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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Are Bodycounts a Good Gauge for Success?

Aired March 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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: It wasn't a successful strategy then. Now, can U.S. forces in Afghanistan gauge their success through body counts?

Enemy leaders are warned to sleep with one eye open.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have indications where they are and I can assure you that we will track them down and get them.

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MESERVE: A U.S. envoy steps into the Middle East inferno. Can he help Israelis and Palestinians find a way out?

We'll go to the Pentagon, Afghanistan and Jerusalem. And I'll speak live with Evan Bayh of the Intelligence Committee, former Pentagon official Frank Gaffney and CNN security analyst and former Marine special ops officer Kelly McCann as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Jeanne Meserve reporting tonight from Washington. Wolf Blitzer is off.

In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, U.S. and allied forces are still engaging the enemy, combing the peaks, valleys and caves, looking for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. For days, Pentagon officials have said Operation Anaconda is going well, that hundreds of enemy forces have been killed and that al Qaeda is on the run. But given the difficulties in counting bodies, how can U.S. forces know whether they've won a victory?

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has this report.

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BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each day since Operation Anaconda began, commanders have sent the Pentagon a classified report detailing how many enemy forces have been killed. Commanders on the scene say they are certain that U.S. and coalition forces have inflicted a mounting death toll.

MAJ. GEN. F.L. HAGENBECK, COMMANDER, OPERATION ANACONDA: The number of enemy that we've fought over time is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 to 700 enemy. And conservatively speaking right now, I'm convinced from the evidence that I've seen that we have killed at least half of those enemy forces.

STARR: While the Pentagon says it doesn't want to maintain a body count, its latest estimate, 800 enemy dead. Commanders in Afghanistan say the estimates help them determine the threat posed by remaining enemy forces. But how are these estimates made? How accurate are they? Officials are adamant that their estimates are just that, art, not science.

VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: This is a very messy business. It is hard to have hard and fast numbers on anything. We may never know the exact numbers. We probably won't.

STARR: The estimates are based on several factors, including reports from helicopter pilots and also from troops on the ground. Overhead reconnaissance aircraft have seen large numbers of al Qaeda running from air attacks.

BRIG. GEN. JOHN ROSA, DEPUTY OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: In an environment like this, it is difficult. When you go up to an anthill, you don't know how many ants are in there until you disturb the anthill. We do know that we've killed several hundred.

STARR: But how many are dead is hard to determine. Few bodies may be visible on the ground. The fighting has been across a 70 square-mile area and most of the fighting has occurred at remote higher elevations where al Qaeda fighters were holed up. After U.S. bombs fall, there may be few human remains left. Many bodies may also be in the dozens of caves in the region which has been struck. And the al Qaeda tried bury some of its dead. But none of the major leaders, such as Osama bin Laden, appear to have been in the region.

(on camera): Though the numbers are far from exact, U.S. commanders say they are convinced they have killed a large number of al Qaeda forces in this region, troops, they say, would have posed a serious threat to the stability of Afghanistan.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: CNN's Martin Savage has been spending his time with the forces on the ground. He has this view from Bagram, Afghanistan.

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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever since Operation Anaconda got under way, U.S. military officials here said they did not want to get into a running body count (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And yet, time and time again, they have issued their projections of the numbers of Taliban and al Qaeda forces killed, and they keep going up. Originally, it was placed at several hundred. Then the bar was raised to 500, and then today raised once more to possibly 800.

We have asked those leaders time and time again on what do they base those numbers? And they say three things. No. 1, surveillance aircraft that have continuously gone over the battle area, such as the predators. No. 2, they say it comes from unit commanders reporting in when their forces had actual contact with enemy. And No. 3, they say, from the limited number of detainees that were captured during the course of the battle.

At one point, General F.L. Hagenbeck, the overall commander of Operation Anaconda said that they've received indication from al Qaeda forces themselves indicating the number of dead. Here's what he had to say.

HAGENBACK: We have pretty credible information that after about 36 to 48 hours into the fight, that there was a call from the al Qaeda leaders in the local area to bring forth hundreds of wooden coffins. And on the fourth day of the fight, there was a movement and a call to bring in trucks and SUVs to extract their dead. The coffins never got in. And the SUVs and any vehicles that tried to enter the area never got in.

SAVIDGE: General Hagenback says of the original peak of about 1,000 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters that were operating in the valley, he says their numbers have now dwindled to double digits, less than 100.

