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CNN Live Sunday

Military Analyst David Grange Discusses Latest Issues in Afghan War

Aired January 27, 2002 - 17:27   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The homeland defense question is just one of the unresolved issues regarding the next phase of America's war against terrorism. There's growing debate over the classification of Afghan war detainees and how to best deal with a potential threat in Southeast Asia. For some insight, let's bring in CNN military analyst retired Brigadier General David Grange. Thanks for joining us.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good day.

WHITFIELD: So, should we have a four-star general in charge of homeland security instead?

GRANGE: Well, I think what you will see is a military general of some sort, but he -- that general will report to Ridge. It won't be a situation where the four-star general would run everything.

WHITFIELD: How might that relationship work then?

GRANGE: I think very similar to how the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff works with the secretary of defense. You still have a politically elected leader of our government with oversight for that military four-star general, for the responsibilities that that general is charged with.

But I think it's very important that you have some type of unity of effort, where right now everything is split up among many different entities, and you need this unity of effort in order to have a coherent effort for homeland defense.

WHITFIELD: With interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai now in Washington, hopefully to talk about rebuilding Afghanistan, how might that conflict with the military effort ongoing -- the U.S. military effort ongoing in Afghanistan. How might you go about rebuilding when indeed we still have a pretty strong hold in that area?

GRANGE: It shouldn't conflict at all. The reconstruction of Afghanistan is extremely important, just for us to accomplish the objectives that the United States of America wants to wrap up, for instance the capture of Omar and bin Laden and continuing to kill or capture al Qaeda or hard-core Taliban leadership.

But at the same time, we cannot ignore, one, the humanitarian efforts going on the people of Afghanistan, and to be a part of the international effort to support to success this new government. Right now, there is a hard time of fractionalism going on, with different warlords. There's banditry along the highways. There's fractionalization with the different regions of Afghanistan, and it behooves us to be a part of that effort.

WHITFIELD: Now, with the search for bin Laden primarily being a U.S. intelligence effort now, how might you go about trying to avert any complacency among the military troops that are entrenched there in the Afghanistan and Pakistani area who are simply waiting for some instructions, so to speak, from some of the intelligence sources there?

GRANGE: Well, Fredricka, it's an ongoing process, and it's a chain of command of military leaders that are on site not to allow complacency to develop, and I would doubt seriously that that would happen. It's still a very dangerous environment. Periodically, there's incidents, probing of the perimeter at Kandahar. There's still fights going on, where certain hide-outs are located and fights occur, just like the other day. So I don't think you will find complacency. I think everybody will remain on high state of alert with the purpose in mind to complete the mission.

WHITFIELD: You don't think that would be a real threat against the U.S. troops, complacency in any way?

GRANGE: I sure hope not. I mean, again, that's why you have good sergeants and good officers in these units to keep that from happening.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Brigadier General David Grange, for joining us at this hour.

GRANGE: Thank you.

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