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American Morning

B-2 Stealth Bomber Not Flawed, Just Modified from Original Intended Use; Search for Osama bin Laden Narrows as Taliban Loses Control

Aired November 19, 2001 - 08:14   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: A major weapon in the U.S. air war has been the B-2 stealth bomber, but there's a problem. The plane doesn't seem to have the correct communications link. The Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, General Richard Myers said in yesterday's "New York Daily News" that "if it takes you that long to get to the target, you're going to have to get some updates along the way. The threats and targets are changed. You would think that a modern aircraft that cost as much as a B-2 ($1.3 billion) would have that built in, but in fact it doesn't."

CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark is here to offer some clarification this morning. He joins us from Little Rock. Good to see you sir.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Nice to see you Paula.

ZAHN: Welcome.

CLARK: Thank you.

ZAHN: Can you explain that to us this morning? How can you have a plane that cost more than $1 billion and in this article they describe that these pilots are sitting with computer laptops in their lap as they're flying to try to make linkages with the predator drones.

CLARK: Well this was apparently a modification that's been put in the Air Force in the aftermath of the Kosovo operation a couple of years ago, and as you know the B-1, B-2 was designed as a stealth aircraft and that meant that it didn't have communications with the outside once it took off.

The whole idea is to not let any admissions come out of the aircraft -- light, sound, electronics, whatever. And so that requirement to change targets just wasn't factored into the design. It is now and this is the modification they've come up with. It'd be nice if we knew everything in advance, but sometimes we don't -- it's still a great aircraft.

ZAHN: So there was no design flaw here? It's just that its intended use has changed. CLARK: That's the way I see it.

ZAHN: OK, let's move onto the other news this morning, the reports that the noose around Mr. Osama bin Laden's neck is tightening. Do you buy that assessment?

CLARK: I think that's true, but with each succeeding day that the Taliban remain in Kandahar, the situation in the south is more complicated and what needs to happen is these southern tribes need to go after the Taliban, throw them out, and that will really give us the final bit of intelligence, the push, and the forces on the ground that we need to go after that if there is a 30-square mile area that he's located in, as has been reported in "The British Press".

But if the Taliban holds in Kandahar, then it forms a center of resistance that distracts. It works against our efforts to bring the southern tribes on board and it delays the effort on al Qaeda. So we've got to hope that we'll finish the operation in Konduz. We'll get down there in Kandahar and we'll put enough pressure on the Taliban crack.

ZAHN: And if it doesn't follow that timeline, what are you talking about here -- U.S. ground forces dealing with this really, really tough winter ahead?

CLARK: Well I think it means less intelligence, so a slower pace to the operation. More risks from United States forces having to go in and get up close to try to get the information and ultimately if Osama bin Laden is still in Afghanistan, which we have reason to believe, then it may mean a greater role for U.S. ground troops in pulling him out of there.

ZAHN: You say it may mean a greater role, so that's not necessarily a given at this point?

CLARK: I think it's not necessarily a given. I think it's always preferable to use the people on the ground if possible. We've been very successful with the Northern Alliance. It's their country after all. They wanted it back and there's no doubt southern tribes who would like to take over and get the Taliban out of there and form a government throughout Afghanistan that could be respected and take care of the people there. The Taliban won't, but if we can get that government in, then they'll want to clean up al Qaeda themselves.

After all these people aren't Afghanis. These are people who have come in -- they've used the territory of Afghanistan, brought all this hardship to the Afghan people. So there's plenty of -- there's plenty of psychological material there to work with. There's no reason why these people won't go after al Qaeda, but the Taliban remaining in Kandahar and a substantial Taliban strength -- it is a problem.

ZAHN: And General Clark, in closing this morning, who has the distinct advantage here, if you go into this guerrilla type warfare in the dead of winter? CLARK: Well I think the United States and its allies. We've got better equipment; we've got better sensors; and we're much more prepared to do this fighting. But it has to be done in conjunction with people on the ground. Now if it's -- if the southern alliance or southern groups of tribes are split and if al Qaeda is driven back into the mountains and they don't have local supporters, there really won't be any guerrilla warfare.

They'll be hiding up there and we'll get them. If they have local supporters, then the tribes that work with us have got to isolate the villages of that support. They've got to control the population in there and narrow down the area where we're going to work against al Qaeda. But with our sensors and our capacity to work at night and in bad weather, we have an advantage.

ZAHN: All right, General Wesley Clark, as always, good to have your perspective and your expertise I might add. Thank you.

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