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CNN Saturday Morning News

War on Terrorism Requires Precise Military Planning

Aired September 29, 2001 - 11:22   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.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president once again pledged to use all of America's weapons to crush the war on terrorism. One of those, of course, the military. Joining us now from Little Rock, Arkansas to talk about military strategy is CNN military analyst and former NATO supreme commander General Wesley Clark.

General, good morning to you, sir.

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

KING: A debate yesterday, sir, about special forces, deployed we are told for the first time, missions in out and out of Afghanistan, U.S. forces, British special forces. Explain to our viewers why they might be going in and whether this is something that is routine, or a signal that perhaps something bigger is about to come?

CLARK: Well, the administration has been very clear that it was going to need to go in and get intelligence information on the ground. Whether these forces would actually strike, or whether they are merely collecting intelligence, or whether they are preparing for something else, of course, is unclear, and we don't know those plans.

It's not routine to go into a nation like this, but the activities, the actions, the movement -- the attention to security, the transportation end, the supply, the communications -- those are routine. They are practiced and rehearsed in great detail. And our troops are expert, we are the best in the world at this. And so, we can have a lot of confidence in the troops that are in there, and we just have to also have a lot of patience, because this is a process that may take days, weeks or even months, as we take apart this terrorist organization really from the outside in and from the bottom up.

The actions of the United States and Western Europe and the governments around the world to isolate these terrorist cells, to collect information from the people who have been detained and so forth are critical in getting the lines of communications and authority run back and pinpointing who is in charge and where they are, even in Afghanistan.

So, it will take team work between actions here and abroad and the actions of our men and women who are much closer to the heartland there in Afghanistan.

KING: We are about two weeks into the military deployment. Take us behind the scenes, if you will, of a part of the operation that likely won't get as much public attention, certainly no glory, but to sustain a force like that overseas, whether it would be the carrier groups at seas or the F-16s and other aircraft deployed overseas has to be a pretty significant logistics operation at play here as well?

CLARK: It is a very significant logistics operation, and it's something that we have worked on for a long time. After the Gulf War, we did improve our logistics. We first of all strengthened our ability to deploy force more rapidly. Some forces were repackaged, like the Air Force packaging its forces into air expeditionary forces rather than standard air forces. The Army has been working on speeding up its deployment, and of course our special operation forces were always capable of rapid movement.

And then, once there, they do have to be sustained. And we have added prepackaged equipment, some of it onboard ships, others stationed in the position in the United States that can be flown or shipped into the theater. And so, we have given a lot of thought to projecting U.S. forces abroad and sustaining them there.

So I think we are in relatively good shape. But this is an operation of uncertain duration. And so, a great deal of attention will be going into the logistics preparations for whatever may follow next.

KING: And General Clark, the president urges patience. The deployment around Afghanistan certainly continuing. At the same time, the United States urging the Russians to increase military supplies to the Northern Alliance, which is the opposition fighting the Taliban. Is that a signal to you that the administration is hoping as it continues the deployment that perhaps forces within Afghanistan will fight the first few battles of this war for it?

CLARK: Well, I think those forces already are fighting battles in Afghanistan, and all of this is probably connected, because as the president has said, we are going to run these people out of their holes. We are going to get them moving.

Terrorist networks, unlike conventional military forces, need stability. They need security, they need privacy, they need fixed locations. They are not effective when they are on the run and dodging security and trying to protect themselves. They operate in the shadows and in quiet places, and so as the Northern Alliance forces take even greater actions, that becomes more difficult for the Osama bin Laden/al Qaeda network to have the privacy and the quiet security that it needs to prepare its plans.

This is all part of the overall strategy of the administration.

KING: General Wesley Clark, CNN military analyst now, former NATO supreme commander, thank you for your thoughts this morning from Little Rock, Arkansas.

CLARK: Thank you, John.

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