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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

U.S. Looks For Other Caves in Afghanistan

Aired January 14, 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: THE WAR ROOM. After heavy bombing of an al Qaeda base, U.S. forces look for other camps and caves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we find them, we'll search them. We'll continue to build intelligence, and then, if appropriate, we'll destroy them.

BLITZER: With its leaders on the run, and a growing number of its fighters in U.S. hands, who's running things for al Qaeda? And did Osama bin Laden give advance approval for another big terror attack?

We'll go live to Afghanistan and the Pentagon, and I'll speak live with former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; author James Webb, a Marine combat veteran and former Navy secretary; and Haron Amin, Afghanistan's envoy in Washington, as we go into the war room.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

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

With a new government in place in Kabul, and Taliban and al Qaeda fighters running for their lives, many of you may have thought the war in Afghanistan was all but over.

If you did, you were wrong. Today, another day of pounding air strikes, especially in eastern Afghanistan.

The target of that massive bombing effort: a sprawling al Qaeda training complex. For more on that, let's turn to our Bill Hemmer. He's live in Kandahar, in Afghanistan. Bill?

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, good morning from Kandahar. Very intense strikes up until about midday on Monday.

And really you have to go back eight days, when this became the focal point of U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. Over the past three days, we should point out, that bombing stepped up and apparently our CNN crew on the ground indicates the bombing got really intense early Monday morning. Again, our crews report about tremors nearly six miles away from that bombing. At least 13 U.S. helicopters swooped in after that, possibly indicating ground troops or special forces in the area there.

It's a huge place, too. 30 to 40 acres below ground, we're told, at least four miles above ground. The Pentagon say it's working to close about 50 caves and it's already destroyed about 60 structures above ground.

And for a long time, Wolf, the Pentagon again has told us they continue to look for targets of al Qaeda possibly resurfacing. And again, on the ground there in eastern Afghanistan, right around this terrorist training camp, apparently the U.S. military is spotting a number of things on the ground there. Wolf.

BLITZER: Bill, you are at Kandahar where the U.S. military has its detainee detection center. How full is that?

Actually, we have just lost Bill Hemmer. Our satellite just went down. We'll try to get back to him later in this program. Bill, by the way, will have more at the top of the hour in his special report "LIVE FROM AFGHANISTAN".

As more prisoners from Afghanistan reach their new home at a base in Cuba, more questions are being raised about the accommodations. Let's go live to our military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre. He's over at the Pentagon. Jamie?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Pentagon is defending treatment of some of those detainees who are arriving at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It is a -- somewhat of a makeshift facility. And some of -- some human rights advocates are complaining that the prisoners are not being accorded the kind of treatment that they should get as prisoners of war.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MCINTYRE: As the latest group of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, human rights activists are questioning whether the makeshift prison meets with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If U.S. soldiers, for example, were held in open mesh cages covered with a tin roof, I think the U.S. government would complain about it.

MCINTYRE: But the Pentagon insists the detainees -- it refuses to call them prisoners of war -- are not being abused.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Each day the detainees are given three culturally appropriate meals, they have daily opportunities to shower, exercise and receive medical attention.

So in keeping with -- in accordance with the Geneva Convention, they are receiving very humane treatment.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says the International Committee of the Red Cross will be in a better position to judge whether the conditions are appropriate, and whether the shaving the prisoners' heads and beards was warranted to combat head lice, as the Pentagon claims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shaving prisoners, whose beards may be for important religious purposes, raises a concern because that would be an affront to their dignity.

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, the intensive bombing of the nine-square- mile cave complex at Zawar Kili in eastern Afghanistan continues in what the Pentagon described as largely a demolition operation aimed at precluding terrorists from using the camp again, by sealing off more than 50 cave entrances, and flattening all of the above-ground buildings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It previously had been struck. What was not known was how extensive a complex it was until we actually were on the ground and physically looking inside these caves to find out how extensive it was.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

MCINTYRE: While the United States is wrapping up its demolition of the Zawar Kili complex, it is not ending the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda forces. The area is described by one Pentagon spokesman as being riddled with caves and above-ground structures that need to be inspected. And so, Wolf, the search goes on.

BLITZER: Jamie, given the religious sensitivities involved in shaving those beards, what are the -- does the Pentagon say? Wasn't there any other way to deal with the public health issue of lice or whatever, without necessarily having to shave their beards?

MCINTYRE: Well, assuming that the prisoners did in fact have a problem with head lice or another health problem, you know, usually that could be dealt with with medicated shampoos or showers, and wouldn't require shaving.

