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CNN Live Sunday

Wesley Clark Looks at Rapid Military Maneuvering in Afghanistan

Aired November 18, 2001 - 18:06   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: For a closer look at the rapid military maneuvering in Afghanistan, we want to turn now to retired General Wesley Clark, he is former NATO supreme commander and a CNN analyst for us. General Clark, hello.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hello, Donna.

KELLEY: Konduz, Kandahar, the last two strongholds for the Taliban, there was a Japanese journalist who was released after he was accused of spying, and he said that the Taliban forces told him, in their words, "the fight is finished." Do you think it is?

CLARK: Well, I think the Taliban are clearly close to being on the ropes, but for the men who were in the front lines the fighting is not finished. We have heard the report on Konduz, the men that are there, and the Taliban are probably going to hold out a while longer. The al Qaeda will stiffen them up, and there's going to be something close to hand-to-hand fighting probably before it breaks up.

In Kandahar, the situation is very ambiguous. It's not really clear who is going to run the Taliban out of Kandahar. And so, it's a matter of the CIA and continuing pressure there with our special operations forces.

What we need out of this is not so much the immediate disappearance of the Taliban. What we need is the information to go after al Qaeda. And so, everything we are doing should be calibrated -- and apparently is calibrated -- to get us that information so we can move against al Qaeda.

KELLEY: Well, what about that? The al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, there's a British print report that says that they have him cornered into this 30 square mile area. If that's true, do you think he's about to be snagged?

CLARK: Well, if it's true, it's certainly a very good sign. Because it means you can concentrate sensors on it and you can really work into that area.

What we want to do is we want to control all entrances and exits to that area if he's really trapped in that area, and then systematically take it apart. If he's really in there, the key thing is keep him from getting out, and then we'll work to reduce it. But we know that when you go up close against him, there are going to be mine fields, there'll be booby traps, there'll be a lot of resistance in there. So, there's no rush on our part, provided we have got him really trapped.

KELLEY: Yeah, we can barely keep up with the stunning events, but what worries you now?

CLARK: Well, what I'm worried really about is whether we can get the intelligence we need. I think that we have done a really good job of taking apart the structure of the Taliban. Their fronts collapsed. They have no command and control. Now, the problem is to get a hold of the people who know what was going on. What's the latest information?

KELLEY: Well, and how reliable is the intelligence too? I mean, you know, sometimes we had intelligence and even paid for -- and it was paid for, and got lies in return.

CLARK: That's always a problem. All intelligence has to be verified, and much of it in this case is going to be wrong because it's perishable. It may have been true three days ago, but is it still true? But we have got experts who can work this, and we'll be out there collecting and sifting through everything, and then it's just a matter of how efficient we are at taking the fragments of information, putting them together and reacting to them in an appropriate way.

KELLEY: And then militarily, move on to diplomatic and political, and that's a pretty sticky phase to come into?

CLARK: It's very sticky, because again what we want is we don't want the diplomatic peace to interfere with our effort against al Qaeda. So it's very good news that the Northern Alliance looks like it's going to cooperate with United Nations leadership and hold a conference, because...

KELLEY: Outside the country, hold the conference outside of the country.

CLARK: Exactly. If we had a fight going on there in which the Northern Alliance elements were working against each other, then they wouldn't be giving us the information we need. So we need to have all of the diplomatic stuff support what we want.

Now, we do have a residual responsibility to help these people as much as we can in the circumstances. We want to make sure they get relief supplies in there, and we want to help them make a peace, but our primary focus right now has to be al Qaeda, and everything we can do to get that information and stop the fighting around the periphery and focus on al Qaeda.

KELLEY: What about the Northern Alliance, though? There were some worries that maybe the U.S.-led coalition could be in bed with the wrong group. Could they cause trouble?

CLARK: There could be fighting between factions in the Northern Alliance, and this would be -- this would be a problem. But we have got relationships now, and even though it's their country and they have done the fighting on the ground, or the bulk of it, we still got support that they need.

So we have got influence. We have got to use that influence in a smart way to bring an end to the fighting and bring an end to the disputes, help them form a government, and get us the information we need against al Qaeda.

KELLEY: Soviets ran into such terrible trouble with the guerrilla warfare, and that's been one of the concerns. Now that the air strikes have been so effective and the special forces have been so effective in this last week, but then they retreat to the mountains and rise up to fight another day. Are you worried about that?

CLARK: Not so much in this case, Donna, because in this case the Taliban are the native Afghans. And if they are going to defect and surrender and we can take their weapons and we know where they live and so forth, then we put that down.

KELLEY: If that's the case, though, pardon me for interrupting, but if that's the case, general, and you haven't put down their weapons and they leave, is it for the time being? Do they rise up to fight another day?

CLARK: I think anything in Afghanistan is for the time being. But what we are worried about is al Qaeda. Now, al Qaeda are not the native Afghans. They don't have villages there they can hide in and then come out and fight in. So if they go to the mountains, they have got to rely on pre-positioned supplies and equipment. When they go into the mountains, they'll be trapped in those mountains, provided we can cut off their base of support tat comes through Pakistan.

And if they're really in a 30-mile area, we can do that, and it will be the beginning -- it will be the next chapter in the beginning of the end for them, as they get narrowed down into the mountains.

KELLEY: Many thanks. General Wesley Clark, our CNN military analyst. Appreciate it.

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