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CNN Saturday Morning News

Pentagon and White House Officials Refuse to Comment on Reported Anti-Aircraft Fire Over Kabul

Aired October 06, 2001 - 11:02   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Pentagon and White House officials not commenting on reported anti-aircraft fire over Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul. The Taliban say their forces fired on an American aircraft from three positions but never hit it.

Also, the White House responding to the Taliban's offer to release eight detained western aid workers in exchange for an end in what the Taliban calls, "U.S. military propaganda." The Bush administration says it will not negotiate with the Taliban.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld back in Washington after a visit in the Middle East and Central Asia. He called on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Uzbekistan to help the U.S. in its war against terrorism.

Last hour, we heard the president's radio address, a weekly event from Camp David. I want to go to John King again in Washington for more on this and everything else that's moving in the nation's capital on a Saturday.

John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello again, Bill. Good morning to you. As you know, the president up at Camp David. He is already, this morning, met with his National Security Team. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on hand with the president at Camp David, as is his chief-of-staff, Andy Card. Other officials from the government participating in that meeting through a teleconference.

The White House says, "no comment." The Pentagon, no comment as well on those reports out of Kabul. We saw the pictures -- a plane in the sky. It had the streak of an anti-aircraft missile, surface-to- air missile, we believe, fired by the Taliban although the Taliban denying they filed such a missile. You see here, residents pointing into the sky, some sort of an aircraft in the sky. The speculation of course, that it was a U.S. unmanned reconnaissance plane. The Pentagon saying, "no comment." The White House "no comment" as well.

But the president focusing, in his weekly radio address, on the continuing military buildup in the region, the U.S. commitment to the humanitarian effort as well. Mr. Bush making clear, in that radio address, he says, the war on terrorism is not a war against the Afghan people, that the United States will do all it can to help them with food and medical supplies. But Mr. Bush also serving notice and listen to his rhetoric, strong words again for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban. Mr. Bush repeating his ultimatum, that if the Taliban wants to survive, it must turn over Osama bin Laden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Taliban has been given the opportunity to surrender all the terrorists in Afghanistan and to close down their camps and operations. Full warning has been given and time is running out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Mr. Bush spending the weekend at Camp David but in constant touch with his National Security team of note. We are told, he wants to speak firsthand with the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, just back from a trip to the region and the president focuses increasingly on his military options, also involved in urgent discussions within the administration and in negotiations with Congress on a multibillion dollar economic stimulus package.

The president yesterday saying he believes the bulk of that package, about $60 billion, should be tax cuts, a continuing debate with the Congress about that. Some Democrats not seeing eye-to-eye with the president on the specifics of that very important proposal -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right, John. John King in Washington thanks. To Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, for about the intended target and what it might have meant or been doing over Kabul, Joie Chen joins us now from Atlanta. The Pentagon isn't confirming anything, right, Joie?

JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely, Kyra. As we just heard from John, the Pentagon not confirming anything but the assumption is that it is one of two kinds of U.S. drones.

One is the Global Hawk, F-5's Hawk, 50- or 60,000 feet effort, broad range and what is called long dwell capability. It can stay in one place and look around for a long period of time. This is the newest reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. military.

And another possibility is it could have been the Predator, which is a smaller unmanned drone. It operates at much lower altitude over a much shorter range. Again, though, the Pentagon hasn't said.

We want to get some more insight. We turn now to CNN military analyst, retired general, Wesley Clark, the former Supreme NATO commander.

General, you have seen the videotape, I presume, of what was shot over Kabul. What do you think it was? GENERAL WESLEY CLARK (RET), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, it probably was an unmanned aerial vehicle. It probably was a Predator. Can't tell exactly. It's a little hard to get a sense for the perspective. And it looks like it was engaged by at least one anti-aircraft missile.

CHEN: One anti-aircraft missile that brings up the important point the Taliban says it wasn't a missile. What's your argument against that?

CLARK: Well, I saw something streaking through the sky. It looked like it was moving pretty fast. It was emitting a smoke trail. Normally, that's a missile of some type fired.

CHEN: It looks like a missile, sounds like a missile, probably is a missile from your view that...

CLARK: Probably is.

CHEN: What does this tell us about the Afghan capability, the Taliban capability? There is quite a bit of intelligence about what the Taliban might have at its disposal in terms of anti-aircraft.

