRIEN: And, of course, the insurgents know every last thing you just said there and that gives them a tremendous amount of leverage here, doesn't it?
ROBINSON: The insurgents have time on their behalf. They can choose the time and place of fighting, which means, if they want, they can vaporize into the population and then come back and fight us two weeks from now, and we can declare some form of victory and then the next thing you know, they'll rise up again.
Remember that this battle for Fallujah is the battle of Baghdad that never was. The United States and its coalition overwhelmed Baghdad so rapidly, that their command control, communications and intelligence and their preplanned insurgency plan was never able to be implemented.
And so now you're seeing this playing out because this is one of those areas that was kind of isolated and left alone as they concentrated on the prize of Baghdad proper.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense, and talk about back of the napkin. I'm asking you to do this on live TV. But give me a rough idea, if you could, if it came to street by street, alley by alley, how many soldiers would you need?
ROBINSON: Doctrinally, military operations like to have a 4-1 advantage. That's in open terrain, 3-1 to 4-1 advantage. And in urban terrain, they try to even increase that advantage even more.
Now, they may use what they call combat multipliers to do that because there's a limited number of soldiers available to take this place street by street. Those combat multipliers may be things like close air support, whether that be tactical air, F-15s, which Karl Penhaul reported earlier today dropped three bombs. It might be the AC-130 gunships. It may be psychological information and leaflet drops. It may be information warfare, where they credibly identify things that they're going to do and then they do them, giving legitimacy to their leaflet drops day by day. That was very effective in the first Gulf War.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Ken Robinson, yes, those are all good points. We're just going to have to pick up on -- we're going to hear from the U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul. We expect to hear from him any moment now. Let's listen.
PENHAUL: West edge of Fallujah, we're pointing the camera east of our position. And approximately two or three miles there out towards the horizon, we can still see the afterglow of orange flame and black plumes of smoke are rising up into Fallujah's night sky.
That's the aftermath of an airstrike by an AC-130 Spectre gunship. I've stopped there because we were just hearing the echo of fresh gunfire across Fallujah, an echo of gunfire towards the north and an explosion a ways away towards the southeast. Let's see if that continues. We'll let you have the sound of that so you can hear that.
Sporadic explosions at the moment off to the southeast, again, this somewhat distant. We're talking there probably three or four miles away. The plume of black smoke and the flames that we can see across on the horizon also probably two or three miles away from the vantage point that we have on the rooftop of the U.S. Marine base in the northwestern sector of Fallujah.
The area that was hit tonight by the AC-130 Spectre gunship was an area of northeast Fallujah, where, during the course of the day, there had been heavy fighting between coalition forces and insurgents. We heard gunfire from there, and also toward dusk, we saw a coalition F-15 fighter plane zoom into that area. It made three passes and dropped three bombs, three bombs pretty close to the area that we now see on fire, although obviously the area that we now see on fire is the result of actions by the Spectre gunship.
Unclear precisely what that target may have been, though we did see, after the initial strike by the gunship using what we understand were probably .105-millimeter cannons, we did see after the initial strike a number of secondary explosions that sent showers of sparks and flames leaping into the sky. We suspect that may be some kind of indication that it could have been an ammunitions dump or weapons dump being used by the insurgents, though no confirmation from coalition commanders on the ground to that effect yet.
The AC-130 gunships were in action last night. We saw them pretty close to our position about 800 yards or one kilometer south of our position last night. We're told during the course of the day that those were strikes on insurgent weapons dump and, at that point, we did see secondary explosions from those two positions.
That's why I suggest that when we saw secondary explosions from this position that has been hit tonight, that could also be an indication that it was some kind of ammunitions or weapons dump. Now, the AC-130 gunship, you can still hear the low drone of that aircraft overhead. It's drowning out at the moment the hum of another aircraft that has been present over the skies of Fallujah every day since we've arrived here at this U.S. Marine post, and that the hum of an unmanned Predator aircraft.
Both that and the AC-130 have very sophisticated eavesdropping devices on board, and that's allowing these aircraft to fly high overhead and, at the same time, spy down to try and detect insurgent positions on the ground, to try and detect the vehicles being used by the insurgents, trying to detect safe houses, trying to detect also areas that the insurgents may be using at staging posts or weapons and ammunitions dumps.
