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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

What is the Next Step for the U.S.?

Aired November 27, 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: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: While some Taliban fighters surrender and others battle to the death, U.S. forces step up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his followers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We'll pursue them until they have nowhere else to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Has the al Qaeda network left behind a program to develop chemical or biological weapons?

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, U.S. CENTCOM: We'll perform the tests that need to be performed in every possible facility. And if there's anything there, we certainly will find it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Is Iraq's Saddam Hussein back in the weapons of mass destruction business? Is Baghdad the next stop for U.S. bombers? I'll ask former CIA director James Woolsey, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, and former U.S. envoy to Iraq, Edward Peck, as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

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

It's now been almost 11 years since the end of the Persian Gulf War. But once again, there's a lot of attention being focused on Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein. What are the prospects that the U.S. will strike Iraq? We'll go in depth on that tonight, but first, let's check the latest developments in the U.S. war against terrorism.

And we have a developing story that we are following tonight involving the military campaign in Afghanistan. U.S. warplanes have targeted the Taliban and the al Qaeda leadership.

Let's go live to our military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. He's at the Pentagon -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it's another day and another air strike in Afghanistan, but this one may have some additional significance, but it's really too early to tell.

What we do know, according to Pentagon sources, is that intelligence came in earlier today indicating that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, and other Taliban and al Qaeda leadership were believed to be at two separate sites in Afghanistan southeast of Kandahar.

While U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was at the U.S. central command, a hastily ordered air strike was carried out by U.S. Navy planes dropping satellite-guided bombs on these two sites. And it is hoped by the Pentagon that Mullah Omar and some of the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership might have been killed. But the U.S. has no way of knowing. All they know is the pilots do report that they had some -- quote -- "good hits" and imagery indicates that the buildings in question were reduced to rubble.

All of this comes as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is warning that the U.S. is entering a more dangerous phase of the operations in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Pentagon sources say all 1,100 Marines will soon be deployed in southern Afghanistan as the U.S. prepares to kick the search for Osama bin Laden into high gear. Up to now, the rapid military success on the ground has been only superficial, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

RUMSFELD: Our efforts, of course, will be shifting from cities at some point to hunting down and rooting out terrorists where they hide. This is difficult work. It's dangerous work.

MCINTYRE: U.S. intelligence, including overhead imagery, indicates the most likely place to find Osama bin Laden or Taliban leader Mohammad Omar are two parts of Afghanistan where opposition forces aren't in control. A corridor south of Kabul to the Khyber Pass, including an area south to Tora Bora and Kandahar and the surrounding area.

FRANKS: Those are the places right now that we have been lead to pay very close attention to.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon believes Omar is digging in for a fight to the death in Kandahar. And while U.S. Marines in coming days will move closer to the city, there are no plans for them to attack the Taliban stronghold.

FRANKS: Their very presence does, in fact, provide pressure. But I will not characterize the intent of them being there as a force to attack Kandahar. That simply is not the case. That's not why we put them there.

MCINTYRE: U.S. forces in Afghanistan are also collecting samples for more than 40 laboratories, now in friendly hands, where work might have be been underway to make chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.

And while there has been a lot of talk about Iraq, the Pentagon is hinting that Somalia and Yemen may be future battlegrounds in the war a terrorism.

RUMSFELD: Somalia has been a place that has harbored al Qaeda and, to my knowledge, still is. Yemen has had -- been identified in the past as country that has an al Qaeda cell at the minimum.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And while there is some hope here at the Pentagon tonight that these most recent air strikes may have taken out senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaderships including Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, there's also a real sense of realism here about how difficult it is to get a single individual from the air. And there is a good awareness that when the dust clears, it may perfectly be the case that Omar is still alive and that there was nobody in those buildings. The Pentagon says it may take a day or so to figure that out -- Wolf.

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

And joining us now live from Afghanistan with the latest from over there, our CNN correspondent, Christiane Amanpour. She's in Kabul.

Christiane, give us the latest. What happened today?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, in regard to the story that you have just been reporting, of course, Northern Alliance people here have been saying for the last couple of days that they believe that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership is around in the Kandahar area. That's also confirmed by the U.S., who believes that they may be around Kandahar or Jalalabad. So they are saying pretty much the same thing.

Here, the big news was that everybody is focused on what is going on in Bonn, Germany, where delegates have gone now to have a peace settlement, to try to hammer out a map so that they can have a political future for this country. The U.S. special representative there, James Dobbins, says that the first day was a good, positive start. Of course, the U.S. holding billions of dollars of reconstruction aid over the head of the Afghan faction, saying they will get it, but only if they come to an agreement on a broad-based alliance that is broadly inclusive of all ethnic groups and factions. So people here -- very, very hopeful that after 20 years of war, their leaders will put their concerns ahead of their own competing concerns and come up with a stable framework for their future.

