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American Morning

After Deadliest Fighting of War, Operation Anaconda Expected to be Over in Few Hours

Aired March 18, 2002 - 07:01   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, Operation Anaconda. After more than 3,000 bombs and the deadliest fighting of the war, the battle in the mountains in eastern Afghanistan is expected to be over in just a few hours. In Bagram earlier today, General Tommy Franks awarded a Bronze Star to four U.S. soldiers and called the mission an unqualified success.

CNN's Martin Savidge is in Bagram and joins us now live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: ... objective area down in the vicinity of Shah-e-Kot, and we were going to go down there and confirm or deny what our intelligence had given us about the enemy. We did that. These very brave people, accompanied with a bunch of coalition people, went in there and did the work that needed to e done, cleared this objective area or they are finishing the clearing of this objective area. And my anticipation is that Anaconda will probably close in the next 12 hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Martin Savidge is in Bagram, and he joins us now live -- good morning, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Fredricka. Operation Anaconda is headed for the history books. After 17 days, there is only a few hours left -- actually about six hours left, according to General Tommy Franks, as you heard.

But before it ends, we want to show you what the military people here would call some high-speed video, some incredible shots, this coming from a Cobra attack helicopter. What we did was we managed to get a small television camera actually mounted inside the cockpit of this Marine helicopter. Its' a very fast, very maneuverable and very heavily armed helicopter that has been used significantly throughout Operation Anaconda, especially targeting the number of caves out there.

It's basically two people on board. You have the pilot sitting in the back. You are probably looking at the head of what is the navigator or the gunner, and he is in control of about 20 millimeter Cannon gun, flying at about 200 miles an hour, jinking (ph) and jagging through the very tough rugged terrain up there, and then actually firing the missiles that go in and strike the caves or take out the remaining al Qaeda and Taliban positions.

It really is remarkable footage up there. They are like almost fighter pilots, only they are flying in a helicopter, not in a jet fighter. They have been a major asset throughout the whole campaign up there. They came in and supplemented the work with the Apache attack helicopters as well.

So really remarkable and rare footage to see in the winding down hours of Operation Anaconda -- back to you.

WHITFIELD: And, Marty, General Franks in the Bagram area handing out the Bronze Star this morning. Tell me a little bit more about that ceremony.

SAVIDGE: Well, it really was, Fredricka, a remarkable ceremony. This, as you know, is the last day, and General Tommy Franks, the overall commander of the military operation here in Afghanistan travels all the way from Tampa, Florida from CENTCOM, where it's located there, and comes here to personally pin these five Bronze Star on the soldiers that were involved in heavy fighting in the first days of Operation Anaconda, a lot of that fighting which we personally witnessed when we were out there.

And these medals were handed out for two reasons: meritorious combat under -- or meritorious conduct, I should say, under fire, and also for valor under fire. There were a total of five recipients, only four of them that you see on stage, because one of the soldiers could not attend, but the sense of pride that you felt from the soldiers there was really remarkable -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much -- Marty Savidge at Bagram Air Force Base.

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