But the military says it was -- while it was sensitive to the religious issue, it really wasn't practical matter. They had no shower facilities at the Kandahar detention center. They had no way to shower and shampoo and use the special medicated shampoos.

So they said because they were moving in the confined aircraft, they really said they had no other practical solution but to shave both their heads and their beards before they were transported to Guantanamo Bay.

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

And today, during a trip through the Midwest, President Bush reiterated his warning to al Qaeda and the Taliban leaders still on the run. His pledge to track them down, no matter how long it takes, still stands. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You see, we're fighting an enemy that's willing to send others to death, on suicide missions in the name of -- of religion and they themselves want to hide in caves.

But you know something? We're not going to tire. We're not going to be impatient. We're going to do whatever it takes to find them and bring them to justice. They think they can hide but they're the not going to hide from the mighty reach the United States and the coalition we have put together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And one of the men carrying out the president's mission was the U.S. special forces Captain Jason Amerine. He fought in Afghanistan alongside the country's present leader, Hamad Karzai.

An attack that Captain Amerine helped lead against the Taliban stronghold of Taran Kote (ph) helped establish Karzai's legitimacy as a leader in the war effort.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Art Harris, the captain also described the friendly-fire incident near Kandahar which killed two members of his unit, along with one other American soldier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPTAIN JASON AMERINE, SPECIAL FORCES: When we were struck by the bomb, our mayday concern was taking care of the casualties. There wasn't a great deal of time to sit and worry about anything else or to, you know, feel bad about the incident. We were too worried about keeping our guys alive.

ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What happened to you?

AMERINE: Some minor injuries. My eardrum was blown out and I -- I caught some shrapnel in my leg.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Tomorrow at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, Captain Amerine will be awarded a Bronze Star for valor. More than a dozen other veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan will also be honored.

In recent days, U.S. special forces took over from a local Afghan leader who posed a threat in the southern -- a southern border town. Are the warlords now out of control? And is Afghanistan's interim government in control?

Joining me now here in the CNN war room: Haron Amin, a one-time anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. He's now his country's top diplomat in Washington. James Webb, a one-time marine combat officer in Vietnam. He's a former secretary of the Navy and a best-selling author. And General Brent Scowcroft. He's the national -- he was the national security adviser to both President Ford and the first President Bush.

This note: you can e-mail your war room questions to me. Go to cnn.com/wolf. That's also, by the way, where you can read my daily online column.

Haron Amin, congratulations to you on formally being named charge here in Washington.

HARON AMIN, AFGHAN CHARGE D'AFFAIRES: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: The key question is this. Does your government now -- the interim government of Hamad Karzai -- have any specific information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden?

AMIN: The information that we have had so far has been passed over to the international coalition and it indicates clearly that Osama bin Laden might be across the border in Pakistan, along the Waziristan (ph), possibly Beluchistan (ph), close to NWFP, which is the north frontier area. That's where he might be in terms of Osama bin Laden.

As far as Mullah MoHamad Omar is concerned, he is somewhere in southern Afghanistan. The teams are after him (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the international coalition, particularly the use of special forces who are after these guys to make sure that we bring them to justice.

BLITZER: General Scowcroft, are we making too much of this personal search of Osama bin Laden and Mullah MoHamad Omar in terms of the big picture of the war against terrorism?

GENERAL BRENT SCOWCROFT, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think we were for a while. I'm not sure that that's the focus right now. I think the focus is gathering intelligence, and -- and that is essential to move on to other areas and find out where these networks reside.

BLITZER: Because the intelligence from questioning the detainees, the prisoners or whatever, they potentially could provide advance warning of other operations in the works.

SCOWCROFT: Absolutely.

BLITZER: And you're convinced that there presumably are sleeper cells, other operations, other al Qaeda operatives still at large?

SCOWCROFT: Oh, I think there's no doubt of it. Both in Afghanistan, and -- and throughout the world, apparently.

BLITZER: We have an e-mail question from James -- from Ross in Spokane, Washington, e-mailed us this question: "Will the Department of Defense bring charges against the renegade warlords that allowed Taliban and al Qaeda leaders to escape in exchange for bribes or power?"

JAMES WEBB, FORMER SECRETARY OF NAVY: I have to no idea what -- what the government is going to do. BLITZER: Should they? My view on that is that we have to be pretty sensitive when it comes to the Taliban as opposed to the al Qaeda and allow the cultural forces inside Afghanistan to sort these issues out.

