President Bush Surprises World With Trip To Baghdad
Aired November 27, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. I'm Carol Lin. Safe to say nobody had to dig for a lead tonight. Also safe to say only about five people saw it coming. As surprises go, a president turning up at a turkey dinner in the middle of a war zone ranks right up there. Talk about shock and awe. So the day and the hour is dominated by President Bush's sudden and risky journey. His visit to the troops in Baghdad is one for the history books. It leads the program tonight, and naturally the whip. First to Dana Bash in Crawford, Texas, where she and the rest of the press corps was told the president was spending Thanksgiving there. Dana, a headline.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, almost no one knew. The president's parents weren't told until they arrived here in Crawford for the holiday this morning. His twin daughters were told just hours before. The press traveling with him were forbidden from calling anyone until the president left Baghdad. As one of the locals just said to me, down here they call what happened to us today getting hoodwinked -- Carol. LIN: Thank you Dana. Next to Baghdad and CNN's Walt Rodgers. Walt, the headline there.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the headline here is the best kept secret in Iraq remains the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. But President Bush's visit here was a close second. He was gone before most people ever knew he arrived.
LIN: Walt Rodgers in Baghdad. We'll try to fix that problem there. Finally to Washington where the political dimension of today's trip is likely to be topic A in the days ahead. CNN's White House correspondent John King is on that for us. John, a headline from you.
JOHN KING, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, this commander-in-chief is also a candidate for reelection. So the dramatic trip today and these dramatic pictures already added to the debate over his policy in Iraq. The president says his mission must succeed. The Democrats say, nice pictures Mr. President, but the policy has gone bad -- Carol.
LIN: Thanks John. Back to you and the rest shortly. Also ahead tonight, we are going to talk with a reporter from time magazine who was in the room as the president visited with the troops. Later we'll put the trip into perspective. Just how rare is it for a president to slip off to a foreign country without anyone knowing about it? And in segment 7, we'll continue our series of reports on America's war wounded. Beth Nissen has the story on a new generation of medics trained to save even more lives. All that and more in the hour ahead.We begin with a rule every child knows by heart. Before leaving the house, always tell your parents where you're going, something President Bush neglected to do, something his father would understand. Presidents don't have to eat their broccoli and they don't have to say where they're going, either, even when it's Iraq. Here is Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): It may have well been dubbed as Operation Surprise.
L. PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Let's see if we have anyone more senior who can read the president's Thanksgiving speech. Is there anyone back there who is more senior than us? BASH: From behind the curtain, the commander-in-chief himself telling 600 shocked U.S. troops...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thanks for inviting me to dinner.
BASH: President Bush's two hour and 32 minute visit to Baghdad, the first ever for a U.S. president, a tightly held secret even for a White House known for keeping a lid on information. Only a handful of senior staff and secret service officials knew. Shortly after a spokeswoman announced Wednesday Mr. Bush would have a quiet holiday at the ranch, approximately 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, the president hiding under a baseball cap, slipped out of Crawford in an unmarked car, then was flown to Andrews Air Force base. At about 11:00 p.m. Eastern time the president left on a 13-hour journey to Baghdad. Reporters were warned on the plane for security reasons, if word leaked out the plane would be turned around. At 5:30 p.m. Baghdad time, Air Force, one using a secret call sign, lands without lights with Mr. Bush in the cockpit. The president's message, one of thanks, but also one of resolve.
BUSH: We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.
BASH: At a mess hall named for Bob Hope, he doled out sweet potatoes, smiled for the cameras and shook hands with elated servicemen, telling reporters afterwards their reaction made the risk and secrecy worthwhile. The audience was not just the U.S. troops, it was also the Iraqi people.
BUSH: You have an opportunity to seize the moment and rebuild your great country based on human dignity and freedom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: This may have been a stealth mission, but it was far from spur of the moment, the president telling reporters it's been in the works since mid October. And for those who may call this secrecy a PR stunt, the president insisted that it was important to keep under wraps for his safety and for the safety of others who were traveling with him -- Carol.
LIN: Dana, you talk about the planning. How involved was the president in the planning of this surprise?
BASH: We talked to reporters on his way back, which of course he still is on his way back. And he said he had a number of extensive meetings with top officials even yesterday, talking by secure video- conference with the vice president, his chief of staff and the national security adviser, making sure everybody knew what the details were. And he said even at the last minute, he was prepared to turn this baby around. That's what he just told reporters. And there was one close call, Carol. A British Airways pilot actually spotted Air Force one in the air and radioed to the plane saying, is that Air Force one? And the president's captain responded back, no, it's a Gulf stream. and there was apparently a large pause. And then the British Airways pilot responded back, oh. Clearly that pilot understood that there was a secret and he did keep it.
LIN: Imagine what was going through his mind. Thanks so much Dana Bash. Live at Crawford Well, now more on the reaction among the troops. Said one sergeant who posed for a picture with the president, "we were expecting Nicholas Cage or Shania Twain." Here is CNN's Walter Rodgers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BREMER: Let's see if we've got anybody more senior that can read the president's Thanksgiving speech. Is there anybody back there who is more senior than us?
RODGERS: The president's visit to Baghdad was the second best kept secret in Iraq. The first still being, where is Saddam Hussein? Thanksgiving with the troops is, however, a time-honored U.S. presidential tradition.
BUSH: I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere.
RODGERS: Homesick soldiers, eager to see a friendly face from home, greeted their commander-in-chief with explosive euphoria. Mr. Bush told them why they will still be here for some time to come.
BUSH: You're defeating Saddam's henchmen so that the people of Iraq can live in peace and freedom.
RODGERS: He had a message for the Iraqi people as well.
BUSH: We'll help you find and bring to justice the people who terrorized you for years and who are still killing innocent Iraqis. We will stay until the job is done.
RODGERS: At times, the occasion brought tears to the president's eyes. And in accordance with army convention, when senior officers serve Thanksgiving dinner to the troops, the commander-in-chief also helped serve chow. Privately, however, some troops are beginning to grumble, one telling me he doubts U.S. forces should have stayed as long as they have. Another adding, it is more dangerous now than when we arrived lived months ago. And a third soldier saying all I want to do is get out of here alive. Still, the fact the president shared the danger of a war zone won him universal praise from troops.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just surprising and wonderful for us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's our commander in chief. He's great. And it was great to see him, great to have him out here and it really tells us that he's our commander and he cares.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RODGERS: As stunning as the president's visit was, it may not be without political calculation. The president's show of solidarity with the troops on America's most important holiday is going to provide him with some splendid imagines when he runs for reelection next year.
LIN: Walter, what do you think, is it going to change anything on the ground?
RODGERS: Absolutely not. The American forces here are facing a guerrilla insurgency, which becomes increasingly violent. Indeed, people here, U.S. officials here, are predicting more violence and more terror, especially against Iraqi civilians in the coming months. That is not going to change. And the fractiousness of the makeup of the Iraqi society, the Shiite Muslims quarreling with the Sunni Muslims, battling for power. The Kurds trying to get their ore in the same water. Nothing is going to change here on the ground. Indeed, things could well get worse -- Carol.
