Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

CIA Operative Killed in Mazar-e Sharif; New Weapons Helping in the Fight

Aired November 29, 2001 - 09:07   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: It is rare for the CIA to reveal so much information in the loss of one of its agents. In Spann's small Alabama hometown, flags are also being flown at half-staff in his honor. Our Martin Savidge is standing by live in Winfield, Alabama, with reaction there. Good morning Marty.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Paula. And news of Mike Spann's death spread through this community very quickly. It's a small town, only about 4500 people located in Northwest, Alabama. The news came as a double shock here. A lot of people remembered Mike as he grew up, but they had no idea that he was working for the CIA, no idea that he was in far-off Afghanistan. There had been rumors that had circulated in this community earlier in the week, but it wasn't until his father, who is well known here, stood up in a neighbors yard and made the announcement, did the war hit home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNNY SPANN, FATHER: Michael's a loyal and patriotic American, and he loved his country very much. He was a cherished son. He was an amazing brother, a devoted father, and a loving husband. And our family wants the world to know that we are very proud of our son Mike, and we consider him a hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: You can feel the pride as you listen to the words of his father there. But also the anguish, too, in the fact that they could never express that pride. Never tell anyone about what Mike did, until after he died. Here in this town, many people say that the war in Afghanistan has now become a very personal thing. They say that for the first time, they can attribute a face and a name that they know to that far-off place. One of their own. Michael Spann. Paula.

ZAHN: Tell you one thing, Martin, you listen to what Michael Spann's father had to say, and those are some of the most powerful words I've ever heard a parent say in honor of a child. Deeply, deeply effecting. Okay. We're going to let you go, we know you have lots to do today.

We want to talk a little bit more about what Michael Spann was trying to do in Afghanistan. Of course, that was to gather human intelligence on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. The U.S. military is also using new technology to bolster intelligence-gathering. But how will these high-tech devices help finish the war in Afghanistan? Well, joining us now from is the man with information. CNN Military Analyst General Wesley Clark. Good to see you, welcome.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Good morning. So, first of all, General, your reflections on this first combat death that our nation has witnessed.

CLARK: Well, I think the campaign has been run in a very pragmatic and a very careful way to do as much as it could to al Qaeda with minimum risk to civilians on the ground and our own forces. Unfortunately, we knew at the outset, everyone did, that when you put troops on the ground you are going to have casualties. We've had wounded, now we've had a brave man die. There's a lot of great men and women in the armed forces and working for the intelligence agency and elsewhere, and when they go over there they are at risk and we're going to have to expect and brace ourselves for losses.

ZAHN: We've been talking this morning about how unusual it is for CIA to divulge so much information about an operative on the ground, and I think Richard Butler at first hour saying that perhaps that is to reinforce the point that there is human intelligence on the ground. Is that your interpretation?

CLARK: I think that's right, and I think that the agency has done a lot of great work in putting together these capabilities. They weren't there originally, they haven't been in the agency for a long time if ever, and they are being deployed right now. But I think it also indicates the desire of the administration and the agency to be as open and as level with the American people as possible. And I think it's a remarkable acknowledgement of our agency personnel over there that George Tenet has made.

ZAHN: Wanted to move on to the issue of the Air Force and its involvement in these airstrikes, and General Jumper held a news conference yesterday where he expressed, I think pretty -- what would you say, upbeat attitude, and he talked about -- quote -- "inventing tactics" in our war in Afghanistan. Walk through a little bit of what he was talking about.

CLARK: Well, we discovered, actually, in the Kosovo campaign that when it comes to putting U.S. aircraft with modern technology against ground troops, you have to be innovative. You can't foresee everything in a theater of operations in advance. And so, it's a matter of taking the latest intelligence gathering techniques and being able to bring data into the cockpit. Being able to transmit imagery from unmanned aerial vehicles right up to the firing platforms.

What you'd like to do is give the pilot in the aircraft or the man manning the weapon's systems, in the case of an AC-130, the complete view of all of the intelligence information synthesized together so he knows exactly where to put the crosshairs. And in the past, we've to do that by voice. You had to say, such and such a location, it's at the base of a hill. The pilot's scanning around looking at all hills out there, and it's a little bit hard.

Now we're able to get precise digital data so you don't have to talk about it. It appears and we're able to show television imagery in some of the cockpits.

ZAHN: He also talked about the latest generation of smart bombs the JDAM's, and, I guess he also talked about needing to increase the production of those. Ultimately, how important is this weapon in the overall campaign?

CLARK: Well, it's a tremendously important weapon because it doesn't require clear air for targeting. And it's very effective if you have personnel on the ground and they can readout the location where they want the weapon to strike. They pass that to the aircraft and then if you have the right systems in the aircraft, you can, in real time, update the weapon's aim point. Then it -- it steers itself to that location. It's very precise. It's a very good weapon, if you have a technique for updating the aim point, and that's what's being developed.

ZAHN: And, if you have enough of them to go around. Do you have any concerns about not being able to beef up the production schedule here?

CLARK: I think the production schedule has been remarkably flexible. And the other thing that we discovered when we started using these weapons several years ago is that they are extremely cost efficient. And so, when you're talking about taking resources and moving them, and we started doing this, really, two and a half years ago to the production of JDAM, it turns up pretty quick.

ZAHN: You and I have, over the last several weeks, talked a little bit about the Marines, the special ops involvement, now the air force and the CIA involvement. How stretched is the U.S. military at this point?

CLARK: Well, I think some assets are stretched but, by and large, this is only a small fraction of the United States armed forces that is engaged. We've got aircraft carriers, and air wings that aren't there. We've got lots of air force aircraft and air assets that aren't there, and we have lots of ground troops that aren't there, and so I think that it's a very potent force, but there's lots, lots more behind.

For the men and women who are in some of the assets, working unmanned aerial vehicles and so forth, yes, they're under a lot of pressure. The special operations forces are under a lot of pressure, too. But, no country should ever think that the United States is anywhere near fully committed with what's going on in Afghanistan. There's plenty of potential there to take care of other challenges if necessary.

ZAHN: Good to know. General Clark as always. Thanks for covering so much territory.

CLARK: Thank you, Paula.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com