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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Can U.S. Forces Count on Afghan Allies?

Aired January 03, 2002 - 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.
JOHN KING, ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: the war room.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We intend to find them, and we intend to capture or kill them.

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KING: As U.S. forces hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, can they count on their Afghan allies?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUMSFELD: There's still a good deal to do in Afghanistan.

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KING: Should that include nation building? We'll go live to Afghanistan and the Pentagon, and I'll speak live with retired General George Joulwan, former NATO supreme commander; Gary Dempsey of the Cato Institute and James Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton White House, as we go into the war room.

Good evening. I'm John King, reporting tonight from Washington. Wolf Blitzer is off.

Is the U.S. role in Afghanistan still in its early stages? We'll hear from our guests shortly. But first let's get the latest from our correspondents.

We begin in Afghanistan, where there have been numerous developments today, both on the ground and in the air. Keeping track of it all, CNN's Bill Hemmer who joins us now live from Kandahar. Bill?

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning from Kandahar. As you mentioned, a whole lot of developments to talk about.

Let's start now in eastern Afghanistan. The Pentagon confirms more bombing runs, run by U.S. airstrikes late last night into the overnight hours in the region of Khost. This is an area south of Tora Bora.

Some special forces members here at the base have speculated for some time that it's possible that Osama Bin Laden may have escaped the Tora Bora region, gone south into this region. And they mention a town called Gardez, possibly, they say -- possibly -- where Osama Bin Laden may be holed up at this time.

Throughout the night, we heard some of the planes fly overhead here in Kandahar. B-1s, F-18s, AC-130 gunships carrying out their targets there on al Qaeda positions on the ground.

On another front in southern Afghanistan, the hunt for the elusive Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar, apparently has been stepped up a bit.

Special forces confirm with us here that groups of 12 have been operating in the northern stretches of Helmand Province. In addition to that, we are told by local tribal leaders that right now there are negotiations underway for the Mullah Mohammed Omar to surrender that area and turn himself in.

But again, nothing on the ground is confirmed on this front. We have no indication if those negotiations have been successful or not. On another front, we continue to hear about pockets of resistance throughout this country.

And again, a day and a half ago we saw one of those pockets fire up in central Kandahar. Four suspected Taliban soldiers apparently sleeping in a nearby building. That building was surrounded by anti- Taliban troops. A fire fight ensued for about an hour's time. All four eventually surrendered. They are now being held and detained by police for questioning in the city of Kandahar.

Back here at the base now, the detainee issue continues to blossom. 225 now held at the base here. And a rather interesting division has been sent in by the U.S. Army. It's the CID, the criminal investigative division.

Basically they're here, John, to look at the possibility of evidence that may be held against some of these detainees and the possibility, again, they may have targeted or planned or carried out terrorist activity against U.S. targets and U.S. citizens around the world. Again, they are here now investigating the possibility of that evidence. 225 the number, as I mentioned a short time ago.

Finally, in Kabul, more prisoners there. Well over 200 who have been jailed for quite some time, released by Hamad Karzai's government.

The government calls it a goodwill gesture. The Red Cross met the men upon their release, gave them about 20 bucks upon their departure. Some of those detainees and prisoners have been held captive in Kabul for the better part of two years. John?

KING: Bill, you mentioned Mr. Karzai. He will be coming to Washington soon, we are told, to have a meeting with President Bush. Any sense of his agenda? Is this more to discuss the ongoing military campaign or more, perhaps, to look ahead for U.S. assistance -- including money -- when it comes to the reconstruction effort?

HEMMER: John, clearly this relationship has grown with significance over the past three and a half months. And one can clearly assume it will continue to grown and blossom in the future.

As for the discussions, again, you could probably write up the entire list about the future for Afghanistan, whether it's humanitarian support, whether it's peacekeepers, and also the military operation that we see once again has fired up on the eastern edge of this country.

One can also think, John, that these two men will grow ever closer -- at least in the near term -- as they try and chart the future for the course of Afghanistan. John?

KING: More on that relationship in the minutes ahead. Bill Hemmer, thank you. Live from Kandahar for us.

And this programming note: Bill will be back at the top of the hour with his special report, "LIVE FROM AFGHANISTAN."

Now, the military campaign in Afghanistan may still have a long way to go. CNN National Correspondent Bob Franken has more from the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just in case anyone was thinking that the war was over.

RUMSFELD: Reports about mopping up, meaning sort of the end of the effort in Afghanistan notwithstanding, the war on terrorism is still in a relatively early phase.