LIN: All right, Walt Rodgers, live in Baghdad. Walt was just touching on some of the politics out there. The president's mission sends a number of messages to the troops, to ordinary Iraqis, to the bad guys and, as Walt just mentioned, here at home. With that side of the story, here is CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): A Kodak moment in any event, all the more so because of the element of surprise.
BUSH: I'm proud to be your commander-in-chief. I bring greetings from America. May God bless you all.
KING; In this case, the commander-in-chief is also a candidate for reelection. So while the White House calls this a Thanksgiving tribute to those on the front line, some Democrats privately call it a stunt, designed, they say, to push this made for TV moment a bit back in the memory. The mission accomplished event was nearly seven months ago. The escalating attacks and rising death toll in recent weeks a reminder the mission is anything but over.
SCOTT REED, GOP STRATEGIST: Obviously, the big weakness for the president and the upcoming campaign is Iraq. And it's weak for one reason, it's an unpredictable circumstance.
KING: And one visit to Baghdad, for all the attention it gets, won't answer the big political questions.
ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: This can be -- or what seems to be, a kind of quagmire. Can we bear the cost financially? More importantly, in terms of loss of lives? It's a story that will unfold now. KING: For all the problems in post-war Iraq, some Republicans believe that scenes like this play to a key Bush campaign strength.
BILL MCINTURFF, COP POLLSTER: The Democratic party and the candidates have zero credibility as a people trust to have the capacity to stand-up to international terrorism.
KING: Yet, for all the cheers from the troops from Baghdad or at a base here at home, there are some who worry Mr. Bush is too defined by images of war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have to play to that strength and repeat that strength and remind people of his qualities of strong leadership. I just think that at some point, he has to also get back to people understanding that he's also a regular guy. Like you and me. I want somebody, you know, that -- as we used to say, somebody you want to sit down and have a beer with.
KING: The president's aide say the secret visit to Baghdad was to say thank you, period. But everything this president does in the next 11 months also has an element of politics and everything said now about the images and meaning of this dramatic visit far less relevant than how the politics of the Iraq debate look 6 or 10 months from now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: And publicly, Carol, all the Democrats could do today was tip their hat and say it was right for the president to go to Baghdad to say thank you for the troops. One Democrat, John Kerry, said the president was right to do this on Thanksgiving, but added this. "When Thanksgiving is over, I hope the president will take the time to correct his failed policy." Look for that to echo, Carol, in the coming days.
LIN: Well, speaking for the upcoming campaign, John. How much positive sticking power do you think these images and this day has for the president going into 2004?
KING: There is no one who can argue with the president of the United States going to say thank you to the men and women of the military, especially in Iraq. So there is no political risk in that. There are some who say, what if there are a series of attacks over the next several days. Would the terrorists, those attacking coalition force, take this as in your face, if you will. Remember a few months back the president was asked about the attacks on the troop and said, bring them on. Some military family members have since complained those who are under attack or those who have lost loved ones, said the president was being a bit too macho there. Some will say, if there are a series of attacks in the days to come, that the president might have provoked the terrorists. The White House would say these men and women are in harm's way risking their lives every day and this is what a president is supposed to do.
LIN: John King, thank you very much. 184 troops have died since May 1 when he declared major combat over on that aircraft carrier. Well, earlier today, General Ricardo Sanchez was asked, what it took to pull off a presidential visit in the middle of a war zone. It's a whole lot easier with the military at the center of it. You say what needs to be done and people get the job done. He was probably being just a little modest. Joining us in Tucson to tell us what it took and what it all means is CNN military analyst retired General Don Shepperd. Good to see you again, Don.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hello, Carol.
LIN: How risky was it?
SHEPPERD: From the standpoint of physical risk, not real risky. The air plane, Air Force One, went in at night, which basically is a great defense against shoulder fired, heat-seeking missiles. It's also equipped with the latest equipment to decoy heat-seeking missile. The danger would come once the air plane is on the ground. Once the president is there, rockets and mortars, which happen periodically. But he stayed near Baghdad Airport and the palace headquarters of the joint task force. So there wasn't much physical danger. The real danger, Carol, was in the policy and what could have gone wrong if the plane had to turn around or came under attack. That would have been a very positive message for the Ba'athists that wish us evil.
LIN: Don, you're a pilot. Take us through the mechanics of what it took to fly into the airport itself. There were actually special maneuvers that Air Force One had to take.
SHEPPERD: Well, first of all, the pilots were probably surprised as anyone else. They didn't have a lot of notice on this, but they're good rapid planning. They basically, probably refueled several times en route to get there. Once they got to Baghdad, their arrival had to be timed properly.Now, in a smaller airplane you circle in over the airport. I was just there about a month and a half ago in a C-130 and we circled down over the airport. You couldn't do the same thing in a 747 like Air Force One. But basically, you would stay as close to the airport as possible, you would do lights out, including all of the windows closed in the airplane. The crew would likely be on night vision goggles with night vision cockpits. We regularly do light-out landings, if you will. It's something the military practices. So there is not a lot of danger in this. But there are a lot of steps and a lot training and a lot of professional people involved in the air and on the ground, Carol.
LIN: But, if there are heat-seeking missiles fired at aircraft, what difference does it make whether your lights are out or whether you fly in at night or not?
SHEPPERD: It makes a lot of difference, because these heat- seeking missiles, you have to see the airplane coming. Then you have to point the missile at the airplane. You have to hear a tone, indicate it's locked on and then fire the missile. So at night, when you don't know where to point it, it's like looking through a soda straw in the heavens trying to find an air plane. Even though you might be able to hear it, trying to get the missile to lock on it and fire is a different problem. In addition, you are going to have decoying mechanisms on the air plane. The latest available, Carol. So, they're likely was very little danger from the heat seeking missiles. LIN: Don, quickly, just from -- forget the technological point of view, but just from an intelligence point of view, how difficult was this to pull off?
SHEPPERD: Not difficult at all, because the military is there in place, with great security around all the places he was going to go in. The difficulty was the security arrangements and making sure that the word did not get out. Because the communications are encrypted. That's not a problem, but word of mouth of all the people that had to be finally involved in all of the arrangements is the greatest danger. America can still keep a secret, as we can see, Carol.
LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Lieutenant General Don Shepperd for joining us tonight, our military analyst. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the president's surprise visit. We're going to talk with a journalist who was in the room as the president showed up and get her impressions of the event. And later, the newest generation of military medics. They are known as 91 Whiskeys. And we'll see how they're trained. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: More now on the president's journey and the buzz when he got there. "TIME" magazine's, Vivian Walt, was on the ground when he made his appearance and she joins us now from Baghdad. Vivian, good morning to you over there. I know it's early there for you. I'm just wondering, you were actually in the room when the president appeared before the troops. What was that moment like?
VIVIAN WALT, "TIME": I can only describe it as kind of explosive. I mean, usually we have explosions here of a different kind, but this one was just quite wild. I would say nobody in the room really expected it. You could have, I guess, counted on perhaps two hands at most the people in the room that knew about it. I don't even think the coalition officials who were escorting us into the airport, knew that the president was on his way. So the moment he arrived, there was a second of astonishment before the entire place erupted in roars. Quite a euphoric moment, actually.
