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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: The True Story Behind `Black Hawk Down'

Aired January 19, 2002 - 09:41   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: "Black Hawk Down," it opened most places besides New York and Los Angeles yesterday, last night. Lot of talk about this movie, particularly in light of the fact that the United States is involved in the war against terrorism right now.

Joining me to talk about it and take your e-mail questions as well as your phone calls are -- and let's get this straight now, folks. We do know now, we've had this settled, he's a brigadier general, retired. Right, general, is that correct?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: That's right. And if there's any confusion, just call me a Ranger.

O'BRIEN: All right, fair enough. Which -- my other guest is nodding his head and saying that's probably a better honorific than any old general title, right?

STAFF SGT. KEN THOMAS (RET.), FORMER U.S. ARMY RANGER: He's right.

O'BRIEN: We might want to turn some lights on on Kenny Thomas here, shed some light on this story. Kenny Thomas is one of the Rangers who was actually on the ground in Mogadishu for that really hellacious firefight back in 1993.

And we have some great questions for both of you gentlemen. Let's get right to them, shall we? The e-mails have been coming in since we mentioned in this morning.

"I was your buddy at Pathfinder in May-June of 1993" -- we don't know who this person is, he didn't sign it, but Kenny thinks he knows who it is -- "the only Marine in the course. Me and a couple of buddies went to the movie last night, and we're obviously impressed with the lack of Hollywood glamour. I was wondering if you and your Ranger buddies had any input if a certain scene was getting out of hand, would you -- the producers listen to you and get it right? Semper Fi, Rangers lead the way."

GRANGE: Semper fi? What's that all about?

THOMAS: Let's not quibble with that.

O'BRIEN: Anyway... THOMAS: Yes. I -- you know, the Rangers, there were a few guys that were Somalia veterans that were there on the set, and you can absolutely see their input in the attention to detail and the realism that was seen on screen. It's a good thing that we had those guys there, because there's things that only we would even know...

GRANGE: Right.

THOMAS: ... most of the public wouldn't know. But you can see that, you know, detail -- I felt like they really did a good job and tried to keep it real.

O'BRIEN: Well, so you, as someone who has been there, looked at that movie and said, That's pretty authentic, I mean, within certain confines of Hollywood...

THOMAS: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... and I think your character was a composite of three.

THOMAS: Correct, correct. A lot of the guys were.

O'BRIEN: But you don't have a problem with that.

THOMAS: No.

O'BRIEN: OK.

All right, this one is for General Grange. This comes from a Colonel Jeff Mikutis. I hope I pronounced that correctly. "How did the loss of the two Black Hawks during this mission" -- and I will just add parenthetically, not to mention 18 U.S. servicemen -- "impact future tactics of employing helicopters for similar missions in large, hostile urban areas?" Good question, colonel.

GRANGE: Yes, the tactical question also, there's a strategic answer we ought to touch on too.

First of all, never put soldiers into harm's way unless you plan to go the distance and win, and we should have learned that from Vietnam.

Back to the tactical level, about the helicopters in urban areas. It's very tough, it's very dangerous, and you have to make a decision whether you're going to land right on the objective, which puts helicopters in direct fire range, or you land offset from the objective and move by foot to that target.

And so it affects, depending on the intelligence you have available, on a target area, and what kind of suppression you have to suppress the area as you're coming in to land.

So it's a commander's decision, depending on the situation.

O'BRIEN: You know, just watching this movie and that scene there recreated, I know that the commanders are able to watch this in real time, on live -- I've never seen that video. Has that been released to the public at all? Anybody seen that? Have you seen it, Kenny?

THOMAS: I've seen it, but, you know, I was in the military when I saw it.

O'BRIEN: You would have access. All right.

THOMAS: It's pretty compelling.

O'BRIEN: It would be compelling, needless to say.

Let's take a phone call. George is on the line from Georgia. George, go ahead.

CALLER: Miles?

O'BRIEN: Oh, it's Joe McCutcheon, I apologize...

CALLER: Yes, Miles, how you doing?

O'BRIEN: Little miscommunication there.

CALLER: You and Catherine are doing a fantastic job. I'd like to ask the general, I'm watching the equipment in the movie, general, do you think that we have the proper money and equipment to wage a long-time war against terrorism and win it?

GRANGE: Well, your key part of your question is the long term. We have great equipment in special operations forces, but we have to improve the -- the lot of the equipment in a conventional forces, like the infantry, which are also going to be key in fighting terrorism around the world in the next at least decade.