Once those positions are detected, the AC-130 has an array of weaponry on board that it can call into action to take action and then strike against those positions. And that's exactly what has happened tonight. In the course of the day, though, we have seen some fierce gun battles between the coalition forces and the insurgents, one of those gun battles in the northeast in the area where that fire is now blazing, the second gun battle much closer to home, in fact, about 800 yards from the vantage point we have on this rooftop.
That will gun battle was around the Fallujah train station involving coalition forces and a U.S. Marine sniper team and insurgent forces on the opposite side of the road to the train station. We also saw U.S. Marine attack helicopters involved in that firefight.
Tonight, though, the only aircraft that we can hear out there at this time in an offensive stance is the AC-130 gunship and that we understand has been firing .150-millimeter Howitzer cannons on that position. A few moments ago, we did here gunfire a ways away across to our southeast, also a burst of weapons fire to our north. As that hasn't developed into anything more at this stage, we can't hear any more of that.
That has calmed down. The only other sound apart from the drone of the Spectre gunship overhead are the sounds of songs and chants coming from one of Fallujah's many, many mosques. Unclear at this stage what those chants are coming across the public address system. But in the course of today, the Iraqi military translators here at the U.S. Marine base told us similar chants were being broadcast from the mosques last night, were, in fact, a call to arms to the insurgents, calling on the insurgents to continue their fight against the coalition, and calling on other Iraqis to begin a jihad or a holy war to push the coalition out of Iraq.
This is Karl Penhaul reporting, with the camera of John Templeton, for the U.S. network pool, Fallujah, Iraq. O'BRIEN: U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul in the midst of it all in Fallujah a moment ago.
It was Ken Robinson who called it the battle of Baghdad that never was. We are seeing it unfold yet again tonight. It is now after 11:30 local time in Fallujah. And you are witnessing the aftermath right now, although it still is ongoing, of yet another AC- 130 Spectre gunship attack on a specific target, linked to the insurgency in Fallujah.
Our coverage of this will continue. We turn it over now to Judy Woodruff in Washington.
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 April 28, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: The question I asked you, and you got only three words out, but I'll remind our viewers, was this whole notion of these joint patrols, Ken, which the Marines are calling suicide patrols.
What is the rationale behind them, and is this the time to engage in them?
KEN ROBINSON, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: There are three levels of war going on simultaneously, Miles.
As Barbara pointed out, there's a tactical level which we're seeing right now playing out on the green screen. There's an operational level that's trying to prevent this insurgency from spreading throughout Iraq. There's a strategic level, monitored by the national security apparatus of the United States, trying to prevent it spreading into the region.
These joint patrols are designed to try to give legitimacy to the presence of the coalition forces who are on the ground, as well as train the Iraqi forces and bring them up to a standard that will make them capable of doing it on their own after 30 June.
O'BRIEN: It seems as if, based on all we've been witnessing and the fact that the Marines have no presence at all inside the center of Fallujah, that patrols such as that are wishful thinking right now.
ROBINSON: They really are. And I don't -- I can't imagine that they're going to pursue that strategy in the short-term. That is a mid-term strategy that they still have. Once they can broken some kind of an agreement with tribal leaders and community leaders, in a block-by-block segment.
Not all of Fallujah is raging right now in combat. There are specific sections. This specific Jolan area in thenorthwest part of the town has been an area that's almost been described as a cockroach's nest of insurgency. And it's the center of attention right now for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets to support the targeting which you're seeing on the screen when the AC- 130 is then directed to a specific target of opportunity or actionable intelligence.
O'BRIEN: To spin this in a very positive light, if that is possible, half-full all the way, I suppose you could say this is a case where you have a lot of the insurgent forces encircled. I mean, in all of this, is there a sense of good news in the sense that they have been isolated or is that being a little Pollyanna?
ROBINSON: Well, they have been isolated and they have been observed.
And they're trying to identify their sources of supply, where they communicate from, where they stage logistically, so that they can deny them the oxygen that they require to survive. And that's access to the population. They don't want it to spread to the rest of the town or to the rest of the country. And they don't want the rest of the population supporting them.
But that's the same objective that this insurgency has had all throughout Iraq by attacking convoys, by attacking governance, by assassinating Iraqi governing leaders who are part of the Governing Council.