FRANKEN: And while it is true there is far less bombing these days.

GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We conducted strikes between 10:00 and 11:00 our time in Afghanistan, on a -- on a leadership compound that was a fairly extensive compound.

It had a base camp, a training facility, and some cave pieces to that, fairly close to the Pakistani border, as a matter of fact. And that was the -- last strike in the last several days.

FRANKEN: This was the very same site that was bombed in November by the United States and attacked with cruise missiles during the Clinton administration in 1998. That was one of the failed efforts to get Osama Bin Laden.

The Pentagon did release copies of leaflets dropped in the region. They show impressions of how Bin Laden might look now if he shaved his beard and was wearing western-style clothing, and they include captions. One translates to English. "Osama Bin Laden the murderer and coward, has abandoned you." As for the reports there are negotiations over the fate of that other fugitive number one, Mullah Omar, the reports are persistent, the defense secretary insistent.

RUMSFELD: And I've already said what we would accept. We will accept surrender. These people have killed a lot of people. They deserve to be out of there, they deserve to be punished. And -- and that is what we're there to do.

FRANKEN: Plans now are well underway to transfer some of those already in custody to detention facilities under construction at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as possible, and as carefully as possible.

RUMSFELD: We plan to transport them. And we plan to use the necessary amount of constraint so that those individuals do not kill Americans in transport or in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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FRANKEN: Secretary Rumsfeld raised the possibility that some of the detainees, as they prefer calling them, will be detained at bases inside the United States if the military runs out of room at Guantanamo Bay. It's another loose end -- a major loose end, John -- in what the secretary point calls the "early phases" of this war. John.

KING: Bob, any sense at all as they plan to move these detainees -- any sense at all of what they are learning from them, either about the location of Omar or Osama Bin Laden or about the possibility of any future planned attacks?

FRANKEN: Well, you get -- you get two versions of that. On the one hand, you will oftentimes hear that many of these detainees are really quite adamant. They're very disciplined. These of course are the hard-core. The al Qaeda, in particular, hard-core believers in the battle against the United States.

But others say that during interrogation -- during patient interrogation -- valuable information is coming out. As a matter of fact, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Richard Myers we saw a moment ago, has said repeatedly that information that has come out since the war, both from the interrogations and more importantly from the intelligence sweeps, has provided the type of data that has resulted in some arrests in some countries. Countries unspecified.

KING: And Bob, one detainee gets more attention than the others. He is John Walker, of course, the American Taliban fighter from Northern California. Any new information at all on how his case might be disposed of?

FRANKEN: Well, Pentagon sources say that Secretary Rumsfeld is quite close to recommending that Walker very soon be turned over to civilian authorities. Most lawyers will tell you that is pretty much what could be expected. John Walker, of course, is a citizen of the United States captured battling the enemies of the United States, the Taliban -- battling with the Taliban.

And that doesn't change the fact, however, that he is a U.S. citizen and most lawyers will tell you he would not covered by President Bush's order, which allows people who are not U.S. citizens to be tried by a military tribunal.

KING: Bob Franken, standing by live for us once again at the Pentagon. Thank you, Bob.

The United States abandoned Afghanistan in the past. Should it now help build a new Afghanistan, or get out while it can?

Joining me here in the war room, two veterans of nation building in the Balkans: retired General George Joulwan, the former NATO supreme commander, and James Steinberg of the Brookings Institution. He was former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton White House. And Gary Dempsey, foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. He argues that America's recent efforts at nation building have been, quote, "fool's errands."

Remember, you can e-mail your war room questions to CNN.com/wolf. General, let's begin with you. You heard defense secretary today saying, "don't get the impression it's over, because it's not."

How long, in your sense, will it go on? And as you answer the question, is not the United States military already part of, quote unquote, "nation building" in that it is there in the country while this transitional government is getting up to speed?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN (RET.), FORMER NATO COMMANDER: Let me be very clear. I don't call it nation building. I call it security building.

We have a stake in how Afghanistan is developed while we're conducting combat operations. You're going to have mission A, which is the combat operations going on. And you're going to have a follow- on force coming in doing mission B, which is some sort of reconstruction, rehabilitation, reconciliation, those sort of missions.

Those have to be knitted together, knitted together under unity of command that if that is not done, I think we are opening ourselves up for a -- a lot of difficulty later on.

So if we're going to carry on this mission, we've got to take an interest in this follow-on mission that's coming in.

KING: You say you don't like the term nation building, I guess in part because it is a term that has taken on a political connotation that is not positive. Let's listen. I want to bring in Jim Steinberg, but let's listen first. This is Candidate George W. Bush running for president.