LIN: What was going through your mind when you saw the president of the United States standing there?
WALT: It's one of those things, Carol, where it's so surreal and so out of place, it takes you a millisecond to realize it is the president of the United States. When I did see him, I think one of my first thoughts is, oh, my gosh, how risky it is to land at Baghdad Airport, a place that most of us regard as too dangerous to fly in or out of anymore. There he was, flying Air Force One right into the heart of Baghdad. However, the moment was really -- had such impact, I think, on everybody in the room. I don't think there was a single thing that he could have done that would have had that same kind of effect, Carol.
LIN: Well, he was actually crying. I mean, was the president of the United States standing in that room shedding tears?
WALT: I wouldn't say shedding tears, but there was certainly one little tear that did roll down his cheeks. He seemed pretty overwhelmed. I think it must have been the mixture of several things, the tension of having to keep such a massive secret from the world mixed, of course with the risk that something disastrous could have gone wrong and just being in a room of 600 adoring fans all in military uniform, nonetheless. Certainly people who just seemed thrilled to see him there.
LIN: Do you think this was personal for him or do you think this was politics as usual? Just well disguised?
WALT: I think it was a bit of both, Carol. I mean, firstly, this is really the closest thing he has had to a victory lap. He can really not in the least bit declare victory yet. And it might be many, many months more before he can. But the fact that he's landed in Baghdad at this time, after the most violent month of the entire occupation, I think, was in fact a kind of taste of victory. On the politics level, there is a lot of politics going on inside of Iraq, which might be a bit lost over there, the subtleties might seen a little arcane from the U.S. But in Iraq, there is really a struggle for power going on that's taking place these weeks, the last couple of weeks and particularly this weekend has been quite fierce.
LIN: So, Vivian, then, were the Iraqis impressed at all?
WALT: There were no Iraqis there of course except for three members of the coalition-run Iraqi media network, which is the local television station here, that the U.S.-led coalition runs. And I think they sort of -- when I spoke to them afterwards, I said what do you think Iraqis will say about that? They said we think Iraqis will really see it as some kind of commitment to rebuild the country. a lot of people are fairly skeptical of that still.
LIN: All right, Vivian Walt, thank you very much. "TIME" magazine. An exciting day for you. Thanksgiving day. All right. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the secrecy factor. Bruce Morton looks at the history of presidents going places in secret and what it gets them on Thanksgiving. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: The president's trip was so secret that his normal routine was scrapped practically from start to finish: an unmarked car, top aides wearing baseball caps and no elaborate motorcade speeding through red lights. President Bush joked to a few reporters who were with him it was the first time in three years he had encountered traffic. CNN's Bruce Morton now on secret trips by other presidents and high ranking officials of administrations gone by.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUSH: I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere.
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President have gone into danger before. Lyndon Johnson went to Vietnam during that war. President- elect Dwight Eisenhower went to Korea. Franklin Roosevelt had wartime meetings, some on Navy ships at sea with allies. But they never managed, as George W. Bush, has to visit a war zone in secret.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The White House has become a glass house. And everything -- there is a complete blend and blur of public and private life. So to pull off something like this Thanksgiving journey to Baghdad, it takes a lot of preparation, a lot of secrecy. And just zipping your lips the best that you can. MORTON: Presidents can evade sometimes. John Kennedy faked a cold and canceled a campaign trip to head back to the White House to discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. But usually it's aides who do the secret stuff, Henry Kissinger flew secretly to Beijing, for negotiations, which led to President Nixon's much publicized trip later, a trip that changed relations between the two countries. In 1989, after the Chinese government opened fire on pro- democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, world reaction was angry. So was the reaction from Washington, but the first President Bush sent Brent Scowcroft in secret to reassure Beijing's leaders that the U.S. still wanted good relations. He got criticized when the story finally got out, but got his message through, too. Those secret visits had big effect. Bush's secret Thanksgiving drop-in will cheer up the troops. What else? It got Michael Jackson off the news and something that's very patriotic, a Norman Rockwell-esque moment here for America on this particular Thanksgiving. So in his biography, it will make up a few very important pages, but doesn't solve the problems of being entrenched in an angry Baghdad.
MORTON: Only time will tell how that goes. But one bet, there will be wall-to-wall reporters around the ranch come Christmas to make sure they don't get fooled again. Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington. LIN: And joining us now from New Orleans is a man who you just heard from in Bruce Morton's story, David Brinkley, a presidential historian and distinguished professor at the University of New Orleans. Doug, it's been a busy holiday. Thanks so much for leaving your family for us and joining us tonight. Why would a president risk doing something so risky and unexpected?
BRINKLEY: Pause it's good for the country. It's good for the morale of our troops. It was the right thing to do. And that's the best politics, when you do the right thing. The White House is filled with secrecy. Every day we have top secret documents that nobody is going to be allowed to look at. But to actually move in the modern era with any shroud of secrecy around you is near impossible. So one has to appreciate the planning that this took, something that President Bush apparently kept just to himself and a very small group of people, not even sharing with his own wife and always leaving the contingent to cancel at last minute if need be.I'm sure if there was any press report, yesterday for example, that this whole thing would have been scrapped. So everything worked just the way the White House wanted it to.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. President Bush telling reporters if they were to make a call, that definitely the plan would be off. But give us a perspective. I mean we're talking about Thanksgiving. Granted Thanksgiving dinner with troops halfway around the world, but in perspective, how does really this compare with say Lyndon Johnson's trip to Vietnam or Eisenhower's trip to Korea?
BRINKLEY: Well this is much more dramatic. Eisenhower like a drum beat in the 1952 presidential campaign when he ran against Adlai Stevenson kept saying I will go to Korea and find a solution to the war. That I will physically go. Lyndon Johnson going in 1966 to Camron Bay (ph) was again meant to be a morale boost, but it didn't really have the kind of play. For one thing, there wasn't the 24-hour news cycle. You would get a headline for that, couple of days of television press on it and that's it. Today, on Thanksgiving, when there is not a lot of other big news this has been the dominant story and it's been beaten into everybody's house. And it's hard for Republicans or Democrats and anybody really to complain about this. Of course, you know, success has a lot of friends. If this had gone sideways, if somehow Bush had been ambushed on his -- on the journey or something, a mishap happened, you would have critics coming out of the woodwork. As it is now, I think most Americans will say, job well done.
LIN: Well, when you take a look at what he has done -- I mean I feel like every time I turn around, I see President Bush in a flight suit, you know, standing with the background of a bunch of troops. Given what's happening on the ground in Iraq, how much of a risk is he taking by actively linking his image to this war?
BRINKLEY: That's a good question. Notice he didn't have the flight suit on today. It was a little more toned down with just a very modest Army jacket on. The -- you know, of course, he's caught a lot of flack from going on the "USS Lincoln" having "mission accomplished." It was seen as a bit of hot dogging on his part. So that was a political risk today if somehow this didn't work and the flight had to be aborted and the mission canceled, it would have looked like perhaps Bush hot-dogging it again. I think this is going to help balance the image of the "Lincoln", which I think most people feel was a political mistake to claim a victory in the war in Iraq when it should have been a time to kind of stiffen people's resolve for the difficult task of building a civil society there. This was the successful other side of the coin, if you'd like, to what happened when he went on the "Lincoln".LIN: I'm sure we're going to be seeing a lot of this videotape in the campaign in 2004. Thank you very much...