O'BRIEN: All right, Ken, hold that thought for a moment.
Back to U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul.
PENHAUL: ... the city and northeastern section back approximately two or three miles from the rooftop where we're now standing, you can see, you can make out in the night-vision scope on the camera the afterglow of what appears to be a very heavy fire.
We can also see plumes of black smoke drifting across the night sky. This is the aftermath of a strike by the coalition AC-130 Spectre gunships. About half an hour ago now, that gunship droned through the night sky and then unleashed a barrage of what sounded to be .105-millimeter cannon fire on that position.
Initially, after the initial explosions, we did make out secondary explosions, what appeared to be secondary explosions, as showers of sparks and flames leaping up into the night sky. No confirmation from coalition military commanders on the ground what the target may have been, but certainly we do know that in the course of the day in that northeastern section of Fallujah, there was heavy clashes between coalition forces and insurgent gunmen.
And then as night was falling, around dusk, we saw a coalition F- 15 fighter plane in action there, making around three passes and dropping three bombs very close to the location that we can now see in flames on fire where that black smoke is drifting through Fallujah's night sky. In the course of the day, there were also, of course, heavy clashes between coalition forces and insurgent gunmen, much closer to the rooftop where we're standing, in fact about 800 yards around the Fallujah train station.
That gun battle, which also involved Marine attack helicopters, lasted for about an hour and a half, although at this stage, there are no reports of any coalition personnel having been injured, nor any reports of any casualty toll that the insurgent forces may have taken. Again, as I say, we're looking east approximately two or three miles. From where the rooftop where we're standing, we can see on the horizon there the glow of what seems to be a very large fire and certainly a good deal of black smoke now drifting across the Fallujan night sky. Some more flames there just leaping up. It certainly seems that on the ground, what the AC-130 Spectre gunship has hit is certainly something very flammable. Those gunships were in action last night. And they took out, we're told by coalition commanders, an insurgent ammunition dump. Looking at the secondary explosions and the extent of the fires that we can now see blazing there on the horizon, one might also suspect that some kind of ammunition may have been being stored by insurgent forces there, although at this stage, no confirmation from coalition commanders here on the ground.
This is Karl Penhaul reporting, with the camera John Templeton (ph) for the U.S. networks pool, Fallujah, Iraq.
O'BRIEN: U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul taking another breather. We'll keep that picture up. That's a live image coming from Fallujah, what appears to be a series of secondary explosions after what we believe was an AC-130 gunship. That is a four-engine turbo prop aircraft flies in orbit around a target and is able to put a tremendous amount of accurate firepower on a specific target. It has a .105-millimeter cannon, a .25-millimeter gun, a .40-millimeter gun and is used just for these types of circumstances, close air support, as they call it, urban scenarios, situations where the so called friendlies are not far away from the target or the enemy.
Colonel Pat Lang on the line with us. He's one of our analysts.
Colonel Lang, you've been watching this unfold. Just a simple question for you. Do you have the sense that what we're seeing here is perhaps secondary explosions and that would perhaps indicate that the AC-130 found its target?
RETIRED COL. PAT LANG, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, yes. They're working this set of targets like the ones they worked last night. And they clearly got some secondary explosions and fires here. But it's very hard to do bomb damage assessment on this kind of thing. And this could
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: What is that? Why is it hard to do bomb damage...
LANG: Well, it's dark and these structures are not clear as to their nature. And even tomorrow, when you look at them, they'll just show a bunch of burn marks on them and some damage to buildings.
This could just as easily be a gas station. It would blow up in much the same way. But the Marines and the Air Force are clearly here working on weakening the force inside this place against the time when they probably will have to go in and get the insurgents.
O'BRIEN: Well, let's back up for just a moment. As you say, it could be a gas station. Give us a sense, if you can, as to how the Marines, how the military in general is identifying targets in a situation like this.
LANG: I would think that they are probably running aerial surveillance during the daytime and looking at this and making judgments from the movements of people that they can see with these armed, you know, remotely piloted aircraft and other kinds of photography to make an inference as to what it is, is the activity in this particular place.
If they have some kind of a low-level agent they can send in on the ground to confirm it, they put those things together and that's probably how they're making a picture of where they want to strike.
O'BRIEN: OK.