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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I worry a lot about running against opponent who uses the word U.S. military and nation building in the same breath. I worry about an unfocused mission.

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KING: But it seems as president, a bit of a softer tone. This is the president at a news conference not long ago.

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BUSH: I think we did learn a lesson from, however -- and should learn a lesson from -- the previous engagement in the Afghan area, that -- that we should not just simply leave after a military objective has been achieved.

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KING: Not just simply leave, Jim Steinberg. Has the president softened his position, and what should the United States do? Call it nation building, call it security building. What should the United States do now?

And as you answer, I want to show our viewers a map that underscores the complexity of the situation. Not only a country torn by civil strife for years, but a country with a very complicated ethnic background.

If you look here, the various colors tell you the breakdown of the various tribes and ethnic groups within Afghanistan. Obviously, as you try to build a new democratic government, that is going to be a problem.

JIM STEINBERG: John, I think the president got it right in his second quote which is that we've got a big stake there, that we've learned in the past that if we walk away and we allow the instability to return, it's going to hurt us.

That's where the terrorists live. You know, we hear a lot of talk about Somalia, too, and we see the problem there, of places where there are no governments or deep instability.

That's what fosters terrorism. That creates new problems and will force us to come back again. We shouldn't have unrealistic expectations about what we can achieve here. The differences are deep.

They're not going to have a very strong centralized government. They're not going to have a recognized Western liberal democracy overnight. But that doesn't mean that we can afford to walk away. And I think that's what we have to keep our eye on.

KING: As we keep our eye on it, Gary Dempsey, do you remain a skeptic? And before you answer, a quote from your book, "Fool's Errand:" "Washington said it would bring order to Somalia, but left chaos. It went to Haiti to restore democracy, but produced tyranny. It intervened in Bosnia to reverse the effects of a civil war but now oversees a peace that is not self sustaining..."

In your view, is history about to repeat itself?

GARY DEMPSEY: Well, i think we need to keep our eye on the ball in Afghanistan and see that the al Qaeda network and Taliban regime are completely destroyed. But flirting with the notion of nation building, I think, is both unwise and unnecessary.

It's unnecessary because our security here in the United States does not depend upon creating a liberal democratic regime in Kabul. It simply requires that we create a government or governments that don't harbor terrorists like the Taliban did.

It's unwise because there is hardly a country in Afghanistan to speak of. The three main groups can barely get along in the best of circumstances and are already involved in power plays internally.

Also, I think we need to keep our powder dry and troops our available, should another high-intensity contingency come along. We don't want to get bogged down in an open-ended nation building mission.

And lastly, the idea of -- of exporting stationary targets to the terrorists' backyard, I think, is -- is folly. I think the -- the last thing we should do is create a situation where there can be kidnapping, torture, and ambushes upon American soldiers when our allies, the British, the Turks and the French, are willing to step in and control the area.

JOULWAN: What I think is there's a misconception here that somehow nation building is equated with large amounts of U.S. troops. That is not the case.

And again I go to security building. That's part of the problem, that what we have to make clear here is that there are other assets other than military to do many of these tasks.

And I agree that we need our troops for a lot of other missions. We need international police, gendarmerie, carabinieri. Other assets like that.

But the organization of that, the clarity of mission, the knitting together of the military, that's still on the ground, doing searching for some time to come, according to the president and the secretary of defense and these other organizations, that needs to be done right. And...

KING: And in that context, let's answer this question from Bill, an e-mail from Bill in Ottawa. He asks: "What key objectives need to be met before U.S. troops leave Afghanistan in the care of the Afghan government and coalition peacekeeping troops?

KING: What conditions? JOULWAN: I think very clearly, the leadership here of the al Qaeda and Taliban are important. This is defeating an army in the field. This is going after clear criminal terrorists. And until that is done, I don't think we're going to leave Afghanistan very soon.

KING: And do you have concerns that that is being done? The search for Bin Laden, the search for Omar, the search for all these weapons spread around the country is being be done at a time a transitional government is trying to get up to speed? And as it gets up to speed, as a gesture of domestic goodwill, is releasing rank-and- file Taliban back into the mass population?

JAMES STEINBERG, FORMER DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think we've got to be sensitive to the political realities on the ground there. We share an interest with the new government and all the factions in Afghanistan to get rid of al Qaeda, because those are foreigners that nobody there wants them to stay.

But we've got to realize that the many of these people that we -- as you call them the rank and file of the Taliban, are people who are closely associated with people who we now support. And they've got to deal with their own problem of reconciliation.

