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American Morning

Pentagon Wants Total Defeat of Taliban

Aired November 16, 2001 - 08:10   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: Even with some of those military gains in Afghanistan, the central command leader wants total defeat of the Taliban. Speaking yesterday as Bob just talked about, General Tommy Franks had choice words for the enemy.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS: Targets that we have been after, as you know, have changed. Initially we wanted to set conditions, so we bombed a lot of the tactical capability. As we had completed that work essentially, we began to target the formations of the Taliban that were essentially propping up Mullah Omar and that regime. As that -- as that continues to decline and it becomes a much more fractured, then we simply have more capability to focus on the alligators.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ZAHN: Can an updated U.S. war strategy route the Taliban leaders and Osama bin Laden? Well our own military analyst General Wesley Clark joins us with some insights this morning from Little Rock, Arkansas. Good to see you again General. Thank you for getting up for us this morning.

So General, if you would, give us some insights as to what this shift means from the broader -- this broad aerial campaign to more focused bombing and perhaps more action on the ground.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well in a word it means more troops on the ground. It means more eyes on the ground, more small groups able to see who's moving, collect intelligence, pass it to aircraft overhead, perhaps serve as path finders for another group -- a large group coming in.

This is the time in the battle where the enemy command in control has broken down. If he was communicating by telephone, on a land line, he's not anymore. If he was using runners -- maybe these runners will be intercepted now by the roadblocks that are set up.

Information should be starting to flow. Some of it will be perishable. Some of it will be wrong and what General Franks wants to do is have enough capacity there and close by to be able to react to as much of that information as possible.

ZAHN: What are the risks that the American public should be aware of in this next phase of the campaign?

CLARK: Well I think there are several specific risks. First of all, of course, as you put more ground troops in, the odds of having an incident with the ground troops increases. So the chance of casualties are always there. Secondly, there are going to be cases where friendly units are misidentified. So you can expect some problems there with bringing in air attacks on the wrong guys.

Third, there are still problems apparently in the capital of Kabul. Some of the Northern Alliance factions aren't getting along that well. They're making difficulties up there and finally, it's not clear that we're going to be able to contain the al Qaeda network and especially its leader inside Afghanistan. The Pakistanis have moved to reinforce their border.

They'll certainly try to keep the fleeing al Qaeda inside the country where we can nab them, but we're also going to be alert to the fact that he may escape, and so we'll be looking elsewhere and watching likely routes.

ZAHN: What is your thought this morning? Are you of the belief that Osama bin Laden probably is still in Afghanistan?

CLARK: I do believe he's probably in Afghanistan, but I also believe he's working on ways to get out, and will have a plan to try to get himself out. His problem is going to be that there's so much confusion and there's so much change that he won't be able to get updated information on whether that escape route is open. And so right now he's probably hold-up somewhere in a cave or in a village where he thinks he's inconspicuous and he's trying to get clarification on how he can get out and when. He's evaluating the odds. This is probably one of the best opportunities we'll have to get him.

ZAHN: What you have just said it squares -- it completely tracks with what former President Clinton told me yesterday. We had a conversation about just this and he said he supports the strategy of the current administration. He believes the U.S. will finally find Osama bin Laden and he said yes the possibility exists that he could leave Afghanistan, but he even made note of Osama bin Laden's size and he told me that in and of itself is going to be a challenge for Osama bin Laden because of how visible he might be compared to the size of other folks in al Qaeda.

CLARK: If we can get him walking, it's clearly distinctive, but as we found in Bosnia, when we were searching for served war criminals, if they're riding in a car, and if they're a little bit disguised, they're very hard to recognize.

ZAHN: So you think this is the best chance we've got -- I know it's very hard to make a prediction like this, but are you thinking within the next week or two, if he hasn't fled Afghanistan, that's our chance.

CLARK: I wouldn't make any predictions on this, but I do think as General Franks said that the noose is tightening on him, and as we reduce the area in which he is, we can bring more and more of our sensors to bear on that particular area and the odds of finding him increase, and of course we've captured some of the top leadership now, apparently from the al Qaeda.

We've got documents. We've got defectors. We've got lots of people switching sides -- all of this gives us opportunity for updated most recent intelligence on his plans and his whereabouts. And so this is a good opportunity. No predictions -- we'll get Osama bin Laden if it takes five days, five years, or 25 years. This man has been in charge of an organization which has murdered thousands of Americans and he will not escape -- I'm confident of that.

ZAHN: General Clark, we hope that is the end result. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. We hope we can give you a couple of days off before you rejoin us again on Monday. Until that, have a good weekend. Thanks.

CLARK: Thank you.

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