And then you were talking about what this might be a prelude to. In the absence of a thunderbolt from the sky which allows a negotiated settlement, what's the next step militarily?
LANG: Well, the next step militarily is a political decision as to what to do.
Somebody has to make a decision that this can't go on forever, that in fact, it's detrimental to our position across the Arab world and in Iraq. I'm getting phone calls from people all over the Arab world and in Europe as well, Arabs who are telling me that these images of these mosques being damaged and of imams giving these cries for resistance from their pulpits is very, very damaging and that people are getting very excited about this.
So I don't think this can go on forever. If this can't be cleared up in the surrender of the insurgents arranged, then the Marines are going to have to go in.
O'BRIEN: And the reason we're seeing the Marines, the term that was you had by one of the captains on the ground there play patty-cake here is the concern for civilian losses. That's very clear.
But when you weigh that against the day-after-day imagery that we see here, I guess that could be used as an argument to say use overwhelming force and use it quickly. In other words, get this over with.
LANG: Well, if we're going to use force, I am all in favor of using overwhelming force, because this is a big city and very easy to get trapped in some of these little streets in between buildings and things like this.
I'd be in favor of using a lot of force. And the idea of getting it over quickly I think is probably a good idea because this is kind of a running sore politically. We can't just walk away and leave Fallujah in the hands of the insurgents, which I think it is. The idea that they're not in control of most of the town I think is probably illusory. We can't leave them in charge, so we have to do something about it and we might as well do it quickly.
O'BRIEN: And that could be at great cost, however. Play that out for just a moment. If in fact overwhelming force is used and there is a lot of -- the term the military uses is collateral damage, that's another way of saying innocent people killed, how does that play in the Arab world?
LANG: Well, it doesn't play very well.
Well, unfortunately, warfare often consists of the process of making choices between undesirable alternatives. And you have to decide which thing has the greater weight in your mind and the one thing I think we cannot do is go and leave Fallujah in the hands of insurgents. If they're not going to surrender, I think the -- we don't really have a choice.
O'BRIEN: And so we're talking inevitably as the way you put it here about street-to-street, alley-to-alley urban combat. This is something that U.S. forces have been training for for years. But on this level, it really hasn't happened at this scale, has it?
LANG: No, you haven't seen anything like this since way in the Vietnam War, which was a tremendous fight in the city of Hue.
And, you know, this is a very undesirable situation that we've gotten ourselves into here. And this should not have come to this, in fact. If we had used sufficient force in Iraq in the beginning, so we could have blanketed the country with troops, we could suppress resistance before it got serious, we wouldn't be there. But now we are there. And I hate to say that probably an awful lot of people are going to pay with their lives for this, but it sure looks like it..
O'BRIEN: Boy, that's quite a statement you just offered up there. If we'd used sufficient force in the beginning -- what you're talking about essentially is the Powell doctrine. If you're going to use force, use it quickly, use it in an overwhelming manner. Would you subscribe to that?
LANG: I have always been an admirer of Secretary Powell's thinking in this matter. And I think he's exactly correct. I think it was a terrible mistake not to use enough force to begin with.
O'BRIEN: I suppose, though, the argument goes that, if you can do it with less, why not?
LANG: Well, because you know, if you looked at Iraq from the beginning in the planning process, you could see that perhaps you could overrun the country using smaller forces of the high quality that we have, lots of high technology.
But clearly, we were going to have to occupy the country for an extended period of time to fix what we had broken, as I think Secretary Powell also is reported to have said. And so you're obviously going to need a lot of troops to do that because you have to be everywhere in order to be somebody to these people. And we never had anything like enough of this.
The 82nd Airborne Division, their presence in this town for about seven or eight months was 800 men up against a city of 300,000 people. Does that make any sense? It doesn't make any sense to me. And so I think you know, there should have been some better thinking about what this really took. O'BRIEN: And I guess when you put it that way, it's understandable why the 82nd Airborne wasn't engaged in any sort of active patrols on the streets of Fallujah.
LANG: No, because it was suicidal to do that. And I heard you say that the Marines are calling these supposed patrols they are going to do suicide patrols. I can understand that.
If the insurgents are free to wander around the city, which they appear to be, then in fact, you could have ambushes everywhere.
