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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Will Anti-Taliban Forces Move in on Last Taliban Stronghold?

Aired November 29, 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." As the U.S. steps up its air assault on the last Taliban stronghold, will anti-Taliban forces move in on the ground? We'll go live to Kabul and the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Afghanistan is the first overseas front in this war against terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: With the Taliban melting away, should the U.S. start looking for targets beyond Afghanistan? I'll ask Ken Adelman, of Defensecentral.com, former Pentagon official Lawrence Korb and former U.S. diplomat Edward Walker, as we go into "THE WAR ROOM."

Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. Taliban forces are still holding out in their last stronghold of Kandahar. But how much longer can they last? What else should the United States military be doing? That's all in our CNN WAR ROOM focus tonight, but first let's check the latest developments in the U.S. war against terrorism.

And we begin on the scene in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are surrounded in their last major stronghold, and a deal to surrender a smaller town is in danger of collapse. CNN's Christiane Amanpour joins us live from Kabul with more. Christiane, give us the latest.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the latest is that more and more U.S. troops are coming here to Afghanistan. They are now in control of three air bases, or at least airports, in this country. Mazar-e Sharif in the north, also Bagram. They are beefing up their presence in Bagram north of Kabul.

CNN personnel coming into Bagram have seen elements of what we believe are to the 10th Mountain Division there. And of course, as you know, U.S. Marines at that airstrip in the Kandahar region.

We have been asking senior Northern Alliance officials about what they believe is going to happen around Kandahar. Of course, it's surrounded. They believe that the U.S. presence there is to put an enormous amount of pressure on the Taliban there. Of course, the anti-Taliban Pashtun forces are also putting pressure, and the Northern Alliance believes that eventually this pressure will yield a surrender from the Taliban down there. They do not believe that Mullah Omar is yet ready to surrender, but they think as the pressure mounts, that this will eventually happen.

Now, in the meantime, they are also saying they have no reports and no evidence of what has been reported in the United States, that a senior al Qaeda lieutenant, Abdul Rahman, has been arrested here by Northern Alliance forces. The defense minister and other officials here say they don't know anything about that. He may have been arrested somewhere in this region, but so far that news hasn't filtered to the highest intelligence and defense sources here in Kabul, they tell us.

At the same time, progress is being made at those peace talks in Bonn, Germany. Momentum is gathering, according to the U.N., who is sponsoring those talks, because now the Northern Alliance has dropped its opposition to any international force.

CNN was told 24 hours ago that the Northern Alliance would be flexible in the issue of a multinational peacekeeping force for Afghanistan, and now that is being made formal. And now they are continuing to talk about the makeup of an interim government, and who may or may not head that interim government -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Christiane, if there is an agreement on both the interim government and international peacekeeping force, there still would be enormous obstacles to implementing all of that on the ground in Afghanistan, wouldn't there be?

AMANPOUR: Well, yes, if history is anything to go by. The omens are not great, but the mood at these talks is being described as very, very positive. Everybody knows that the entire eyes of the international community is watching this, and that this is sort of a do-or-die, make-or-break chance for Afghanistan to move forward.

One of the elements of discussion, of course, is the role of the former king, Zahir Shah. And there are differences of opinion. Some, the U.N., would like to see Zahir Shah formally head a transition interim government, while the Northern Alliance are being a little less forward that, saying they do envision a role for Zahir Shah, but as a symbolic, unifying role. So that will be something that we'll wait to see how that pans out in Bonn.

BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour in Kabul, thank you very much. And this note: Christiane will have much more at the top of the hour in her special report, live from Afghanistan.

Here in Washington, the United States is keeping up the pressure on Kandahar, and keeping a close eye on the anti-Taliban forces surrounding it. Let's go live to our national correspondent, Bob Franken. HE's over at the Pentagon -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And it's interesting, Wolf. With all the technology these days, sometimes it's very difficult, from the vantage point of the Pentagon, to know who is where and who is going where.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Defense officials were extremely skeptical about reports Northern Alliance troops were moving on Kandahar to the south -- the city of Kandahar, anyway, which is still under siege.

