Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Troop Rotation
Aired November 06, 2003 - 07:04 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: About 40,000 National Guard and Reserve troops are getting some tough news this morning. They're being told for the first time to prepare for a one-year tour in Iraq. The orders, which went out last night, are part of a larger troop rotation plan.
CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon this morning for us.
Good morning to you -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make that formal announcement here in the briefing room at midday. He will say that thousands of additional fresh troops are headed to Iraq early next year. They will be replacing the troops there, who are about to complete their one-year tour of duty.
But much of this is also happening because the Bush administration, of course, has failed to get commitments from its international allies to form a third multinational division. So, U.S. troops will have to pick up that slack.
Let's look at the numbers for this troop rotation plan. As we have said, about a total of 100,000 new troops called for a new one- year deployment. Now, that does include, as you said, about 40,000 National Guard and Reserve troops already receiving their alert notices. Also going, though, will be a number of active duty forces that already knew they were going -- the 1st Infantry Division from Germany and the 1st Cavalry Division from Texas.
The over all plan? To try and reduce the number of troops from the current level of about 130,000 to about 100,000, maybe a little bit more depending on the security situation in Iraq early next year when all of this rotation takes place.
So, who's going to be coming home, who's finished up their tour? Well, the 101st Airborne Division, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Armored Division are making plans to come early next year -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A quick question for you, Barbara. Let's talk about this report -- or word that Saddam Hussein may have been trying to stave off war by meeting through diplomatic back channels before the war. What kind of credibility is given to that? STARR: Well, that story is getting a very mixed reception across Washington now. As a number of news organizations have reported, there was a meeting between a Pentagon official and a Lebanese American businessman just before the war began last year -- earlier this year in which the Lebanese businessman said he had back-channel contacts to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime, and he knew that they wanted to cut a deal, that they were willing to let U.S. troops, U.S. scientists into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction. An initial meeting with the Lebanese American businessman took place.
Then, he also met with a very influential advisor to the Bush administration, a man named Richard Pearl (ph). But it all really didn't go anywhere. Apparently, there was a feeling that the information wasn't really solid.
But this is now all getting the attention of congressional investigators, who want to know if the Bush administration took advantage of every possible opportunity to avoid war.
Late yesterday, the Pentagon spokesman, Larry DiRita, issued a statement about all of this. He said that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had ample opportunity through highly-credible sources over a period of several years to take serious action to avoid war and had the means to use highly-credible channels to do that. Nobody needed to use questionable channels to convey messages.
So, a bit of a pushback from the Bush administration about all of this saying that these back-channel communications simply weren't creditable -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us this morning. Barbara, thanks.
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 November 6, 2003 - 07:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: About 40,000 National Guard and Reserve troops are getting some tough news this morning. They're being told for the first time to prepare for a one-year tour in Iraq. The orders, which went out last night, are part of a larger troop rotation plan.
CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon this morning for us.
Good morning to you -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make that formal announcement here in the briefing room at midday. He will say that thousands of additional fresh troops are headed to Iraq early next year. They will be replacing the troops there, who are about to complete their one-year tour of duty.
But much of this is also happening because the Bush administration, of course, has failed to get commitments from its international allies to form a third multinational division. So, U.S. troops will have to pick up that slack.
Let's look at the numbers for this troop rotation plan. As we have said, about a total of 100,000 new troops called for a new one- year deployment. Now, that does include, as you said, about 40,000 National Guard and Reserve troops already receiving their alert notices. Also going, though, will be a number of active duty forces that already knew they were going -- the 1st Infantry Division from Germany and the 1st Cavalry Division from Texas.
The over all plan? To try and reduce the number of troops from the current level of about 130,000 to about 100,000, maybe a little bit more depending on the security situation in Iraq early next year when all of this rotation takes place.
So, who's going to be coming home, who's finished up their tour? Well, the 101st Airborne Division, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Armored Division are making plans to come early next year -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A quick question for you, Barbara. Let's talk about this report -- or word that Saddam Hussein may have been trying to stave off war by meeting through diplomatic back channels before the war. What kind of credibility is given to that? STARR: Well, that story is getting a very mixed reception across Washington now. As a number of news organizations have reported, there was a meeting between a Pentagon official and a Lebanese American businessman just before the war began last year -- earlier this year in which the Lebanese businessman said he had back-channel contacts to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime, and he knew that they wanted to cut a deal, that they were willing to let U.S. troops, U.S. scientists into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction. An initial meeting with the Lebanese American businessman took place.
Then, he also met with a very influential advisor to the Bush administration, a man named Richard Pearl (ph). But it all really didn't go anywhere. Apparently, there was a feeling that the information wasn't really solid.
But this is now all getting the attention of congressional investigators, who want to know if the Bush administration took advantage of every possible opportunity to avoid war.
Late yesterday, the Pentagon spokesman, Larry DiRita, issued a statement about all of this. He said that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had ample opportunity through highly-credible sources over a period of several years to take serious action to avoid war and had the means to use highly-credible channels to do that. Nobody needed to use questionable channels to convey messages.
So, a bit of a pushback from the Bush administration about all of this saying that these back-channel communications simply weren't creditable -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us this morning. Barbara, thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