It's a -- it's been a warrior nation for a long time. There have been people at the soldier level as opposed to the very top leader level who made decisions regarding their loyalties depending on what particular tribe they're in and that sort of thing and it's a pretty delicate thing to sort out.

BLITZER: So Hamad Karzai, the interim leader of Afghanistan, let deal with the Taliban while the United States deals with al Qaeda?

WEBB: With -- other than cases that have international implications, that -- that would be my view on this, that our mission is to break up the international terrorism movement worldwide, to run down the al Qaeda movement, and inside of Afghanistan, we have to show some respect for the cultural implications inside the country.

BLITZER: He still doesn't have...

AMIN: Also, most of those warlords or individuals that the might still have sympathies for al Qaeda to bring them back, so those have to be hunted done also. And I think is in line with the U.S. objectives, it's in line with the international objectives and also in line with the new administration's objectives.

BLITZER: Does the new government -- Hamad Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan right now -- does he control the situation? Because there seems to be a lot of warlords still on the loose who are really the power in specific areas?

AMIN: Well, remember, a new administration has taken place. It's only about three months -- maybe about three weeks old. It's an infant regime.

It needs all cooperation. It hasn't been paid the money that had been promised to it. The employees, civil servants have not been paid yet. The Army is not a national army. You've got a lot of warlords at large. You've got a lot of roads that are disconnected by, you know, through gorges and others.

You've got all sorts of problems. So they need to be -- we need to give it some time before it fully functions as a normal government. And I think that it's a bit premature to conclude, you know, whether he is an authority or not an authority, but indeed he is the head of the government and he has got the international backing for this government.

BLITZER: Given the chaos of what's happened in Afghanistan over these past few decades, it's pretty impressive right now to see what Hamad Karzai and his followers have been able to achieve. Although as you know, Americans are pretty impatient. They want everything resolved yesterday.

SCOWCROFT: Well, of course we do. But I think -- I think they're doing really quite well.

If you remember after -- after the Soviet troops left, we had a terrible time. And the -- the coalition, really, against the Soviet occupation turned to fighting each other and -- and we had a very difficult time.

I think we need to be patient. This is a really chaotic situation. I think the ambassador -- I'm going to call you Ambassador -- said it just about right.

This is a brand new government. The troops belong -- their allegiance, heaven knows what it is to now, but we need to move carefully. And -- and as Jim said, let them sort things out to the extent that we can. Let's not move -- muscle our way in and say we know how to solve this.

BLITZER: What should the U.S. military be doing right now in Afghanistan?

WEBB: My view now into the medium term?

BLITZER: Yeah.

WEBB: ...term -- is they need to be conducting combat operations, particularly the types of things they have been doing. This has been a spectacularly successful combination of effort between United States and the anti-Taliban forces. Once the combat operations are done, my view is that we need to move on and we need to...

BLITZER: So...

WEBB: We need to move on.

BLITZER: So let me read to you what Tom Friedman wrote in yesterday's "New York Times," the foreign affairs columnist. He wrote this: "Let me be blunt. If the Bush team thinks our allies are going to send peacekeeping troops here in any numbers, for any length of time, without U.S. leadership and participation, they're crazy."

WEBB: Well, we can provide the diplomatic overview, and plant the flag. The American flag is planted there in terms of helping solve the Afghani problem long term.

But we've got to realize that our military is small: it's 1.4 million people. We have 200,00 of those people permanently stationed overseas in other seas. We've got probably another 40,000 deployed in places the Balkans. And these are locational deployments, sot it's sort three to one when you look at it.

And we have other missions that we're going to have to be performing in order to root out the -- the al Qaeda. And the countries that are following in behind us, some like for instance the UK have long experience in the region.

We are the only country in the world that can do the types of things which have happened here and that are going to be required to be done in other countries. And we shouldn't want to be spilling -- not spilling, but we shouldn't want to be cutting short our capabilities to do other these things.

BLITZER: All right. Haron, I'm going to get to you in a second. But General, let me follow up on a point that James Webb just made, and it's a question from Matt in Forest Hills, New York: "If the U.S. takes the lead as peace keeper in Afghanistan" -- and it's a question, obviously, if we will -- "do we run the risk of spreading our military resources too thin?"

SCOWCROFT: Yes, of course we do. You know, this is a -- this is a difficult problem. Tom Friedman is a very smart guy. But I'm not sure he's right on this one.

BLITZER: You know, Senator Biden agrees with him. He made the point on "Meet the Press" yesterday that unless the U.S. takes the leadership in the international peacekeeping force, who knows what's going to happen?