BRINKLEY: Thanks.
LIN: ... Brinkley, for joining us tonight. Well before we go to a break, an abbreviated "MONEYLINE" roundup. Tomorrow kicks off the holiday retail season and the National Retail Foundation expects a good one. Sales up 5.7 percent compared to last year. Now that's on the bullish side. Wall Street anticipates a 4- percent sales growth this year. Markets are closed for the holiday. They're going to pick up where they left off yesterday slightly on the upside for the day and the week so far. Still to come on NEWSNIGHT for this Thanksgiving -- morale booster, media event or both? We're going to take a look at the aftereffects of the president's visit with Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" in a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: By most accounts, the White House press corps is still steaming mad tonight, mad that they didn't know about the president's trip to Iraq until after he had left Baghdad. To most Americans, that feeling of reporters being in the dark might be all well and good. But for our next guest, the secret trip to Iraq is much more than a well executed surprise. Howard Kurtz is the media writer for "The Washington Post" and host of the CNN broadcast "RELIABLE SOURCES". Howie, tell it like it is. How do you really feel about the president's trip?
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, CNN "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well look, it's a great thing for the president to have gone to Baghdad, boosted the morale of the troops and probably boosted his own political standing as well. But there is the small, but inconvenient fact that the White House lied to the press. They put out a story saying the president will be spending Thanksgiving in Crawford with his family. They even put out the menu, free range turkey, if you're interested, and a lot of the journalists I've talked to today are upset that this kind of deception was engaged in, not for military secrecy -- although clearly there was a security aspect, but to set up this grand turkey photo op for the president.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Other journalists, I should add, say...
LIN:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE)
KURTZ: ... they don't think it's a big deal.
LIN: Well wait a second. I mean don't you think this is sour grapes because those people weren't included on the plane?
KURTZ: I don't think it's sour grapes because some of the people I talked to were bureau chiefs and news executives who wouldn't be going on the trip themselves. And they feel that, you know, they take very seriously the notion that the White House ought not to mislead the press and through the press, the public. Clearly, there are some people who are just angry because they got stranded in Crawford and missed the big story. But also the White House by doing this as a super-secret operation put a handful of journalists, those in the pool, who did go on the trip in the uncomfortable position of having to keep that secret. For example, Mike Allen of "The Washington Post" didn't tell any of his editors that he was going and they were quite surprised to learn that he was in Baghdad.
LIN: Well, but at the same time, I mean do you think the public really cares that a bunch of reporters are saying -- are crying foul because they were told the menu and turned out that the menu was taking place in Baghdad?
KURTZ: I don't think 98 percent of the public cares about the press and its predilections. I do think perhaps some people will care about the deception aspect. Most people I am sure will say that the White House was justified because of any possible security risk to the president in putting out what amounted to a cover story. But I must say in terms of the media, the impact is not just on the reporters who got shortchanged, not just on the news executives who didn't know about it, but in terms of the coverage today watching all three cable news networks, I would say it ranged from upbeat to gushing. A retired colonel on MSNBC, for example, saying this shows you can't underestimate George Bush. So by limiting it to that video, which everybody had to rerun again and again, there was no real live coverage because of the quick nature of the trip and the secretive nature of the trip. The White House got a really good ride on television today.
LIN: Well if you had full access, Howard, I mean what's the downside really? What's the dark side of a trip like this? It was great for troop morale, it made pretty pictures, it made people feel good on an American holiday.
KURTZ: Well you know you might have some reporters doing stand- ups raising the question of whether this would have any lasting effect, whether people will forget about this after the glow wears off if there are continued attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. In other words, dealing with the politics of -- not just the politics of the situation, but the continued dangerous situation for all the American servicemen and women who are working there.
LIN: What about the -- how the White House handled the press corps, which was actually allowed to fly on Air Force One? I mean the fact that they were sworn to secrecy, that they had to give up their cell phones, that you know the president would look them in the eye and say, no phone calls and made a cutting motion across his throat, threatening them if they should actually reveal any of the plans and that the reporters went along with it.
KURTZ: Well, look, once they had bought into the idea that they were go on this secret trip, they didn't really have any choice and they weren't about to get on their cell phones and call their moms and say guess what I'm doing on Thanksgiving. But at the same time, they did become -- you know the press was used to some degree because these were very pretty pictures, very uplifting story for a president, who clearly has been struggling on this issue, as so much of the news out of Iraq has been depressing, has been difficult for the U.S. forces there. But, you know, you should keep in mind that the press routinely keeps secrets when it...
(AUDIO GAP)
KURTZ: ... military conflict. The question here is whether the level of deception was justified for what was the president serving turkey to the troops as opposed to something where you know there was actually a military operation under way. And that's something that's going to be debated pretty heavily I would say over the next few days.
LIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Howard Kurtz, food for thought. Thanks so much.
KURTZ: Thank you.LIN: President Bush's trip wasn't the only one. Senator Hillary Clinton turned up at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, along with Jack Reed, her Democratic colleague from Rhode Island. After a turkey dinner with the troops, Senator Clinton said the American people are fully behind them. Back in her home state, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade came off without a hitch. Sunny skies, gentle winds and despite a whole lot of extra security, no one had any trouble getting into the holiday spirit. Thanksgiving also means the flu season is in full swing, an especially rough one this year. Four youngsters in Colorado have died of an aggressive strain of the disease, one that came on the scene too late to be included in this year's flu shot. That said, health officials still recommend getting vaccinated because the other strains aren't exactly a walk in the park either. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the shock and awe visit. We'll have more on the president's comment and the reaction of the soldiers to them. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: For many of us, Thanksgiving is a day to grab a great meal and take a lot of obligatory holiday photographs, you know, the ones that mom usually insists on taking and going and putting them into the holiday cards. As we've been saying, George Bush's Thanksgiving was a lot like that, except the cameras were bigger. Here's some of what it looked like and how it was received.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anybody back there who is more senior than us?
