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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports
America Targets Terrorism: President Bush Mobilizes Humanitarian Aid for Afghanistan
Aired October 04, 2001 - 19:00 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, CNN ANCHOR: As Defense Secretary Rumsfeld makes the rounds seeking support for military action, President Bush mobilizes humanitarian aid for Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In our anger, we must never forget we are compassionate people as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: For Pakistan, seeing is believing when it comes to the evidence against Osama bin Laden, but tracking down bin Laden in rugged Afghanistan may be an unbelievably difficult task. We'll hear from our correspondents in Washington and around the world.
Eight years ago today in Somalia, another manhunt had gone terribly wrong: America's most elite forces had been savaged. I'll ask Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," if anything's changed.
And what role will psychological warfare play in the coming campaign? We'll get a report as "America Targets Terrorism."
Good evening to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting tonight from Washington.
Let's begin with the latest developments. New video has surfaced of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. The cable television network in Qatar aired the tape today. It's not known when it was shot. However, bin Laden has been known to appear with his top lieutenants before an attack.
A Florida man is hospitalized infected with Anthrax. Health officials say it appears to be an isolated case and there's no evidence of terrorism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOMMY THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: I want to make sure that everybody understands that anthrax is not contagious. It is noncommunicable, which means it is not spread from person to person. If it is caught early enough it can be prevented and treated with antibiotics. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: U.S. officials say they now have evidence that a missile fired during Ukranian military exercises accidentally struck a Russian airliner. The plane exploded and plunged into the Black Sea today. More than 70 people were on board the plane heading from Israel to Siberia. Israeli and Russian officials have not ruled out terrorism.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has added Turkey to his itinerary as he seeks to strengthen an anti-terror coalition.
CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre is traveling with Rumsfeld and reports on his most recent stops.
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JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Day two of Rumsfeld's desert diplomacy kicks off in Oman with a 40-minute chopper ride to a remote encampment to meet with the soldiers. Media coverage is tightly restricted, another reminder that Gulf states aligned with the United States like to keep a low profile. But despite the secrecy, Oman is one of America's most reliable friends in the region.
Pentagon sources say recently deployed B-1 bombers are here, as they were three years ago, for major strikes on Iraq. And Oman is the perfect staging area for U.S. special forces who may soon move to the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which stripped of most of its planes will be used as a forward floating base.
Returning from a lengthy meeting with the Sultan of Oman in a steamy desert setting, Rumsfeld then jets to Cairo for face time with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak. Officials say Rumsfeld's hastily arranged meetings are less about military support than moral support. This recent protest at Cairo University underscores the concern in this part of the world about the prospect of the United States bombing a Muslim country, an obstacle as the U.S. tries to convince the Arab world it's targeting terrorism, not Islam.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It's very helpful when leaders such as the sultan of Oman and President Mubarak speak out publicly and the religious leaders in their countries speak out publicly and point out, as so many have now, that terrorism is not something that has anything at all to do with Islam.
MCINTYRE: To that end, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to supplement U.S. shipments of food and medical supplies to Afghan refugees with airdrops from military planes, but only if the U.S. can make sure the food doesn't feed the Taliban and the unarmed transport planes aren't exposed to hostile fire.
RUMSFELD: The food drops will be done only in the event that it's very clear that the SAM sites and the limited number of surface- to-air missiles and the rather larger number of Stinger missiles that are still in the country would not pose a problem. MCINTYRE (on camera): Rumsfeld refused to say how he might protect the planes, but a senior defense official told CNN that the U.S. is considering pre-emptive airstrikes to neutralize air defense sites in Afghanistan to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN in Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And just hours after Secretary Rumsfeld left Oman, the Pentagon announced the U.S. intends to sell the sultanate a dozen state-of-the-art F-16 warplanes.
President Bush today sent a message to the Afghan people announcing the United States will send them a sizable amount of humanitarian aid.
Let's go live to CNN State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel for details -- Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, good evening. Until now, President Bush has merely talked about the fact that this war on terrorism is not targeting the Afghan people. Well, today in a manner of speaking, he put his money where his mouth is. Framing it as a war against good versus evil, the president announced the U.S. would be sending $320 million in humanitarian food and aid.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUSH: This is our way of saying that while we firmly and strongly oppose the Taliban regime, we are friends of the Afghan people.
