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American Morning

America's New War: Insights from General Shepperd on Special Forces

Aired September 28, 2001 - 11:29   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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Over in Afghanistan, CNN is told that a Pakistani delegation that met today with the Taliban was told no when it told the Taliban it must surrender Osama bin Laden. That delegation also told no, we are told by sources, when it asked the Taliban to release Western aid workers being held on charges they were promoting Christianity within Afghanistan.

And CNN is told by a senior officials that U.S. and British special forces have indeed conducted operations within Afghanistan over the past several days. CNN getting this confirmation after reports in the Pakistani press and in "USA Today," as well, that U.S. special forces were conducting operations within Afghanistan.

Our sources, however, steering us away from the report in "USA Today" that those special forces were in Afghanistan to, quote, "hunt down Osama bin Laden," suggesting instead they were in there for operations that would be routine as part of any U.S. overseas military deployment.

Now for more on that development let's bring into our conversation Major General Donald Shepperd.

Sir, you understand how these operations works -- work, excuse me. If U.S. and British special forces are in Afghanistan now, given the fact that U.S. officials have been quite honest about the fact that we have what one called to me a short time ago, a quote, "intelligence deficit" about the bin Laden organization, just what might they be doing?

MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: John, they are doing exactly what special forces always do. They are there quietly, unseen behind the scenes, establishing locations of people and things that will be used in military campaigns later. They don't get a lot of credit for this. We don't talk a lot about it, but they're always part of any military operation. And, again, it may not have been that they're there in the last few days, but they've really been there for years. They have area specialists that do this thing on a regular basis, they have contacts in all these countries so we're ready to go if we're ever called upon. This is standard military stuff.

KING: Now, you say for years. We know back in 1998 when then President Clinton ended up in the end choosing cruise missiles, launching cruise missiles against sites in Afghanistan, against targets in the Sudan as well at the time. He decided against a ground operation, but we are told that at the time he was presented with options that including the use of U.S. special forces. Your assumption is then, Sir, that there have been at least periodic contact since then.

SHEPPERD: My assumption is that there have been since then and before then and will continue to be anywhere that we have potential operations anywhere in the world your special forces teams and area experts are already there establishing contacts in case they are ever needed. They're ready when needed.

KING: And we are at CNN -- and we hope our viewers understand as we try to be very sensitive about what we report about what we know about troop deployments, especially when the lives of those men and women might be in danger, in the context of that, Sir, and based on the fact that U.S. officials have been quite candid about the fact that they have not as much intelligence as they would like, you don't have any reason to believe, do you, that they're actually, say, in the caves or in the camps trying to hunt down Osama bin Laden at this point?

SHEPPERD: I don't have any information, nor would we be told that. The press has been very, very responsible about this reporting. They are giving the public the big picture of what we're doing without the operational details. This does not put our force at risk.

I was in Vietnam during Tet in 1968. It was not a surprise. We knew they were coming. We just didn't know when or where or with how much force. This is shaping up very much like that.

KING: And you have seen, Sir, in recent days the United States seeking the cooperation from places like Uzbekistan, from Kazakstan, from Pakistan included. Would those be the likely bases of operations for special force operations at this point of a campaign?

SHEPPERD: John, anything is possible. But the closer you can get to the area of action the better you are from the standpoint of special operations. They also have the capability to insert them by means from air and that type of thing. Nothing surprises me when it comes to the use of special forces.

The story so far has not been military, but diplomatic. And I must say that there are many brave American diplomats out there in far off places in danger, just like the military, and they have been very, very impressive so far.

KING: And one senior official I spoke to, Sir, said the British are better at this than us. Is that a comment specifically applied to this region of the world, or more broadly to the whole idea of special operations?

SHEPPERD: The British have probably been in special operations longer than we have, although our real operations started during second world war. But since then, starting with President Kennedy, we have really built up our special forces. Especially in the last 10 years, they have been -- they have really been hard at work getting ready for this type of thing. They were used during the Gulf War. And I must say that they are very, very impressive. I couldn't begin to compare special forces everywhere, but wherever they are they are tough and they are good.

KING: General Shepperd, thank you very much for your thoughts. We'll check in with you a bit later.

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