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American Morning

Insights on Latest Missions in Afghanistan

Aired January 02, 2002 - 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, for additional insight now into the latest military missions overseas in Afghanistan, we turn now to our military analyst, General Don Shepperd. Good to see you again. And, once again, happy new year to you, General Shepperd. Is the General there?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, I am, Leon.

HARRIS: There you -- there you go.

SHEPPERD: Happy new year.

HARRIS: All right. Happy new year. Sort of a little delay there, but we've got you nonetheless.

Now let's talk about the Marine mission that Bill Hemmer was reporting on moments ago. This mission into this -- this other province, the Helmand province, exactly. What is it that those Marines were going in there looking for? And would you say that after hearing what they did come out with that they're satisfied with this particular mission?

SHEPPERD: Well, I think they're satisfied, Leon, from the standpoint of they're gradually expanding their operations outward from the Kandahar Airport. They're available there to do anything that they're called upon to do, but it's very important that this not be a Marine war or a United States war. Basically, the governor of the Kandahar province, Sherzai has basically said that his forces are going to go up into the Helmand province to try to get those soldiers up there to surrender and hand over Mullah Omar.

The Marines were basically getting intelligence from reportedly a very robust compound of around 14 buildings. Now it remains to be seen what they actually got, but every little piece paints a bigger picture not only of where people might be at that instant within Afghanistan, but where they came from, what they are using, looking for things such as weapons of mass destruction, chemical -- efforts to get chemical warfare weapons and this type of thing. So it all fits together, Leon. It's all an important part of it.

HARRIS: All right, so then what are the odds in that Mullah Omar may be found, and soon? SHEPPERD: Well, I -- it's just like bin Laden. We don't know exactly where he is. If we did, we'd probably either be putting a bomb on him or we'd be there right now. But, again, the idea behind this is to find out where he is, get them to hand him over. If not, to fight, to bomb. But we want to make sure that we know we've got him.

I think that he is in Afghanistan. I think he's in Helmand province. But, still, it's still a big area, and lots of places to hide in northern Helmand in the -- in the providence next to it, which is Oruzgan province. Lots of caves, lots of tunnels in there. Even rumors that bin Laden might be there with him. So it's still going to a while, I think, before we know. It's not in the next few hours or even, perhaps, in the next few days.

HARRIS: You know, one thing we haven't talked about much recently has been -- is the idea of the Taliban actually cooperating and uncovering anything that they may have been -- been trying to conceal up to this particular point.

Now with the -- with the death of that intelligence chief that we talked about last hour, and now the closing circle around Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, perhaps, as well, any signs at all that there is additional cooperation coming from the Taliban that's actually paying off in any way?

SHEPPERD: Well, this is really a tough picture. Remember, Kandahar is the seat of the Taliban; it's where they came from and then expanded across the country. And it's not clear when they change sides and/or cooperate, hand things over, even disarm, that their hearts are going with the switch in sides. They are very fundamentalist; it's this fundamentalist movement, again, is where this came from. And so we have to be very, very careful.

And, again, it's up to the Afghans themselves to establish control over this country over an extended period of time. Our job is to root out the al Qaeda and the remaining Taliban senior leadership cells, and then let the Afghans rebuild their country with our help and a police force and the international security assistance forces.

HARRIS: All right, let's talk about that a little bit. The 101st Airborne has come again to replace the Marines there in Kandahar. Can you give us a picture of exactly how the mission is going to change once they do arrive?

SHEPPERD: Yeah, they're going to bring in more forces and heavier forces. Remember, the MEUs -- Marine Expeditionary Units -- are about 2,200 people, of about which 1,000 actually go forward off the ships. The rest of them are support elements. So you have a reinforced battalion ashore -- or in this case, two of them from the 15th and 26th MEUs.

The 101st Airborne has around 15,000 troops in the division, if you bring them all in. You likely won't do that, but you'll bring in more forces. And those forces will expand security in the Kandahar area, and then be on call to support the international security assistance teams, the robust police force around the country, if they run into trouble over this next six-month to two-year period in the interim government, Leon.

HARRIS: Yeah, and one good sign is that there haven't been any reports of any problems so far. They've been on the ground in this -- at least this interim force they're taking on doing the police work there for the what -- the last week or so now? And no reports of any problems yet, correct?

SHEPPERD: Yeah. Just what we've learned on Afghanistan: don't get comfortable. As soon as you think things are going well, something bad is going to happen. These forces out there are in extreme danger all the time. This is a dangerous place. Taliban everywhere, people have switched sides everywhere, arms everywhere. We've got to get it disarmed; we've got to get a police force in there; we've got to get a functioning government. It's a tough -- it's a tough problem.

HARRIS: Very good. Wise caution there. Major General Don Shepperd, thank you very much. Once again, happy new year to you. Thanks for coming in.

SHEPPERD: Thank you.

HARRIS: Keeping early hours for us today.

SHEPPERD: You bet.

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