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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Military Options

Aired September 21, 2001 - 20:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, military options. As the U.S. moves ahead with plans for homeland defense, the Pentagon deploys more aircraft and personnel to bases abroad to back up the president's call for Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban want proof of his involvement in last week's attacks, but the White House says the president couldn't have made it any plainer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The Soviets met with disaster in Afghanistan. Who can the U.S. count on for help there? We'll go live to national security correspondent David Ensor and to correspondent Steve Harrigan, who's with anti-Taliban forces in northern Afghanistan.

Also, I'll speak with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, just back from talks in Moscow on anti-terror cooperation, as the U.S. weighs its military options.

Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting tonight from Washington.

Let's first check the day's developments. Afghanistan's Taliban rulers say they won't give up Osama bin Laden without evidence, if at all. The White House says the president has made clear what the consequences could be.

The Senate has passed a $15 billion bailout for the airline industry, battered by last week's terror attacks. But more airline layoffs were announced today. Northwest will cut 10,000 jobs.

And financial markets are still in shock. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 140 points today, for a worst- ever weekly point loss of 1,369 points. The Nasdaq fell almost 48 points today, down 16 percent for the week.

As the White House engages in a war of words with the Taliban over Osama bin Laden, it is also moving ahead with plans to guard against terror attacks, centered around a new Office of Homeland Security. Let's go live to CNN's senior White House correspondent John King for details -- John.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the president at Camp David tonight, more national security meetings throughout the weekend, the military planning intensifying as the president looks to his options to what do to retaliate for last week's attacks. As you mentioned, also turning his attention to an effort to marshal all the resources of the government to try to prevent this from ever happening again. The man who will lead the effort for the Bush administration, the Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a man taking a difficult job at an extraordinarily difficult moment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. TOM RIDGE, PENNSYLVANIA: I'm saddened that this job is even necessary. But it is necessary. So I will give it everything I have. The task is enormous.

KING (voice-over): His official title is Director of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level post administration officials say comes with a sweeping mandate -- improve security around the nation's transportation, food and power systems, and coordinate information now dispersed among 40 federal agencies, including the CIA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Departments of Defense, Energy, Transportation and Justice.

The charge is two-pronged: Dramatically strengthen the country's defenses against terrorist attacks and develop more detailed plans for responding if there are strikes.

Some in Congress have wanted such a post for years. Former Senator Gary Hart recalled the findings of a terrorism commission report issued two years ago this month.

GARY HART, COMMISSION ON NATIONAL SECURITY: Americans will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland. And our military superiority will not entirely protect us. Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers.

KING: This convinced the president the war on terrorism needed a general of its own.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Some in Congress already questioning whether this new position and Governor Ridge will have enough clout to get this done, but top presidential aides saying this is a man with a very close relationship to the president, a very close relationship to the vice president and the secretary of state. They promise he will have the powers. Governor Ridge starts, Wolf, on October 5.

BLITZER: John, the rhetoric between the White House and the Taliban seems to be heating up. But I guess it's going to take some time before the tough words from Washington are followed up by some specific action. KING: Well, we have no timetable on possible military strikes, but you are right, more tough words each way today. The Taliban saying it would not turn over Osama bin Laden without conclusive evidence, the White House saying there will be no such exchange, that that would only help the terrorists learn the U.S. intelligence methods and secrets. The White House saying today if the Taliban stands by that position, just as the president said last night, it will face military strikes just as will the camps of bin Laden -- Wolf.

BLITZER: John King at the White House, thank you very much,

The Pentagon, meanwhile, is taking more steps to build up U.S. air power overseas. Let's go live to CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre over at the Pentagon. Jamie, what's the latest in terms of deployments?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Pentagon sources tell CNN that a second deployment order for additional aircraft is in the works, although it mostly involves support aircraft for the B-52 and B-1 bombers that are being moved over to either the Persian Gulf or Central Asia. Again, no exact location being given.

As of this morning, none of those bombers had actually left the continental United States, but sources say they may move as early as tonight and be in position within a few days or so. In addition, the U.S. aircraft carrier Kittyhawk left its port in Yokosuka, Japan, presumably heading in that direction as well, toward the Indian Ocean. This was the routine time for it to be deployed, but again no deployments are routine these days.

