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CNN HOTLINE: Pentagon Prepares U.S. for Painful War

Aired September 20, 2001 - 01:49   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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I want to go to our Pentagon correspondent Mark Potter who has the latest on the moving out of warplanes, ships, material. The deployment is under way, isn't it?

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the military is clearly on the move Jack. At first, there was a deployment order that has been signed, that will send dozens of war ships and support warplanes, I'm sorry and support planes to the Persian Gulf area.

That movement will begin in a few days. We -- that will involved B-1 bombers and B-52 bombers. We don't know exactly where they're going, but we're told it's the Persian Gulf area and there are a number of U.S. and allied bases in the region.

There was a second deployment that's being considered. That order has not yet been signed, but when it is that will involve the deployment of F-15 and F-16 fighter jets heading over into the same region. They will be involved in the patrol of the southern no flyer zone in Iraq and that is designed to free up a carrier group in the region to do other things. Now there are two carrier groups in the area of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian city led by the USS Carl Vinson and the Enterprise and we saw today also the deployment from Virginia -- from Norfolk, of the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier.

It will be leading a group, we are told, to the Mediterranean Sea area and perhaps east carrying 15,000 sailors and marines, with them 2,000 combat marines. What's interesting about that is that that deployment was previously ordered. It was just to be a routine deployment, but of course as we know now, because of the events last week, it is anything but routine and the sailors and military personnel are fully aware that they are involved in -- now, in a much different scenario than they had anticipated just a week ago.

The Navy secretary came there to talk with the personnel, saying that the mission of the U.S. war on terrorism, when it comes, will be to destroy terrorism and in his words, " remove this cancer". Now, of course, a lot of people around the country are awaiting word on whether other troops will be deployed. So far, no word on that.

Jack, back to you.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mark, hang with us here for a second. We've got a caller on the line actually from Washington, DC. Alan's (ph) got a question I think you may be able to help us with. Alan (ph), good evening.

ALAN (ph): Yes, hi, good evening.

CAFFERTY: Good morning I guess it is.

ALAN (ph): Yes, it is -- it is morning. It's hard to keep track of time under these circumstances.

CAFFERTY: Really. What have you got?

ALAN (ph): But anyway, I just wanted to ask -- you know you can't walk around Washington, D.C., right now without seeing lapel pin with a flag adoring every suit and a lot of public support, a lot of beautiful memorials, a lot of intense rhetoric from the administration.

But what happens when the dust settles? Because the nature of these operations are clearly going to be covert, and it's not going to be the kind of thing that we can get behind and rally as we watch these troops blowing up targets the way we did with smart bombs in the Gulf War.

So ...

CAFFERTY: Mark, we were talking on the show last night about the fact that already the Pentagon is clamping down. Nobody's talking. Nobody will answer questions. Nobody picks up the phone. He makes a good point.

The president wants support. He wants patience, but if they're not going to share information with the public, might that not make it a little more difficult to get those things?

POTTER: Well, the clamp down is not complete, and I want to be clear about that. They are not talking about the details of the operation for fear of alerting the people they may be going after and of course, the primary fear is endangering the lives of U.S. personnel. But they are spending a lot of time with the media warning the public that this scenario will be just as the caller described, a long, drawn-out unconventional campaign that will claim U.S. casualties.

They are preparing the public for that. So while they are not talking about operational details, there is a concerted effort from the president on down to the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, a lot of people on television, in the newspapers, on radio talking about what this will be -- how this will be different from what we saw in the Persian Gulf.

This will not be a quick strike. This will not be lobbing some crews (ph) missiles and bombing from high altitude flights. We are being told that this will be a series of unconventional raids -- in and out raids and that it will take months, years perhaps, to prosecute this war. So that kind of talk is coming out of the Pentagon and from elsewhere here in Washington in an attempt to prepare the public for this -- but again, not many other details. CAFFERTY: All right Mark, thanks very much. Mark Potter at the Pentagon.

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