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I think it was really inspiring for the soldiers to see him here today. This is exactly what we needed to do for our soldiers today. And it is just inspiring when you see that kind of leadership, stand in front of the soldiers and you get the reaction that he got. They trust the leadership. It's very inspiring today to have him here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did y'all think when the president walked out behind the curtain there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shocked. Surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big surprise...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any idea? No clue at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No clue...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought it was pretty nice that he came down and spent Thanksgiving with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does it mean to you guys being here and have the president show up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's sacrificing a little bit for us too. It's nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where your mind is. It's on home at this time of year and think about your loved ones and friends and things like that. And then you have the leader of our country come here and share dinner with us. That's actually very special.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It helps a lot, knowing that you know the commander-in-chief himself is going to come out here and make some of the same sacrifices, away from his family, away from his home, to show that he's (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen him. So like for the first time, you know, it was a great surprise and it felt good. It really boosted my morale up, you know, knowing that he was here and started serving with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a great surprise. And it's what we expect, you know. Because he's here with us, where he's needed (UNINTELLIGIBLE) he's showing us support. I think it's great (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I think it's great (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think these soldiers appreciate him showing up. That means that his words ring true. I think they understand what he was saying. They understand why they're here (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today was the day to do it
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: A lot more happening around the world today. Here's a quick roundup. Israel's prime minister appears to be preparing the political ground for giving up settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. It is clear, he said, that we, meaning settlers, will not be in all the places we are right now. Now, by the same token, Prime Minister Sharon said time is running out for a deal with the Palestinians. He raised the possibility he would take certain unilateral steps absent a negotiated settlement. Next to Taipei where Taiwanese lawmakers raised the stakes in the conflict with mainland China. They voted to give the Taiwanese president the power to call a referendum on independence if China appears ready to invade the island. For its part, China's official media warns that Taiwan is courting disaster. Police in Western England have arrested a man believed to have ties to al Qaeda. They later found explosives at his house. The man who is a 20-year-old British subject of Asian origin was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Authorities are saying little more than that. And Britain's best known footballer now has OBE at the end of his name. David Beckham played -- paid the queen a visit today and walked away with an order of the British Empire. The always fashionable Beck's (ph), as he is called, wore a top hat and tails and a posh spice on his arm. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the job of saving lives in wartime. We'll look at the newest and best trained medics in America's arsenal, the 91 Whiskeys. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Finally from us tonight, a big reason why some of the troops made it home this holiday, home safely in spite of battlefield injuries that not so long ago might have been fatal. The reason is combat medics with a difference. Every war from Korea to "Operation Desert Storm" has seen general improvement in the training of combat medics. But this war has seen a breakthrough. Civilians might call them super medics. In military lingo, they're 91 Whiskeys. Here is NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, soldiers drill for a bio/chem attack, practice how to take care of themselves on the battlefield and how to take care of others, the wounded, the injured.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medic.
NISSEN (voice-over): These are the Army's newest combat medics. Military designation, 91 W's or 91 Whiskeys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) NISSEN: The most advanced combat medics ever fielded by the U.S. military.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got it.
LT. COL. BRUCE MCVEIGH, BATTALION COMMANDER, 232 MEDICAL BATTALION: Before they were trained at very rudimentary levels, basic putting on bandages, pressure dressings, stopping the bleeding. Now we're teaching them to manage the airway, manage the bleeding and also be able to do the procedures they need to get that soldier packaged up and evacuated back to the next level of care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you all save some of those bodies?
(SHOUTING)
NISSEN: In 16 intensive weeks of classroom work and practice drills, 91 Whiskey trainees certify as full-fledged EMTs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
NISSEN: They learn how to intubate patients, insert IV's, start medications.
MASTER SGT. ROGER THOMPSON, 91 WHISKEY INSTRUCTOR: A lot of these young soldiers are going to go right to Iraq. That's why every soldier that we send out has to be pretty much ready to step out the door and do their job day one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the pressure up here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's it. That's it.NISSEN: 91 Whiskeys practice on each other. They practice basic nursing care on patients at nearby Brooke Army Medical Center, taking vital signs...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: BP 149 over 84.NISSEN: ... doing patient assessments, some on casualties from "Operation Iraqi Freedom".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that hurt at all?
PVT. 2 JASON GUTIERREZ, 18 YEARS OLD, 91 WHISKEY: It's so much information you got to keep in your mind. It feels like a year's worth of training and they cram it into like 16 weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take your time hall (ph).
NISSEN: The emphasis is on hands-on training. More critical procedures are practiced on human simulators. Computerized mannequins with working lungs, circulation, human skeletal structure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Feel for the fourth rib.
(SOUNDS)
NISSEN: Computers monitor and control the simulator's breathing, pulse rate, bleeding, which change in response to the medic's treatment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) open fractures.
NISSEN: All treatments are recorded by a human controller, who reviews how well the trainees manage to do in 10 minutes in the dark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I (UNINTELLIGIBLE) towards the end of treating your patient (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stop the bleeding on your patient.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has bleeding been controlled?
NISSEN: The simulated injuries are typical of the most serious wounds seen in Iraq, open fractures, burns, amputations.
LT. COL. ERIN EDGAR, DIRECTOR COMBAT MEDIC TRAINING: Soldiers still die in combat the same ways they always have. We're trying to prevent those causes of death that are preventable. Largely, bleeding from limbs, you know controlling bleeding and managing airways and breathing.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
NISSEN: And medics have to learn to do that under combat conditions. Exercises are designed to simulate the chaos, the confusion of an active battlefield.
(SHOUTING)UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not feeling a pulse on this patient.
(SHOUTING)UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long are you going to take to do that tourniquet, medic?
NISSEN: Noise levels, stress levels are high.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long are you going to take? He's dying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got bodies lying all around.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The patient is gone. No pulse.
(SHOUTING)
SPC. CHARLES SCOGGINS, 28 YEARS OLD, 91 WHISKEY: Some are dead. Some are alive. If this person is alive, you've got to treat them. You've got to do what you can to keep them alive and move to the next person. PVT. 2 SHAUNTELYA TYLER, 91
WHISKEY: If you can't work under pressure, you have people out there who are depending on you and you're going to let them die.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can never replicate the real thing but I think we get them to the point where they have a pretty good idea of what's expected of them.
NISSEN: Nothing does that as effectively as the last phase of training. A week in the field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey hold up. Hold up.
NISSEN: 91 Whiskeys go on patrol, respond to calls for help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blackhawk down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) medic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blackhawk down!
(SHOTS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my arm.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go! Let's go!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wasted too much time. Let's go...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... let's go!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You guys got everybody out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have an amputation over here. This soldier has a head wound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to hurry up (UNINTELLIGIBLE) medic. You need to be...
(CROSSTALK)
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming...
(SHOUTING)
(CROSSTALK)
(SHOTS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make sure you roll him over. Make sure that he has no injuries on his back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not moving fast enough!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's move! Let's move...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better pick it up.
NISSEN: They try to remember all they've been taught, reassure the patient.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hang in there. Come on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, stay with me.
NISSEN: They assess the patient.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Check his airway, breathing and circulation.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't even know how I know it but I know I do. Because I learned it. I learned it. They said it and I grasped it and I'm using it.
NISSEN: Some of the 91 Whiskeys already deployed in combat. Anecdotal reports from the Hill to give graduates of the two-year program, plus the forward field hospitals credit for saving hundreds of lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The chances that America's sons and daughters are going to come home alive from these deployments are better now. They're doing a great job out there.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, San Antonio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: That's NEWSNIGHT for this Thanksgiving. Thanks for watching. I'm Carol Lin and I'll see you here again tomorrow night. Good night.