Another very dramatic day in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, where that prison uprising has almost been put down, according to officials. Northern Alliance officials say that there are only a few more Taliban prisoners and mercenaries there holding out, U.S. believing that there may be about 30 or 40 there. In any event, reports that there are -- and pictures showing dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies strewn around a compound in that fortress in Mazar-e-Sharif, which is being used as a prison and which has been the site of this uprising for the last couple of days.

U.S. special forces have been seen there as well, both in uniform and non-uniform, as well as British special forces, all involved in trying to quell the uprising. There have been announced five U.S. casualties, all of whom have been airlifted to Uzbekistan -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour in Kabul, thank you very much. And Christiane will have much more in her special report LIVE FROM AFGHANISTAN. That's at the top of the hour here on CNN.

U.S. warplanes patrolling over Iraq hit an air defense target today one day after President Bush toughened his rhetoric toward Baghdad, warning Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. arms inspectors back into the country or else.

More now from CNN national security correspondent David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The likelihood Iraq's leader has resumed making weapons of mass destruction, after kicking out U.N. arms inspectors in 1998 was a problem for Washington even before September 11. It is even more of one now in the view of some senior administration officials.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He ought to let the inspectors back in. Yes.

QUESTION: If he does not do that, what will be the consequences?

BUSH: He will find out.

ENSOR: Despite the president's words, senior administration officials say, in fact, he has not yet decided what those consequences should be. There are a number of options.

One: convince Russia to allow the U.N. Security Council to impose so-called smart economic sanctions on Iraq to replace the current ones set to expire this week which hurt the Iraqi people too much, don't stop contraband well enough. Officials say if no deal is made by Friday, the existing sanctions will be renewed for another six months.

Option two: arm the opposition. The Iraqi national congress, the Shiites and the Kurds in the north. Help them create safe zones in the north and south. Downside: Turkey and Saudi Arabia are firmly opposed, fearing the breakup of Iraq as a nation.

GEOFFREY KEMP, NIXON CENTER: And if what follows is chaos, then for the countries in the neighborhood, this is not a very pleasant option. In fact, it worries them to death.

ENSOR: Option three: bomb sites in Iraq where weapons of mass destruction programs are suspected. Downside: Intelligence officials say many of the sites are near or under hospitals, schools and residential areas. And when the Clinton administration tried to destroy most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from the air alone back in 1998, intelligence officials later estimated only 40 percent of Saddam's WMD sites were hit.

Option four: an invasion with ground troops. Downside: a long commitment to nation building and American casualties.

KEMP: If he has any WMD in Iraq and he is on the verge of being defeated, there is high probability he will use them. Who will he use them against? The invading forces and Israel.

ENSOR: Senior administration officials say the president it nowhere near deciding which options or options to select but that doing nothing more is not an openings. For now they say Mr. Bush is quite content to let Saddam Hussein and everyone else keep guessing at what he plans to do on Iraq.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: So is time for the United States to get tough with Iraq?

Joining me now, here in the CNN WAR ROOM, the former CIA director James Woolsey, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of the "New Yorker," and Edward Peck, who served as a U.S. diplomat throughout the Middle East and was also the chief of mission in Iraq. You can email your questions to CNN WAR ROOM. Just go to our Web site, cnn.com/wolf.

Mr. Woolsey, you have heard all the arguments, the complications. You just heard David Ensor raise some of those problems. You, on the other hand, say it's time to strike against Iraq.

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Not quite yet, but I must say, exactly the same things were being said several weeks ago about Afghanistan. People were saying, look, we only control the Pensur (ph) valley. They are disorganized. They have just lost their commander, Sheikh Massoud. We can't hope to see that they fight effectively. A "New York Times" editorial says this. The same people are saying about Iraq what they were saying about Afghanistan several weeks ago.

I think we need do this deliberately. But if I were to paraphrase Mr. McCarville from 1992 in the campaign, I would say, it's the regime, stupid. It's not bombing, we need to change this terrible regime in Iraq and it will be a while, but I think we need to get started.

BLITZER: Ambassador Peck, are you one of those naysayers?

EDWARD PECK, FMR. CHIEF OF MISSION, IRAQ: The thing that interested me is that -- the little presentation we just saw, gave all these options -- and there is one that is so glaringly obvious that I'm stunned that I'm the only one who seems to consider it. Here we are, the United States of America, we have in the Middle East today, General Zinni and Ambassador Burns, who are there to get the Iraqis and the Palestinians to talk...