Martin Savidge, CNN, Bagram, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOVAK: Turning now to the Middle East, Israel has begun withdrawing its tanks from the Palestinian city of Ramallah on the West Bank. But the violence rages on as a U.S. envoy tries to move the parties toward a ceasefire. Let's go live to CNN Jerusalem bureau chief Mike Hanna. Mike, bring us up to date.

MIKE HANNA, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Jeanne, within the last few hours, reports of Israeli forces redeploying from the West Bank city of Ramallah. The forces accompanied by a large body of tanks had moved into the city on Tuesday, occupying large areas of the city, rounding up large amounts of people in the refugee camps on the outskirts of the city.

Israel said this operation was necessary to strike at what it called nests of terror, but it was greeted with Palestinian outrage and Palestinians saying that basic services in the city were completely disrupted. And also there was a great deal of international condemnation of this Israeli action.

This part of an expanded Israeli military series of operations which was announced by the Sharon government at the beginning of the month. The point of this, said the Sharon government, to strike at areas in which those carrying out terror attacks were sheltering because, said Israel, the Palestinian Authority was not. Well, the withdrawal now apparently under way from Ramallah, but Israeli forces remain in large parts of the West Bank and of the Gaza Strip in previously Palestinian-controlled territory. The withdrawal came as U.S. special envoy Anthony Zinni arrived in the region. He didn't waste much time, going straight into talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. These talks ongoing at the moment and Mr. Zinni due to meet in the 24 hours also the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. But certainly, given the violence that's ongoing, a number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the course of this day, neither side appears in the mood to talk about a truce, although both sides though, have welcomed the arrival of Anthony Zinni -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Mike, there were reports that the Israeli defense minister, Benjamin Ben Eliezer, had told Sharon that the military operation must stop. Is there a serious rift in the cabinet and could it jeopardize the coalition government?

HANNA: Well, it appears from reports that emanated from the cabinet meeting at which that argument took place, that it wasn't that the military operation had stopped. It was rather about the objectives and the tactics employed in the military operation.

Now, Ben Eliezer is the minister of defense. He's also the leader of the opposition labor party. And cabinet sources said that he objected to Sharon's insistence that the Israeli forces move right into the very heart of Ramallah, including the compound in which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is at present residing. So certainly there were words exchanged. However, according to spokesmen for both Sharon and Ben Eliezer, that situation has been resolved.

And although some right-wing members of Sharon's cabinet have submitted their resignations and left the cabinet in recent days, Sharon himself still appears to have a comfortable majority in the country's Knesset or parliament, and therefore, his government, at this stage, appears to be solid. But Ben Eliezer as lead of the labor party leading the cabinet, would be a problem, but no signs of that actually happening at this stage, Jeanne.

MESERVE: Mike Hanna, thank you. And for more on the situation in the Middle East, join Mike Hanna at the top of the hour for his special report, LIVE FROM JERUSALEM.

Can the U.S. put out the fire in the Middle East? Joining me now in THE WAR ROOM, Senator Evan Bayh, a member of the intelligence committee; CNN analyst Kelly McCann, CEO of Crucible Security. He's a former special ops officer and has provided anti-terror training to the military; and Frank Gaffney, a former assistant defense secretary. He heads the Center for Security Policy. Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to cnn.com/wolf.

Senator Bayh, let me talk with you first about this withdrawal. Is it enough to get the ball rolling, do you think?

SEN. EVAN BAYH (D-IN), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, Jeanne, it's a start. But it's hard to be too optimistic at this point that we are on the road to a final resolution. I hope we can reduce the pressure a little bit that this will be reciprocated by the Palestinian Authority cracking down on some of the key terror suspects. And you can lower the pressure a little bit. But this is all very important in its own right, Jeanne.

But it is also critical in our looking at Iraq. As the vice president travels through the area, he's going to be talking to some of our partners there, and the violence in the Middle East makes their domestic situation much more difficult in terms of supporting us, vis- a-vis Iraq.

MESERVE: Frank Gaffney, do you think that Sharon made this move because Anthony Zinni is now on the ground?

GAFFNEY: I think he made the move because he made the previous move. He went into these camps to try to do what he could before Zinni arrived, allowing him to withdraw, as a concession, if you will, to the United States.

But I think I have to disagree with the senator a little bit. I don't think this is going to get better because the pressure has been relieved on Arafat. I think to the contrary, Arafat's implication in the terror itself is becoming more evident by the day. We are seeing more and more -- in fact, I think there was a Fatah operative who was out there saying today that he works for Arafat, he's engaged in suicide bombing and other terrorist activities, at Arafat's behest.

The problem in part is Arafat and the fact that there really isn't that much of a difference between him and Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

MESERVE: Given that, senator, what are the prospects for Anthony Zinni's mission?

