Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

What Will Be the Role of U.S. Marines in the Battle for Kandahar?

Aired December 02, 2001 - 16:15   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: CNN's Kathleen Koch is joining us once again from the Pentagon to look at the role that U.S. Marines might play if there is a final battle for Kandahar -- Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donna, the first thing we wanted to talk about is that we are still waiting for some word from the Pentagon on these alleged attacks that affected civilians in a district called Agam (ph), which is just south of Jalalabad. Pentagon has been targeting that general area of Tora Bora, trying to bomb caves and cave complexes where they believe that Osama bin Laden may have been hiding. At this point, the Pentagon is still looking into those reports. Cannot confirm them, cannot deny them.

Secretary Rumsfeld was posed a question about that today. He said that the U.S. bombing in the region is precise and that it is careful, but that it is not perfect, and that there are a lot of people shooting in Afghanistan, a lot of ordinance -- an implication that perhaps it was Taliban ordinances that struck these areas. He did say, however, that from time to time noncombatants, that innocent people will be killed, and that is unfortunate.

Now, the fighting, as we have heard, does continue the bombing around Kandahar, with U.S. B-52s and other aircraft dropping ordinance in the area. And Secretary Rumsfeld said that the Taliban will have a very tough time if it tries to bring new forces into the area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: To the extent anyone tries to reinforce Kandahar, they will have difficulty. The Marines are in a position to interdict lines of communication, to prevent people from escaping and to prevent people from coming in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Now, more people are coming in. Those are the Marines, of course, at that air strip some 65 miles south of Kandahar. They are digging in, and there are reports from the ground that there may now be as many as 2,000 U.S. Marines on the ground.

Overnight, some helicopters, as we heard, were added to the area, and one Cobra pilot says the Marines now, quote, "have more toys to play with." Not a lot of playing, but a lot of patrolling going on now. Around the air field, amphibious -- excuse me, not amphibious -- armed vehicles patrolling the area. No reported encounters, though, with any Taliban fighters.

It has not been decided yet whether or not the Marines will be used in any future cave-to-cave searches for Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda, or any Taliban officials. However, the defense secretary says that if necessary U.S. forces might pour gas into cave complexes to flush out the terrorists. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld saying this morning that they will do whatever they need to do -- Donna.

KELLEY: Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon, thanks very much. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you.

And let's get a little more military analysis if we can with our retired U.S. Air Force General Bob Patterson. General Patterson, thanks very much, it's good to see you again.

GEN. BOB PATTERSON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you, Donna, good to be with you.

KELLEY: Talking about Kandahar, and no decision made whether or not the U.S. special forces would join in. What do you see coming in that battle there as they forge ahead?

PATTERSON: I see maybe a protracted engagement with the Pashtun will certainly get involved, Marines are consolidating the security of that perimeter, and day by day they get more of a capability. They will provide security for the airport. As long as we have the airport there, we can bring in our theater airlift to resupply.

And the noose keeps tightening and tightening. I fully believe that next week we will see a consolidation of the Marines' capability in the south. That Marine expedition unit is trained to do desert warfare. It's probably cooler than 29 Palms, California, but they are equipped and manned and trained to do that. In the north, the 10 Mountain, again, is trained to operate in the extremes of north Afghanistan, environment up there and the high mountain terrain.

KELLEY: And they have been targeting around Tora Bora there, around caves and tunnels, and our Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon was just telling us that maybe they might even put gas into the caves and will do whatever is necessary. What about that? Will the U.S.-led forces go into the caves, or would they kind of, as they say, smoke them out?

PATTERSON: I don't know for sure, but I would say I would smoke them out, with my experience. We tend to think of the GIs and the caves of Vietnam, manmade caves. The caves we are dealing with now in some cases are manmade, but by and large they were formed by mother nature.

The more sophisticated caves, such as I understand we have at Tora Bora, I believe the more sophisticated the cave is, the more likely that we'll be able to smoke them out. Even a very sophisticate cave has to have air, and even if they try to overpressure the cave to keep out chemical and biological agents, they have got to have a intake duct. And if you have got a intake duct, you can introduce non-lethal gas, such as CS.

KELLEY: And make just one exit then. Secretary Rumsfeld, the defense secretary said that the remanding task will be dirty and unpleasant, and to expect U.S. casualties. Likely?

PATTERSON: Likely. Yeah, I don't see how we can avoid some measure of U.S. casualties. If -- you know, one thing that really defines the military today is that we train as we fight. We have training accidents. But that reduces the number of accidents that you have in a real conflict, so the fact that we train like we are going to fight means that we're going to have fewer casualties that we have experienced in the past when we weren't prepared to do things like this.

So, yes, we will have casualties; it's going to be dirty rotten for next four, five weeks, I believe.

KELLEY: Yeah. Biggest threat, you think?

PATTERSON: Biggest threat is going to be mother nature.

KELLEY: Really? The winter?

PATTERSON: Yes. So I think that as we get into the real serious weather conditions -- although our people are going to be clothed and acclimated, I think operating through the passes, through snow and ice is dangerous in itself, so we will have some certainly non-battle casualties.

But this is -- this war, if you try to script a Hollywood script for special operations, this would be a special operations war. Special operations has nine major mission tasks and eight collateral tasks. That's 17 different missions that they train for, and they have -- they have used virtually every one of these missionaries so far in the less than three months of this operation.

KELLEY: All right. General Bob Patterson, our military analyst here at CNN, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

PATTERSON: It's great to be with you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com