BLITZER: The Israelis and the Palestinians.

PECK: Pardon me, the Israelis and the Palestinian to talk. They are up Chief Baijal (ph) without an inch between them. They have bloody memories, they spit each other's blood on ground that they mutually contest and we think they should talk. Why aren't you talking to Iraq? If Arafat can talk to Sharon and vice versa, why can't we talk...

BLITZER: Let me bring in Sy Hersh. You have covered this area for many years. You know the players. One of the options we heard David Ensor say is, why not use the Iraqi opposition, the Iraqi national congress, the way the U.S. has effectively used the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan?

SEYMORE HERSH, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Wrong horses. They can't do it. It's that ten-year track record of trying and not making it. In all fairness, in the Clinton years, I don't think anybody realized, in the CIA or in the national Congress, that people in the White House weren't serious about it, but they weren't.

But still, there is no record that there is any external opposition that can do anything. Saddam controls it very tightly and with each bomb I think, we make it easier for him to stay in control. You can wedge him out. There is no question. You are not going to hear from me that this is a great army. Any good commander, he has probably already purged. So, we can wedge him out. Do we want to? Do we want to use -- what Ed said, you know, another way, start talking to them at least before -- let's talk before we shoot, anyway.

BLITZER: What about that?

WOOLSEY: Well, the British ambassador and Soviet Union right after World War II said about Stalin that he is like a broken soft drink machine. You can put your money in, it will take your money, and then you could kick it, or you could walk away and forget about it. But it does absolutely no good talk to it. And I think that's exactly the position with respect to the Iraqis.

They are -- this regime is totally hopeless. This is like saying, talk to Nazi regime. There is nothing useful that can be done with this regime now, except get rid of it.

BLITZER: You think there is something useful that talking can do?

PECK: The simple question is, you don't know this because we haven't talked to these guys in 11 years. If the Palestinians and the Israelis can talk and if the Catholics and the Protestants can talk in Northern Ireland, where they are right up Chief Bajoul (ph) -- and Iraq is 9,000 miles from here.

WOOLSEY: This is not Catholics and Protestants.

PECK: You don't know what it is.

WOOLSEY: I do, yes, I do.

PECK: My point is, if they can talk, if they can negotiate, and this guy is 9,000 miles away, you have to ask yourself this question, we don't have any problems with them. Other countries have problems with them. You have been bombing them daily for 11 years. A lot of people don't like that. Not just Iraqis.

WOOLSEY: This is totally flaccid and feckless bombing. This has not been serious that the Clinton Administration has been undertaken...

PECK: And that would make a difference.

WOOLSEY: What we have to do is get serious. And I think we need to talk with the Turks. We need to talk with some of the surrounding countries...

PECK: But not with Iraq.

WOOLSEY: Look, like negotiating with the Nazis.

(CROSSTALK)

PECK: Let me step in. At the height of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were a button push away from eliminating the human race from the face of the earth, they had an embassy here, we had an embassy there. We had commissions and delegations. Not because we liked them and trusted them, but because we didn't...

BLITZER: Let me ask Seymour Hersh. You have studied Saddam Hussein for many years. I have read a lot of articles, you have reported on this whole situation. Is he someone the U.S. can deal with by engaging in a dialogue?

HERSH: I will tell you this, that in 1998 and 1999 there were some private talks. They started with Iran and then the Iraqis got into it. Once the Iraqis learned we were talking privately to Iran, just beginning to feel them out, through an intermediary, the Iraqis came to us immediately and said hey, don't exclude us.

You have a situation where the world is changing enormously right now. Everything in the Middle East is up in the air because of what has happened, 9-11 has really loosened a lot of things. We are now, the United States is now friendly with Iran. That is a lever to, I think, to begin even considering some possibility of talking with the Iraqis. I know that...

BLITZER: Friendly with Iran might be a bit of an over exaggeration, but let's continue this discussion. We are going to take a quick break, I am going to cut you off, but hold that thought. Is Iran any closer to getting a nuclear weapon? Sy Hersh knows the answer to that question. We will compare that to the Iraqi threat when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our CNN WAR ROOM. Director Woolsey, I want to go to our map and show our viewers what the situation in Iraq right now is. Here, of course is Iraq. In order to engage in a significant military campaign, you need these air bases in Saudi Arabia. You need support from Turkey. I'm not sure, and a lot of experts say that the kind of support that they gave the U.S. in the 1991 Persian Gulf War is going to be available right now.

