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Operation Anaconda Tightens Grip

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. SOLDIER: This is probably the largest combined operation that has been executed in Afghanistan to date by the coalition, the joint coalition, and the United States armed forces.

JIM CLANCY, ANCHOR (voice-over): Cave by cave, Operation Anaconda tightens its grip. The objective: to choke off what may be the largest remaining enclave of al Qaeda fighters and capture or kill them. The high altitude caves where Taliban and al Qaeda supporters have sought refuge once promised relative security. But new weapons are turning that refuge into a death trap.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. SOLDIER: They're very smart. They're very wily. I would never underestimate them for a second.

CLANCY: On this edition of Q&A, a closer look at Operation Anaconda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(on camera): Hello and welcome to Q&A. I'm Jim Clancy.

Tonight, a look at the ongoing battles in Afghanistan and questions about how it's being waged, and the different perceptions of what it really means.

First, to Bagram Air Base, just north of the capital, Kabul, where CNN's Brian Palmer has been watching events. We talked to him a short while ago.

I began by asking him what he's hearing there, on the ground, about Operation Anaconda.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We actually got two official stories today, one from the interim administration chairman, Hamid Karzai, who gave a press conference with his defense minister and really all of his senior military heads.

Then we got another press conference, later in the afternoon, from the American general, the U.S. Army general who is in command of all of the coalition forces in the Afghanistan theater.

Different assessments, both upbeat, but essentially Chairman Karzai is saying that the coalition forces, the Afghan forces, have achieved victory over al Qaeda and Taliban. This is the thrust of his press conference today.

After making that statement, he went on to talk a bit about the building of the new Afghan National Army, which is in its infancy. It is less than a week old, and in fact, most of the Afghan forces on the ground, in fact, what the general said, all the Afghan forces on the ground today have been recruited from local commanders.

Now, the general, in his first public news briefing to the press, today, was saying essentially that Operation Anaconda is going well, but there have been some setbacks. There have been the dual tragedies of the helicopter crash and then the incident where the Navy SEAL fell out of the helicopter and then was captured and executed by al Qaeda forces.

Now, we watched some of the tape that Martin Savidge and his cameraman, Scott McQueen (ph), shot as they were out doing operations, and they are on the ground. These forces are going through the hills. It's a very, very painstaking fashion.

I think the problem is, this is a very mountainous and very rugged region, and your best intelligence from three hours ago might not be terribly reliable at the moment that you go in -- Jim.

CLANCY: Brian, what are Afghan officials saying? Now, this is a pocket, we are told, that contained hundreds, 600, 700, al Qaeda or Taliban supporters that were, frankly, determined to fight to the death.

How many other pockets are there?

PALMER: That was a question put to Maj. Gen. F.L. Hagenbeck (ph) today, and he said that they are searching throughout Afghanistan, but they're focusing their attention in Paktia Province.

He said one of the problems is that reinforcements have been coming in, so that their initial assessments were in the lower hundreds, and they've had to revise those assessments up.

I think the issue is, they don't really know, because the al Qaeda and Taliban forces are recruiting among local people. They are calling for a jihad. So I don't think there is any real way to get an exact fix on numbers, even in Paktia Province.

And then you have the issue of what forces may be operating in the rest of the country. That wasn't something that the major general addressed directly today. He didn't really give us a clear snapshot of, this is what's going on and this and that region.

CLANCY: Brian, did he give you any indication of where these reinforcements are coming from? To the Taliban, al Qaeda fighters that are already on the ground there in Paktia Province?

PALMER: Basically, these forces, coming through these very mountainous regions. We're not talking a single province. There's Patkia Province, but it borders Lowgar Province. Then you've got the border with Afghanistan. You've got Haznia (ph) Province.

So very inaccessible terrain. But these are forces that have been operating there for a while, so they know the terrain perhaps better than the United States and coalition forces coming in.

The general saying that the United States and coalition forces are learning the territory, but they can't see everything there, and they can't see where all these forces are coming from.

That's why they launched what they call this hammer-and-anvil strategy, the hammer being the Afghan forces, who come in for the first strike, the anvil being basically a wall or a circle that they're trying to form around these troops, so that the al Qaeda and Taliban forces can't get out and so no forces can get in.

But it obviously is not impenetrable -- Jim.

CLANCY: One question has to be, that when you look back at that helicopter crash and you look at some of the situations there, troops were being inserted on the ground, having been told that's where to go. Obviously, that was right in the middle of a fire zone.

