Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Don Shepperd Offers Analysis of Errant Bomb; Update on Wounded

Aired December 05, 2001 - 09:04   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: Those in the military sometimes talk about the so-called fog of war. As Leon just told you, two American soldiers are dead, 20 more are being treated after that friendly fire bombing accident north of Kandahar. The Pentagon confirming some of them experiencing life-threatening injuries.

CNN military analyst Major General Don Shepperd joins us from Washington with more.

General, you, in the last hour, laid out some of the possibilities of what may have happened. Have you gotten any information from any of your sources that would help us better understand what went wrong?

MAJOR GENERAL DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, a little bit more, Paula.

Let me set the stage for you, if I can. Here is a group of special forces soldiers under attack. Mortars, rockets perhaps, gunfire going around, it's really, really loud, you're breathing hard and you want air attack to attack those people that are -- that are shooting.

And here's what happens. The special forces soldiers have GPS, global position system receivers, that tells them their location. They stick their head up out of the foxhole. They use a laser-marking device to designate the target or the enemy positions. That then converts from where they are to the geographic location of the target. Those coordinates then are relayed either by telephone or by radio either through satellite or directly to the airplane. In this case, reportedly probably a B-52 overhead. When those coordinates get there, they then have to be typed into the JDAM, the joint direct attack munition, which is a satellite-guided weapon, and then the weapon has to hit the target.

You can see all of the things that can go wrong in this process. People under fire, mistakes that happen, it can fail mechanically at any portion along the way. And then, of course, in the end, the bomb itself can go errant. So there's a great deal that can go wrong to cause these accidents. It's a tragic, tragic accident.

ZAHN: And there really, sir, you're telling us this morning there's no way to prevent this from happening? SHEPPERD: Well there are ways to prevent it. In other words, you basically slow down. But when you come under fire, you take your chances and you hope nothing goes wrong.

We practice these things on many, many occasions. But in the fog and friction of war when the bullets are whizzing around you and mortars going off, and those of us who have been in this business have been there, it's really excruciating. You're trying to hurry to get firepower on the target. It used to take days, then we got it down to hours, it now takes minutes, but all of these things can go wrong either mechanically or physically or human error.

We're going to investigate this. It's on tapes, there's stuff in the computers in the airplanes, so we'll try to see what went wrong to try to prevent it in the future. But although this stuff looks easy, it's exceedingly dangerous and complex and things can go wrong and they just did tragically.

ZAHN: General Shepperd, walk us inside the halls of the Pentagon now and the kinds of conversations that might be taking place. The Pentagon, of course, confirming not only the two soldiers dead among the 20 injured, some of them are facing life-threatening injuries. What is the immediate impact of the mistake and how it affects immediate bombings down the road here?

SHEPPERD: Very simple, Paula, we all understand the risk of this. This is our business. It is very, very dangerous, and we are well trained and our equipment is good. But the immediate reaction is not to stop the bombing, is to find out what went wrong as rapidly as possible, make a quick assessment to see what went wrong to prevent it from happening tomorrow or the next day, but you will not be stopping bombing because this happened.

Now there's another dangerous situation in Tora Bora taking place where the opposition forces are reportedly racing to try to find bin Laden and al Qaeda and we are bombing in the same area. That's very dicey, and the same thing can happen in that area either with our own special operations forces or the opposition forces that are attacking. It's very dangerous, very complex and really risky.

ZAHN: General Shepperd, as always, thanks for your expertise.

With more now on today's bombing in Afghanistan which claimed, as we've said, two American lives, let's go to CNN's Walter Rodgers who is standing by with the U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan. He joins us now by phone with the latest.

Walt, good morning, what have you learned?

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Flights of U.S. Marine helicopters from this base in southern Afghanistan shuttled back and forth between this base and the area north of Kandahar where the B-52 bomb went astray killing two Americans, wounding 20 others, as well as an untold number of anti- Taliban forces. The helicopters brought both the injured Americans and the wounded Afghans to this U.S. Marine base which has 10 Navy doctors on the site. The American wounded were immediately transferred to a C- 130 Hercules and MediVacked to other U.S. military hospitals in the region for treatment. The Afghan wounded are being treated here in their own country at this forward Marine post. A Marine's spokesman told the news media pool here -- quote -- "we treat our allies the same way we treat ourselves. And certainly for anyone fighting alongside us, we have made available all of our medical facilities and staff."

There is a Navy field surgical unit on this base situated in three tents and a warehouse. The U.S. media pool on the Marine base is very tightly controlled, but we were able to see some of the 20 Afghan wounded that were brought here. We saw one with his arm in a sling being escorted to and from the base latrine. Another Afghan waved to the news media pool, his injuries did not seem very severe.

Heavy B-52 bombers headed for Kandahar, like the one involved in the mishap, are regular sights here above the Afghan desert. Normally, the B-52s were welcome visions with their white contrails in the dawn sky. Not this time, however, today one of their bombs went off course, killing those two Americans and triggering a large medical evacuation of Afghan and American wounded afterwards -- Paula.

ZAHN: Walt Rodgers, thanks for that update.

It has been just one week since the last reported friendly fire incident in Afghanistan. U.S. special forces were helping the Northern Alliance stop a POW uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif. U.S. air strikes were called to help end the intense fighting at the fortress. Five American servicemen were injured when an errant U.S. missile struck nearby. Some of the servicemen are talking to the media about the incident for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all the guys that were along the wall that were ducking down calling that there was incoming shrapnel. And then they panned to a big plume of black smoke. We were underneath that big plume of black smoke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't hear anything and then all of a sudden -- I didn't hear an exposition or anything, it was just all of a sudden I could feel myself flying. And, like I said, everything was brown. Once I hit the ground, my first thought was I just laid there in a little ball because I was -- I was thinking, OK, now something's going to land on top of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: The servicemen suffered injuries ranging from broken bones to ruptured eardrums. They were all awarded Purple Hearts and all are expected to make a full recovery.

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