WOOLSEY: Turkey, I agree. We need Turkey. But the Saudis will tend to go with the winner and they might not cooperate initially with anything against Iraq. But Turkey is essential. We need land bases in Turkey for aircraft, and we need carriers in the Persian Gulf and bombers from Diego Garcia. We need to support the Iraqi opposition and I think we can begin to make some progress.

We can deny Saddam the north and south. The air power -- we have shown what we can do with air power in the Gulf War, and we've shown with six times the share of smart weapons of what we can do with air power in Afghanistan, and I think we can keep the Republican guard dispersed and out of the north and south. I don't think it's a laughing matter.

I think it would not be something that would be quick and easy, but the United States has shown what it can do with air power and special forces. And I think we have a chance to begin to make a real dent in Saddam's control in the north and south, if we decide to do that.

HERSH: Jim, may I ask a question?

WOOLSEY: Yes.

HERSH: What does that have to do with the real problem facing America, which is fundamentalism and terrorism? Sad -- Iraq's a secular country -- what is going after Saddam have to do -- why would you target him, rather than, let's say, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, why would you do that?

WOOLSEY: Because the regimes that sponsor terrorism, and I think the president quite properly defined terrorism as essentially including terrorist states developing weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam is -- and is doing. I think states that sponsor terrorism, and including particularly Iraq are at the heart of the problem.

I think there are very good indications that Iraq has been involved in terrorist acts against the United States in the last decade. Certainly we know for a fact that they tried to kill former President Bush in the spring of 1993 -- that's a slam dunk.

BLITZER: OK. Let's let the ambassador -- go ahead ambassador.

EDWARD PECK, FORMER U.S. CHIEF OF MISSION IRAQ: And we have tried to kill President Hussein -- Saddam Hussein, but the question is this...

(CROSSTALK)

WOOLSEY: Wait. When? How?

PECK: On a Daily basis. But I think...

WOOLSEY: That's nonsense.

PECK: ... on a weekly basis. We just drop bombs wherever we think he might happen to be. But --

WOOLSEY: That's not true. That's not what we're doing. We are bombing in the northern and the south against...

PECK: Right -- and also in Baghdad. But --

WOOLSEY: Not now.

PECK: Not recently. You have to think about this: There is a title 18 of the U.S. Code section 2331 that defines international terrorism. That is our law on what is international terrorism. And it's what we are doing. So if you are going to talk about terrorism --

WOOLSEY: That's absolute nonsense. The United States is not conducting...

(CROSSTALK)

PECK: Look at the definition, sir.

WOOLSEY: ... terrorism.

PECK: Can you quote it? I can.

WOOLSEY: That's nonsense, absolute nonsense.

PECK: Nonsense? Not at all.

BLITZER: Let me bring in Seymour Hersh. You have a good piece in the "New Yorker" this week on another potential danger: a nuclear capability from Iran. How realistic is that and should the U.S. preempt or should the Israelis preempt, as they did against the Iraqis in 1981?

HERSH: Well, we are not there yet. The only thing I reported on is that one of the realities is that Iran turns out to be number 1 on the proliferation list, it's the next country we think is go ahead of Iraq, interestingly enough. And they're far advanced of Iraq and basically, in the last few years, we have watched our intelligence community and the Israelis have watched as the Iranians have begun to dig underground.

They are taking their facilities underground, they've been at the bomb for -- since before the shah was overthrown in '79, a good 25, 30 years. And the -- they have made tremendous progress with the covert help of the Russians. And so we have a situation in which Iran is maybe three years away from being in the production business or perhaps a little longer, but very close to reaching the point where it has an indigenous capability. That in other words where we can't stop it by export controls or saying no, no, no -- they're close.

BLITZER: We have to. unfortunately gentleman, we have to leave it right there. We could just go on, and that's a whole another show on Iran. Maybe we will do it tomorrow, maybe we'll do it tomorrow.

WOOLSEY: Interesting and important.

BLITZER: We had a good discussion. Thanks for joining us.

PECK: My pleasure.

HERSH: Thank you.

BLITZER: And coming up, we'll have the latest developments in the U.S. airstrike against a leadership compound in Afghanistan. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Our military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre has been following a potentially significant story in Afghanistan. Jamie give us the latest.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the U.S. central command ordered a series of airstrikes against two targets in southern Afghanistan, southeast of Kandahar, when U.S. intelligence indicated that Mohammed Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, might have been at one of the sites along with other senior al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. Now the pilots report that they hit their targets, but the U.S. has no idea if anyone was actually killed on the ground. And the Pentagon, being conservative, doesn't -- isn't getting its hopes up. It's fully aware that by tomorrow we could find out that Mullah Omar is still alive -- Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll continue to monitor this breaking story. Jamie McIntyre, thank you very much.

That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow, twice at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

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