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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Brian Bennett
Aired November 16, 2003 - 09:05 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.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Opposition fighters in Iraq are variously called terrorists, insurgents, Saddam loyalists and die-hard Ba'athists. Whatever you call them, coalition commanders agree they are becoming more efficient, better organized and coordinated.
Brian Bennett is reporting this story in this week's issue of "TIME" magazine, and he joins us now from Baghdad with the latest. And we have to talk about this latest incident involving the two Black Hawks. We don't know the exact cause yet, as Chris Plante just mentioned, but sources are telling CNN that one of the choppers may have been trying to avoid ground fire and may have touched rotors that way.
What does that indicate to you about the shift in strategies that we are seeing from some of these insurgents or terrorists?
BRIAN BENNETT, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, we are certainly seeing helicopters in the air being targeted by the insurgents. What I've noticed this week after talking to several sources is that the insurgency is getting better organized. Just a few weeks ago, it was really just a bunch of independent cells of insurgents operating independently from each other. And now it looks like the leaders are talking to each other, coordinating and sharing information on tactics and targets.
SAN MIGUEL: And is Saddam, you know, putting any input into these meetings at all from what you've been able to find out?
BENNETT: I talked to one source who says that Saddam has been relaying messages to a few of the cell leaders. But in no means is he sitting in a hideout somewhere in front of a sand board controlling the resistance operations on a national level. But I have heard that he is giving input and directing a few of the attacks.
SAN MIGUEL: And what you're finding out from your sources there, who are these -- the foreign fighters? You know, anything new concerning whether they are indeed some of the former regime members, just die-hard Saddam loyalists, as U.S. officials have said, or is there something new out of the equation here?
BENNETT: Well, there's certainly -- a large majority of the fighters are Saddam loyalists. And people considering themselves to be Iraqi nationalists that are fighting against what they call the occupation of the Americans. But there's no doubt that there are some foreign fighters that have come into the country, and they are fighting alongside the Iraqis. And I heard from one source that they have -- the Iraqi former Ba'athists and military commanders have been training the foreign fighters that are coming in, in how to use the RPG launchers that are already here on the ground.
SAN MIGUEL: And some of those RPG launchers have been used -- possibly have been used with great success with these helicopters. But some of the ammunition that was found by the U.S. after the war, after the central part of the war, you know they took out some of the guidance systems but they left the ammunition in these warheads. How have those been used by some of the terrorists there?
BENNETT: One source who is close to a resistance cell in the area of Fallujah told me that the -- that cell was responsible for the bombing in Nasiriya that killed many Italian troops just earlier this week -- last week. And what they did is they found a disabled surface-to-air missile that the Americans had taken the booster out of so it could no longer be propelled into the air against aircraft. But the Americans apparently, according to this source, had left the warhead of the missile intact. And so they were able, this man said, to extract that warhead, wire it with a detonating device and drive it down to Nasiriya, where they considered the defenses of the foreign troops stationed there to be not as built up as they are in the area around Fallujah.
SAN MIGUEL: So based on this information you have been able to glean from your sources there about better coordination, the kind of tactics that they're using, which includes not attacking U.S. troops in their hometown, some of these cells. A cell from Fallujah might go somewhere else in the country and vice versa. Based on all of this, what is the U.S. military -- how are they adjusting their tactics to deal with this?
BENNETT: Well, with the Operation Iron Hammer, the U.S. military is trying to go on the offensive to try to bust up some of these cells and have been conducting a number of raids in the last three and four days around Baghdad and Fallujah. They are also calibrating mortar reaction forces that, when mortars are incoming, not only do they have soldiers lying in wait in certain areas where resistance might be firing mortars from, but they're also able to be ready to respond with mortar artillery that can identify the position from which a mortar was fired, and retaliate exactly at that position.
SAN MIGUEL: A top general said last week, Brian, that he believed that Saddam had planned all along to wage this kind of guerrilla campaign, and that's why perhaps caches of ammunition were stashed around the country. Have you been able to find anything to corroborate that?
BENNETT: I haven't seen anything that indicates that this was a grand scheme from the very beginning. Certainly, there are lots of ammunition dumps from the former regime and the former Iraqi military all over the country. And those have not been able to be successfully guarded from the very end of the war by the Americans.
I think a lot of those, it's clear from sources, were looted during the chaos after the war. And some of the fighters who looted them were either going to keep them to sell or keep them to use against the Americans. Also, it's clear that because it's taken about six months for the resistance to gain the kind of organization and tactical strategy that it's showing now, I think that's an indication that this is a plan that has evolved over the last several months.
SAN MIGUEL: Well, the article is called "Who are the Insurgents?" It's by Brian Bennett of "TIME" magazine. It appears in this week's "TIME."
Brian, thanks so much for your time. We do appreciate it.