BAYH: Well, as I said, Jeanne, it's hard to be very optimistic, and I'm not. But I tend to be empathetic with Israeli point of view about a lot of this. My point simply was that hopefully this will give something of a cooling-off period, if the Palestinians reciprocate. I think that's the major point here. Frankly, I think a fair degree of skepticism is in order in that regard, so I wish the general well, but I don't think we should hold our breath at this point.

GAFFNEY: Question is, do they want to cool off? I think Arafat benefits from heating up. And this is the difficulty. I think cooling off, if it means letting him out to go to Beirut for this Arab League summit, to work the world stage again, I think plays into his hands, and is going to be detrimental to a friend of ours, a key ally in the common war on terrorism.

MESERVE: Let's take a look, if he could, at an editorial that was in "The Wall Street Journal" today. It read: "Until such time that the Arab world is ready to seek solutions by civilized means, the U.S. has no moral alternative to standing firmly behind Prime Minister Sharon's war against such terror."

But we heard the president say yesterday, not helpful.

GAFFNEY: Not helpful to us. That's the problem here. I mean, we may think from a diplomatic point of view, and as the senator said, we've got this other theater that we are concerned about, Iraq. I think it would be a terrible mistake to allow the Arabs to think they parlay tacit cooperation with us on Iraq into new pressure to make Israel do things that are not in its interest.

BAYH: We have a tough balance to strike here, Jeanne, in the short run. We agree with Israel that the concessions in the face of terror aren't likely to lead to peace, so we want to stand with them as they take a strong stand, on the one hand. On the other hand, we want to pursue Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And the reality of the situation in some of the other countries is that the violence that's ongoing creates some domestic problems for them and makes their cooperation with us in going after Saddam Hussein a little more difficult. So, strength with Israel, yes, but we have to balance that with our interest, vis-a-vis Iraq.

MESERVE: Well, do you think that the president in making his comments yesterday about Israel, which were a little bit further than he's moved before on this issue, do you think that he was trying take the pressure off Vice President Cheney as he travels through the Arab world? Was that part of the game plan?

GAFFNEY: I think very definitely. I think he's interested in improving the chances for Zinni to be successful. He's interested in having the vice president be successful. He's interested in being seen himself as successful. The problem is, if success is defined in terms of an outcome that actually increases the vulnerability of the Israelis, that's not going to be a success that has legs. That will be a serious reverse in perhaps the long term, maybe even the short term in the war on terrorism.

MESERVE: Kelly, let me bring you in for a minute. Yesterday, the president said yesterday in his remarks talking about Saddam Hussein, "we are going to deal with him." Is this a bluff, or do you think there's really going to be military action?

MCCANN: Oh, I don't think there's any bluff to it all. In fact, if you look at the downsizing of some of the nuclear weapons, I think we are sending both strong language and a very strong signal. He said that all tactics, techniques, procedures are on the table. And I think that he would be wise to take notice.

It's a very brittle regime right now. There are a lot of things going on internally in the country that favor any kind of movement against Saddam Hussein. But part of this whole global effort on terrorism is rhythm and timing. I think that goes to the issue we were just talking about, similar to what happened in Afghanistan when Karzai started to take over as the leader, you know, it's rhythm and timing. And this was the wrong timing for what we are looking for in our rhythm. So it's a very, very challenging diplomatic situation.

MESERVE: We have an e-mail from Beirut, Lebanon. Let's see if we can answer this question. "After the Gulf War, does the Iraqi army have the resources necessary to counter another military strike?" Mr. Gaffney, do they?

GAFFNEY: I think that they have enough resources to fight at least in a localized way, assuming they calculate it's in their interest to fight. And this is really the point I think Kelly is making. If they think the jig is up with Saddam, I think you are going to find very few people in the Iraqi military or anyplace else who want to die for Saddam Hussein. I think he'll meet the fate that Nicolae Ceausescu memorably did in Rumania, where the security apparatus that kept him in power suddenly turned on him, and he wound up with a bullet in his brain within hours.

MESERVE: Kelly, if there were to be military action, when would it be? What would it look like?

MCCANN: Well, I think we're going to exercise all the options that we have by using the Iraqi people who are resisting Saddam Hussein first. And I think that also we are gathering a very hard core evidence, because nobody wants to go in there unless we have a very large smoking gun, and I think we are getting close to getting that gun. So it could take very many forms. This is not going to, again, be initially fought in the media.

BAYH: It's going to take progressive steps, Jeanne. First, assistance to the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south, reconstituting our covert capabilities in central Iraq, and then, if necessary, looking at direct military action.

