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American Morning

Sound Off: Did U.S. Military Send in Ground Troops Too Early?

Aired March 08, 2002 - 08:43   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: Now to this morning's "Sound Off." Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says he expects to have Operation Anaconda wrapped up by the weekend, but the fierce fighting continues, and Rumsfeld admits the enemy is showing no sign of surrender. As the battle rages on in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the battle lines are being drawn over whether the U.S. military jumped the gun, sending ground troops in too early into this operation.

Joining us now from New York, constitutional attorney Ann Coulter. From Seattle this morning, political commentator Carl Jeffers.

Welcome to both of you. Happy Friday.

All right, let's talk about some of the criticism that is just starting to bubble up. In "The Washington Times" yesterday, there were some unnamed political advisers to the president suggesting perhaps, Ann, that ground troops entered into this battle too early. It is strikingly different than strategies used before in Afghanistan. What do you make of this criticism?

ANN COULTER, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: Well, first of all, if Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, says we should send in ground troops, then I think we should do whatever he says. I really have total confidence that the Pentagon will decide to send in ground troops at the right moment.

But moreover, I don't understand what the alternative is, surrender? What else are we supposed to do? We've been spectacularly successful thus far. How long did the Soviet Union spend in Afghanistan? Six, seven, eight years? We've taken the entire country in under six months, or we are about to, as of this weekend. I mean, it's just an incredibly impressive accomplishment, and that's with so far only seven war casualties. It's incredibly impressive, and in addition to the fact that I don't think I'd be second guessing Rumsfeld.

ZAHN: Karl, what is your take on all of this?

CARL JEFFERS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, I have total confidence in Donald Rumsfeld, but that doesn't mean necessarily that we shouldn't be reviewing carefully the policies that are being implemented. There were a lot of people who had total confidence in General MacArthur until he made mistakes. I think that what Ann said about the war going so spectacularly well up until now is very true, but that's because we have engaged in a major air strike, and an air campaign with only minimal use of ground troops, and that's worked well for us traditionally in these types of infrastructure-type border conflicts, where we're using forces of another country to help try to eradicate the problems created by their own forces, such as the Al Qaeda.

Our problem here is that we are letting our military objectives be determined by and affected by our political objectives, and that is I think part of the problem. In 1965 in Vietnam, there are lessons to be learned here, when we decided our troops could fight the North Vietnamese better than the South Vietnamese troops could, we went in, and 500,000 American troops, and things started to go wrong for us. In this case, we need more planning.

I'm not saying troops can't go in, but we've got to spend the time to create a coordinated effort to make sure that what we're doing on the ground is part of a strategic and military strategy that will bring us results.

We've got logistical problems. We've got American troops in the mountains with snow on the ground in green camouflage uniforms. The Al Qaeda are a lot of things, but they're not color blind. We are sitting ducks in these kind of things. All I'm suggesting to is that with proper planning, with more time, with additional air support. We're bombing caves where we don't know who's in there until we bomb the cave back to the stone age. Let get more intelligence, and let's get more information, and plan the strategy in a much more comprehensive way so that we can accomplish everything.

ZAHN: All right, Ann, so what problem would you have with that approach? Perhaps more air support having been used in advance of the introduction or interjection of these U.S. ground troops, which by the way we have learned have been reinforced by some 1,000 Afghan fighters today, as well as 200 to 300 troops representing Western nations.

COULTER: Well, I think it misconceives of what's going on here to begin with, and that is, it's not that our political objectives are superseding military objectives. It's to the contrary. We were attacked, and we are fighting back. This is not a war we are fighting on behalf of Afghanistan. We are fighting this war on behalf of the United States. This is self defense. We're wiping out these terrorists. I mean, the Taliban was around for a long time. We didn't just step in, because we didn't like the Taliban and decide to replace that government. We're not helping out the Northern Alliance. We're not helping out Karzai. We are engaging in self-defense. This is America protecting itself. And to protect ourselves, of course we're sending in our own troops. There was a lot of air power, and...

ZAHN: Let's let Carl react to that. Ann is saying that these political objectives does not supersede the military objective here. I need a final assault on that, Carl.

JEFFERS: Well, that was a terrific response, because what she said was in fact exactly what I'm suggesting. She said it wasn't being affected by political objectives, and then her argument was entirely based on a political objective.

ZAHN: No, it's self-defense. It's not political.

JEFFERS: Ann, hold on just a second, I have the final thought, so I'm not going to finish. Here's the problem, three months ago our objective everyday was to capture Osama bin Laden and get rid of the Taliban and Omar.

COULTER: No, it wasn't.

ZAHN: In the last two months, you have not heard any administration official talk about capturing Osama bin Laden, because the political objective now seems unrealistic, we can't find him and therefore, there's a political vulnerability. If we don't catch him, the administration has failed, so they've changed the political objective to make it more palatable, and that's what I'm saying, we have to be careful of making the political definition of our objectives define what our military strategy is.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: We've got to leave it right there. I hate to cut the two of you off, but do we need to move on. Ann Coulter, as always, good to see you. Carl Jeffers, thank you for joining us for the first time here on AM. Appreciate both of your insights this morning.

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