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American Morning

Navy to Resume Bombing Practice on Vieques Island

Aired June 18, 2001 - 11:05   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now for the latest on the battle over the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The practice bombing missions are supposed to take place and start once again this hour. Our Bill Delaney is standing by on Vieques with the latest -- Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Daryn. Some developments here. As you said, the Pentagon -- the last word that we had from the Pentagon was that the bombing runs here would begin around 11:00. Very loud microphone -- very loud announcement here calling protesters to lunch, the small smattering of protesters we have here, Daryn.

The last word we have from the Pentagon was that around 11:00 the bombing would begin on the bombing range here. While the mood here at Camp Garcia has been calm all morning and in fact, over the weekend for the very small smattering of protesters. Now, just in the past 20 minutes or so, we've had a small press conference by demonstrators who now claim officially what they've been saying all weekend unofficially might happen.

They say they have tens of demonstrators on Camp Garcia in the vicinity of the bombing range, somewhere between 10 and 20 people in there: students, some professional people, some lawyers, they say, in the bombing range, and they claim that stopped the bombing from beginning as we expected it would originally at 8:00 this morning, delayed it again at 10:00, and we do not have confirmed now what the Pentagon said would happen, that the bombing by these jets from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, dropping dummy bombs on the bombing range here at Vieques Island, would begin at 11:00. We're not sure whether that happened yet or not.

The demonstrators say the people they have inside Camp Garcia have put themselves in harm's way. They are in a dangerous zone. Police say they've arrested eight people. But as I say, the demonstrators say, just in the past 10 minutes so, confirming for us that they say they have a number of people inside Camp Garcia, and that could -- could delay things. They say it has delayed things, has delayed these bombing exercises this morning -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And so, Bill, if the Navy has that same information, then indeed you would assume that the bombing exercises would not start this hour as originally scheduled?

DELANEY: Well, we don't like to speculate. The Pentagon told us about 45 minutes or so ago that they would begin the bombing runs by these F-14 and F-18 and EA-6 Prowler jets from the USS Roosevelt would begin those exercises at 11:00. So, we don't know whether that happened or not.

What's happened subsequently, as I said, is demonstrators claiming they have people inside Camp Garcia in the danger zone, in that thousand acres or so that is the bombing range on Camp Garcia. Now, demonstrators also said that last night at 3:00 in the morning, their people inside Camp Garcia, the people they allegedly have inside camp Garcia, sent up a flare to alert the Navy that they were there.

So, it's been very quiet here all weekend, very quiet this morning, and just a smattering of protesters here at the entrance of Camp Garcia, where big demonstrations happened in late April. A very small presence here, but a kind of hard -core, if you will, of demonstrators apparently, they say, have gotten on to Camp Garcia and could be making things rather complicated for the Navy this morning -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Bill Delaney, Vieques, thank you.

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