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American Morning
Military Update
Aired March 26, 2003 - 07:17 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: We're going to get a military perspective now on what is happening. We're joined by CNN military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange, a man who I don't think has slept in about a week now, with Renay San Miguel at the CNN Center, who I've also seen on TV it seems about 24 hours a day.
Good morning, gentlemen.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: It does seem like that. Good morning to you, Paula. Thank you very much.
We are going to talk about some of the developments over the last few hours here with General Grange.
Just start off with what's going on just south of Baghdad. It appears to -- we've got some animation showing the troop movements of the coalition forces. It appears to be the biggest push so far to head up with those Republican Guard units just south of Baghdad.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, they're going to continue to push hard into the area just south of Baghdad by Karbala and Najaf. A lot of fighting is going to go on there, because that's the outer defensive positions of the Republican Guard divisions, in this case probably the Medina.
But they are also augmented by forces -- paramilitary forces that are -- provide resistance on river crossing sites, around villages and things like that. That's where you get the sniping fire, the mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenade fire that has been reported by our forces.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, and then we move on up to the north here, because there was some activity. CNN's Kevin Sites reporting some bombing runs up near Chamchamal, which is just to the east of Kirkuk. We haven't talked a lot about the northern efforts yet, have we?
GRANGE: Well, the northern efforts are developing. They're building up the coalition forces in the area to integrate with the Kurd forces, so they have a cohesive drive on whatever their objectives are in northern Iraq. And they dont want to fragment it. They want to have unity of effort. They want to make sure that it is not (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They want to make sure that all of the resources that can be applied against the Iraqi military with the Kurds are appropriate for that type of target they're going after.
So a lot of coordination and planning, and that has to be done prior to any launching of major attacks. SAN MIGUEL: And as we saw with Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, it does take a little bit of time to coordinate with the local force, if you will, with whatever coalition forces are on the ground.
GRANGE: Exactly, yes.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, and then I wanted to ask you quickly, Baghdad has also been getting some targeting. The TV tower there, ATV tower, it was taken down, as we heard Barbara Starr tell us.
Now, we just heard just a few minutes ago Prime Minister Tony Blair get a question from one of his associates in the House of Commons, you know, what's being done to do this, and apparently the coalition is listening. But you know, I guess the question could be asked: Why have we waited until the sixth day of the campaign?
GRANGE: There are several key points here, I believe. And one is that is there information to be gained by leaving it up? Did the coalition forces want to degrade, disrupt or destroy the capability? We don't know that.
And so they may be applying different levels of destruction or degradation depending on the results that they want from that targeting.
SAN MIGUEL: We've got a lot more to talk about in the morning, but right now, we'll go back to Paula. Thank you for your time.
Paula -- back to you.
ZAHN: Thank you both for your input this morning.
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 March 26, 2003 - 07:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to get a military perspective now on what is happening. We're joined by CNN military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange, a man who I don't think has slept in about a week now, with Renay San Miguel at the CNN Center, who I've also seen on TV it seems about 24 hours a day.
Good morning, gentlemen.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: It does seem like that. Good morning to you, Paula. Thank you very much.
We are going to talk about some of the developments over the last few hours here with General Grange.
Just start off with what's going on just south of Baghdad. It appears to -- we've got some animation showing the troop movements of the coalition forces. It appears to be the biggest push so far to head up with those Republican Guard units just south of Baghdad.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, they're going to continue to push hard into the area just south of Baghdad by Karbala and Najaf. A lot of fighting is going to go on there, because that's the outer defensive positions of the Republican Guard divisions, in this case probably the Medina.
But they are also augmented by forces -- paramilitary forces that are -- provide resistance on river crossing sites, around villages and things like that. That's where you get the sniping fire, the mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenade fire that has been reported by our forces.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, and then we move on up to the north here, because there was some activity. CNN's Kevin Sites reporting some bombing runs up near Chamchamal, which is just to the east of Kirkuk. We haven't talked a lot about the northern efforts yet, have we?
GRANGE: Well, the northern efforts are developing. They're building up the coalition forces in the area to integrate with the Kurd forces, so they have a cohesive drive on whatever their objectives are in northern Iraq. And they dont want to fragment it. They want to have unity of effort. They want to make sure that it is not (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They want to make sure that all of the resources that can be applied against the Iraqi military with the Kurds are appropriate for that type of target they're going after.
So a lot of coordination and planning, and that has to be done prior to any launching of major attacks. SAN MIGUEL: And as we saw with Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, it does take a little bit of time to coordinate with the local force, if you will, with whatever coalition forces are on the ground.
GRANGE: Exactly, yes.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, and then I wanted to ask you quickly, Baghdad has also been getting some targeting. The TV tower there, ATV tower, it was taken down, as we heard Barbara Starr tell us.
Now, we just heard just a few minutes ago Prime Minister Tony Blair get a question from one of his associates in the House of Commons, you know, what's being done to do this, and apparently the coalition is listening. But you know, I guess the question could be asked: Why have we waited until the sixth day of the campaign?
GRANGE: There are several key points here, I believe. And one is that is there information to be gained by leaving it up? Did the coalition forces want to degrade, disrupt or destroy the capability? We don't know that.
And so they may be applying different levels of destruction or degradation depending on the results that they want from that targeting.
SAN MIGUEL: We've got a lot more to talk about in the morning, but right now, we'll go back to Paula. Thank you for your time.
Paula -- back to you.
ZAHN: Thank you both for your input this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