O'BRIEN: All right, Colonel Pat Lang, if you could just stand by for us, I want to bring in Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent.
Jamie, the word there at the Pentagon is that we're still witnessing a cease-fire and that this is merely a response, a defensive response. It sure seems a long way from a cease-fire, doesn't it?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, as I said yesterday, it's about 10 percent cease and 90 percent fire.
It's not -- this is not the offensive that the United States has been threatening, but it's a very aggressive counteroffensive or defensive effort. The U.S. is trying to take the initiative away from the insurgents and use the very precise firepower from these AC-130 gunships flying at night as a way to inflict some heavy casualties.
We learned of course today a little bit more about yesterday's strike in which they observed a truck driving without any lights on, making pickups and drop-offs. And that just shows the capability of this AC-130 gunship with its night-vision equipment. Even though the truck's driving with no lights on, they could spot it. They could monitor it. They could see what was going on. And then when they hit it -- and this was in yesterday's attack -- there were these big secondary explosions indicating or confirming what they thought,was that this truck was carrying large amounts of ammunition.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Well, wait.
Jamie let me ask you about that just for a moment, because that does sort of get into the whole issue of what a defensive attack here is. That clearly was a target of opportunity. I suppose there's a presumption there that there is ill will on the part of a truck like that. But is that truly firing in defense? They're saying they're returning fire.
MCINTYRE: Well, they were going after positions from which the Marines had taken fire about a half hour before. So the initial confrontation began when Marines reported that they were taking fire in dug-in defensive positions near the outskirts of Fallujah. And based on that intelligence on the ground, really reporting on the ground, the AC-130 gunships were called in against the targets. And once they were able to identify that they believed they were the people responsible for this hostile intent, they took them out.
Now, can there be a mistake in a situation like this? Yes, there can be. These are not 100 percent precise. But the U.S. is confident and there's no evidence today that they hit a wrong target and innocent civilians. In fact, those large secondary explosions which were far beyond what you would expect from say just the fuel on a truck indicated, again, that they had hit significant stores of ammunition that were being transported by the truck.
The other location they hit yesterday was a building, again, where they had intelligence that they were taking fire from the insurgents in that building. So the U.S. is contending that they're using very precise application of combat power, even though this is from an aircraft firing a gun, as you pointed out, circling overhead.
O'BRIEN: Of course, yes, and the gun is .105-millimeter cannon. It is no small amount of armament that can be laid on the ground by an AC-130 Spectre.
You know, it was interesting. Colonel Pat Lang was just saying a moment ago how difficult it is to do bomb damage assessment in the wake of an attack like this because you see scorched windows and so forth. The Pentagon has a pretty good idea that yesterday's effort was successful?
MCINTYRE: Yes, absolutely.
And, of course, it is difficult to do it right now, particularly for us to do it by looking through this picture from a videophone. But it's much easier to do the following morning, and that's essentially what happens when daylight comes. They'll make another assessment. They do have troops on the ground. It's also hard to do bomb damage if you don't have troops on the ground.
That's often a case where you are trying to rely on just satellite imagery. But a combination of overhead imagery from Predator drones, the fact that they do have troops on the ground and they can overfly the area and inspect it, they get a pretty good idea of how they're doing.
O'BRIEN: All right, and as this was unfolding and earlier in the day as well, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were on Capitol Hill.
Jamie, tell me a little bit about the conversations they had today.
MCINTYRE: Well, of course, those were private conversations. But what we're told is that members of the administration, including the defense secretary, who's up on the Hill now to meet with members of the Senate and earlier some of the other administration officials, going up to reassure members of Congress that there is a plan, that there is an idea of how to deal with this insurgency, that these pictures that we're seeing here are not representative of everything that's going on in Iraq, and to try essentially to reassure members of Congress that things are on track.
And I have to say that after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice met with members this morning, some of the Democrats came out afterwards and were decidedly underwhelmed by the presentation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: I heard nothing in Dr. Rice's presentation whether in her opening statement or in answers to questions that give us any greater sense of security about where we're headed on Iraq. There is no insight here. There is no end game. There is not a clear question as to who -- a clear answer as to who we're transferring power to.
And the reality is that it continues to be American lives, overwhelmingly, and American taxpayers' dollars overwhelmingly that are fueling this conflict in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Now, the criticism does seem to cut down partisan lines, that is, Republicans are much more supportive of the administration and their plans.