BENNETT: Good to be with you.
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 16, 2003 - 09:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Opposition fighters in Iraq are variously called terrorists, insurgents, Saddam loyalists and die-hard Ba'athists. Whatever you call them, coalition commanders agree they are becoming more efficient, better organized and coordinated.
Brian Bennett is reporting this story in this week's issue of "TIME" magazine, and he joins us now from Baghdad with the latest. And we have to talk about this latest incident involving the two Black Hawks. We don't know the exact cause yet, as Chris Plante just mentioned, but sources are telling CNN that one of the choppers may have been trying to avoid ground fire and may have touched rotors that way.
What does that indicate to you about the shift in strategies that we are seeing from some of these insurgents or terrorists?
BRIAN BENNETT, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, we are certainly seeing helicopters in the air being targeted by the insurgents. What I've noticed this week after talking to several sources is that the insurgency is getting better organized. Just a few weeks ago, it was really just a bunch of independent cells of insurgents operating independently from each other. And now it looks like the leaders are talking to each other, coordinating and sharing information on tactics and targets.
SAN MIGUEL: And is Saddam, you know, putting any input into these meetings at all from what you've been able to find out?
BENNETT: I talked to one source who says that Saddam has been relaying messages to a few of the cell leaders. But in no means is he sitting in a hideout somewhere in front of a sand board controlling the resistance operations on a national level. But I have heard that he is giving input and directing a few of the attacks.
SAN MIGUEL: And what you're finding out from your sources there, who are these -- the foreign fighters? You know, anything new concerning whether they are indeed some of the former regime members, just die-hard Saddam loyalists, as U.S. officials have said, or is there something new out of the equation here?
BENNETT: Well, there's certainly -- a large majority of the fighters are Saddam loyalists. And people considering themselves to be Iraqi nationalists that are fighting against what they call the occupation of the Americans. But there's no doubt that there are some foreign fighters that have come into the country, and they are fighting alongside the Iraqis. And I heard from one source that they have -- the Iraqi former Ba'athists and military commanders have been training the foreign fighters that are coming in, in how to use the RPG launchers that are already here on the ground.
SAN MIGUEL: And some of those RPG launchers have been used -- possibly have been used with great success with these helicopters. But some of the ammunition that was found by the U.S. after the war, after the central part of the war, you know they took out some of the guidance systems but they left the ammunition in these warheads. How have those been used by some of the terrorists there?
BENNETT: One source who is close to a resistance cell in the area of Fallujah told me that the -- that cell was responsible for the bombing in Nasiriya that killed many Italian troops just earlier this week -- last week. And what they did is they found a disabled surface-to-air missile that the Americans had taken the booster out of so it could no longer be propelled into the air against aircraft. But the Americans apparently, according to this source, had left the warhead of the missile intact. And so they were able, this man said, to extract that warhead, wire it with a detonating device and drive it down to Nasiriya, where they considered the defenses of the foreign troops stationed there to be not as built up as they are in the area around Fallujah.
SAN MIGUEL: So based on this information you have been able to glean from your sources there about better coordination, the kind of tactics that they're using, which includes not attacking U.S. troops in their hometown, some of these cells. A cell from Fallujah might go somewhere else in the country and vice versa. Based on all of this, what is the U.S. military -- how are they adjusting their tactics to deal with this?
BENNETT: Well, with the Operation Iron Hammer, the U.S. military is trying to go on the offensive to try to bust up some of these cells and have been conducting a number of raids in the last three and four days around Baghdad and Fallujah. They are also calibrating mortar reaction forces that, when mortars are incoming, not only do they have soldiers lying in wait in certain areas where resistance might be firing mortars from, but they're also able to be ready to respond with mortar artillery that can identify the position from which a mortar was fired, and retaliate exactly at that position.
SAN MIGUEL: A top general said last week, Brian, that he believed that Saddam had planned all along to wage this kind of guerrilla campaign, and that's why perhaps caches of ammunition were stashed around the country. Have you been able to find anything to corroborate that?
BENNETT: I haven't seen anything that indicates that this was a grand scheme from the very beginning. Certainly, there are lots of ammunition dumps from the former regime and the former Iraqi military all over the country. And those have not been able to be successfully guarded from the very end of the war by the Americans.
I think a lot of those, it's clear from sources, were looted during the chaos after the war. And some of the fighters who looted them were either going to keep them to sell or keep them to use against the Americans. Also, it's clear that because it's taken about six months for the resistance to gain the kind of organization and tactical strategy that it's showing now, I think that's an indication that this is a plan that has evolved over the last several months.
SAN MIGUEL: Well, the article is called "Who are the Insurgents?" It's by Brian Bennett of "TIME" magazine. It appears in this week's "TIME."
Brian, thanks so much for your time. We do appreciate it.
BENNETT: Good to be with you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