PALMER: Jim, that is what we've heard from some of the officers and some of the soldiers on the ground, that essentially one of the teams, one of the United States and coalition teams that was brought, was essentially brought in right in the middle of a Taliban-al Qaeda stronghold, which was obviously a major tactical mistake.

The major general talking about some of those mistakes today, but really emphasizing some of what he considers to be, and what I believe the United States military believes to me, some of the more positive developments.

CLANCY: Yeah, we expect them to accent the positive, here, Brian, but obviously, this had to be a failure in intelligence. You know, they've got Predators. They've got, you know, warplanes flying overhead, and somehow you insert your troops in the midst of a stronghold? This is a failure in intelligence.

PALMER: Jim, it's actually very good that you bring this up, because I had a conversation earlier in the day with another senior army officer, and he was basically trying to teach me, a civilian, the lessons of warfare, in this region of the world, and also in the United States experience, in fighting in guerrilla war.

And he says, essentially, that you can be as high-tech as you want, but the idea is that you have to get boots on the ground, and when you have boots on the ground, things can go wrong.

He stressed the fact that the United States has learned from Vietnam. The United States has learned from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. But they are essentially in many ways playing by the enemies rules, here.

Now, whether this was a failure in intelligence, this is not something that we can assess here. I think that when the major general was pressed, he was not ready to go as far as to say we failed. Obviously, as you said, Jim, he's not going to say that, but I think as time goes on and as we are able to get more perspective on this conflict, I think we will see where the actual failures have been and where the inevitable fog of war situations develop, Jim.

CLANCY: All right. Brian Palmer there, Bagram Air Base. Our thanks to you for being with us, Brian.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Well, that's the latest from the ground.

Now, to share their thoughts, from Chicago, we're joined by Ret. Brig. Gen. David Grange. He's a CNN military analyst. And from Washington, John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

Let me begin with you, general, and as you your view of how this battle is shaping up there in the east of Afghanistan.

GEN. DAVID GRANGE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yeah, I just was listening to some of your conversation, and some interesting points came out.

I've landed where I thought it was benign and it was hot. I've landed where I thought it was going to be hot, and it was benign. And I've landed where we got it just right.

And where we put circles or lines on a map, the enemy doesn't have that map, and they tend to do what they want to do. And many times, they do it without us being able to see it at 10,000 feet. And it's people sneaking around, even though this is not the jungle, there's a lot of places to hide.

So I think that maybe the intel was off a bit, but things change in combat, and I think that's what happened in this case.

Other than that, it seems to be going very well. The momentum is on the coalition side. The enemy can do nothing but defend right now. Maybe a few limited counterattacks. Reinforcements are probably coming from inside that 60, 70 square mile area. I believe there are reinforcements also, though, in Pakistan. I'm not sure that they're involved yet, but they could be.

CLANCY: John Pike, your view? Now, we have heard a couple of different perspectives here. What I'm hearing from the leadership of the interim government in Afghanistan is that, take as much time as you want. You're rooting out the last base of al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing an end to the war on terror in this country.

What I'm hearing on the other hand is, what's going on is a complete reorganization to launch a guerrilla war.

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: Well, I think that the declarations of victory in this war have been premature in the past. Any declaration of victory that you hear right now is almost certainly going to be premature.

If you look at the way the American military has been expanding the bases in the region, bringing in additional troops, bringing in additional aircraft, I think that the United States central command's assessment is that it's going to be many, many months before they can judge that the al Qaeda threat has been extricated in Afghanistan.

Really, it's only been within the last few weeks that this concentration of al Qaeda combatants was identified. My assumption is that United States military is going to spend the rest of the year looking for more such concentrations, and I would be surprised if they did not find additional targets like this to attack.

So I think this is just the first of several such operations we're going to see.

CLANCY: All right.

Let's go to Scotland now. I want to talk with one of the leading figures at the Center for the Study of Terrorism, with that group Rowan Gunaratna is on the telephone. He's with St. Andrew's there in Scotland, and just as you -- we know that the United States, as was just described by Mr. Pike, the United States is looking at many different areas. They're also trying to track down Mullah Omar, the former leader of the Taliban. They're, of course, trying to find out where Osama bin Laden is. There is a lot of focuses to this besides just in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, isn't there?

ROWAN GUNARATNA, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF TERRORISM: Yes. In fact, Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, they are operating together. The al Qaeda and the Taliban forces have unified, and what they are planning, in many ways, is a restart of the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad.

