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CNN Saturday Morning News

What Makes Taliban Forces Tough?

Aired October 27, 2001 - 11:52   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: The Taliban are proving to be tough adversaries. What they lack in offense, they make up for in defense. And despite early optimistic predictions that they would fall apart under attack, the Taliban still hang on.

CNN military analyst retired Army General David Grange joins me now with some insights.

General, good to see you.

GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good day. How are you?

PHILLIPS: Very good. So what makes the Taliban so tough, from your experience within the Army?

GRANGE: Well, the Taliban -- the people live a harsh life. They're not concerned about if they're going to go to the mall today, what movie's playing in the cinema, buying ice cream. They're worried about their AK-47s, where they're going to get their ammunition, what meager rations they have. They just lead a tough life, so already they're hard and tight people.

PHILLIPS: Well...

GRANGE: Go ahead.

PHILLIPS: No, no, no, please continue.

GRANGE: Well, it's very similar, I think, to the North Vietnamese Army. The North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War were very tough soldiers. Their infantry was probably some of the finest in the world. And they lived in the jungle and they were tough, and they were a very worth opponent.

So just the -- living in the environment makes them tough before they get any kind of military training -- just the ability to handle that.

PHILLIPS: Well let's get some perspective on where some of the fighting is going on. We're going to turn over to our graphic here to give folks an idea. And as we fly into Afghanistan, just past Kabul we reach an area known as Bagram. Let's talk a little bit about the significance of this area, sir. GRANGE: Well again, you see very tough terrain. It gives those in defense a very good advantage. Remember, when you're fighting on the ground, ground is an ally to the fighter. Any time you have firepower coming your way, the dirt is your friend. And they are masters at using the terrain to their advantage to, again, negate the effectiveness of our firepower, whether it be from the air or from the ground.

PHILLIPS: But then the U.S. has mountain warfare teams. How do these guys stand up against, you know, the Taliban that knows this area so well? Is there any competition?

GRANGE: Absolutely. They have an advantage of knowing the terrain. Again, very similar to the Vietcong, the North Vietnamese in Vietnam and some other places that we've fought. They know the terrain.

But we have very, very tough soldiers. And a lot of our units like the Ranger units take pride in training their soldiers in adversity, under very harsh conditions with meager rations, the experience of what combat's like. And a lot of them are combat veterans as well.

So yes, we have very, very tough soldiers and very worthy competition with any of these forces.

PHILLIPS: Let's fly over the mountains to the city of Taloqan and talk about forces there and advantages there. Go ahead sir.

GRANGE: Yes, same thing. Again, very tough terrain. Helicopters are very good in this terrain to get you over mine fields, to get you over natural obstacles. But again, they're also vulnerable to certain types of fire.

If we have to use our helicopters -- our forces in there, using helicopters as an example, we have great pilots that know how to operate in this stuff. And we'd use nighttime, most likely, because we have a lot of good night-vision capability. We own the night, relatively speaking.

But we're going to rely on the anti-Taliban forces in a big way to help us understand this ground if we do go in. And then again if it's the anti-Taliban fighting Taliban forces, they both know the ground.

I mean, you just heard a great story about an anti-Taliban leader wounded 16 times. I mean, these are tough guys that have a lot of combat experience. But it's the same on both sides.

PHILLIPS: And you mention the anti-Taliban forces. The Northern Alliance said to be coming in closer to Mazar-e Sharif, close to a capture of this area. Why is it taking so long?

GRANGE: Well, you know, an operation -- there's a lot of expectation that air power is going to cause the Taliban forces to fold. Never does air power alone cause any ground forces to fold. And again, you go back to the places like Vietnam, where we had B-52 strikes going in, close air support, artillery fire, and you go on the ground right after all that firepower went in.

The ground is churned up like powder knee deep, and you get on the ground and there's still people coming out of the holes. So it's very tough to kill human beings when they use ground properly in combat. And so you have to have a ground offensive tied to the air offensive to be successful.

And right now the anti-Taliban is still outgunned, out-manned; and our air support is going to help them, but it's going to still take very shrewd, very clever ground maneuver operations in order to win and take terrain like you're talking about.

PHILLIPS: And the Rangers are exactly the type of soldier that are ready for that, right sir?

GRANGE: Rangers, our paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne, our 101st Air Assault Forces, our 10th Mountain. We've got great soldiers that are ready for this kind of fighting, if they're employed.

PHILLIPS: General David Grange, thank you so much.

GRANGE: Thank you.

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