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American Morning
Forces Under Fire in Iraq
Aired July 02, 2003 - 07:03 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: An American soldier died today from wounds sustained when a U.S. vehicle was fired on yesterday in Baghdad, but President Bush says the almost daily attacks will not deter the U.S. from its mission in Iraq.
Suzanne Malveaux is at the White House now with the latest on this.
Good morning -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, yesterday President Bush, honoring the U.S. military at a ceremony, said that they would not be deterred, U.S. troops inside of Iraq, from their mission despite the ongoing violence. We are talking about two dozen Americans killed by hostile fire inside of Iraq since the president declared major combat in that country over some two months ago.
Now, the president, in updating the war on terror, talked about victories, he talked about defeats, but the bottom line, he said the war on terror, the reconstruction of Iraq will be, and in his words, he said a "massive long-term undertaking."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have attacked coalition forces, and they're trying to intimidate Iraqi citizens. These groups believe they have found an opportunity to harm America, to shake our resolve in the war on terror and to cause us to leave Iraq before freedom is fully established. They are wrong, and they will not succeed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: While the president is trying to boost the morale of the troops, as well as Americans who have been looking at those numbers rise, he also did not mention, however, some of the things, the questions that many people have on their mind: the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and, of course, those weapons of mass destruction -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Suzanne Malveaux live from the White House this morning. Thanks, Suzanne.
So, just who is attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, and why? With us now from -- right here next to me, actually. We were going to have you from Washington, but we have Peter Brookes, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense, and now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Thanks, Peter, for being here.
PETER BROOKES, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Good morning.
COLLINS: So, who is shooting at U.S. soldiers? We have heard from President Bush a number of different factions. In your mind, who are they?
BROOKES: Well, I think there are several different groups probably. You have Baath loyalists, people who lost a lot with the change in regime. You may have special security organization people, the internal security folks, Special Republican Guard. There probably are also some foreign fighters in Iraq, maybe who have come in through Syria. We saw this during the war previously. Some may have come in from Iran. And, of course, there probably are some confrontations with looters and criminals. But the attacks on the American forces there are probably coming from those four groups that I mentioned.
COLLINS: So, what does the United States do? More troops? I mean, there are 146,000 U.S. troops there now. It sounds like it needs to be a little bit more of an international force. Is that your take?
BROOKES: I think that we don't need more forces. I think we may need to change our tactics. There is an old military maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy. This is a very dynamic situation, and we're just going to have to adjust our tactics. Maybe we're not going to send the troops into the markets. Maybe they are going to stay on the fringe of the markets.
We may also want to internationalize the force. We're talking to a number of nations around the world, and we may want to bring them in and take the American face off of what's going on there right now.
COLLINS: So, any idea -- or can you give us an idea of how organized this resistance is? There has kind of been some dispute about that.
BROOKES: Well, I think we're still finding a lot -- each day we're finding out a little bit more. It seems to be loosely organized. It's low-level violence. It's not large organizations. And it's probably divided among those five groups that we're seeing.
So, it's going to take a little bit of a change in tactics and it's going to need increased vigilance on the part of our forces while they're there.
COLLINS: Is there enough organization, though, or enough thought that's going into it to say that, you know, there have been just enough attacks on U.S. forces to bring serious attention to it at home? I mean, is this some sort of psychological warfare?
BROOKES: Absolutely. I mean, most people think that the Americans don't have the stomach for casualties. That's not true. They looked at Somalia in 1993, they looked at Lebanon prior to that, and they believe that if we take a couple of casualties, send kids home in caskets, that we'll pull out. But it's critical that we're successful here like the president said yesterday.
COLLINS: Was the U.S. prepared for this type of resistance?
BROOKES: Well, I think we were prepared for it, but we weren't sure exactly what we were going to see. Remember, this is a very dynamic situation, and things change from day to day and the situation is very fluid. So, we have to adjust our tactics to ensure that we're able to deal with the threat that we're facing.
COLLINS: I want to go back just for a minute, if we could, about this international force. Before the war, that was something that was very difficult to get, an international sort of support. How difficult will it be now?
BROOKES: Well, we're looking and talking to a number of countries. We already have four - at least four countries in there -- Poland, Australia, the Brits and the Americans. We're looking at some other European countries, such as the Netherlands, Poland -- I'm sorry -- Netherlands and Denmark, Guatemala, the Ukraine, a number of these folks want to help out here. And I think that we will be successful in getting to them. But a lot of them, like India who has talked about it, have to pass it through their own democratic or constitutional processes.
COLLINS: All right, and it's all going to take some time. That we know for sure.
Peter Brookes, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, thanks for your time this morning. Appreciate it.
