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American Morning
Wave of Sabotage in Iraq
Aired August 18, 2003 - 07:21 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: More now on the wave of sabotage in Iraq.
Retired Air Force Colonel Mike Turner is our guest now in Colorado Springs.
Welcome back, Colonel.
Good to have you here on AMERICAN MORNING.
I know at the outset you were against this war. You were against the occupation of the U.S. forces. You'd like them to leave. But knowing that that is probably not going to happen with 150,000 strong, what does the sabotage events that we've witnessed over the weekend, how much more difficult does that make the U.S. mission?
COL. MIKE TURNER, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, it's a classic situation where you've placed a conventional army into a completely defensive position. We're posed now as occupiers in a country which has no, effectively no civilian infrastructure, no functioning government and it's a classic guerrilla warfare environment, which places that conventional force completely on the defensive basically 24 and seven. And all the cards on the table have been handed to the so-called guerrillas in Iraq.
All they have to do is pick their time and their place and the conventional forces, the U.S. forces are completely on the defensive. It's an extraordinarily difficult defensive situation that we've placed our troops in.
HEMMER: Yes, understanding all that, going forward right now, how do you change the U.S. role? There are those who say you have to reduce the U.S. presence and the way to do that is to pull in a multinational force.
Your thoughts on how that could happen at this point?
TURNER: Well, I think that's absolutely correct and it's something that clearly we should have anticipated before we got into this. We have to bring in the multinational organization. We need to get U.N. top cover, political top cover to reduce the U.S. presence. The simple fact of the matter is that Ambassador Bremer is correct, that it is the prior regime's, the responsibility for the failure in the society, or the various failures, belong to the prior regime.
But that's not what the people see. What the people see is who is the person to blame of the moment, and that is the U.S. occupying force. The only way we can mitigate that responsibility, or at least the perception of that responsibility, is to bring in a multinational force.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration, I read this weekend that they are absolutely determined not to have multinational and U.N. involvement on a large scale and that's very problematic unless we have the resources and the will to commit to the long-term.
HEMMER: We're almost out of time here. But I do want to point out last week, in talking with experts who just got back from Iraq, that they say the Iraqis are well aware of the sabotage being committed by fellow Iraqis. It is a huge challenge right now for the U.S. to try and get more progressive Iraqis to help join the cause, because you can't guard a pipeline that runs 300 miles long up into the border with Turkey.
Colonel Mike Turner, thanks, live in Colorado.
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 August 18, 2003 - 07:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the wave of sabotage in Iraq.
Retired Air Force Colonel Mike Turner is our guest now in Colorado Springs.
Welcome back, Colonel.
Good to have you here on AMERICAN MORNING.
I know at the outset you were against this war. You were against the occupation of the U.S. forces. You'd like them to leave. But knowing that that is probably not going to happen with 150,000 strong, what does the sabotage events that we've witnessed over the weekend, how much more difficult does that make the U.S. mission?
COL. MIKE TURNER, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, it's a classic situation where you've placed a conventional army into a completely defensive position. We're posed now as occupiers in a country which has no, effectively no civilian infrastructure, no functioning government and it's a classic guerrilla warfare environment, which places that conventional force completely on the defensive basically 24 and seven. And all the cards on the table have been handed to the so-called guerrillas in Iraq.
All they have to do is pick their time and their place and the conventional forces, the U.S. forces are completely on the defensive. It's an extraordinarily difficult defensive situation that we've placed our troops in.
HEMMER: Yes, understanding all that, going forward right now, how do you change the U.S. role? There are those who say you have to reduce the U.S. presence and the way to do that is to pull in a multinational force.
Your thoughts on how that could happen at this point?
TURNER: Well, I think that's absolutely correct and it's something that clearly we should have anticipated before we got into this. We have to bring in the multinational organization. We need to get U.N. top cover, political top cover to reduce the U.S. presence. The simple fact of the matter is that Ambassador Bremer is correct, that it is the prior regime's, the responsibility for the failure in the society, or the various failures, belong to the prior regime.
But that's not what the people see. What the people see is who is the person to blame of the moment, and that is the U.S. occupying force. The only way we can mitigate that responsibility, or at least the perception of that responsibility, is to bring in a multinational force.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration, I read this weekend that they are absolutely determined not to have multinational and U.N. involvement on a large scale and that's very problematic unless we have the resources and the will to commit to the long-term.
HEMMER: We're almost out of time here. But I do want to point out last week, in talking with experts who just got back from Iraq, that they say the Iraqis are well aware of the sabotage being committed by fellow Iraqis. It is a huge challenge right now for the U.S. to try and get more progressive Iraqis to help join the cause, because you can't guard a pipeline that runs 300 miles long up into the border with Turkey.
Colonel Mike Turner, thanks, live in Colorado.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