SCOWCROFT: I'm not sure that's necessarily true. We may need -- we may need some people there, and I think we should be prepared to help out. But a lot of our friends and allies have offered troops. And as Jim said, they can't engage with us in the kinds of operations we've had. These are highly sophisticated operations.

BLITZER: I would assume, Haron Amin, that your government, the government of Hamad Karzai, would like the United States to take the lead in this kind of international peacekeeping presence.

AMIN: Well, we have left it to the international community to come to terms with itself. And I think in this context, the United States and the Brits sort of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) agreed that the Brits would take -- should take the lead in this context. And other countries are also involved.

I think regardless of whom -- but the important thing is that the United States participation and involvement in this international coalition was very pivotal.

It was significant. It yielded the kind of thing brought about the government of Prime Minister Karzai -- Chairman Karzai -- in Afghanistan and I think that for as long as required -- and I'm sure that Mr. Karzai is in contact, as I am with -- in contact with U.S. officials, to know exactly what time limits we are talking about.

But indeed, this phase -- I mean, that phase might be coming to an end soon. But the long-term commitment, whether it is in the political arena or the economic arena, reconstruction, reparation, rehabilitation and development, that these be also as significant as the military phase of this whole war.

BLITZER: And Bill in Ottawa has a specific follow-on question to you to try to nail down when you think troops should get out. He asks this question: "What key U.S. objective needs to be met before U.S. military troops leave Afghanistan in the care of its government and coalition peacekeeping troops?" WEBB: I think that...

BLITZER: At what point does the U.S. leave?

WEBB: I think that we have established clear military goals. General Franks has done a great job of articulating those. And when they are met, we should leave. And the longer we stay around after that, the -- bigger problems might -- arise, even militarily there.

BLITZER: Is it possible, Haron Amin, that the Afghan people -- or significant portions of the Afghan population -- could turn against the United States after helping to liberate your country from the Taliban?

AMIN: It is absolutely wrong. The whole perception is wrong, because Afghans have always distinguished between those that have come to invade and those that have come to liberate.

I can tell you that the sentiment -- the overall the sentiment is that the Americans came to liberate Afghanistan from the tyrannical grips of al Qaeda as well as Mullah MoHamad Omar and the Taliban and the religious fanatics. That's not the perception.

I would say that in the long term we would want the involvement of the international community, whether United -- U.S. troops are involved or not, some sort of international coalition to ascertain the kind of objectives that would not lead or precipitate the return of al Qaeda and like-minded organizations in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: The whole issue of nation building, as you remember, General Scowcroft, was a huge criticism that then-candidate George W. Bush leveled against then-President Bill Clinton. Although now the United States is deeply engaged, effectively, in what's called nation building: trying to build a nation out of the mess in Afghanistan.

SCOWCROFT: Well, reality has intruded on a lot of the campaign rhetoric. And I think -- I think we have to engage.

But the one thing we don't want leave, we should not be using our troops for this kind of mission, because we don't have enough. But we also don't want to leave that impression that we'll do -- we'll do the high-tech, we'll do the sophisticated stuff, and our allies can do the grunt work, the grubby work.

You know, we -- we are together on this and we have to specialize, because there is certain tasks that we are the only ones that can do.

BLITZER: All right. Stand by. We have a lot more to talk about. When come back, the next target. A key member of U.S. Senate says better late than never. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN war room. Haron Amin, this whole notion of the shaving the beards of these Taliban, al Qaeda fighters as they were moved to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo. Is this a big issue among the mostly Muslim population of Afghanistan?

AMIN: Well, I think -- remember that growing a beard in Islam is not dictated in the Holy Koran. It's a tradition by the Prophet. In other words, it's not one those mandatory things that one must do.

I don't grow a beard and I'm a -- and I'm a perfect Muslim here in the sense that, you know, I practice and I have my own convictions. So it's not a big thing.

And secondly, that beard could very well be grown back, let's say after some time. What needed to be done at the time was what needed to be done. Purely.

And bringing this whole Geneva Convention into all of this, when knowing that these people had the kind of nexus that produced September 11th, I think that here we have to draw a conclusion between what is really important and what is really insignificant.

BLITZER: Does Human Rights Watch have a point when they say these prisoners, these detainees at Guantanamo Bay are being mistreated?

WEBB: I -- I would suppose if there were really some obscene behavior that the United States government was perpetrating on these people that someone might have a point. But...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: ...prisoners were kept in these kind of cages, in effect.

WEBB: American Marines right now in Afghanistan are living in worse conditions than these people are in Cuba. So I just don't think they have a point here.

