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American Morning

Look at Turkey in War

Aired December 04, 2002 - 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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Our military analyst retired Brigadier General David Grange joins us live today from Chicago.
Good to see you again. It's been some time since we have spoken here.

BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID GRANGE, U.S. ARMY (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning.

HEMMER: What do you think eventually? Does Turkey come around? Is it a cash payment, is it an inducement? What happens?

GRANGE: I think Turkey will come around. Turkey is a reliable ally. They are in a key geographic location for, actually, war anywhere in this region. They are a member of NATO, though this is not a NATO operation, or at least at this time. But the operation could be done with limited use of Turkey. But it would be advantageous to have full use.

HEMMER: How critical, then? If you can do it without it, how critical do you see in terms of the overall planning picture involving Turkey?

GRANGE: The ease of giving flexibility to any plan, both inducing ground or air forces -- however, our military in the United States is a force projection military. It has the ability to do force entry and could force its way into northern or western Iraq and launch from there for ground operations. But it would be much more difficult, of course, than having Turkey agree for us to cross their borders.

HEMMER: General, take me back to December 1990 and January of 1991. What was Turkey's position at the end of the Gulf War?

GRANGE: We couldn't use ground troops and the plan may never have had those type of ground troops (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from the north as an avenue of approach. But Turkey did let us use air space, air bases, and search and rescue for downed pilots, which is a very critical support item.

HEMMER: Ultimately, you had the Kurds in the north after the conflict was over. Looking back, then, how much did this contribution from Turkey helped the U.S. and allied coalition on the military side?

GRANGE: Oh, it helped immensely, even though it wasn't a large ground movement. Just for the air support alone -- which is still Turkey's position - is invaluable to the success of this mission. HEMMER: When you look south of Iraq, when you look at Kuwait and Camp Doha that has about 10,000 U.S. Army personnel now. You've got the air force base in central Saudi Arabia. You're got this big buildup in Qatar, where Central Command is essentially taking upwards of 1,000 people out of Tampa, putting them in the Persian Gulf region. Just when you put the pieces together here, it seems like there's been extremely high amount of fire power south of the border with Iraq. Would that then say to most people that Turkey ultimately is not necessary, or is that logic wrong?

GRANGE: You want to present to an enemy multiple avenues of approach, so he has to look in more than one direction. Turkey is still key for that aspect. So is to the west, whether it be Jordan or just use of western Iraq. This 30,000-plus armed forces already in the region with a lot of firepower. Still not enough for some of the possibilities as is planned...

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: What do you think is enough, then?

GRANGE: I think it's going to be closer to over 200,000 mark, maybe no more than 250,000. The reason I say that, we are always focused on the attack phase of an operation. The attack phase of the operation may be the shortest or the fast strike, small force. But as soon as the regime is taken down, the country has to be secured. Oil fields have to be secured. Thousands of people have to be disarmed. And a reconstruction consolidation phase started. That's going to take a lot of troops, and it's all going to depend on coalition support. If they don't come through, then Americans have to do it.

HEMMER: I want to get back to Qatar here quickly. Our viewers are going to be hearing a lot about this next week. Tommy Franks, Donald Rumsfeld going to the region there. There's going to be a coordinated military game -- I guess is the best way to classify it right now -- where U.S. forces will be using computers trying to coordinate all the activity between the Air Force, the Marines, the Army and the Navy in the area there. How much of this is truly a military exercise, and how much of this is a statement to Baghdad that the U.S. means business?

GRANGE: Both. Every potential crisis area in the world we have war gamed our military. And again. it's prudent to do that. It's like a rehearsal. It's to sort out command and control and communication issues. But it does also send a signal to Saddam that we mean business.

HEMMER: Retired Brigadier General David Grange, in Chicago, stay warm there.

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






Aired December 4, 2002 - 09:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Our military analyst retired Brigadier General David Grange joins us live today from Chicago.
Good to see you again. It's been some time since we have spoken here.

BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID GRANGE, U.S. ARMY (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning.

HEMMER: What do you think eventually? Does Turkey come around? Is it a cash payment, is it an inducement? What happens?

GRANGE: I think Turkey will come around. Turkey is a reliable ally. They are in a key geographic location for, actually, war anywhere in this region. They are a member of NATO, though this is not a NATO operation, or at least at this time. But the operation could be done with limited use of Turkey. But it would be advantageous to have full use.

HEMMER: How critical, then? If you can do it without it, how critical do you see in terms of the overall planning picture involving Turkey?

GRANGE: The ease of giving flexibility to any plan, both inducing ground or air forces -- however, our military in the United States is a force projection military. It has the ability to do force entry and could force its way into northern or western Iraq and launch from there for ground operations. But it would be much more difficult, of course, than having Turkey agree for us to cross their borders.

HEMMER: General, take me back to December 1990 and January of 1991. What was Turkey's position at the end of the Gulf War?

GRANGE: We couldn't use ground troops and the plan may never have had those type of ground troops (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from the north as an avenue of approach. But Turkey did let us use air space, air bases, and search and rescue for downed pilots, which is a very critical support item.

HEMMER: Ultimately, you had the Kurds in the north after the conflict was over. Looking back, then, how much did this contribution from Turkey helped the U.S. and allied coalition on the military side?

GRANGE: Oh, it helped immensely, even though it wasn't a large ground movement. Just for the air support alone -- which is still Turkey's position - is invaluable to the success of this mission. HEMMER: When you look south of Iraq, when you look at Kuwait and Camp Doha that has about 10,000 U.S. Army personnel now. You've got the air force base in central Saudi Arabia. You're got this big buildup in Qatar, where Central Command is essentially taking upwards of 1,000 people out of Tampa, putting them in the Persian Gulf region. Just when you put the pieces together here, it seems like there's been extremely high amount of fire power south of the border with Iraq. Would that then say to most people that Turkey ultimately is not necessary, or is that logic wrong?

GRANGE: You want to present to an enemy multiple avenues of approach, so he has to look in more than one direction. Turkey is still key for that aspect. So is to the west, whether it be Jordan or just use of western Iraq. This 30,000-plus armed forces already in the region with a lot of firepower. Still not enough for some of the possibilities as is planned...

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: What do you think is enough, then?

GRANGE: I think it's going to be closer to over 200,000 mark, maybe no more than 250,000. The reason I say that, we are always focused on the attack phase of an operation. The attack phase of the operation may be the shortest or the fast strike, small force. But as soon as the regime is taken down, the country has to be secured. Oil fields have to be secured. Thousands of people have to be disarmed. And a reconstruction consolidation phase started. That's going to take a lot of troops, and it's all going to depend on coalition support. If they don't come through, then Americans have to do it.

HEMMER: I want to get back to Qatar here quickly. Our viewers are going to be hearing a lot about this next week. Tommy Franks, Donald Rumsfeld going to the region there. There's going to be a coordinated military game -- I guess is the best way to classify it right now -- where U.S. forces will be using computers trying to coordinate all the activity between the Air Force, the Marines, the Army and the Navy in the area there. How much of this is truly a military exercise, and how much of this is a statement to Baghdad that the U.S. means business?

GRANGE: Both. Every potential crisis area in the world we have war gamed our military. And again. it's prudent to do that. It's like a rehearsal. It's to sort out command and control and communication issues. But it does also send a signal to Saddam that we mean business.

HEMMER: Retired Brigadier General David Grange, in Chicago, stay warm there.

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