BROOKES: OK, thank you, Heidi.
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 July 2, 2003 - 07:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: An American soldier died today from wounds sustained when a U.S. vehicle was fired on yesterday in Baghdad, but President Bush says the almost daily attacks will not deter the U.S. from its mission in Iraq.
Suzanne Malveaux is at the White House now with the latest on this.
Good morning -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, yesterday President Bush, honoring the U.S. military at a ceremony, said that they would not be deterred, U.S. troops inside of Iraq, from their mission despite the ongoing violence. We are talking about two dozen Americans killed by hostile fire inside of Iraq since the president declared major combat in that country over some two months ago.
Now, the president, in updating the war on terror, talked about victories, he talked about defeats, but the bottom line, he said the war on terror, the reconstruction of Iraq will be, and in his words, he said a "massive long-term undertaking."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have attacked coalition forces, and they're trying to intimidate Iraqi citizens. These groups believe they have found an opportunity to harm America, to shake our resolve in the war on terror and to cause us to leave Iraq before freedom is fully established. They are wrong, and they will not succeed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: While the president is trying to boost the morale of the troops, as well as Americans who have been looking at those numbers rise, he also did not mention, however, some of the things, the questions that many people have on their mind: the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and, of course, those weapons of mass destruction -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Suzanne Malveaux live from the White House this morning. Thanks, Suzanne.
So, just who is attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, and why? With us now from -- right here next to me, actually. We were going to have you from Washington, but we have Peter Brookes, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense, and now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Thanks, Peter, for being here.
PETER BROOKES, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Good morning.
COLLINS: So, who is shooting at U.S. soldiers? We have heard from President Bush a number of different factions. In your mind, who are they?
BROOKES: Well, I think there are several different groups probably. You have Baath loyalists, people who lost a lot with the change in regime. You may have special security organization people, the internal security folks, Special Republican Guard. There probably are also some foreign fighters in Iraq, maybe who have come in through Syria. We saw this during the war previously. Some may have come in from Iran. And, of course, there probably are some confrontations with looters and criminals. But the attacks on the American forces there are probably coming from those four groups that I mentioned.
COLLINS: So, what does the United States do? More troops? I mean, there are 146,000 U.S. troops there now. It sounds like it needs to be a little bit more of an international force. Is that your take?
BROOKES: I think that we don't need more forces. I think we may need to change our tactics. There is an old military maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy. This is a very dynamic situation, and we're just going to have to adjust our tactics. Maybe we're not going to send the troops into the markets. Maybe they are going to stay on the fringe of the markets.
We may also want to internationalize the force. We're talking to a number of nations around the world, and we may want to bring them in and take the American face off of what's going on there right now.
COLLINS: So, any idea -- or can you give us an idea of how organized this resistance is? There has kind of been some dispute about that.
BROOKES: Well, I think we're still finding a lot -- each day we're finding out a little bit more. It seems to be loosely organized. It's low-level violence. It's not large organizations. And it's probably divided among those five groups that we're seeing.
So, it's going to take a little bit of a change in tactics and it's going to need increased vigilance on the part of our forces while they're there.
COLLINS: Is there enough organization, though, or enough thought that's going into it to say that, you know, there have been just enough attacks on U.S. forces to bring serious attention to it at home? I mean, is this some sort of psychological warfare?
BROOKES: Absolutely. I mean, most people think that the Americans don't have the stomach for casualties. That's not true. They looked at Somalia in 1993, they looked at Lebanon prior to that, and they believe that if we take a couple of casualties, send kids home in caskets, that we'll pull out. But it's critical that we're successful here like the president said yesterday.
COLLINS: Was the U.S. prepared for this type of resistance?
BROOKES: Well, I think we were prepared for it, but we weren't sure exactly what we were going to see. Remember, this is a very dynamic situation, and things change from day to day and the situation is very fluid. So, we have to adjust our tactics to ensure that we're able to deal with the threat that we're facing.
COLLINS: I want to go back just for a minute, if we could, about this international force. Before the war, that was something that was very difficult to get, an international sort of support. How difficult will it be now?
BROOKES: Well, we're looking and talking to a number of countries. We already have four - at least four countries in there -- Poland, Australia, the Brits and the Americans. We're looking at some other European countries, such as the Netherlands, Poland -- I'm sorry -- Netherlands and Denmark, Guatemala, the Ukraine, a number of these folks want to help out here. And I think that we will be successful in getting to them. But a lot of them, like India who has talked about it, have to pass it through their own democratic or constitutional processes.
COLLINS: All right, and it's all going to take some time. That we know for sure.
Peter Brookes, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, thanks for your time this morning. Appreciate it.
BROOKES: OK, thank you, Heidi.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