They want to initiate protracted guerrilla war against the United States and the coalition forces.

CLANCY: But in order to do that, the other side has got to play along. And I think that what Gen. Grange was talking about a little bit earlier, and indeed what Brian Palmer was talking about, is that the United States looked at the Soviet model of going in, building massive military bases, as the United States did in Vietnam, and then trying to defend them.

GUNARATNA: Yes, you are absolutely correct.

In fact, that is one of the major pitfalls in the al Qaeda strategy. But what al Qaeda is planning to do is to recruit, to radicalize and politicize, as well as to infiltrate, in Kabul and in areas where there are United States troops.

So what is really important at this stage is not only to have a military response, but also for the United States to counter the al Qaeda ideology that has enabled al Qaeda and Taliban to replenish its losses and wastage.

CLANCY: All right, but, you know, there has to be a strategy for that.

Now, you mentioned, you say that Osama bin Laden is together with Mullah Mohammad Omar. You mean physically together in one place, planning what you say is going to be an extended guerrilla war?

GUNARATNA: Yes, absolutely.

And, in fact, you can see that in some of the statements that have been released since the United States troops were inducted into Afghanistan, these two parties are airing views that are very similar and that are unified.

CLANCY: But what's your evidence that they're together physically? I mean, are they in one place? Where are they?

GUNARATNA: They are most likely to be on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, an area that they are extremely familiar with, and also an area where they enjoy tremendous political support. And also an area from which they can recruit significant numbers to sustain a protracted guerrilla campaign against the United States and coalition troops.

CLANCY: All right. We've been talking there with Rowan Gunaratna from St. Andrew's in Scotland. Our thanks to you for being with us.

We're going to take a short break. We've got a lot more to talk about, about Operation Anaconda. We'll get some expert views when we come back, and a closer look at the weaponry being used in this military action in Afghanistan.

Also, we're going to give you some details of a special Q&A that's coming up in just a few days, and how we want you to be a part of it. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: On Monday, Q&A will be traveling to New York for a special program that marks the six month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We would like to hear your thoughts on that day, how it has perhaps changed the world, your world, your life, since those attacks on that day.

You can send us your comments by way of e-mail at Q&A. CNN.COM. (sic) Be sure to join us, we'll be here from New York, Monday, on Q&A.

Now, let's continue our look at Operation Anaconda and the weapons being used there.

From Chicago, we're joined by Ret. Brig. Gen. David Grange, a CNN military analyst, and from Washington, John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

Gen. Grange, beginning with you, we were just listening there from St. Andrew's, how Rowan described a whole guerrilla war scenario being laid out, an obvious move by Taliban or al Qaeda forces. What's going to happen in the spring?

GRANGE: I think in the spring, historically, you know, in this part of the world, in Afghanistan, in this case, they are fair-weather fighters, to the most experience of what I have seen and what I have read about them. And so this spring, they're going to come out of the ground, you might say, and do a little bit more than they've done over the last few months.

And it's going to be guerrilla warfare. It's an economy of force tactic. It fits the doctrine of guerrilla warfare. They have the terrain for it. They have local support in certain areas throughout Afghanistan, and including some adjacent countries that support their cause.

CLANCY: All right, John Pike, I want to ask you -- the caves have traditionally been a place where fighters like these could seek shelter. They certainly did it throughout the entire conflict with the former Soviet Union, but something has changed here. And that is thermobaric weapons.

Where did they come from? How do they work? What do they do?

PIKE: Well, this is a weapon that was developed back in the late 1990's to deal with some of the problems that the United States identified after the Gulf War.

It was clear that Saddam Hussein was beginning to build a lot of underground bunkers to hide his chemical and biological weapons program. There was a lot of concern about North Korean bunker and tunnel complexes. They've pretty much turned that country into one big piece of Swiss cheese.

And the concern was that there might be chemical or biological weapons stored underground that conventional munitions simply wouldn't be able to destroy.

Thermobaric weapons is one way of dealing with that. Decompose the name: thermo: thermal, it produces an incendiary effect, and baric: it produces a blast overpressure effect.

It's basically a fuel air munitions. It dispenses an explosive dust inside a tunnel, and that explosive dust is then detonated. It was tested once late last year out in Nevada. Apparently one of them was used this weekend for the first time in combat. Too soon to say what it was used against or how well it worked against them, but these very specialized weapons against very specific types of targets are becoming a distinguishing attribute of American combat.

