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Cohen: Attack on Base May Have Used Inside Info

Aired December 21, 2004 - 12:34   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.


ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now to one of our regular contributors here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, joins us from Washington.
Secretary Cohen, what does it seem to you, luck or a well-planned attack?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Probably a combination of both. It's clearly -- the site was targeted. There may have been some inside information.

Namely some of the Iraqis who are working inside with the Americans may have either been supplying information under force and duress, namely that the insurgents could identify who was working with the coalition forces and then threaten them with either personal harm of harm to their families in order to gain intelligence in terms of timing, location, in trying to pinpoint where the most vulnerable point would be to attack at which critical time.

So maybe a combination of, certainly, their detailed planning but also having inside information.

VERJEE: U.S. soldiers had said that, you know, a situation like this one -- we see the picture of the tent right there -- that it was really, in many ways, an accident waiting to happen and that it's extremely vulnerable. When we saw that picture a moment ago, it was almost as though the roof of the tent was -- was made out of paper.

Why is it, two years down the road, that meeting places like this are not -- or bases like this don't have harder protection?

COHEN: Well, it may not be possible to harden every facility, but that's certainly what needs to be done and should have been done as much as possible. But it's not easy to harden every facility where coalition forces are going to be moving. They can be targeted as they're moving out into -- into vehicles in other places.

But one would think that every effort should be made to harden those key facilities where they're going to eat and sleep. That would be, certainly, the most vulnerable.

Secondly, there should be fairly extensive perimeters that have been set up. I assume that they have been in this particular case, to try and push that perimeter of security as far back as possible.

We have no information now in terms of what kind of explosives was -- was used, so whether they were the mortar rounds or some other device. But a security perimeter must be provided, however one constructs the actual facility, dining facility.

But many of the ones that I certainly saw during my tenure were -- were not made out of tents but were quite hard.

VERJEE: Do you think that, with this attack, insurgents now are aiming to challenge the authority of U.S. forces and the Iraqi government in Mosul now and move it away, as we know it has been the case from Falluja?

COHEN: I think what the insurgents will do will strike wherever they think there's the greatest vulnerability. It's one of the reasons why I believe it's important in cracking down on the insurgents, you cannot just focus on one city at a time, one area at a time.

And that gets back to the issue of whether there are sufficient numbers of troops in order to go at multiple sites nearly simultaneously. As we talk about terrorist attacks, that is the modus operandi of the terrorists, to attack multiple sites nearly simultaneously in order to cause mass confusion, if at all possible.

The same tactic has to be adopted in terms of countering that insurgency, namely going after multiple sites so that they can't slip away in the middle of the night or melt back into the society itself and then move on from Falluja to Mosul to Ramadi and other cities and towns. And that appears to be the case now, where the insurgents have been moving from place to place and now are attacking in Mosul.

But there will be others that are sure to come. And so it does call back into question the issue, are there sufficient forces on hand in order to suppress the insurgents and to -- to the extent we've seen today, the answer is no. I don't think there are sufficient forces, and I think that the United States, in trying to beef up, another 12,000 is probably not going to be sufficient.

We need a significant increase in forces if we're going to be able to provide the kind of security necessary for the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to go forward.

VERJEE: How many?

COHEN: Well, the number of -- it varied, but it's clear that you're looking at 150,000 U.S. forces, another 20,000 coalition forces. They've talked about 114,000 Iraqis being trained.

But those are the numbers that are enrolled in the training program. We don't have a very good fix in terms of how many are really capable of carrying out a fight, so to speak, or whether they'll break and run, as some have done in the past.

So it's going to require a significant number well above what we're talking about in terms of the 150,000 coalition -- U.S. forces. And so, it could be 50,000. It might even be double that number, but it's clear that more forces are going to be necessary if they're going to get a secure environment, as secure as possible.

VERJEE: Former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, with his perspective. Thank you so much.

END

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Aired December 21, 2004 - 12:34:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now to one of our regular contributors here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, joins us from Washington.
Secretary Cohen, what does it seem to you, luck or a well-planned attack?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Probably a combination of both. It's clearly -- the site was targeted. There may have been some inside information.

Namely some of the Iraqis who are working inside with the Americans may have either been supplying information under force and duress, namely that the insurgents could identify who was working with the coalition forces and then threaten them with either personal harm of harm to their families in order to gain intelligence in terms of timing, location, in trying to pinpoint where the most vulnerable point would be to attack at which critical time.

So maybe a combination of, certainly, their detailed planning but also having inside information.

VERJEE: U.S. soldiers had said that, you know, a situation like this one -- we see the picture of the tent right there -- that it was really, in many ways, an accident waiting to happen and that it's extremely vulnerable. When we saw that picture a moment ago, it was almost as though the roof of the tent was -- was made out of paper.

Why is it, two years down the road, that meeting places like this are not -- or bases like this don't have harder protection?

COHEN: Well, it may not be possible to harden every facility, but that's certainly what needs to be done and should have been done as much as possible. But it's not easy to harden every facility where coalition forces are going to be moving. They can be targeted as they're moving out into -- into vehicles in other places.

But one would think that every effort should be made to harden those key facilities where they're going to eat and sleep. That would be, certainly, the most vulnerable.

Secondly, there should be fairly extensive perimeters that have been set up. I assume that they have been in this particular case, to try and push that perimeter of security as far back as possible.

We have no information now in terms of what kind of explosives was -- was used, so whether they were the mortar rounds or some other device. But a security perimeter must be provided, however one constructs the actual facility, dining facility.

But many of the ones that I certainly saw during my tenure were -- were not made out of tents but were quite hard.

VERJEE: Do you think that, with this attack, insurgents now are aiming to challenge the authority of U.S. forces and the Iraqi government in Mosul now and move it away, as we know it has been the case from Falluja?

COHEN: I think what the insurgents will do will strike wherever they think there's the greatest vulnerability. It's one of the reasons why I believe it's important in cracking down on the insurgents, you cannot just focus on one city at a time, one area at a time.

And that gets back to the issue of whether there are sufficient numbers of troops in order to go at multiple sites nearly simultaneously. As we talk about terrorist attacks, that is the modus operandi of the terrorists, to attack multiple sites nearly simultaneously in order to cause mass confusion, if at all possible.

The same tactic has to be adopted in terms of countering that insurgency, namely going after multiple sites so that they can't slip away in the middle of the night or melt back into the society itself and then move on from Falluja to Mosul to Ramadi and other cities and towns. And that appears to be the case now, where the insurgents have been moving from place to place and now are attacking in Mosul.

But there will be others that are sure to come. And so it does call back into question the issue, are there sufficient forces on hand in order to suppress the insurgents and to -- to the extent we've seen today, the answer is no. I don't think there are sufficient forces, and I think that the United States, in trying to beef up, another 12,000 is probably not going to be sufficient.

We need a significant increase in forces if we're going to be able to provide the kind of security necessary for the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to go forward.

VERJEE: How many?

COHEN: Well, the number of -- it varied, but it's clear that you're looking at 150,000 U.S. forces, another 20,000 coalition forces. They've talked about 114,000 Iraqis being trained.

But those are the numbers that are enrolled in the training program. We don't have a very good fix in terms of how many are really capable of carrying out a fight, so to speak, or whether they'll break and run, as some have done in the past.

So it's going to require a significant number well above what we're talking about in terms of the 150,000 coalition -- U.S. forces. And so, it could be 50,000. It might even be double that number, but it's clear that more forces are going to be necessary if they're going to get a secure environment, as secure as possible.

VERJEE: Former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, with his perspective. Thank you so much.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com