REAR ADM. JOHN STUFFLEBEEM, JOINT STAFF DEPUTY OPS. DIRECTOR: There have, in fact, been opposition groups, some of which are from the north, that have been around the Kandahar province, to the north of the Kandahar province. I can accept that they may have entered the province.

FRANKEN: There are widespread worries about the Northern Alliance, with its blend of ethnic groups, moving into the south, with its predominately Pashtun population, and the history of animosity that each can hold for the other.

STUFFLEBEEM: There will be a level of concern, but it may be a concern of the opposition groups.

FRANKEN: There have been persistent reports that opposition groups in the south had executed 160 captured Taliban fighters last week, over the objections of a small group of U.S. troops with them.

VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: We've worked really hard to run this one to ground, and reports are just not believable. A U.S. liaison team is on the ground with opposition forces in the area. The team has not reported the capture of more than a handful of prisoners.

FRANKEN: And the U.S. has now sent more than 50 ground troops from the army's 10th mountain division to an airfield near Bagram, in the north. This brings to three the number of Afghan airfields under U.S. control.

The ferocious bombing campaign continues. The Pentagon seemed to acknowledge that in spite of speculation, Tuesday's bombing of a suspected Taliban-al Qaeda leadership compound had not killed supreme Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

STUFFLEBEEM: Indications that I have seen is that he likely was not in the compound that we struck two days ago.

FRANKEN: And what about the state of the Taliban military? A briefer got in trouble when he described it early on as, "eviscerated," "gutted."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Those Taliban troops are still fighting, and a different Taliban briefer is now using the word "fractured" to describe it, which is a word, Wolf, which could easily describe the entire country, after decades of war -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It's a good word, Bob. What are you hearing, anything else? The Pentagon providing any more details about that U.S. soldier killed in Uzbekistan just north of Afghanistan?

FRANKEN: Just very, very brief news release. I can read it to you, it's that short. It says: "A soldier supporting Operation Enduring Freedom died today in Uzbekistan. Although the incident is under investigation, his death was not the result of enemy action." And his name is being withheld, pending notification of next of kin.

BLITZER: OK, Bob Franken over at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

Are the Taliban finished? Is it time to open a new front in the war on terrorism? If so, what's the next target? Joining me now in the CNN WAR ROOM, Ken Adelman of Defensecentral.com, a former U.S. arms control director, Lawrence Korb, vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former assistant defense secretary, and Ned Walker, president of the Middle East Institute here in Washington and a former U.S. ambassador to both Egypt and Israel.

Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to us. Just go to my Web site, cnn.com/wolf. That's also where you can read my daily on-line column. Let's go to the map, first of all. Take a look what we are talking about right now.

And, Larry Korb, I want to begin with you. We take a look -- the last remaining stronghold of the Taliban right here. The southern part of Afghanistan, all this area to the north pretty much under control of the Northern Alliance, allied with the U.S. How much longer do you think the Taliban can hold out under these kinds of circumstances?

LAWRENCE KORB, FMR. ASST. DEFENSE SECRETARY: No more than a couple weeks at most. Because we're putting more and more U.S. forces in there to keep the pressure on to prevent them from escaping. You keep up that very heavy bombing, it's just a matter of very, very short time.

I guess the real question becomes, under what terms will they surrender? Will the Pashtuns who have been sort of weak supporters of the Taliban be allowed to switch sides, as happened in the north? What will happen to the foreign fighters that are in there? Those are the real questions, I think, that need to be settled.

BLITZER: Well, one thing, Ken Adelman, that the U.S. does not want -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is the Northern Alliance going into Kandahar, given the ethnic makeup of the Northern Alliance, largely Uzbek and Tajik, versus the Pashtun in Kandahar.

KEN ADELMAN, HOST, DEFENSECENTRAL.COM: Yes, I think they'll have to cobble together something. And that will be very difficult in Kabul, because it's just a difficult place to get any kind of organization doing anything. But I think that is not to take away from what the United States has done.