We saw them in Kosovo. We're going to see more of them, I think, in the future.

CLANCY: Now, in this particular conflict, Gen. Grange, what you're looking at is a situation where weapons like that can be effective. A mass group, we are told, of perhaps 700, 800 al Qaeda fighters. They make a target. Something visible that they can go after.

But if this goes into more of a guerrilla war, is Operation Anaconda a sign of what's to come, or not?

GRANGE: Well, I think so. But they're going to learn from this fight, just like we are.

And I think most of the enemy that have been killed, larger numbers in this particular fight, Anaconda, were the movement of reinforcements to certain places within this battlefield area.

Most of the enemy are fighting. They're in a defensive posture. Most of them are fighting in smaller groups, which makes it harder for us to destroy.

We really focus on these caves, but caves are places to hide from air strikes, caves are places to put their supplies in. And most of the fighters are not fighting from caves, but they use the caves to support themselves.

CLANCY: All right. So, John Pike, when we look at the conflict on the ground, right now, Operation Anaconda, what is it proving?

PIKE: Well, I think it's demonstrating that the United States, having changed the government in Afghanistan, is now moving forward with the primary objective of the war in Afghanistan, namely to eliminate the al Qaeda organization.

The easy part was regime change. The hard part is going after the terrorist organizations. And I think it's proving that this is going to be a much more difficult, much more protracted process than simply changing the government in Kabul and Kandahar.

CLANCY: Rowan Gunaratna there from St. Andrew's made the point, Gen. Grange, that you're not going to win this -- this is something, I know, that military men don't really want to discuss, but he's saying you're not going to do this by military means alone. You've got to break off al Qaeda or Taliban recruitment. You can only do that with economic aid, supporting local infrastructure projects, employment for that matter.

GRANGE: Well, he's got a great point there.

I believe in Wheaties (ph) and bullets together. And just my experiences, even in a peace support operation in the Balkans, that those things have a great effect on the local populous. You can't just kill people. You have to help people as well.

But just as important as economic support to the infrastructure and to the people, is also the information operational campaign. How do we counter propaganda, disinformation? How do we get the word out?

And all we really need to do with our coalition is tell the truth, because we have a powerful story with just the truth there, with the people.

CLANCY: John Pike, in terms of a moral defeat, if you will, I mean, you're looking at what we are told is obvious efforts by the al Qaeda forces to regroup, to reorganize, to relaunch what they see as a cause.

But at the same time, the United States does not have -- they haven't captured Osama bin Laden. They haven't gotten Mullah Mohammed Omar. Really, at this point, how important are they, to get some closure here, to say that they're wining the battle?

PIKE: Well, it's not simply a question of getting Osama bin Laden. It's a question of getting the dozen, dozen-and-a-half other top leaders of al Qaeda. It's a question of getting other senior Taliban leaders. It's also the question of getting middle management all around the planet that is in a position to step forward. That's why your seeing American special forces going into Georgia, going into Yemen, going into the Philippines.

And I think that's why there are going to be some real questions over the next several months about what America's strategy is in these countries. Thus far, particularly in Afghanistan, it's been basically a military strategy, one that's been almost exclusively focused on killing the enemy. You haven't seen this other component of building the political support, the hearts and minds part of it.

And I think it's unclear how far the United States is going to be able to go with a purely military approach, but that seems to be the way they're going right now.

CLANCY: Gen. Grange, the final thoughts from you about this Operation Anaconda, what it means, how important is it? As you said, the other side is going to be learning lessons from this as well as the United States side.

GRANGE: Yeah, I think this phase, we're really starting to see a little bit more of an offensive nature of the enemy, coming out for this guerrilla warfare phase.

We've had probes at Kandahar Airport, two different places, a couple of vehicle ambushes, things -- a little bit of rockets here and there. But now we're seeing where the enemy now begin, as I think is going to happen throughout the spring and the summer, they're coming out of the ground to do a little bit more action, to assemble in different pockets and attack.

And it's very important now that that's crushed, and it's very important that Americans now, forces, conventional forces, on the ground, fighting, and not just using proxy forces. We have some great allies there, but we also have some allies that, in reference to Afghanistan, that we cannot trust, because some are on both sides, and you have to put that coalition boots on the ground to win it.

CLANCY: All right. Our thanks to both Ret. Brig. Gen. David Grange and to John Pike for lending your expertise to us today on Q&A.

That's Q&A for Wednesday. I'm Jim Clancy. Glad you could join us.

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