So I think we should accept the judgment that the top leadership of the Taliban has to be brought to justice. Certainly al Qaeda has to be thoroughly rooted out. But we've seen that in most of these societies you need a process of reconciliation. You can't simply say everybody that had any association in the past is going to be an enemy or you'll never bring peace to that country.

KING: But the president says this is a war just beginning, Afghanistan one of many fronts. Will what happens in Afghanistan be a precedent in terms of U.S. policy? And in that context I want to start with you, Gary.

Here is a question from Frataap in Boston: "Do we have a moral or political responsibility to rebuild the next terrorist country that we go after and bomb? Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Syria -- where does this end?"

DEMPSEY: That's a very good point. The president, during a speech announcing the launching of the airstrikes, noted that there 68 countries where al Qaeda exists. The State Department identifies 42 significant terrorist organizations around the world. There are 106 different regimes that are oppressive or semi-oppressive that conceivably under some peoples' minds could -- could sponsor terrorists. So yes. Where does it end?

The -- the clear approach, I think, that the president is citing, is that -- is one of deterrence. And I think -- I would shy away from using the term nation building. I think what he's doing here is a forced regime change, and it's part of a precedent he's trying to set.

And that precedent is, if you harbor terrorists, you will lose the lever -- the levers of power. And I think this has had follow-on affects in the way the Yemenis have recently been dealing with their al Qaeda problem and also the government in Sudan.

STEINBERG: John, that works where there's a state. But if you don't -- if you have a situation where the state is collapsing and you've got internal strife because we have turned our back, then that strategy won't work.

And that's why we do have to look at hard cases, even the hard case of Somalia, which has proved to be one of the most difficult. We have identified this -- and many have identified this as the next target. It won't do us that much good just to go in and hit a few camps if there's no government there who can exert and we don't try to help with efforts to make sure that that becomes a more stable system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John...

KING: Let me jump in, General. Let me ask -- put this question to you as you answer this. John in Honey Harbour, Ontario: "Will the United States establish a semi-permanent presence in this part of the world, much like what has been done in South Korea, Germany and Japan?"

As we answer this question of how do you deal with this in the long run, is that going to be one inevitable result?

JOULWAN: I -- I don't think so. But I'll go back to the president's words, where he said we can't do what we did ten years ago. It's to pull out. If that is -- if he truly has said that, then what are the intended outcomes? What is it that we want to see? And then how do we build toward that? I don't think it's going to take a long-term presence like we have in Germany, but it's going to take involvement to make sure we do it right.

KING: All right. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, can the United States depend on Afghanistan's new leaders to help in the hunt for the old leaders?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back to the war room. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld says the United States and the Afghan government are, quote, "on the same sheet of music." But will the harmony last? Can the United States get along and trust the new interim government?

To discuss that I'm joined here in the war room by retired General George Joulwan, former NATO supreme commander; James Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton White House; and foreign policy analyst Gary Dempsey of the Cato Institute.

General, first to you. One development today that on the surface would appear troubling if you were a general or a senior official in the U.S. military command.

The new government -- the interim government -- releasing rank- and-file Taliban back into the general population at a time there are still weapons hidden throughout the country, at a time the military is still involved in dangerous missions, still looking for Omar and Osama. Would you have objected to that?

GENERAL GEORGE JOULWAN, FORMER NATO COMMANDER: Well, I think we have to get more facts. That's one of the reasons, as I said earlier, there has to be this working relationship with this -- with this new government. It depends whether these were in prison for some time -- and I understand some were. Were they vetted in terms of what their relationship was?

But I really think what we need to do is get more facts on it. But clearly what we don't want released are these leaders of -- of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Particularly al Qaeda, that have caused so much trouble around the world.

KING: We are armchair quarterbacks here, in some sense. This is a very sensitive situation, Jim Steinberg, hard to get handle on from Washington. But Aline in New York asks this question: "The Northern Alliance and Eastern Alliance forces seem to be working against the United States in Kandahar and Tora Bora, where supposed cease fires and calls for surrender enabled Taliban and al Qaeda leaders to escape."

A similar situation, in the view of some, these negotiations in the Baghram area where perhaps Mullah Omar is. How does the United States handle this, and -- and does the United States have to listen if Mr. Karzai says, "Don't bomb there? I'm worried about civilian casualties?" Or can they say, "sorry, we were here first?"