What the United States has done is gotten rid of one of the worst governments in the world. We have to now proceed on getting rid of another worst governments in the world. In other words, we have to keep this on a roll.

BLITZER: And, Ned Walker, can the U.S. control the Northern Alliance forces in the south? They obviously were not able to stop them from going into Kabul, the capital.

EDWARD WALKER, PRES., MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: It's very hard to do. And I think the danger is that this could create a sore for a long time to come if they do go in. I think we have to try to keep them from taking that extra step, in order to move forward.

BLITZER: So that raises the question, who should go into Kandahar? If the Northern Alliance is prevented from doing it, should the U.S. launch its own ground invasion against Kandahar?

WALKER: Well, there are still some Pashtun forces that could be used in this regard, along with the bombing campaign and the help of American advisers. I don't think that we need necessarily to bring in large ground troops to do the job.

BLITZER: As you know, there are Marines standing by.

KORB: Yes, but you don't want that, because then you get back to the whole question of foreign forces occupying Afghanistan. You'd want the Pashtuns themselves to do it, just like the Northern Alliance did in Mazar-e Sharif. If you can do that, you're in great shape, because if the Northern Alliance and their part, and you've got the Pashtuns...

BLITZER: Is there a serious Pashtun force that's aligned with the U.S. in the south right now?

KORB: Well, not as serious as the Northern Alliance were. There are a couple of factions there that you can rely on. But that's why I think we put the extra American troops in, which we didn't have in the north, to help those people achieve their objectives.

BLITZER: Ken, as you know, the Northern Alliance are aligned with the U.S. Is it a good idea for the Bush administration to be holding them back from going into Kandahar?

ADELMAN: I think it's a good idea for the time being. That's not the main thing that's going on. The main thing that's going on is going after the al Qaeda network, going after Osama bin Laden. And then setting the precedent that countries, especially governments, that behave in that way will be tossed out of office.

And I think we should use that principle for Iraq, very, very shortly. I think we should use that principle for other countries. So if they get the idea, as the president says, that there is no harboring terrorism in this world. And to go after the international terrorist network, and those who support them, and governments that are involved in weapons of mass destruction. Because that's the ultimate terrorist weapon.

BLITZER: That's main argument Ken Adelman has been be making for some time. Hit Iraq right away. ADELMAN: Absolutely, and it wouldn't be that difficult.

WALKER: I feel very strongly that we ought to get rid of Saddam Hussein, if we can do it. But you have to pay attention to the costs and the benefits. You have to look very hard at this issue. Do we have the right forces in place to do that kind of thing? This is not Afghanistan.

Saddam Hussein has a very substantial force at hand. It is a force which is going to fight even harder if it believes that we are relying on the Kurds, or the Shiites in the south. This is not a force that's necessarily going to collapse the way the Taliban did.

ADELMAN: We heard that argument before the Gulf War, OK? That was in 1991. We had 540,000 troops there. We found out very quickly that the Iraqi troops were no more anxious to fight for Saddam Hussein...

(CROSSTALK)

KORB: Now, those were the conscripts that they gave up.

WALKER: And they were fighting in Kuwait. They were not fighting for Iraq. They were not fighting for Baghdad. Look, Baghdad is a major city.

ADELMAN: They were doing a pathetic job.

WALKER: Yes, they were a pathetic force.

ADELMAN: They were a pathetic force.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But we all remember the elite Republican Guard wasn't elite.

ADELMAN: They were a pathetic force, too.

WALKER: No, the Republican Guard wasn't -- the elite units were still up in Baghdad. Baghdad is a major city. You don't take cities by the air. You have to go in there and route out those people. It's going to be a tough job.

ADELMAN: I don't believe that. I think that the government of Iraq is a totalitarian government that has very little popular support. And when we let them know that our objective is to change the government right there, I think that you will find soldiers who are not willing to fight for Saddam Hussein, just like they would not in the Gulf War. Remember that thousands of them surrendered to an Italian film crew.

(CROSSTALK)

ADELMAN: Let me finish this, Wolf. The fact is that I think the Iraqi army is about 1/3 the strength it was at the Gulf War. WALKER: I'm not saying that it's strong or capable of dealing with the United States military. Let's face it, we can do it. The question is: what cost? How many casualties? What is the danger and the risk we have with Iraq right now?

