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CNN Sunday Morning

Ensuring the Safety of U.S. Troops, Equipment

Aired October 14, 2001 - 07:15   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Our CNN military analyst, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd is joining us now to take a closer look at the first week of military action in Afghanistan.

And let's start -- General Shepperd, good morning to you. You're in D.C. today. It's nice to have you join us again. Let's start with this news that's happened in Jacobabad in Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan had said that U.S. troops and planes are in country but they have refused to confirm or deny that the United States is using the air bases.

If the United States, as witnesses say, they've seen planes take off back and forth from the airport, one of the airports, any air bases, if that's the case, what's the United States prepared to do to help protect U.S. troops and equipment?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good question, Donna. Let me tell you what we think about when we insert military forces. It's really easy to get things in but once you get them in, you have to do the following things. The first thing you have to do is you have to be able to protect the forces initially when you put them. Secondly, you have to be able to resupply them with food, with water, with munitions. A third, you have to be able to reinforce them should they become under attack and fifth, you have to be able to get them out. You have to be able to get them out if things really turn bad.

They -- you must understand that once we put forces on the ground, we make arrangements with the host country to protect those forces and then we also protect them as a last resort ourselves. So our forces will be protected one way or the other either by the host nation and of course, also by ourselves.

KELLEY: We're showing folks, on a map, where Jacobabad is, in the central part of Pakistan. And in the meantime, let's take a look to -- we'll have some pictures of the demonstrations that were happening today there, as we're talking. And then we're going to switch and go ahead and go in. Here you can see what's been happening in Jacobabad, Pakistan today.

SHEPPERD: Yes, as I look at these pictures, it looks to me like these are very small-scale demonstrations. But we're walking a fine diplomatic line in Pakistan. No question about it. We're having to be very, very careful about what we do there and -- with the host country and the feelings in that country.

KELLEY: So we're in the eighth day of strikes over Afghanistan. Let's take a look at some of the pictures that the Pentagon has released over this last week. We want you to take a look with us at the Pentagon photos, the before and after, and tell us what we're seeing. And we're going to start with the Kandahar surface-to-air missile site that was hit. We'll look at the pre-strike one first.

SHEPPERD: OK, first of all, we'll start off with this strike. I'm going to use the telestrator here, if it's coming up where you can see it. This is a surface-to-air missile sight, an SA-3, an old Soviet missile but very effective, below about 30,000 feet. The cuts of it is right here, the low blow radar and command and control center. Now that's what you want to take out first because once you take away that radar capability, the rest of the site is essentially useless.

We also are after what we call TELS, transporter erector launchers. Each one of these has three missiles on it and those three missiles can be fired at aircraft as directed by the radar. So again, here's what you want to take out first and then second, you want to take out the missiles here.

All right, let's take a look at the post strike, the following day and you can see what has happened, that apparently, is we've taken out the radar so it's out of commission as far as radar goes. But it looks to me like the missiles right here have not been hit. So we went back in on the second day and here's the follow-on shot after that. And you can see, again, the radar is gone and it appears that all of the missiles are gone as well.

Now, the reason you want to hit those missiles, even though the radar is gone is so you can't take those missiles to another site and use them again. So I would say that this site is totally out of commission. That SA-3 site won't be used again during the war.

KELLEY: General, what's the darkness on that picture? Is it just the picture or is just where a bomb has hit so deeply and really hit there hard?

SHEPPERD: It's a flash from the bomb, Donna.

KELLEY: OK.

SHEPPERD: This is undoubtedly a joint, direct attack munitions, GPS guided -- Global Position System Guided Bomb. It's a big bomb, 2,000 pounds. It leaves a lot of fire on the ground.

KELLEY: OK, let's go to our next one -- before the strikes at Heart.

SHEPPERD: OK, if I can get the Heart picture up there. Here's the Heart airfield and right here is the runway. now one way to put an airport out of commission is to hit the runway. You want to be careful about doing that because you may want to use that runway later for yourself, for military operations or you may want to use it to rebuild the country afterwards. What we're really concerned about here, what we want to hit is these airplanes. Notice this fighter airplanes lined up. That's a pretty dumb way to do it and a transport aircraft. The transport aircraft's a key target for moving supplies and forces. So we want to take out both of those.

And if we got to the post strike and see what happened, you can see that we have taken out the transport airplane. It is gone. We have also taken out these airplanes. It appears to me what happens is this is probably a Global Position System JDAM, Joint Direct Attack Munition that took out the transport. And it -- my good guess is that we came in with a tomahawk and released sub munitions and took out all of these airplanes.

Now, again, some of them may have been commissions, some not. But you could use spare parts from these airplanes to keep other airplanes in commission. So again, we've essentially destroyed all of the airplanes on Herat Airfield and we have not damaged the runway. So if we want to use that later, it's still OK for us to do -- Donna.

KELLEY: Real quickly, General, most of the high value targets hit at this point?

SHEPPERD: Most of the high valued targets are hit. I would expect us to being back after the fielded forces. And of course, we're trying to be very careful about this collateral damage. It has big effects and world opinion and U.S. opinion. We're trying to be careful about that. It's a fact of life and war.

KELLEY: General Don Shepperd, thanks very much as usual.

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