KOPPEL (voice-over): The U.S. plan: to provide 300,000-400,000 tons of food to large Afghan cities, as well as tons of seed for new crops, to send 4,000 donkeys from neighboring Tajikistan to move supplies into hard-to-reach mountainous areas, as well as to initiate a work-for-food program where Afghans strong enough to work can assist in community projects.
ANDREA NATSIOS, AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: In that way we will through the famine relief effort begin the reconstruction of the country, which has been postponed for too long.
KOPPEL: The United States says it already was the largest donor of aid to Afghanistan, where a famine has begun following four years of drought and 22 years of war. Today, the United States says one out of every four children die before the age of five, and officials estimate within a year 30 percent of all Afghans will die from hunger.
And now, U.S. officials say recent threats of U.S. military action against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden have made a dire situation even worse.
RUMSFELD: When you look at the overhead photography of that country and see masses of people moving through drought-stricken areas...
KOPPEL: Already there are 2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and 1 1/2 million in Iran. Officials estimate another 1 1/2 million could eventually flee the country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: And that is why the U.S. has also pledged an additional $25 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan's neighbor, the Bush administration hoping the announcement of this new U.S. aid package will also serve another purpose, Wolf, to deal a blow to the reputation of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan as well as boosting the reputation of the United States around the world -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Andrea Koppel at the State Department, thank you very much. And the U.S. has presented Pakistan with evidence tying Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network to last month's attack.
To learn more about Pakistan's reaction, I spoke earlier with CNN senior international correspondent Walter Rodgers in Islamabad.
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BLITZER: Walter, I take it the Pakistanis are now more receptive to the evidence about Osama bin Laden that the U.S. has been providing.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've had a pretty significant development here, Wolf: that development being the Pakistani government says it has now seen evidence against Osama bin Laden. It's been presented by the United States over the course of the last few days here, and the Pakistani government -- a major Muslim government, a major Islamic power -- is now breaking ranks and saying it is persuaded that the United States does indeed have a case against Osama bin Laden.
This is also significant because it further distances Pakistan from its patron, the Taliban, further isolating the Taliban in Afghanistan.
What's even more significant, of course, in all of this is that it's coming just before Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, arrives here. And the shift came at a briefing at the foreign ministry this afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RIAZ MOHAMMAD KHAN, PAKISTANI FOREIGN MINISTER: We have seen the material that was provided to us by the American side yesterday. This material certainly provides sufficient basis for indictment in a court of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RODGERS: The Pakistani government being persuaded of the evidence, the American evidence, against Osama bin Laden is, however, quite different from persuading 140 million Pakistanis themselves. The best gauge of public reaction could come after Friday prayers, when people start pouring out of mosques. That's the normal time for demonstrations in this part of the world.
If there are large anti-American demonstrations after Friday prayers, that might suggest that the Pakistani people have rejected the fact that the Americans persuaded the government of bin Laden's guilt, and it also means that they've rejected the American evidence as well -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Walter Rodgers in Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Meanwhile, U.S. forces will face a daunting task in finding Osama bin Laden, let alone getting to him in Afghanistan's rugged terrain.
CNN national security correspondent David Ensor reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. intelligence officials say near this major dam outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan is a former terrorist training camp used by Osama bin Laden's group. These are commercial 1-meter resolution satellite pictures taken in December '99, not nearly as good as U.S. intelligence has. But we asked two satellite photo analysts to tell us what they see.
PATRICK EDDINGTON, FORMER CIA PHOTO ANALYST: What we're looking at is an area that was obviously used by the Soviets and/or their former Afghan communist allies during the 1980s.
ENSOR: Apart from a column of men on foot, there is no sign of life on that day. And if Al Qaeda was once in the area, Eddington said it was a while ago, and they covered up their tracks.
EDDINGTON: I don't see any evidence, for example, of a firing range or other things I would expect to see out here that would necessarily be associated with light infantry training, which is really what you're talking about when you're talking about terrorists.
ENSOR: Taliban military emplacements, by contrast, are more vulnerable to satellite surveillance.
EDDINGTON: You can almost make out the gun tubes, but you won't be able to identify what kind of camp they are.
ENSOR: Far more effective than satellites looking for bin Laden are unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles. At least one has already gone down over Afghanistan.