BLITZER: OK. Well, let me ask Brent Scowcroft this question from Kathy in Florida. She e-mailed us this: "Why was it a better idea to bring these dangerous detainees 90 miles from the U.S. border than to take them elsewhere or leave them where they were and deal with them there?"

SCOWCROFT: Well, how they picked Guantanamo exactly, I don't know. They looked at several different -- different sites. Guantanamo is -- is convenient for us. It's outside the United States, which is very important.

BLITZER: Tell our viewers why.

SCOWCROFT: Because if you let them inside the United States, then they become U.S. persons and a whole bunch of different laws apply to them, and they have rights that they don't have when they are in Guantanamo. I think it's a great place for them. BLITZER: And in terms of the prisoners that your government is keeping on the ground in Afghanistan, are they cooperating and are they providing useful information?

As you know, that there are some reports suggesting that Osama bin Laden left instructions to his al Qaeda operatives to launch another so-called major attack against the United States even without him?

AMIN: All prisoners that we have captured -- the information that is -- that they're passing on for their release and for the release of their relatives and so on, all of that is being accumulated. And the significant -- I mean, it's being divided into domestic as well as international issues.

The international issues, related issues, are passed on to the international coalition. Those for domestic purposes are kept within the ministry of interior, ministry of intelligence, making sure that these guys would not perpetrate the kinds of barbarity against the people of Afghanistan and/or against the international population, including those of the United States of America.

BLITZER: Senator Joe Lieberman, just back from Afghanistan, South and central Asia, spoke out forcefully, minced no words on what the next target should be in the U.S. war against terrorism. Listen to what he said today here at Georgetown University in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, (D) ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Trying to manage the Iraqi threat under Saddam is like trying to cool a volcano with a thermostat. it doesn't work. We must therefore declare a new objective: our clear, unequivocal goal should be liberating the Iraqi people and the world from Saddam's tyranny, as we should have done in 1991.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Easier said than done, though.

WEBB: It is.

BLITZER: How difficult of a mission would that be?

WEBB: I think that there are several levels of difficulty in that, and perhaps the actual military part of it would be even easier than what happens if you -- if you succeed and all of these optimistic scenarios don't -- don't occur.

One of the hesitations I had even during the gulf war was the idea of putting an essentially Judeo-Christian military as an occupational force in an area that many in the Islamic world believe to be the cradle of the Islamic civilization.

We don't have the same sort of forces on the ground -- cooperative forces on the ground -- that we did in Afghanistan. We've got a -- our major ally in this region has been Turkey. I think Jim Woolsey in a -- in a previous broadcast was very good at outlining the difficulties with the Kurdish population and the -- and the breakoff movement, et cetera.

So I -- I would say that there are -- there are other areas to go after while the Iraqi situation matures, unless there were clear evidence of -- of the development of nuclear capabilities or these sorts of things.

BLITZER: General Scowcroft, in 1991 you were the national security adviser at the end of the Gulf War. Senator Lieberman taking an indirect swipe, I guess, at you.

SCOWCROFT: Sounded pretty direct to me. I think it -- I think he's wrong now. I think he was wrong then.

BLITZER: Tell us briefly why.

SCOWCROFT: Because had we moved into...

BLITZER: Not then. Why is he wrong right now?

SCOWCROFT: Why is he wrong now? Because he's mixing up two problems.

Saddam Hussein is a bit problem. We're not after Saddam Hussein because of terrorism. We're after him because he a different kind of a threat.

If we turn our attention to Iraq now, what happens to the al Qaeda network? We forget about them. We don't even know that bin Laden is the true brains of the outfit. We need to root them out branch, roots, trunks, everything, and not turn our attention elsewhere.

BLITZER: We have leave it there, unfortunately. General Scowcroft, Ambassador Amin. Thanks for joining us. James Webb, always a pleasure.

WEBB: Thank you.

BLITZER: And coming up, fighter patrols have become a familiar sight over U.S. cities. Will they continue to be? We'll be back in just a moment with a quick check of that story and the other latest developments. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Thank you very much, Tucker. We'll be watching.

Welcome back. Topping our latest developments, the military is looking at ways to trim back sky patrols over American cities.

The Air Force says round-the-clock patrols have taken a huge toll on its budget and manpower. Since September 11, fighter jets have flown 13,000 missions at a cost of $324 million. And sporting a nasty facial bruise, President Bush went on the road again today to promote his economic agenda. At a John Deere plant in Illinois, he made light of fainting only yesterday. Mr. Bush jokingly advised plant workers to always chew their pretzels before swallowing. Good advice.

And 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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