And this equipment's constantly upgraded, all the time, improvements are made. And what's key about this new equipment coming in is that the soldiers then need to integrate it, because equipment, new technology, serves the soldier, and it enhances his ability to fight. And that's the key piece, the person comes first, the soldier comes first, and then this new equipment enhances their capabilities.

O'BRIEN: All right. This e-mail actually is a good follow-up to that one, general, and Kenny, I'd like you to comment on it as well, since you were there. "As with most military operations, U.S. commanders in Somalia undoubtedly requested more resources -- weapons, logistics, personnel, intelligence, et cetera -- than they received in preparation for their mission. Are you aware of any incident in which a request for critical resources during preparations or during the execution of the mission was not acknowledged or honored by authorities in Washington? If you are aware of such incidents, can you please comment on where the failure occurred?" Steve Harris in Annapolis gives us that good question.

Kenny, why don't you start?

THOMAS: Well, of course, I think everyone's aware of -- there was a big deal made about not getting the armor and the Specter gunships that General Garrison requested. But at the time, we as men on the ground had everything that we needed to complete the mission. I've said before, that's the mindset you have to have going in, and you have faith in your leadership.

General Garrison and those -- and Colonel Boyken (ph) and then like General Grange, we would follow them anywhere, and they're not going to send us someplace if they don't feel they have the necessary equipment to complete the mission.

So we went in fully confident that we had everything we needed behind us to come out victorious.

O'BRIEN: General Grange, do you want to add to that?

GRANGE: Yes, I would. I think Ken's right. However, when General Garrison or any commander on an operation says, Look, this is -- to complete this mission, this is -- I have what I need. But plans change. As soon as you enter the battlefield, there's chaos, and you have to plan for the worst.

And if the ground commander asks for something like an AC-130 gunship or something else, just in case, then the -- it ought to be provided to that commander immediately, because the goal is to win and save your own people's lives. So that should be supported.

O'BRIEN: Boy, it all seems so simple when you guys say it, but obviously things get a little more complicated when politics gets involved, and diplomacy gets involved.

Here's a good e-mail. "Do you ever get frustrated that the United Nations sends our soldiers around the world, risking their lives, and spending the taxpayers' money, and related, I guess, do you believe that if America could act without entangling alliances, we could better protect the interests of our soldiers and the republic?" That comes from Ron Cabrera in Northridge, California.

Kenny, what -- I mean, United Nations forces, lot of controversy about those. Some people say that is ceding some authority that perhaps we don't need to for our military.

THOMAS: Yes, I don't think the United Nations is ever going to send us anywhere. That ultimate decision is made by us, which in turn is handed down to the people who vote the people in office who make the decisions to send us.

So what I can say about that is, if we're going anywhere as the United States military, make damn sure that it's important enough that it's worth the risk of lives, because if you get into a combat situation, casualties will happen.

O'BRIEN: General Grange?

GRANGE: That was well said. The U.N. doesn't send our soldiers anywhere. That's the decision of our own political leadership. And the key is, though, if you do get sent on the operation, resources for -- resource it for success. And sometimes having the U.N. back the mission that we're involved in is key for the mandate, just internationally, to have it justified that we're going in to do this mission.

But we could very well go in unilaterally. We don't have to have U.N.'s permission.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's get a phone call in. Eduardo's in California this morning, up early. We appreciate that, Eduardo. Your question, please.

CALLER: Good morning. Before I make my points, I'd like to say that I'm a Vietnam veteran. I served as a light weapons infantryman with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in a place called Ben Hua (ph), South Vietnam.

So excuse me if I seem a little disbelieving about official government reasons for military adventures. But that's what I learned in Vietnam.

There are some very important reasons to question what we were doing in Somalia and whether or not it was a humanitarian mission. The big piece that's often left out is that four American oil giants -- Conoco, Amoco, Phillips, and Chevron -- had negotiated oil concessions with the previous government, covering two-thirds of the land area of Somalia, because they believed there were huge oil deposits there.

They needed a stable government in Somalia to be able to access...

O'BRIEN: Eduardo...

CALLER: ... those oil deposits.

O'BRIEN: Eduardo, could we just get to a question, please? Time is scarce.

CALLER: Well, the question is why CNN is promoting this movie so much without asking any journalistically responsible questions, like whether or not oil is a factor, and whether or not CNN is helping now sell another intervention that may kill another 10,000 Somalis? Because 10,000 is the accepted estimate of the number of Somalis killed by that so-called humanitarian mission...

O'BRIEN: All right.

CALLER: ... in 1992 and 1993.