RET. GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: These are controllable. They can loiter. They go back and forth over an area. They can zoom in. ENSOR: Highly detailed Soviet-era military maps, illustrate how much of Afghanistan is made up of vast mountain ranges, 11-12,000 feet and higher. Even if bin Laden can be located, getting at him with U.S. special forces could be extraordinarily difficult.
TIM BROWN, MILITARY ANALYST: The problem with the mountain area is that it's so much higher that our special ops helicopters don't have the lift to be able to fly that high.
ENSOR: In fact, the Blackhawks used by U.S. special forces are souped up models. How high they can fly is classified. Still, some hideouts high in the Afghan mountains are probably out of their range.
EDDINGTON: And what's going to be key for American forces if they do go in here trying to dig bin Laden out is the amount of cooperation they get from the rebels.
ENSOR (on camera): In the end then, coalition building inside Afghanistan, as well as around the world, could turn out to be more important in getting bin Laden and shutting down Al Qaeda than any surveillance photo or special military unit.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Coming up, eight years ago, elite U.S. forces on a manhunt in unfriendly territory met with disaster. I'll as Mark Bowden, author of "Blackhawk Down," about the implications for today.
And the so-called "mind-benders" wage a psychological war against terrorism. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back.
On this date in 1993, a U.S. military disaster was unfolding in Mogadishu, Somalia. Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos had been trapped during a mission to capture top lieutenants of the Somalian warlords. Eighteen Americans died, and in this country we saw the pictures of bodies being dragged through the streets.
What lessons does this hold for the current manhunt for Osama bin Laden?
Joining me now from Los Angeles is Mark Bowden. He's the author of "Blackhawk Down," a gripping account of the Mogadishu mission, and recently, "Killing Pablo," about the manhunt for druglord Pablo Escobar.
Mark thanks for joining us, and explain to our viewers what's so special about U.S. special forces.
MARK BOWDEN, AUTHOR/JOURNALIST: Well, these are men who are selected from the ranks of the elite units of the Army anyway, the Rangers and the Green Beret. And they're invited to try out, and I'd say only about one out of every 10 of the men who go through the selection process are actually chosen for Delta Force. And they represent some of the most mature, professional, experienced soldiers in our military.
BLITZER: All right, so you know a lot about what happened eight years ago on the streets of Mogadishu. What lessons should the U.S. special forces have learned from that in this new manhunt for Osama bin Laden?
BOWDEN: Well, I think they've certainly learned tactical lessons about what happened in Somalia. I think the larger lesson, though, is that you can't conduct military operations like this and expect them to be antiseptic. These kinds of raids are inherently dangerous. When people are shooting at you, things do tend to go wrong. None of the things that went terribly wrong in Mogadishu were really that far outside of what you might expect. But when people are shooting at you, as I said, and things go wrong, it results in people getting killed.
BLITZER: So even very, very slight errors can be grossly exaggerated and can result in disaster. Is that what you're saying?
BOWDEN: It can, and any time you go with armed men into an armed encampment and try to either kill someone or arrest someone and are engaged in combat, I think we should expect that things are not always going to go very smoothly and people are going to get killed. The big difference is that in Somalia, I think, most Americans were not even aware of what our mission was there or why our soldiers were there, which is why when these men were killed and we say those terrible images of bodies being dragged through the streets, people recoiled with such horror and anger.
I think this is a totally different situation. Most Americans are fully aware of the importance of the mission that we're engaged on here, and I think the president has done a very good job of preparing the Congress and the American people for the eventuality of casualties.
BLITZER: James Woolsey, the former CIA director, is quoted as saying in today's "Wall Street Journal" this. He says, referring to what happened eight years ago and now: "It's harder than Mogadishu, not easier. It's not absolutely impossible, but it's very, very hard."
The manhunt for Osama bin Laden much harder than the manhunt for Mohamed Aidid, the Somali warlord. Do you agree with that?
BOWDEN: I do agree with that. I think not just because Afghanistan itself poses different problems of terrain, and you know, the extreme mountainous nature of it, but this is an organization that's spread out over dozens of nations, including our own, with people of all levels of education and involvement.
And so this is an effort that I think is likely to be protracted. It may even be that we're entering into a period of more or less constant low-level conflict and military action, because I don't think you can totally defeat terrorism. I think the best you can do is put a lid on it and keep the pressure on it.