But we're told even today that sources say that the U.S. commander in charge, General John Abizaid, is worried about how things are going, is the way one official put it. Another said he was concerned, not so much about the military operations, because he has convinced he has the military power to resolve the situation in Fallujah and also in Najaf, but more about some of the political pieces that aren't falling into place, specifically the lack of moderate Iraqis coming forward to counter some of these anti-American and anti-coalition messages that you're seeing in Fallujah and Najaf these days.
That's something that is concerning General Abizaid as he is looking at the countdown to the turnover of sovereignty June 30. And that's something, presumably, he would have discussed with President Bush today in a conference call he had with President Bush and other top members of the national security team, including Secretary Rumsfeld and the joint chiefs chairman, General Richard Myers.
O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, stand by there, please.
Let's get back to Ken Robinson, our security and military analyst who's in our Washington bureau.
Ken, this whole notion that really the solution in Iraq is political and yet what we see unfolding is our military options. And the military option IN this case described by those on the ground, leathernecks on the ground, is patty-cake. And to what extent, Ken, is patty-cake and watching patty-cake unfold day after day on live television, to what extent is each and every one of those days a victory for the insurgents?
ROBINSON: Well is, patty-cake is a euphemism for, we're not using our A game.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Why not use the A game?
ROBINSON: Well, I think what Brigadier General Kimmitt has said and what the coalition is attempting to do is honestly make the political situation work, if it can work, because they know how costly urban combat is.
If they have to go in there with a full combat power, with a large ratio of forces and take that place block by block, no matter what, in the best of circumstances, it's incredibly bloody. It's incredibly dangerous. And the potential for it spreading in terms of Arab outrage in the rest of the country and the rest of the region is great. That will occur.
They already hate the United States for being there. And their objective is to try to have something on 30 June to turn over. And they don't want to create Fallujah as, remember the Alamo. And so they want to be very careful with how they proceed. That's why they're trying to use this tough tactic of pinpointed, targeted neutralization of threats and simultaneously continue to communicate with tribal leaders and community leaders, who shouldn't be confused as being mutually inclusive.
O'BRIEN: And, of course, the insurgents know every last thing you just said there and that gives them a tremendous amount of leverage here, doesn't it?
ROBINSON: The insurgents have time on their behalf. They can choose the time and place of fighting, which means, if they want, they can vaporize into the population and then come back and fight us two weeks from now, and we can declare some form of victory and then the next thing you know, they'll rise up again.
Remember that this battle for Fallujah is the battle of Baghdad that never was. The United States and its coalition overwhelmed Baghdad so rapidly, that their command control, communications and intelligence and their preplanned insurgency plan was never able to be implemented.
And so now you're seeing this playing out because this is one of those areas that was kind of isolated and left alone as they concentrated on the prize of Baghdad proper.
O'BRIEN: Give me a sense, and talk about back of the napkin. I'm asking you to do this on live TV. But give me a rough idea, if you could, if it came to street by street, alley by alley, how many soldiers would you need?
ROBINSON: Doctrinally, military operations like to have a 4-1 advantage. That's in open terrain, 3-1 to 4-1 advantage. And in urban terrain, they try to even increase that advantage even more.
Now, they may use what they call combat multipliers to do that because there's a limited number of soldiers available to take this place street by street. Those combat multipliers may be things like close air support, whether that be tactical air, F-15s, which Karl Penhaul reported earlier today dropped three bombs. It might be the AC-130 gunships. It may be psychological information and leaflet drops. It may be information warfare, where they credibly identify things that they're going to do and then they do them, giving legitimacy to their leaflet drops day by day. That was very effective in the first Gulf War.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Ken Robinson, yes, those are all good points. We're just going to have to pick up on -- we're going to hear from the U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul. We expect to hear from him any moment now. Let's listen.
PENHAUL: West edge of Fallujah, we're pointing the camera east of our position. And approximately two or three miles there out towards the horizon, we can still see the afterglow of orange flame and black plumes of smoke are rising up into Fallujah's night sky.
That's the aftermath of an airstrike by an AC-130 Spectre gunship. I've stopped there because we were just hearing the echo of fresh gunfire across Fallujah, an echo of gunfire towards the north and an explosion a ways away towards the southeast. Let's see if that continues. We'll let you have the sound of that so you can hear that.