CLARK: Well, they've got some weapons that have been provided to them. Some they captured from retrieving Soviet forces in the 1980s. Others probably have been sent in since. They've got some people who know how to operate this. They're probably getting some assistance from some of the Arab people on Osama Bin Laden's team. They'll try to put together an integrated air defense system. They probably have some radars. But this is not a hard target for the United States if we make up our mind to go in there. It's just one of the conditions of the battlefield that we'll be prepared to deal with.

CHEN: In terms of actually facilities, what they might have available, we understand that there are surface-to-air missiles available in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This is old material they have.

CLARK: This is. It's old. It may have been somewhat modernized. There are different ways to modernize these systems. We found that the Serbs had tried to modernize some of their old materials. Some of the modernization works to some degree but -- and we obviously have to tactically -- in a military sense, we always respect the capabilities of a potential adversary. And so we'll be -- you know, we'll be taking all the appropriate defense measures should we decide to do something.

CHEN: Is there any assessment of skill level of the operators of these things?

CLARK: I wouldn't have an assessment on firsthand experience. Obviously, these people haven't been engaged in the air defense business before. Unlike the case, let's say in Iraq or in Serbia where is long experience with watching NATO aircraft and their maneuvers or the coalition aircraft coming out of Operation Southern Watch, flying over southern Iraq. These people know how our aircraft perform. They know the radar signatures and so forth. In Afghanistan, they don't have that experience. Maybe they brought in some experts. But this is not going to be the kind of challenge, I don't think, from the air defense perspective that we've had in other places recently.

CHEN: A note to our viewers, what you're looking at is the video shot earlier today. It came to us from Al-Jazeera. In air emissions -- it is a cable operator there and have given CNN use of this video. This is what the people Kabul saw earlier in the day. And we are getting General Clarks' assessment of all that.

General, I wonder if this was in fact a U.S. drone that was operating in some sort of reconnaissance capacity, in a certain sense, might it not be useful that some sort of anti-aircraft was fired at it. After all, isn't that the purpose of reconnaissance, to figure out where the anti-aircraft material is on the ground?

CLARK: Well, I think the Taliban has to expect that anything they do in reaction to our reconnaissance activities, we're going to assess and we'll see what's down there.

So yes, they are in some respect, giving away their positions. But remember, we've got very good reconnaissance. So we see a lot from the sky, whether or not they shoot back.

CHEN: Retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, thanks very much for your insight.

CLARK: My pleasure.

CHEN: And with that, we turn back to New York and Kyra there.

PHILLIPS: All right, Joie, thank you very much. A Titan-4 rocket carrying a top-secret payload has been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Intelligence experts believe the payload contains satellite imaging equipment, which could be used to spy on suspected terrorists.

HEMMER: Kyra, this time I'm going to go overseas to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and CNN's Nic Robertson is standing by. We've been talking about this aircraft that flew over Kabul earlier today. Nic, now with more from that part of the world.

Nic, hello again to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, the Taliban denying that they fired a surface-to-air missile at that aircraft that was in the sky. And they also said, that they fired anti-craft guns at it and then that it disappeared. Having been in that city before, when it's been attacked by aircraft, when the Northern Alliance still had fighter capability -- this is some three years ago -- still had fighter capability, able to drop bombs on the city, there are a lot of positions that will often open up on an aircraft coming into the city.

We've seen a lot of anti-aircraft fire before. We've seen a lot of missile activity before in the case of the city being attacked. So this is something that the Taliban have become, to a degree, familiar with. Although, the Northern Alliance for some several years now has not had the capability to launch fighter attacks on the capital. So the Taliban's capacity to respond to aircraft flying over the city, is somewhat diminished.

But certainly, the Ministry of Defense today being -- the Taliban Ministry of Defense, being very clear that they did fire anti-aircraft guns and not a surface-to-air missile. However, the people on the ground in Kabul say that they saw this surface-to-air missile. It missed. One has to draw the conclusions from that.

However, the Taliban today did make an offer linking international aid workers, the eight international aid workers -- two Americans, four Germans and two Australians. They did make an offer linking them to what they called the propaganda that the United States is trying to tell the people of Afghanistan that they are under threat from attack. But the Taliban aren't under attack.

The Taliban saying that if this, what they call propaganda, is stopped against the people of Afghanistan, offering to release those aid workers. However, the Taliban did say that they were ready to be attacked to themselves.

Now, the United States has offered just recently to increase massively the amount of aid they're ready to put into Afghanistan and have announced ways that they'll do it -- by airdrops, by road, by mule train if necessary. Clearly, the battle is on for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people at this time -Bill.

HEMMER: Indeed it is, Nic. Now, the question remains and still outstanding if indeed the message will get through. Nic Robertson in Islamabad. Nic, thanks to you.

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