BLITZER: In your book, you write this -- and I'll read it: "Part of the Americans' false superiority, their unwillingness to die, meant they would do anything to protect each other, things that were courageous but also sometimes foolhardy." The fact that in this particular case the potential U.S. enemy is perhaps willing to die, does that put the U.S. at an enormous disadvantage?
BOWDEN: I don't think so. I think that the Americans are perceived as having, in that part of the world, as having an undue emphasis or placing an undue emphasis on sparing lives and saving lives. But I think that that actually reflects well on us as a culture and us as a military.
And I would just disagree with that interpretation. I reported that in the story, because I do think that that's how American forces were seen by some of the people in Somalia. But I'm glad, myself, that I live in a country where we value the lives of our soldiers and where we do everything we can to bring them home alive.
BLITZER: In your new book, "Killing Pablo," about Pablo Escobar, you report that the Delta Force trained Colombian special forces to find him and kill him. In this particular case, there's suggestions the U.S. should train the Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces to go out and do the work and find Osama bin Laden and his network. Are there lessons from the Pablo Escobar incident that you think are relevant today?
BOWDEN: I think, Wolf, that that's probably the most important lesson to draw from, especially when you're in a part of the world where overt American action is like pouring gas on the flames. I think that we run the risk, if we are sending our own troops in any more than we have to, of making the situation a whole lot worse.
What they were able to do in Columbia was play a very low-key role, essentially steering and training and guiding the Colombian forces in this effort to take apart Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel. And in fact, to this day, you know, full credit for that success is given to the Colombian forces.
I really think that my book, "Killing Pablo," is the first to reveal the extent of American involvement.
BLITZER: Mark Bowden, both books excellent. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.
BOWDEN: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: Thank you, and up next there is the war with bullets, guns and missiles, and then there is the war of the mind. Coming up, psychological warfare: another way the United States can target terrorism.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: Welcome back.
The U.S. may drop transistor radios into Afghanistan to allow people there to listen to U.S. broadcasts. It could be the first round in psychological warfare.
CNN's David George examines the history of this mind-bending war tactic.
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DAVID GEORGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was one of history's most infamous examples of psychological warfare: around-the- clock barrage of ear-splitting rock'n'roll, aimed at helping convince Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to leave the building where he holed up following his ouster in 1989.
On the streets of Panama, posters put up by psychological warfare operatives offered people money for turning in their guns.
Modern practitioners of psychological warfare call themselves mind-benders. They've plied their trade in every recent conflict.
In the Gulf War, leaflets -- some printed on the back of phony Iraqi currency -- urged Iraqi soldiers to surrender or die. "Live in peace, not war," said one. "Cease resistance, be safe," said another.
Leaflets dropped from helicopters and planes are credited with convincing at least 60,000 Iraqi soldiers to surrender.
Leaflets and a propaganda newspaper complete with comic strips were used with less obvious effect by U.N. forces during their ill- fated attempt to restore order to Somalia in 1992.
One of the best-known and most misunderstood examples of psychological warfare was a broadcast by a voice that came to be known as Tokyo Rose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOKYO ROSE: Hello, you fighting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the Pacific.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE: Military historians say there was no Tokyo Rose, but over a dozen English-speaking women broadcasting Japanese propaganda to allied forces.
David George, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: "CROSSFIRE" comes along at the bottom of the hour. Here's Tucker Carlson with a preview -- Tucker.
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST, CNN'S "CROSSFIRE": Wolf, everyone agrees the economy needs help. The question is how to do it: tax cuts, more generous unemployment benefits. The debate begins and the nearly month-long consensus in Congress begins to crumble.
Bill Press and I will be back to bat it around with two influential members of the House. We'll return at the bottom of the hour on "CROSSFIRE."0
BLITZER: Thanks, Tucker, we'll be watching. I'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Here's a look at the latest developments as "America Targets Terrorism." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the U.S. is considering pre-emptive strikes on Afghan air defenses. Rumsfeld made the comment while in Egypt today. The visit is part of his five- nation tour to build support for a broad-based coalition against terrorism.
And U.S. health officials are urging calm over a case of anthrax, which has left a Florida man hospitalized. They say the case is isolated and there's no evidence the illness is linked to terrorism.
That's all the time we have tonight. Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.
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