STEINBERG: I think we have to be clear about what our objectives are, and we're going to follow through on them. They are: to deal with the al Qaeda threat, first and foremost, because that is the greatest danger to us. And for those Taliban who were responsible for harboring al Qaeda, we need to make sure they they're going to be held to justice, too. But our fight is not really with the rank-and-file of Taliban.

We've got to have a process that we work with the new coalition government to figure out procedures how to deal with that. But we have to recognize that they're going to have to live there long after we're gone. They need the process of political reconciliation.

In all civil wars of these kind, there are points at which you have to find ways to deal with the past. And there are different choices, whether they're truth or reconciliation commissions, whether they're criminal trials and the like.

As long we get an agreement on our key priorities which is to get hold of the terrorists and those who are directly responsible for harboring the terrorists, then I think that's where we should focus our efforts.

KING: OK. Gary Dempsey, obviously there was a political imperative getting a transitional government in place because the United States and other coalition members wanted to prove this was about building a new Afghanistan, a representative Afghanistan. But in the rush to do that because of the political imperative, does that leave the new government perhaps at cross-purposes with the military objectives? The United States military no longer has a free rein in Afghanistan, because the Taliban is gone but there is a new government and it is beginning to assert itself.

GARY DEMPSEY, CATO INSTITUTE: I think you're exactly right. But I think this is the tip of the iceberg. We're already seeing internal jockeying among the different factions within Afghanistan for American largess, for American involvement.

There was a recent incident where there was convoy and intelligence called in, said they were Taliban. And in fact, they weren't. This was part of a manipulation.

This hearkens back to what we saw earlier in Somalia, where we get involved and we get sucked in slowly into the internal politics so that we become seen as allies of one side and opponents of another. Then we become the targets of terrorism or other acts within the country.

KING: General, this is a country with a history of changing alliances. Your enemy one day is your friend the next. In the context of that and how this goes on from here and whether United States can trust the new government?

Mike in Grove City, Ohio asks this question: "Do you think the United States would be better off sending a large number of ground troops into Afghanistan to clean out the Taliban and al Qaeda, rather than letting the Northern Alliance" -- and I'll add to Mike's question, other Afghan factions -- "take the lead?"

JOULWAN: I -- I think you're going to see a larger number of U.S. forces on the ground doing just that. But you -- you truly have to include some of the opposition forces in what we're doing. They know the terrain, they know where the caves are. But we are going to have to do some of that.

The key, again, goes back to this interim or government that we now have in Afghanistan. We must play a role. That is not nation building. That is security building. That's what -- while we have combat troops on the ground, we have got to maintain some control of what is happening in that country. And if we don't do that, I think we're going to have -- we're going to have difficulties with our troops. and I don't want to see happen.

KING: And as we get about that business, Jim Steinberg, you have worked in the White House in these sensitive situations. Mr. Karzai is about to come to Washington. Is one item on that agenda does the president have to turn to him and say, "I understand your tough domestic political situation, but the United States put you in charge. We're not done yet. We call the shots when we comes to the military?"

STEINBERG: I think he's going to have to make that message clear. But he's got to have something else to say to him as well, and I think that's the challenge. If he says to him, "that's what we're going to do. And by the way, when we're done, we're going to leave," he's not going to get a lot of positive response from Mr. Karzai. So he's got to be able to say, "You have to understand why we're here and we're going to finished this bit of business. We didn't take these risk, we didn't go in, to leave it half finished. But boy, we are also going to be there to try to help you create a situation where we don't have to stay forever, where there is stability and a future for the people of Afghanistan."

KING: All right. I need to stop you there. We're out of time tonight. Jim Steinberg, General Joulwan, Gary Dempsey. Thank you all for your time. We'll revisit this issue in the days, weeks -- and it looks like months -- ahead.

He's the second-most wanted man in Afghanistan: Mullah Mohammed Omar. We'll have an update on the search for the Taliban leader Omar when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: A quick look now at some of the latest developments we're following. The Pentagon says U.S. war planes bombed an al Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan today. Officials suspect fighters backing Osama Bin Laden may have fled there from Tora Bora. The compound is near the cities of Khost and Gardez. It includes a base camp, training camp, and some caves.

The hunt for Mullah Mohammed Omar is focusing on Helmand Province, about 120 miles northwest of Kandahar. Afghan officials say he may be hiding in a group of 1500 Taliban fighters holed up there. U.S. special forces are said to have searched the area.

The U.S. Agency for International Development says widespread hunger predicted for Afghanistan this winter probably will not happen. The head of the agency credits an ambitious new humanitarian effort that brought 210,000 metric tons of food to the country in just the past few months.

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 John King in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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