And at the same time, diplomatic sources tell CNN's Andrea Koppel that a U.S. military assessment team is going to Pakistan to begin to make arrangements for possible basing of U.S. forces, troops, ground troops in Pakistan along the border, and that that will be concluded fairly soon. So, the noose is tightening around Afghanistan, as President Bush is threatening the Taliban and in particular the al Qaeda network headed by Osama bin Laden -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie, what can you tell about divisions, the tug-of- war, if you will, between the Defense Department, where you are at right now, and the State Department over a possible military action against Iraq?

MCINTYRE: It's a little bit of a change here. Normally, the Pentagon is the reluctant warrior, the State Department wanting to exercise military force. We are hearing that there are some civilians, some hawks in the Pentagon, who really like to expand on President Bush's threat to attack countries that harbor terrorists, in particular Iraq, but there is a big division and debate going on about whether that's the wise course of action -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much,

And almost 13 years ago, Soviet troops left Afghanistan after a bloody war on rugged terrain against U.S.-armed mujahedeen fighters. Since then, the mujahedeen have split. One part backs the fundamentalist Taliban government, which now controls up to 90 percent of the country. The other part backs the so-called Northern Alliance, which controls the rest of Afghanistan. The two sides have fought a civil war for years, with the Taliban receiving money and arms from Pakistan. The area could hardly be a more difficult place to wage war or collect intelligence, and the U.S. will need all the help it can get. CNN national security correspondent David Ensor joins us now for more -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, offers of help are coming in from all sorts of places, some of them quite surprising, according to officials. One official told me that they include possible covert actions the public may never hear about.

Without a doubt, though, the most important player is Pakistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Somewhere in the Pakistani military command meeting with President Musharraf is the man who can do more than any other to help the U.S. find Osama bin Laden, if he and his government choose to do so. He is the head of the shadowy Pakistani Inter- services Intelligence Directorate, ISI, which for years, U.S. officials say, has supplied money and guns to the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.

ANATOLE LIEVEN, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: The Taliban and Pakistani intelligence are very closely intertwined, to some extent -- to a limited extent, the Taliban is even a creation of the Pakistanis.

ENSOR: If anyone outside Afghanistan knows how to track bin Laden and his men, it is the ISI. Pakistan's leader, General Musharraf, has pledged it will help the U.S. But there is a problem.

Not only is Pakistani society bitterly divided over whether to favor the Taliban and bin Laden or the U.S., so is the intelligence service.

REUEL MARC GERECHT, FORMER CIA OFFICER: The main divisions are between those who are pro-Western and those who have a fundamentalist disposition, who look upon the Taliban movement and Afghanistan as being correct and who look upon Osama bin Laden as an admirable man, if not a hero.

ENSOR: Reuel Gerecht, himself a former CIA officer who operated in the region, says whatever the ISI tells Washington, someone may well tell bin Laden too.

GERECHT: At the very same time the Americans receive that information, that representatives of the Taliban or directly to bin Laden, he may also receive the information. So, can preempt any American effort to exploit that intelligence to capture or kill him.

ENSOR: A less ambivalent but also less well informed ally is the Afghan Northern Alliance, which has been fighting the Taliban for years. Their charismatic leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was murdered two days before the attacks on the U.S. by two Arabs posing as journalists. His aides do not think the timing was a coincidence.

HARON AMIN, NORTHERN ALLIANCE SPOKESMAN: We have firm evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the assassination.

ENSOR: The Northern Alliance, which the U.S. says controls this northeastern part of the country, is trying to help U.S. intelligence find bin Laden and al Qaeda. If it comes to a war on the ground, its fighters are natural allies who know the terrain.

AMIN: Militarily, we have right now offered 30,000 men to wage this international counterterrorism campaign.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: As far as where the U.S. military can be based in the region, senior officials say they're talking to Pakistan about using an old B-52 bomber base in Quetta, Pakistan. And they're talking with Uzbekistan about a base for aircraft and possibly ground forces, though they say those talks may have hit a road block.

BLITZER: David, I know you've found some satellite photos which underscored some of the problems the U.S. may have in Afghanistan.