END
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 27, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. I'm Carol Lin. Safe to say nobody had to dig for a lead tonight. Also safe to say only about five people saw it coming. As surprises go, a president turning up at a turkey dinner in the middle of a war zone ranks right up there. Talk about shock and awe. So the day and the hour is dominated by President Bush's sudden and risky journey. His visit to the troops in Baghdad is one for the history books. It leads the program tonight, and naturally the whip. First to Dana Bash in Crawford, Texas, where she and the rest of the press corps was told the president was spending Thanksgiving there. Dana, a headline.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, almost no one knew. The president's parents weren't told until they arrived here in Crawford for the holiday this morning. His twin daughters were told just hours before. The press traveling with him were forbidden from calling anyone until the president left Baghdad. As one of the locals just said to me, down here they call what happened to us today getting hoodwinked -- Carol. LIN: Thank you Dana. Next to Baghdad and CNN's Walt Rodgers. Walt, the headline there.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the headline here is the best kept secret in Iraq remains the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. But President Bush's visit here was a close second. He was gone before most people ever knew he arrived.
LIN: Walt Rodgers in Baghdad. We'll try to fix that problem there. Finally to Washington where the political dimension of today's trip is likely to be topic A in the days ahead. CNN's White House correspondent John King is on that for us. John, a headline from you.
JOHN KING, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, this commander-in-chief is also a candidate for reelection. So the dramatic trip today and these dramatic pictures already added to the debate over his policy in Iraq. The president says his mission must succeed. The Democrats say, nice pictures Mr. President, but the policy has gone bad -- Carol.
LIN: Thanks John. Back to you and the rest shortly. Also ahead tonight, we are going to talk with a reporter from time magazine who was in the room as the president visited with the troops. Later we'll put the trip into perspective. Just how rare is it for a president to slip off to a foreign country without anyone knowing about it? And in segment 7, we'll continue our series of reports on America's war wounded. Beth Nissen has the story on a new generation of medics trained to save even more lives. All that and more in the hour ahead.We begin with a rule every child knows by heart. Before leaving the house, always tell your parents where you're going, something President Bush neglected to do, something his father would understand. Presidents don't have to eat their broccoli and they don't have to say where they're going, either, even when it's Iraq. Here is Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): It may have well been dubbed as Operation Surprise.
L. PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Let's see if we have anyone more senior who can read the president's Thanksgiving speech. Is there anyone back there who is more senior than us? BASH: From behind the curtain, the commander-in-chief himself telling 600 shocked U.S. troops...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thanks for inviting me to dinner.
BASH: President Bush's two hour and 32 minute visit to Baghdad, the first ever for a U.S. president, a tightly held secret even for a White House known for keeping a lid on information. Only a handful of senior staff and secret service officials knew. Shortly after a spokeswoman announced Wednesday Mr. Bush would have a quiet holiday at the ranch, approximately 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, the president hiding under a baseball cap, slipped out of Crawford in an unmarked car, then was flown to Andrews Air Force base. At about 11:00 p.m. Eastern time the president left on a 13-hour journey to Baghdad. Reporters were warned on the plane for security reasons, if word leaked out the plane would be turned around. At 5:30 p.m. Baghdad time, Air Force, one using a secret call sign, lands without lights with Mr. Bush in the cockpit. The president's message, one of thanks, but also one of resolve.
BUSH: We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.
BASH: At a mess hall named for Bob Hope, he doled out sweet potatoes, smiled for the cameras and shook hands with elated servicemen, telling reporters afterwards their reaction made the risk and secrecy worthwhile. The audience was not just the U.S. troops, it was also the Iraqi people.
BUSH: You have an opportunity to seize the moment and rebuild your great country based on human dignity and freedom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: This may have been a stealth mission, but it was far from spur of the moment, the president telling reporters it's been in the works since mid October. And for those who may call this secrecy a PR stunt, the president insisted that it was important to keep under wraps for his safety and for the safety of others who were traveling with him -- Carol.
LIN: Dana, you talk about the planning. How involved was the president in the planning of this surprise?
BASH: We talked to reporters on his way back, which of course he still is on his way back. And he said he had a number of extensive meetings with top officials even yesterday, talking by secure video- conference with the vice president, his chief of staff and the national security adviser, making sure everybody knew what the details were. And he said even at the last minute, he was prepared to turn this baby around. That's what he just told reporters. And there was one close call, Carol. A British Airways pilot actually spotted Air Force one in the air and radioed to the plane saying, is that Air Force one? And the president's captain responded back, no, it's a Gulf stream. and there was apparently a large pause. And then the British Airways pilot responded back, oh. Clearly that pilot understood that there was a secret and he did keep it.
LIN: Imagine what was going through his mind. Thanks so much Dana Bash. Live at Crawford Well, now more on the reaction among the troops. Said one sergeant who posed for a picture with the president, "we were expecting Nicholas Cage or Shania Twain." Here is CNN's Walter Rodgers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BREMER: Let's see if we've got anybody more senior that can read the president's Thanksgiving speech. Is there anybody back there who is more senior than us?
RODGERS: The president's visit to Baghdad was the second best kept secret in Iraq. The first still being, where is Saddam Hussein? Thanksgiving with the troops is, however, a time-honored U.S. presidential tradition.
BUSH: I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere.
RODGERS: Homesick soldiers, eager to see a friendly face from home, greeted their commander-in-chief with explosive euphoria. Mr. Bush told them why they will still be here for some time to come.
BUSH: You're defeating Saddam's henchmen so that the people of Iraq can live in peace and freedom.
RODGERS: He had a message for the Iraqi people as well.
BUSH: We'll help you find and bring to justice the people who terrorized you for years and who are still killing innocent Iraqis. We will stay until the job is done.
RODGERS: At times, the occasion brought tears to the president's eyes. And in accordance with army convention, when senior officers serve Thanksgiving dinner to the troops, the commander-in-chief also helped serve chow. Privately, however, some troops are beginning to grumble, one telling me he doubts U.S. forces should have stayed as long as they have. Another adding, it is more dangerous now than when we arrived lived months ago. And a third soldier saying all I want to do is get out of here alive. Still, the fact the president shared the danger of a war zone won him universal praise from troops.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just surprising and wonderful for us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's our commander in chief. He's great. And it was great to see him, great to have him out here and it really tells us that he's our commander and he cares.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RODGERS: As stunning as the president's visit was, it may not be without political calculation. The president's show of solidarity with the troops on America's most important holiday is going to provide him with some splendid imagines when he runs for reelection next year.
LIN: Walter, what do you think, is it going to change anything on the ground?
RODGERS: Absolutely not. The American forces here are facing a guerrilla insurgency, which becomes increasingly violent. Indeed, people here, U.S. officials here, are predicting more violence and more terror, especially against Iraqi civilians in the coming months. That is not going to change. And the fractiousness of the makeup of the Iraqi society, the Shiite Muslims quarreling with the Sunni Muslims, battling for power. The Kurds trying to get their ore in the same water. Nothing is going to change here on the ground. Indeed, things could well get worse -- Carol.
LIN: All right, Walt Rodgers, live in Baghdad. Walt was just touching on some of the politics out there. The president's mission sends a number of messages to the troops, to ordinary Iraqis, to the bad guys and, as Walt just mentioned, here at home. With that side of the story, here is CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): A Kodak moment in any event, all the more so because of the element of surprise.
BUSH: I'm proud to be your commander-in-chief. I bring greetings from America. May God bless you all.