ADELMAN: We have greater risk in facing them...

(CROSSTALK)

KORB: The other question is, how are you going to do it? Who's going to support you? If you go after Saddam without keeping the coalition together, and without a smoking gun, without real strong proof that he was involved in the...

ADELMAN: You don't need proof.

KORB: You want to use the bases in Saudi Arabia, for example, you're going to have to have a pretty darn good case, because they're going to say to you, "what's the difference between September 11th and September 12th? And you're going to have to be able to show.

(CROSSTALK)

KORB: No, there's no difference...

(CROSSTALK)

KORB: Unless you can show that he's been involved in these attacks, because he's been a bad actor all these years.

WALKER: You're not going to get support of people unless they believe that you're actually going to do the job.

ADELMAN: Oh, I think that's right.

WALKER: This is one of the real problems we have in the region. We have tried several times to do something. We have failed each time. The evidence, up until now, for most of these people, is we don't have...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You were a top diplomat during the years of the Clinton administration, a foreign service officer, ambassador to Egypt, ambassador to Israel. Did the U.S. lose credibility in the Arab world, in the Middle East, during those years?

WALKER: Yeah, because we didn't do what we said we were going to do. We said we were going to be overthrowing Saddam Hussein, it was going to be a major plank of our policy. We never really did it seriously.

KORB: We never said we wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

WALKER: Yes, we did. KORB: No, we didn't. I mean, I think that's important. Bush 41, the elder Bush, and Brent Spokoft (ph) has written about this recently, decided they did not want to overthrow Saddam.

WALKER: That was in 1990. I'm talking about much later.

KORB: And then Clinton never made a decision to overthrow him.

BLITZER: He always said the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein.

KORB: He never said that is our policy. We said we wanted the inspectors back in, and this was our goal. So I think you have to be careful about what you say is your goal.

ADELMAN: Ned's point is a very good one. When you're talking about respect and credibility in that part of the world, generally speaking they go for winners. And when you are winning, as we are in Afghanistan, you have more respect. Once you knock off Saddam Hussein, which would not be very difficult -- and we have plenty of proof. We have plenty of proof that he's involved in weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical and biological.

BLITZER: When you say "not very difficult," there's a lot of people who disagree with you. We're going to pick that up. Hold your thoughts, everybody. Calm down. We are here in the CNN WAR ROOM.

Just ahead, a state that's already being accused of being a sponsor of terrorism. Is it getting any closer to a nuclear capability? And how scary would that be? All of that, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our CNN WAR ROOM. Ambassador Ned Walker, let's button up the whole situation of Iraq. If it's too hard to take down the Iraqis right now, what should the next step U.S. step in the war on terrorism be?

WALKER: Well, we have two steps. We have to continue the war on terrorism through the cooperation of all of the coalition partners in this war -- through financial means, through intelligence means, through legal means. But we also need to get the Russians onboard on a firmer position on Iraq. So if we do have an opportunity in the future to do something, we've got a coalition that will stick together, and that Saddam Hussein will understand he's facing a unified world.

BLITZER: Larry Korb, it's not just the Russians, it's the French. There's a lot of other countries that don't like -- even the U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

KORB: Well, I think we have to go back to what Secretary Powell tried to do last spring: smart sanctions in return for the inspectors. If he doesn't buy that deal, then I think you go back to the U.N. and you get permission to take the next step, which I would go after the sites where he has his weapons of mass destruction, and just attack them.

And I think Ned is right. If Saddam knows the French and the Russians are on our side at this time, I think that will make it easier for him to the let those inspectors back in. And if he doesn't, it will be easier to get the rest of the coalition to come with us.

BLITZER: Ken Adelman, as you know, the chances of Saddam Hussein accepting those U.N. weapons inspectors coming back in, even if there are some so-called smart sanctions imposed, are pretty slim.