ENSOR: Well, that's right. If we just take a quick look here. These are from space imaging, they were taken over a year ago. This is the Doronto Lake (ph) dam near Jalalabad. If you go to the next shot, right near the dam is a base, a camp, the Abu Khobab camp, which is a bin Laden camp, specializing, U.S. officials say, in chemical weapons training and high explosives training.

If we go to the next shot, this one has not been identified by U.S. intelligence officials, but an outside government expert on photo imaging says those tunnels suggest there may be a military target there too, and it's right near the other camp. You will see there is also a helopad right near by.

So, there is some interesting bases there, but chances are, Wolf, that there is nobody left at those bases at this point.

BLITZER: And if there are, as President Bush keeps saying, he will smoke them out of those carves, if necessary literally that may be the situation.

ENSOR: Those may be the caves.

BLITZER: David Ensor, thanks for joining us. Good work.

BLITZER: And when we come back, my conversation with the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on his role in building alliances.

And later, CNN's Steve Harrigan joins us live from northern Afghanistan, where he's following anti-Taliban forces. CNN's look at military options for America's new war will continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. He's held a number of national security posts. As an assistant secretary of defense, he dealt with counter- terrorism, special operations and Middle East issues. As the number- two man at the State Department, he's sought support for America's new war from Pakistan's intelligence chief and from his own counterpart in Moscow.

A short while ago, I spoke with the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Mr. Ambassador, thanks for joining us. The news today is that that the Taliban has rejected President Bush's demand that Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization be handed over. What's your reaction?

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't think that's so surprising. The Taliban is a government who starves their own people in order to maintain control, who depends on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for a certain amount of finances. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and I don't find this reaction surprising at all.

BLITZER: Was there ever any expectation they might accept this demand?

ARMITAGE: Well, there is always a hope, but there wasn't a great expectation.

BLITZER: So what's next, now that they have rejected it?

ARMITAGE: Well, I think the president was very clear last night, give him up or share their fate. And I'm afraid the Taliban has chosen to share the fate of al Qaeda.

BLITZER: Does that mean the United States specifically is going to go to war against the Taliban?

ARMITAGE: First of all, I think it's the United States and many other countries that are going to have activities against the Taliban and al Qaeda. And it won't just be military, we are beginning a long campaign. It will be political, it will be economic, it will have an intelligence aspect, and most probably it will have an aspect of military operations.

BLITZER: Is there any indication that the American public should be bracing for that military action anytime soon?

ARMITAGE: Well, first of all I'm not going to speak about that publicly. I think that's a decision that our president will make, and when he does he will inform the American people.

BLITZER: Is Pakistan fully on board in terms of leaning, working against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden to end this situation over there? ARMITAGE: I believe if one listened to President Musharraf's speech the other evening, you see that he made a decision for his country, which he felt was in the best interests of his country. And as far as I can see, they are very intent on living up to the discussions and the agreement that we have with them.

I think there are different voices in Pakistan, some are very less enthusiastic about the course of action that President Musharraf has chosen, but I think the majority of his countrymen are with him.

BLITZER: As you know, I was in Pakistan last year, and I could sense -- and I know you have been there many times -- the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the support, the sympathy for the Taliban, if not for Osama bin Laden. How worried should the U.S. be that all of this support could represent a threat to President Musharraf?

ARMITAGE: Well, I think that everything you say is true. But the greater threat to President Musharraf and to Pakistan would have been to remain on the course on which they were embarked, where -- and I take some issue with your characterization of this as some manifestation of Islam. What UBL and al Qaeda represents is the perversion of Islam. It's simply a perversion of a great religion of the world for a secular aim, and a twisted secular aim at that.

BLITZER: Why do you believe they have so much support, Osama bin Laden and his group, among some rank-and-file Muslims, Arabs at large?

ARMITAGE: Well, I suspect that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda depend on lack of opportunity and lack of hope to get adherence to their cause. We stand for just the opposite. We are a country of hope and a country of opportunity. And hence, we are a threat to the ability of al Qaeda to recruit and attract adherence.

BLITZER: The president was very forceful, very clear in his speech to Congress. He said the U.S. is going to go after terrorists and the states that sponsor and harbor those terrorists. Clearly in Afghanistan, you have outlined pretty bluntly what's going to happen next. What about the situation in Iraq?