KING; In this case, the commander-in-chief is also a candidate for reelection. So while the White House calls this a Thanksgiving tribute to those on the front line, some Democrats privately call it a stunt, designed, they say, to push this made for TV moment a bit back in the memory. The mission accomplished event was nearly seven months ago. The escalating attacks and rising death toll in recent weeks a reminder the mission is anything but over.
SCOTT REED, GOP STRATEGIST: Obviously, the big weakness for the president and the upcoming campaign is Iraq. And it's weak for one reason, it's an unpredictable circumstance.
KING: And one visit to Baghdad, for all the attention it gets, won't answer the big political questions.
ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: This can be -- or what seems to be, a kind of quagmire. Can we bear the cost financially? More importantly, in terms of loss of lives? It's a story that will unfold now. KING: For all the problems in post-war Iraq, some Republicans believe that scenes like this play to a key Bush campaign strength.
BILL MCINTURFF, COP POLLSTER: The Democratic party and the candidates have zero credibility as a people trust to have the capacity to stand-up to international terrorism.
KING: Yet, for all the cheers from the troops from Baghdad or at a base here at home, there are some who worry Mr. Bush is too defined by images of war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have to play to that strength and repeat that strength and remind people of his qualities of strong leadership. I just think that at some point, he has to also get back to people understanding that he's also a regular guy. Like you and me. I want somebody, you know, that -- as we used to say, somebody you want to sit down and have a beer with.
KING: The president's aide say the secret visit to Baghdad was to say thank you, period. But everything this president does in the next 11 months also has an element of politics and everything said now about the images and meaning of this dramatic visit far less relevant than how the politics of the Iraq debate look 6 or 10 months from now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: And publicly, Carol, all the Democrats could do today was tip their hat and say it was right for the president to go to Baghdad to say thank you for the troops. One Democrat, John Kerry, said the president was right to do this on Thanksgiving, but added this. "When Thanksgiving is over, I hope the president will take the time to correct his failed policy." Look for that to echo, Carol, in the coming days.
LIN: Well, speaking for the upcoming campaign, John. How much positive sticking power do you think these images and this day has for the president going into 2004?
KING: There is no one who can argue with the president of the United States going to say thank you to the men and women of the military, especially in Iraq. So there is no political risk in that. There are some who say, what if there are a series of attacks over the next several days. Would the terrorists, those attacking coalition force, take this as in your face, if you will. Remember a few months back the president was asked about the attacks on the troop and said, bring them on. Some military family members have since complained those who are under attack or those who have lost loved ones, said the president was being a bit too macho there. Some will say, if there are a series of attacks in the days to come, that the president might have provoked the terrorists. The White House would say these men and women are in harm's way risking their lives every day and this is what a president is supposed to do.
LIN: John King, thank you very much. 184 troops have died since May 1 when he declared major combat over on that aircraft carrier. Well, earlier today, General Ricardo Sanchez was asked, what it took to pull off a presidential visit in the middle of a war zone. It's a whole lot easier with the military at the center of it. You say what needs to be done and people get the job done. He was probably being just a little modest. Joining us in Tucson to tell us what it took and what it all means is CNN military analyst retired General Don Shepperd. Good to see you again, Don.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hello, Carol.
LIN: How risky was it?
SHEPPERD: From the standpoint of physical risk, not real risky. The air plane, Air Force One, went in at night, which basically is a great defense against shoulder fired, heat-seeking missiles. It's also equipped with the latest equipment to decoy heat-seeking missile. The danger would come once the air plane is on the ground. Once the president is there, rockets and mortars, which happen periodically. But he stayed near Baghdad Airport and the palace headquarters of the joint task force. So there wasn't much physical danger. The real danger, Carol, was in the policy and what could have gone wrong if the plane had to turn around or came under attack. That would have been a very positive message for the Ba'athists that wish us evil.
LIN: Don, you're a pilot. Take us through the mechanics of what it took to fly into the airport itself. There were actually special maneuvers that Air Force One had to take.
SHEPPERD: Well, first of all, the pilots were probably surprised as anyone else. They didn't have a lot of notice on this, but they're good rapid planning. They basically, probably refueled several times en route to get there. Once they got to Baghdad, their arrival had to be timed properly.Now, in a smaller airplane you circle in over the airport. I was just there about a month and a half ago in a C-130 and we circled down over the airport. You couldn't do the same thing in a 747 like Air Force One. But basically, you would stay as close to the airport as possible, you would do lights out, including all of the windows closed in the airplane. The crew would likely be on night vision goggles with night vision cockpits. We regularly do light-out landings, if you will. It's something the military practices. So there is not a lot of danger in this. But there are a lot of steps and a lot training and a lot of professional people involved in the air and on the ground, Carol.
LIN: But, if there are heat-seeking missiles fired at aircraft, what difference does it make whether your lights are out or whether you fly in at night or not?
SHEPPERD: It makes a lot of difference, because these heat- seeking missiles, you have to see the airplane coming. Then you have to point the missile at the airplane. You have to hear a tone, indicate it's locked on and then fire the missile. So at night, when you don't know where to point it, it's like looking through a soda straw in the heavens trying to find an air plane. Even though you might be able to hear it, trying to get the missile to lock on it and fire is a different problem. In addition, you are going to have decoying mechanisms on the air plane. The latest available, Carol. So, they're likely was very little danger from the heat seeking missiles. LIN: Don, quickly, just from -- forget the technological point of view, but just from an intelligence point of view, how difficult was this to pull off?
SHEPPERD: Not difficult at all, because the military is there in place, with great security around all the places he was going to go in. The difficulty was the security arrangements and making sure that the word did not get out. Because the communications are encrypted. That's not a problem, but word of mouth of all the people that had to be finally involved in all of the arrangements is the greatest danger. America can still keep a secret, as we can see, Carol.
LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Lieutenant General Don Shepperd for joining us tonight, our military analyst. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the president's surprise visit. We're going to talk with a journalist who was in the room as the president showed up and get her impressions of the event. And later, the newest generation of military medics. They are known as 91 Whiskeys. And we'll see how they're trained. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: More now on the president's journey and the buzz when he got there. "TIME" magazine's, Vivian Walt, was on the ground when he made his appearance and she joins us now from Baghdad. Vivian, good morning to you over there. I know it's early there for you. I'm just wondering, you were actually in the room when the president appeared before the troops. What was that moment like?
VIVIAN WALT, "TIME": I can only describe it as kind of explosive. I mean, usually we have explosions here of a different kind, but this one was just quite wild. I would say nobody in the room really expected it. You could have, I guess, counted on perhaps two hands at most the people in the room that knew about it. I don't even think the coalition officials who were escorting us into the airport, knew that the president was on his way. So the moment he arrived, there was a second of astonishment before the entire place erupted in roars. Quite a euphoric moment, actually.
LIN: What was going through your mind when you saw the president of the United States standing there?
WALT: It's one of those things, Carol, where it's so surreal and so out of place, it takes you a millisecond to realize it is the president of the United States. When I did see him, I think one of my first thoughts is, oh, my gosh, how risky it is to land at Baghdad Airport, a place that most of us regard as too dangerous to fly in or out of anymore. There he was, flying Air Force One right into the heart of Baghdad. However, the moment was really -- had such impact, I think, on everybody in the room. I don't think there was a single thing that he could have done that would have had that same kind of effect, Carol.