We have to hope that Frank's right, and perhaps someone in the military will turn on Hussein and take him out for us, but we need to plan for the worst. And the worst case scenario here is biological and chemical weapons, because if Saddam thinks the jig is up, then he has no disincentive for resorting to that.

GAFFNEY: Senator, do you worry the fact that we may get into a situation where we keep telegraphing our punch, and he acts first?

BAYH: I do worry about it. But we have got to play the cards we've been dealt, and right now we've been pretty straight in what we intend to do, and we have no choice except to carry it through.

GAFFNEY: I think the president is right, the time is not on our side here.

MESERVE: And we have to take a break. When we come back, will body counts determine whether the U.S. is winning the war in Afghanistan? Stay with us.

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MESERVE: Welcome back to the WAR ROOM. Body counts were a part of a losing strategy in the Vietnam War. Will that approach work in Afghanistan? Welcome back to our discussion with Frank Gaffney, Senator Evan Bayh and also with Kelly McCann.

Kelly, let me start with you. We don't know how many al Qaeda and Taliban were up in the mountains in the first place. Given that, how useful is a body count? It doesn't really tell you how much progress you've made, it you don't know what the baseline number was, does it? MCCANN: Well, no. And back when body counts were important, we didn't have the technological means we have now to know or to judge significant activity on the ground. We've got layers of surveillance and overwatch throughout that area. So, I mean, there are other ways to verify the effect you're having. There is electronic signature, there is other kinds of footprint that has to be from emanations, etc.

So what we are seeing now is a significant, like zero, activity, which would obviously tell us that, A, nobody is moving, which means they are probably dead, and the Tenth Mountain Division has regained their name for fighting in the mountains. I think they've done well.

MESERVE: Frank Gaffney, why has the Pentagon been reluctant to discuss body counts publicly? Is that a hangover from Vietnam?

GAFFNEY: Yes, I think it's gotten sort of a bad memory for many people who fought in that war and who are now at senior positions throughout the military. I think there really is a difference, though. In Vietnam, we were trying desperately to demonstrate we were actually making progress.

And one of the few manifestations was the number of corpses that were being turned up, and frankly, the numbers turned out to be bogus in some cases. I think in this case where basically you are in a mopping-up operation in Afghanistan. Each and every one of those dead bodies is a terrorist that is not still out there in the world doing us harm. And that's -- that does matter.

MESERVE: Senator Bayh, do you have any doubt that a number of these people slipped away and that U.S. forces will fight them again another day?

BAYH: Some slipped away, Jeanne, but it was more in groups of twos and these in all likelihood, not 40s and 50s. As I'm told, there are probably several other pockets, not this large, but several others perhaps constituting as many as 3,000 al Qaeda. Taliban is a different issue. So we may see some other operations like this. But Frank's right. Regardless of whatever the body count is those are terrorists who can't fight us. It shows we are serious and we are going to continue to disrupt their operations and pursue them wherever they may be.

MCCANN: Don't forget, too, Jeanne, if I could, too, that every turn of this war has gone our way. They were going to stack the skulls of American soldiers in caves. They didn't. They were going to suck us into cave warfare. They didn't. They were going to suck us into a mountainous guerrilla warfare where they would kill us by the thousands. They haven't. The people in the United States have to applaud the guys over there fighting. Everybody involved is doing a superlative job.

MESERVE: Kelly McCann, and also Senator Bayh, Frank Gaffney, thank you all for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Remember, we want to hear from you. Go to Wolf Blitzer's Web page at cnn.com/wolf and click on the designation for comments to Wolf and his producers.

Our news alert is just ahead with details of the showdown vote on the nomination of Charles Pickering. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MESERVE: The Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has rejected Charles Pickering's nomination to the Federal Appeals Court. The nomination of the district court judge from Mississippii had been controversial. Opponents found fault with Pickering's views on civil rights and other issues.

President Bush wanted the entire Senate to vote on the nomination. That move was also defeated by the committee, but Senate Republican leader Trent Lott could call for a vote by the full Senate.

Judge Pickering speaking from Mississippi a short time ago called the progress mean spirited.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Although I am disappointed I am in good spirits. I will not let what has happened to me during this process embitter me or shape the balance of my life. Life is too precious. My faith has not been weakened. I will not withdraw my name.

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MESERVE: And that is all the time we have tonight. Please join us again tomorrow twice at both 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern for WOLF BLITZER REPORTS. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Jeanne Meserve in Washington. CROSSFIRE begins right now.

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