ARMITAGE: Well, the president has made it very clear that if you harbor terrorists, if you are the sea in which terrorists swim, then you will pay a price. Which price you pay is something for the president and indeed the international community to decide.

Iraq has been involved in terrorism in the past. I think right now we will concentrate on al Qaeda first, and after that then maybe we'll take a look at Iraq.

BLITZER: I want to read to you from an editorial in "The Wall Street Journal" today. It said this: "The terrorist threat won't vanish until Saddam does. Indeed, if Mr. Bush decides to leave Saddam out of his war planes, so-called moderate Arab states are likely to be even warier of joining an anti-terror coalition, because they'll fear the U.S. isn't serious about a long-term campaign." What's your reaction to that? ARMITAGE: Well, I think "The Wall Street Journal" is dead wrong on this. I think the moderate Arabs are intent on helping us clear up the problem of terrorism. They realize that they will be victims of this phenomenon if they don't help us. The problem of Iraq is a long- term one, Iraq has invaded its neighbors in the past, and I believe it's because of U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that Iraq doesn't do it again. That is well understood by the moderate Arabs.

BLITZER: You have seen the stories in the newspapers about a division within the Bush administration involving going after Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, supposedly in favor; others, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, much more cautious. How serious is this so-called split?

ARMITAGE: Well, my friend Paul Wolfowitz can certainly speak for himself, but I haven't seen the split among the people who make decisions at the top. Secretary Powell, Secretary Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Rice and indeed the president and the vice president. They have been very clear on our objectives, and as far as I can see there is unanimity there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Tomorrow night, part two of my interview with Secretary Armitage.

But up next: Resistance to the Taliban inside Afghanistan. We will learn more about the group battling the Taliban for power, a live report from northern Afghanistan up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Let's go to northern Afghanistan now, a stronghold of the opposition to the Taliban. CNN's Steve Harrigan is one of the few Western journalists still in Afghanistan. He joins us now live via videophone.

Steve, tell us what the latest developments are where you are?

STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, from the military position here, as you know this is a war that has been going on between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban on and off more than five years. There are two front lines, one just north of the capital, Kabul, the other in northeastern Afghanistan.

Now, the opposition, the Northern Alliance, tells us that in the past 48 hours they have begun probing operations on that northern front, and they say that they have captured more than 200 Taliban fighters in the last 48 hours -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Steve, is it your sense that these -- the Northern Alliance troops are preparing to actually engage in battle if the U.S. and other coalition partners were to begin some sort of military action?

HARRIGAN: Wolf, the Northern Alliance estimates its own strength at about 15,000 regular fighters, and they are looking forward to any military action by the United States. It is definitely their goal to participate in any way the U.S. will allow them to. Their hope is to move south, to retake the capital and eventually to retake control of the country that they ruled for more than two years in the mid-1990s -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Steve, are these Northern Alliance troops getting any direct military support from the United States right now, and if they are not, any prospect of that happening anytime soon?

HARRIGAN: They do not admit to us that they are getting direct military support. They do say they are lobbying for both money and weapons. What they do say is that the contacts between the U.S. and the opposition have increased dramatically within the past few days. They say the U.S. is asking for information, information about troops strength and deployment, as well as specific sites where the Taliban is located -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Steve Harrigan, thank you very much. Be safe over there.

U.S. diplomatic mine field, support for the Northern Alliance on the one hand and worries about Pakistan on the other. I will be right back in just a moment with the latest developments as America considers its military options.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Before we go, we want to take another look at some of the latest developments. Four people are under arrest in England in connection with the terror attacks. Scotland Yard investigators won't say how the three men and one woman are linked.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller visited the World Trade Center site today. They thanked rescue crews and vowed to rebuild New York.

And the New York Mets are playing the Atlanta Braves tonight in New York's first baseball game since the attacks. Mets players and managers are donating their wages for the day to the relief effort -- $450,000.

And that's all the time we have tonight. Stay with us throughout the weekend for our nightly look at America's military options at 8:00 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday nights. Then, starting Monday, join us one hour earlier as we move to our new time, 7:00 p.m. Eastern, for a full hour of coverage each night.

Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN" begins right now.

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