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American Morning
U.S. Military Pours into Kuwait City
Aired January 17, 2003 - 09:08 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: Neighboring Kuwait is where we are headed right now. Security is going to continue to be very tight around that area, as the U.S. military and a number of troops pour into Kuwait City this coming weekend.
Martin Savidge is on the scene there, ready and waiting.
Marty, hello.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.
This is delivery day here in Kuwait. What I mean by that, is it's not so much personnel coming in for the U.S. military buildup, but it is equipment, this equipment tagged now for the U.S. Marines. Not those that are here, those that are on the way. Prepositioning ships have now arrived in Kuwait, first arrived yesterday, and they begin offloading. They're continuing to offload today.
We can't show you pictures of that, the military not allowing that. They claim they are taking pictures of their own, and they will supply them to CNN, and we'll have them for you later in the day.
Prepositioning ships, in case you don't know, ships that are preplaced in oceans around the world with all of the munitions, all the equipment and all of the vehicles that are needed by the U.S. Marines. A squadron of those ships, essentially a handful, capable of carrying enough supplies to supply a task force of air and ground units for the Marines for about 30 days.
Now about the military buildup of troops, you can't get specific figures from the U.S. military here in Kuwait for obvious reasons. That's considered OPSEC, operational security. However, the numbers are continuing to grow. They say, officially 10,000. It's obviously higher than that. Some say it's 17,000. The specific numbers really aren't essential. One of the reasons you cannot do, say, a physical head count, if you look at the map of Kuwait, you can see that about a third of Kuwait has now been called off limits by the Kuwaiti government. That is the area of the northwest up near the Iraqi border, and that is where a lot of these U.S. forces are going into bases that are already established, training, rehearsing and not leaving those bases. You're not allowed to go there unless you have an invitation -- Bill.
HEMMER: Marty, thanks. Martin Savidge in Kuwait City.
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 January 17, 2003 - 09:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Neighboring Kuwait is where we are headed right now. Security is going to continue to be very tight around that area, as the U.S. military and a number of troops pour into Kuwait City this coming weekend.
Martin Savidge is on the scene there, ready and waiting.
Marty, hello.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.
This is delivery day here in Kuwait. What I mean by that, is it's not so much personnel coming in for the U.S. military buildup, but it is equipment, this equipment tagged now for the U.S. Marines. Not those that are here, those that are on the way. Prepositioning ships have now arrived in Kuwait, first arrived yesterday, and they begin offloading. They're continuing to offload today.
We can't show you pictures of that, the military not allowing that. They claim they are taking pictures of their own, and they will supply them to CNN, and we'll have them for you later in the day.
Prepositioning ships, in case you don't know, ships that are preplaced in oceans around the world with all of the munitions, all the equipment and all of the vehicles that are needed by the U.S. Marines. A squadron of those ships, essentially a handful, capable of carrying enough supplies to supply a task force of air and ground units for the Marines for about 30 days.
Now about the military buildup of troops, you can't get specific figures from the U.S. military here in Kuwait for obvious reasons. That's considered OPSEC, operational security. However, the numbers are continuing to grow. They say, officially 10,000. It's obviously higher than that. Some say it's 17,000. The specific numbers really aren't essential. One of the reasons you cannot do, say, a physical head count, if you look at the map of Kuwait, you can see that about a third of Kuwait has now been called off limits by the Kuwaiti government. That is the area of the northwest up near the Iraqi border, and that is where a lot of these U.S. forces are going into bases that are already established, training, rehearsing and not leaving those bases. You're not allowed to go there unless you have an invitation -- Bill.
HEMMER: Marty, thanks. Martin Savidge in Kuwait City.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
