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American Morning

America's New War: Senator Warner's Discusses Military Factors

Aired September 25, 2001 - 11:35   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Senator John Warner is the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee. He joins us now from Capitol Hill, where he's just come from a committee meeting.

Welcome. Good to see you this morning, sir.

SEN. JOHN WARNER, (R) VIRGINIA: Thank you very much.

We had an important committee hearing to review the credentials of the new vice chief of chairman of the staff, General Pace. The first type in history that a Marine has been considered, again, for chairman, as General Jones was, and then the vice chairman.

Also, I'm on the floor now managing with Chairman Levin the bill for the annual -- the authorization for the armed forces, about $340- plus billion, of which $6 billion in there is to fight and enlist the aid of all of us against terrorism.

ZAHN: In addition to that, have you been debating about what bases should be closed in this country. I understand you might have news for us on that front?

WARNER: Just moments ago the Senate voted to approve the president's request to give the secretary of defense the authority, not finality, but the authority to move ahead in the year to come on a procedure by which we eliminate those bases and instillations which, quite frankly, have served their purpose well in the military history of our country, but today, with the modernization of our armed forces an the move more and more to higher tech, those bases are no longer needed, and by closing them we could save a considerable amount of the tax payer's dollars, which dollars then go more directly to arm and equip and care for the men and women in the armed forces.

It was a tough vote. I had to move to table my own leadership (ph). Now, that's a complicated procedural thing for people to understand, but there was division on both sides of the aisle, it wasn't necessarily a partisan vote. But there was strong feeling that maybe now is not the time, as we're calling up reserves and so forth. But those issues were carefully considered by the president and secretary of defense. Early this morning it was their request that I move ahead, as I did, and by a very narrow margin the president's position prevailed.

ZAHN: Senator, is the U.S. military ready to fight this new war? WARNER: Let there be no doubt. I say very calmly, but convincingly, let there be no doubt in the mind of anyone in the world that we're ready to tackle the missions that our military will play in the coming days, weeks or months, whenever that may be, indeed, years, to combat terrorism.

Our military will be but one of many assets in our nation brought to bear against terrorism. We're going to hit them economically, we're going to hit them politically. And as you and I are talking, more and more nations are reaffirming and strengthening their positions to aid the United States of America in this all-out war against terrorists.

ZAHN: Sir, I've got just about 20 seconds because I'm running into a commercial break. Do you think the end goal of this mission is to topple the Taliban government?

WARNER: That's but one ancillary mission. It's an important one, but we're going to strike on a broad front, a very broad front. And so while many folks are concentrating on Taliban, it is important -- it is yet to be determined whether the specific mission is against Taliban. I think the warning is still in place that time is running out. If they don't join the growing family of nations, indeed their own regime could be a casualty, as we strike out to stop this terrorism world wide.

ZAHN: Senator Warning, it's always good to see you. Thanks so much for your time this morning.

WARNER: Thank you.

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