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American Morning
America's New War: Discussion of Some Possible Military Options
Aired September 18, 2001 - 11:30 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: The U.S. has threatened to take military action if the Taliban decide not to hand over Osama bin Laden.
Joining me to talk about some of the possible military options is General Robert Patterson, retired in the U.S. Air Force.
General Patterson, good to have you with us.
GEN. ROBERT PATTERSON, RET. U.S. AIR FORCE: Good morning Miles.
O'BRIEN: We will take a quick tour of the region and talk about some of the options when you talk about the neighbors of Afghanistan, which is apparently the target at the moment. Now as we go in a little bit closer to the region, we have immediately around, going clockwise around, Pakistan, Iran.
And let's take a look at Iran. Give us a sense right there of the possibility of Iran, allowing us to use air space, for example, to stage any sort of attack. Slim and none, I presume.
PATTERSON: I think slim and none, based on their past resistance to us.
O'BRIEN: Now all of these are Islamic republics. Turkmenistan is similar in that sense. You get the sense that an Islamic republic is faced with a difficult quandary in dealing with the United States at all, correct?
PATTERSON: That's correct. We never had much presence in this part of the world, either politically or militarily.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's move along. And we will take a look at the next neighbor, Uzbekistan. Now, they are on record as saying, the they are some what amenable to the idea of using air space and perhaps the ground for helping stage attacks. This is immediately to the north. Right now is the border with Afghanistan. How significant would it be to have some sort of staging area right in there, general?
PATTERSON: Very good, geographic location for forces. Uzbekistan has a motivation to support us, in that the northern alliance is resisting the Taliban. If the northern alliance crumbles, then the doors open for the Taliban to go right into Uzbekistan and the other "stans" on into Russia.
O'BRIEN: OK, so there's a little bit of strategy to consider there.
Let's go one border over to Tajikistan. Tajikistan was initially on record as saying they might be helpful, now saying not so. This is a very mountainous. Maybe it doesn't have as much military value.
PATTERSON: The lines of communication are very scarce there. I don't think that it is very viable.
O'BRIEN: All right, and finally moving along to the country we have been talking about a lot today, Pakistan. Once again, just to highlight everything. That is Afghanistan, and Pakistan being the immediate neighbor, it swoops down here. And it is encouraging thing, I assume, General, Pakistan indicating they might be supportive of the United States in this situation.
PATTERSON: I think the fact they came on board as a great diplomatic coup for Secretary Powell. They have been oh a strong supporter of the Taliban in the past. They recognize the Taliban. They have been a support for Taliban and Islamabad, and they've also supported bin Laden, supporting the Kashmir problem between Pakistan and India.
O'BRIEN: Let's take a wider view now if we can. And I just want to ask you, as a former Air Force pilot and mission planner special forces, if you had, say, aircraft carriers there, has tremendous limitations as to what kind of strikes you could launch from there, correct?
PATTERSON: It does, but with the air refueling capability of our fighter and transport aircraft and bomber aircraft, we could do it.
O'BRIEN: Which means of course air space over Pakistan or perhaps, Iran, which is somewhat problematic I trust.
PATTERSON: That's correct. And of course we have forces down at Garcia, large bomber forces. B-52 forces could make that long mission.
O'BRIEN: Of course, even the B-2 bombers, which were used in Kosovo, launch from Missouri with refueling capability, that kind of thing.
Let's talk a little bit about special forces. That's your background.
PATTERSON: Yes, sir.
O'BRIEN: Just a little bit on special forces, their history, and how they might be involved in any sort of first strike involved in this area.
PATTERSON: Well, the United States special operations command is locate at McNeil Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. This command was formed in 1987, and it was formed out of another tragedy, if you will. That was the Desert One operation in which we attempted to rescue our hostages in Iran. We failed. Very, very fine people lost their lives in that tragedy.
O'BRIEN: As we look at those pictures of that, 1981, it was a collision between a C-130 and A helicopter in the middle of the desert, trying to rescue those hostages, who have been in Tehran for so long. What were the big lessons that came out of that, and how has that manifested itself in the way special operations operates today?
PATTERSON: There are many lessons. Train as you fight. If you are going to play the Super Bowl, we need to have teams that prepared us for the Super Bowl, and not bring someone else in to substitute at the last moment, and that's part of what happened at Desert One. The outcome of Desert One forced a commission, called a Holloway (ph) commission, and the Holloway commission recommended we have dedicated special operations forces. Some members of Congress got behind that, Dan Daniel (ph) from Virginia, Earl Huddle from Florida, John Kasich from Ohio, Senator Warner and Senator Kennedy. So in 1987, we stood up the flag of the United States Special Operations Command.
O'BRIEN: Now as we look -- we had some pictures yesterday. We sent one of our correspondents to Fort Hood, Texas, where a lot of the armored folks do their training. For those memory might may go back to the Gulf War and that conflict most immediately, when you look at these big tanks, you realize there are tremendous limitations of their advocacy when you get into the terrain we're talking about here in Afghanistan, correct?
PATTERSON: Not the deserts of the Mideast and not the plains of Europe. The last communities are very scarce in Afghanistan.
O'BRIEN: Just getting armored equipment in there, I would think would be very problematic. Give us a sense then of the kin of thing, the kind of scenario that a war planner might be considering. Perhaps infiltrating special forces-type people inside the country?
PATTERSON: Of course. And there is some logistic centers in Afghanistan that are worth attacking. We hope four or five of the Taliban logistic centers, bin Laden's logistic support.
As President Bush said, I think we will...
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