ADELMAN: They are pretty slim. And I don't think we should be handcuffed by this talk of the coalition, that both of my friends here have talked about. The fact is, the coalition was not attacked on September 11th. The fact is, America was attacked on September 11th.

BLITZER: But there's no evidence the Iraqis had anything to do with this.

ADELMAN: Oh, yes, there is evidence, Wolf.

BLITZER: Hard evidence. Smoking gun evidence.

ADELMAN: Excuse me. Open up the newspaper and you'll see it. Mohammed Atta met with head of Iraqi intelligence...

(CROSSTALK)

ADELMAN: They weren't talking about their summer vacations, OK? He met with them shortly...

BLITZER: What about...

ADELMAN: Excuse me. Let me just -- there is other evidence, as well. They was evidence that they were involved in the 1993 blowing up attempt on the World Trade Center. There is certain evidence that they have terrorist camps in Iraq to the south that have trained pilots on -- 707s...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Very briefly.

WALKER: They have had training of terrorists. There's no question about it. They have had...

ADELMAN: On aircraft.

WALKER: Well, I don't know about that, particularly. But I did not see the kind of evidence you're talking about while I was in government, and obviously haven't seen it since.

KORB: Colin Powell says he doesn't have it. He is the secretary of state. I think if he had it, he would present it.

BLITZER: He is a friend of yours. ADELMAN: He is a friend of mine, and I think the world of Colin Powell. But let me just tell you. I think that No. 1 is, you have to understand that we have to lead the coalition, and we have not -- should not be handcuffed by the coalition.

BLITZER: Let me move on for a second, because we don't have a whole lot of time. Ned Walker, William Safire, writing in "The New York Times" today says that, as much of a problem as Iraq might be, Iran might even be a worse problem. He says this: "Evidence is mounting that Teheran sponsored the killing of Americans at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia... Most dangerous to us, Iran leads the terror- sponsorship world in the development of nuclear capability."

What should the U.S. government be doing about that, if anything?

WALKER: Look, any government of Iran is going to continue to work on nuclear capability, because they've got Pakistan sitting on one side and they've got Iraq sitting on the other side of them. I'm not saying that we should lie down and let them do it. We should try and continue to keep them from acquiring that capability. But they are a danger. They are a risk. And they have got the kind of delivery systems that can actually do it. They've got a hell of a lot more than Iraq ever has had.

BLITZER: Well, Ken Adelman, what do you want, the U.S. to start bombing Iran now?

ADELMAN: No, what I want them to do is to support the Democrats and the people of Iran, just like I want to support the people of Iraq. It is amazing what is going on Iran nowadays. They are having big protests. They are against the government, pro-American, pro- freedom, in a certain sense. And I think we would see the same thing in Iraq, if given the chance.

BLITZER: In Iran.

ADELMAN: No. That's happening in Iran right now. I think in Iraq, would be the same thing. I think in both countries, a change of government would be enormously welcomed, just as it was in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Button up Iran for us, Larry.

KORB: Well, I think we have to be -- they're helping us now in the situation in Afghanistan. We have to be careful that, for these short-term gains, we don't undermine our long-term goal, which is get a regime that's more friendly and less involved with terrorism.

I have no doubt that they were behind what happened at the Khobar Towers. And this is the problem, you have people, the Russians, the Chinese, Pakistan, helping you now. And you then have to make sure that that doesn't undermine the long-term security.

BLITZER: It's a whole new order out there. Larry Korb, Ned Walker, Ken Adelman, thanks for joining us. And a different kind of terror attack is ratcheting attention even higher in the Middle East. We'll have details of this suicide bombing when we come back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here are some of the latest developments we're following. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is blaming Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for a suicide bombing on a bus in northern Israel. Four people died, including the bomber. The Palestinian Authority has condemned the attack.

Attorney General John Ashcroft says non-U.S. citizens who provide information on suspected terrorists could win visas and immigration help. The incentive initiative is called the Responsible Cooperators Program.

And in London today, a memorial honoring the British victims of the September 11th attacks. Former President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were among those attending the service at Westminster Abbey.

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. "CROSSFIRE" begins, right now.

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