Sporadic explosions at the moment off to the southeast, again, this somewhat distant. We're talking there probably three or four miles away. The plume of black smoke and the flames that we can see across on the horizon also probably two or three miles away from the vantage point that we have on the rooftop of the U.S. Marine base in the northwestern sector of Fallujah.
The area that was hit tonight by the AC-130 Spectre gunship was an area of northeast Fallujah, where, during the course of the day, there had been heavy fighting between coalition forces and insurgents. We heard gunfire from there, and also toward dusk, we saw a coalition F-15 fighter plane zoom into that area. It made three passes and dropped three bombs, three bombs pretty close to the area that we now see on fire, although obviously the area that we now see on fire is the result of actions by the Spectre gunship.
Unclear precisely what that target may have been, though we did see, after the initial strike by the gunship using what we understand were probably .105-millimeter cannons, we did see after the initial strike a number of secondary explosions that sent showers of sparks and flames leaping into the sky. We suspect that may be some kind of indication that it could have been an ammunitions dump or weapons dump being used by the insurgents, though no confirmation from coalition commanders on the ground to that effect yet.
The AC-130 gunships were in action last night. We saw them pretty close to our position about 800 yards or one kilometer south of our position last night. We're told during the course of the day that those were strikes on insurgent weapons dump and, at that point, we did see secondary explosions from those two positions.
That's why I suggest that when we saw secondary explosions from this position that has been hit tonight, that could also be an indication that it was some kind of ammunitions or weapons dump. Now, the AC-130 gunship, you can still hear the low drone of that aircraft overhead. It's drowning out at the moment the hum of another aircraft that has been present over the skies of Fallujah every day since we've arrived here at this U.S. Marine post, and that the hum of an unmanned Predator aircraft.
Both that and the AC-130 have very sophisticated eavesdropping devices on board, and that's allowing these aircraft to fly high overhead and, at the same time, spy down to try and detect insurgent positions on the ground, to try and detect the vehicles being used by the insurgents, trying to detect safe houses, trying to detect also areas that the insurgents may be using at staging posts or weapons and ammunitions dumps.
Once those positions are detected, the AC-130 has an array of weaponry on board that it can call into action to take action and then strike against those positions. And that's exactly what has happened tonight. In the course of the day, though, we have seen some fierce gun battles between the coalition forces and the insurgents, one of those gun battles in the northeast in the area where that fire is now blazing, the second gun battle much closer to home, in fact, about 800 yards from the vantage point we have on this rooftop.
That will gun battle was around the Fallujah train station involving coalition forces and a U.S. Marine sniper team and insurgent forces on the opposite side of the road to the train station. We also saw U.S. Marine attack helicopters involved in that firefight.
Tonight, though, the only aircraft that we can hear out there at this time in an offensive stance is the AC-130 gunship and that we understand has been firing .150-millimeter Howitzer cannons on that position. A few moments ago, we did here gunfire a ways away across to our southeast, also a burst of weapons fire to our north. As that hasn't developed into anything more at this stage, we can't hear any more of that.
That has calmed down. The only other sound apart from the drone of the Spectre gunship overhead are the sounds of songs and chants coming from one of Fallujah's many, many mosques. Unclear at this stage what those chants are coming across the public address system. But in the course of today, the Iraqi military translators here at the U.S. Marine base told us similar chants were being broadcast from the mosques last night, were, in fact, a call to arms to the insurgents, calling on the insurgents to continue their fight against the coalition, and calling on other Iraqis to begin a jihad or a holy war to push the coalition out of Iraq.
This is Karl Penhaul reporting, with the camera of John Templeton, for the U.S. network pool, Fallujah, Iraq. O'BRIEN: U.S. pool correspondent Karl Penhaul in the midst of it all in Fallujah a moment ago.
It was Ken Robinson who called it the battle of Baghdad that never was. We are seeing it unfold yet again tonight. It is now after 11:30 local time in Fallujah. And you are witnessing the aftermath right now, although it still is ongoing, of yet another AC- 130 Spectre gunship attack on a specific target, linked to the insurgency in Fallujah.
Our coverage of this will continue. We turn it over now to Judy Woodruff in Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
