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CNN Saturday Morning News
The Unique Abilities of U.S. Special Forces
Aired October 20, 2001 - 09:36 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: A hit-and-run Special Forces raid like the one last night in Afghanistan is difficult, dangerous, and it's certainly complex.
Joining us to talk more about that is CNN military analyst General Don Shepperd. Before we begin, we want to stress again, general, that we are not out to give away state secrets, we're not out to jeopardize anyone's lives in this military operation.
But give us some insight. What is it that boots on the ground, so to speak, can do that airplanes and missiles to this point have not been able to do?
MAJ. GEN. DONALD SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Martin, I appreciate the way CNN is going about this. We're being very careful to make sure we're not putting our young people in harm's way. These are people on dangerous missions behind enemy lines, the standard commando tactic. These are the ninjas, the James Bond in military uniforms. They've been practicing this a long time, and they're very, very good at it.
But it's exceedingly dangerous, and this is the opening phase of the ground war. The secretary of defense yesterday characterized it as, you can't do everything by air, you have to have some boots on the ground to do certain things, and we're seeing that now, Martin.
SAVIDGE: Kandahar, obviously, was the target. The Pentagon even admits perhaps the airport. Again, what it is it that someone on the ground can do that the Air Force cannot, let's say?
SHEPPERD: Well, basically, one thing about the munitions delivered from the air is you get a lot of collateral damage. These people do all sorts of things. In addition to specific targets, to blowing things up, they do snatches, they do rescues, they put things out of commission. So people have to do that type of thing.
As you know, we're looking for al-Qaeda, terrorist cells, that type of thing. It's going to take people on the ground, and evidently we've got them on the ground now.
SAVIDGE: There were about 100 members of the Rangers Special Forces. What is it that they can do? Specifically, how are they trained? SHEPPERD: Well, these are highly trained soldiers, specialists, if you will, 58 days of training above and beyond basic training, very, very difficult. They are trained to go in behind enemy liens. We've got a video provided by Special Operations Command to show us some of the things we do.
And if we can roll that video, I think it'll give the viewers a very good feeling. What we see here is an M-H47 helicopter, "M" means Special Forces. You see soldiers coming out of it in combat gear. They're -- they have their individual weapons. You can see them supporting each other as soon as they come out. They come out ready to deploy. They also, in these helicopters which carry 30 to 40 troops, they can put vehicles in.
This is a modified version of the Land Rover for Special Forces. They have other things, perhaps, such as motorcycles that we see later in later segments in this tape.
Again, this is daylight so that the viewers can see it. People can also do this at night. The idea is to get in and get out quickly, and reports are that all 100 of the commandos, if those are accurate figures, are back safely. That's really good news. Very complicated, very dangerous, done at night, can also be done in bad weather.
SAVIDGE: And this obviously is designed to deny what the Taliban would like to see, which is the direct intervention of a large assaultive ground forces.
SHEPPERD: Yes, we want to be very careful about what we're saying about targets in this thing. The reports that it was Kandahar, we will wait to see if that's confirmed by the Pentagon. They'll be very reluctant to talk about specific targets.
But wherever there are Taliban, they can expect that we have this capability. We don't want them to know if we're coming from north, south, east, west, above, or below. We have the capability to insert them in all sorts of ways, and to hit them where it hurts. That's what Special Operations is about, it's what the Rangers are about.
The 75th Ranger Regiment, three battalions stationed across the United States, they can move in 18 hours. They're very light. They're not heavy troops. They go in, they go out. And they're supported by heavier Army forces following on later. Right now they're out, Martin, and that's good news for us.
SAVIDGE: It is indeed, general. Thank you very much.
And the Rangers have a very proud heritage to follow.
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