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CNN Sunday Morning

Is the U.S. Planning to Change Its Strategy in Tora Bora?

Aired December 16, 2001 - 10:07   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We heard from Secretary Powell and the United States is not 100 percent sure where Osama bin Laden is hiding, could that signal a shift in U.S. military tactics in the Tora Bora region?

Well, our military analyst Ret. Army Gen. Wesley Clark joins us again from Little Rock, Arkansas. Hello General.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, what do you think? Could we see a shift of tactics?

CLARK: Well, I think we have already seen the beginnings of a shift. The administration has done everything it can to play down expectations that Osama bin Laden was certainly going to be taken. And we have had various reports in the press of Special Forces troops and American officers and others arriving in other countries. We have heard about the Philippines. We have heard press suggestions of Somalia. So it's clear that the administration means exactly what it says. This is going to go on until the al Qaeda network is rooted out of, perhaps, 50 countries.

PHILLIPS: Now, from your experience, lets talk about a manhunt and how a manhunt begins. Is it the type of situation, well at least in this war, where you bomb an area and then ground troops go in and secure and then you bomb the next area and go and secure. How does the process go? It's very slow and deliberate, right?

CLARK: It is. It's going to be slow and deliberate, because there's no point in pushing our allies there on the ground up forward getting a bunch of people killed for nothing. That's exactly what al Qaeda would have wanted. So we did go slowly and deliberately.

The idea was to be able to encircle the area and as best possible cut off any escape routes. Now, we know from previous experience in military operations it's virtually impossible to do -- may be it was done well. We've got some initial reports this morning about few people captured by the Pakistanis as they tried to cross the border into Pakistan, but by and large it seems that the numbers that were suggested to be there up 1,000 or 2,000 fighters, those numbers are no longer being talked about.

We've heard 200 killed, 50 captured, 100 tired to escape on mules or something. So we don't know where the mass of this people as -- may be the initial reports were exaggerated.

We just have to go slowly and we have to, what's called, clear the area. We really don't know, and I don't think the Afghans on the ground know either all the caves that might have been there and where the entrance and exits might be, and so it's going to take a matter of days to go through that area and really exploit it.

PHILLIPS: Back to the issue of the Marines that were injured at the Kandahar Airport. Is that going to become a main focus right now -- are these mines and booby traps -- I mean, now that Taliban forces are, you know, said to be completely demolished, you have the worry of booby traps.

CLARK: Well, that's exactly right. And I think what we will see is a slow steady effort to clear the mines from some of the most critical areas in the Kandahar Airport complex, and I think, the troops on the ground are going to be very cautious, probably bring in additional equipment.

Everyone has a healthy respect for mines and booby traps. We've dealt with these many places in the world, but still, we can be caught off guard. I'm happy that the injuries aren't life threatening, but we got to remember that even non-life threatening injuries can be very, very serious. People have their limbs blown off and other things by these mines. We don't what the nature of these injuries are, but our troops are going to be careful, as they should be.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. Gen. Wesley Clark, thank you so much.

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