O'BRIEN: Eduardo, I think for the record, the question was just posed. I'm going to send that over to -- Let's get -- rank has its privileges and its disadvantages. General Grange, I'll let you bat that one out of the park, if you can.

GRANGE: Yes, thank you very much. All military operations are tied to the political will, for some reason, and it may be because of economics, it may be because of just security of our homeland or our interests abroad.

But, you know, when Ken or other Rangers go in on a mission, they don't know about that, and they may not even care about that. The point is, on these missions -- and I've been at Ben Hua as well with the 101st, and I had a lot of questions in Vietnam, just like we're talking about Somalia right now.

But once you go in, regardless of the reason, then resource for success. And the mission's not -- the mission was not to go in and secure, I don't think, something for business reasons, it was to go in to have a stable government. It's in our interest to have stable governments around the world for security reasons.

O'BRIEN: All right, we're going to take a brief intermission, and retired staff sergeant Kenny Thomas, Ranger, has decided to recuse himself from that subject matter, something about it being way above his pay grade. So we're going to let that pass, and we're going to take a break. We have many more questions, e-mail, and telephone questions for them, so stay with us for a little bit more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, we're back with "Reporter's Notebook," joining us, Brigadier General David Grange, retired, and Staff Sergeant Kenny Thomas, retired, hosted by citizen Miles O'Brien, not currently retired.

Let's do an e-mail question. "Traditionally, there has been unspoken tension between the leadership of our military and special operations forces. With the release of `Black Hawk Down,' and the performance of the special forces in Afghanistan, have we turned the corner in the relationship between the military and the SOF? Very respectfully, Roger Dee Carstons," who is a major in, guess what, special forces.

Kenny, what are your thoughts?

THOMAS: You know, as a soldier, I was never aware of any kind of conflict between the military at the higher ranks and special operations forces. I know that it takes a -- it's a crazy breed of person that will go into special operations and stay in it and do it successfully. It's -- you know, General Grange can probably -- he was more closely related to the people who make those decisions.

O'BRIEN: All right, I think it's been sent up the chain of command there, general. What do you have to say on that one?

GRANGE: Well, having served, I guess, half my career in special operations and the other half as a infantryman, sometimes there's a little rub, but overall, I didn't see a lot of conflict between it, and I think that a good commander, if he doesn't understand the value of heavy, heavy forces, light forces, special operating forces, other services like the Marines, if you understand that relationship, and you can't combine those for an effective task force for a fight, then you're not a very good leader.

And I think the relationship is fine. Some just appreciate it a little bit better than others.

O'BRIEN: All right. Quick question for Kenny, Dale Friessen has this, he's one of our frequent e-mailers. Question is, "How do you feel when you hear recent requests from Somalia for the West to assist in creating an orderly society there? You've been there, you've seen it. Is that a possibility?"

THOMAS: Well, anything's a possibility. However, I -- you know, you'd have to ask some people that are there in country right now. Are there still gunshots, random gunshots, around the city? Are there still people toting weapons around in the streets? It's a largely lawless society, and if we're going to talk about some sort of order in there, first you got to establish a government. And I'm going to ask you, what government's there that we would even consider a government?

It's going to be a long time, before hell freezes over, before that place is stable enough to call it a socially democratic society.

O'BRIEN: All right. We have -- General Grange, do you have anything to add to that?

GRANGE: No, I don't think that would be our mission probably anyway. I think the mission would be to go in to eliminate terrorists if we can identify terrorists. We would want a stable government that is democratic, but that may not be our mission.

O'BRIEN: All right. Quickly before we go, gentlemen, I want to address one for me. "CNN has spent so much time" -- this is an e-mail -- "so much time revisiting Somalia, and in the endlessly repeated laudatory reviews of `Black Hawk Down,' I'm certain that CNN has more than a passing interest in the movie. You have succeeded in convincing me and many others that your continued in-depth reviews hide a nefarious and financial interest in the movie. It is unseemly for CNN to be so patently commercial, and by doing so you put your reputation and your integrity into question." That comes from Erwin Berger in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Mr. Berger, this is a Sony picture. They are the arch- competitors of us. The book was published by Atlantic Press Publications, nothing to do with AOL-Time Warner. It was written by a writer for "The Philadelphia Inquirer."

So in this case, we don't have a single relationship to the profits of "Black Hawk Down." I just want to set that record straight in case you had some misunderstanding there in Pembroke Pines.

Gentlemen, Kenny Thomas, formerly a Ranger on the streets of Mogadishu, always glad to see you. And General Grange, always a pleasure to have you with us as well. We appreciate you both answering those questions, and good questions they were.

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