LIN: Well, he was actually crying. I mean, was the president of the United States standing in that room shedding tears?
WALT: I wouldn't say shedding tears, but there was certainly one little tear that did roll down his cheeks. He seemed pretty overwhelmed. I think it must have been the mixture of several things, the tension of having to keep such a massive secret from the world mixed, of course with the risk that something disastrous could have gone wrong and just being in a room of 600 adoring fans all in military uniform, nonetheless. Certainly people who just seemed thrilled to see him there.
LIN: Do you think this was personal for him or do you think this was politics as usual? Just well disguised?
WALT: I think it was a bit of both, Carol. I mean, firstly, this is really the closest thing he has had to a victory lap. He can really not in the least bit declare victory yet. And it might be many, many months more before he can. But the fact that he's landed in Baghdad at this time, after the most violent month of the entire occupation, I think, was in fact a kind of taste of victory. On the politics level, there is a lot of politics going on inside of Iraq, which might be a bit lost over there, the subtleties might seen a little arcane from the U.S. But in Iraq, there is really a struggle for power going on that's taking place these weeks, the last couple of weeks and particularly this weekend has been quite fierce.
LIN: So, Vivian, then, were the Iraqis impressed at all?
WALT: There were no Iraqis there of course except for three members of the coalition-run Iraqi media network, which is the local television station here, that the U.S.-led coalition runs. And I think they sort of -- when I spoke to them afterwards, I said what do you think Iraqis will say about that? They said we think Iraqis will really see it as some kind of commitment to rebuild the country. a lot of people are fairly skeptical of that still.
LIN: All right, Vivian Walt, thank you very much. "TIME" magazine. An exciting day for you. Thanksgiving day. All right. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the secrecy factor. Bruce Morton looks at the history of presidents going places in secret and what it gets them on Thanksgiving. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: The president's trip was so secret that his normal routine was scrapped practically from start to finish: an unmarked car, top aides wearing baseball caps and no elaborate motorcade speeding through red lights. President Bush joked to a few reporters who were with him it was the first time in three years he had encountered traffic. CNN's Bruce Morton now on secret trips by other presidents and high ranking officials of administrations gone by.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUSH: I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere.
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President have gone into danger before. Lyndon Johnson went to Vietnam during that war. President- elect Dwight Eisenhower went to Korea. Franklin Roosevelt had wartime meetings, some on Navy ships at sea with allies. But they never managed, as George W. Bush, has to visit a war zone in secret.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The White House has become a glass house. And everything -- there is a complete blend and blur of public and private life. So to pull off something like this Thanksgiving journey to Baghdad, it takes a lot of preparation, a lot of secrecy. And just zipping your lips the best that you can. MORTON: Presidents can evade sometimes. John Kennedy faked a cold and canceled a campaign trip to head back to the White House to discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. But usually it's aides who do the secret stuff, Henry Kissinger flew secretly to Beijing, for negotiations, which led to President Nixon's much publicized trip later, a trip that changed relations between the two countries. In 1989, after the Chinese government opened fire on pro- democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, world reaction was angry. So was the reaction from Washington, but the first President Bush sent Brent Scowcroft in secret to reassure Beijing's leaders that the U.S. still wanted good relations. He got criticized when the story finally got out, but got his message through, too. Those secret visits had big effect. Bush's secret Thanksgiving drop-in will cheer up the troops. What else? It got Michael Jackson off the news and something that's very patriotic, a Norman Rockwell-esque moment here for America on this particular Thanksgiving. So in his biography, it will make up a few very important pages, but doesn't solve the problems of being entrenched in an angry Baghdad.
MORTON: Only time will tell how that goes. But one bet, there will be wall-to-wall reporters around the ranch come Christmas to make sure they don't get fooled again. Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington. LIN: And joining us now from New Orleans is a man who you just heard from in Bruce Morton's story, David Brinkley, a presidential historian and distinguished professor at the University of New Orleans. Doug, it's been a busy holiday. Thanks so much for leaving your family for us and joining us tonight. Why would a president risk doing something so risky and unexpected?
BRINKLEY: Pause it's good for the country. It's good for the morale of our troops. It was the right thing to do. And that's the best politics, when you do the right thing. The White House is filled with secrecy. Every day we have top secret documents that nobody is going to be allowed to look at. But to actually move in the modern era with any shroud of secrecy around you is near impossible. So one has to appreciate the planning that this took, something that President Bush apparently kept just to himself and a very small group of people, not even sharing with his own wife and always leaving the contingent to cancel at last minute if need be.I'm sure if there was any press report, yesterday for example, that this whole thing would have been scrapped. So everything worked just the way the White House wanted it to.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. President Bush telling reporters if they were to make a call, that definitely the plan would be off. But give us a perspective. I mean we're talking about Thanksgiving. Granted Thanksgiving dinner with troops halfway around the world, but in perspective, how does really this compare with say Lyndon Johnson's trip to Vietnam or Eisenhower's trip to Korea?
BRINKLEY: Well this is much more dramatic. Eisenhower like a drum beat in the 1952 presidential campaign when he ran against Adlai Stevenson kept saying I will go to Korea and find a solution to the war. That I will physically go. Lyndon Johnson going in 1966 to Camron Bay (ph) was again meant to be a morale boost, but it didn't really have the kind of play. For one thing, there wasn't the 24-hour news cycle. You would get a headline for that, couple of days of television press on it and that's it. Today, on Thanksgiving, when there is not a lot of other big news this has been the dominant story and it's been beaten into everybody's house. And it's hard for Republicans or Democrats and anybody really to complain about this. Of course, you know, success has a lot of friends. If this had gone sideways, if somehow Bush had been ambushed on his -- on the journey or something, a mishap happened, you would have critics coming out of the woodwork. As it is now, I think most Americans will say, job well done.
LIN: Well, when you take a look at what he has done -- I mean I feel like every time I turn around, I see President Bush in a flight suit, you know, standing with the background of a bunch of troops. Given what's happening on the ground in Iraq, how much of a risk is he taking by actively linking his image to this war?
BRINKLEY: That's a good question. Notice he didn't have the flight suit on today. It was a little more toned down with just a very modest Army jacket on. The -- you know, of course, he's caught a lot of flack from going on the "USS Lincoln" having "mission accomplished." It was seen as a bit of hot dogging on his part. So that was a political risk today if somehow this didn't work and the flight had to be aborted and the mission canceled, it would have looked like perhaps Bush hot-dogging it again. I think this is going to help balance the image of the "Lincoln", which I think most people feel was a political mistake to claim a victory in the war in Iraq when it should have been a time to kind of stiffen people's resolve for the difficult task of building a civil society there. This was the successful other side of the coin, if you'd like, to what happened when he went on the "Lincoln".LIN: I'm sure we're going to be seeing a lot of this videotape in the campaign in 2004. Thank you very much...
BRINKLEY: Thanks.
LIN: ... Brinkley, for joining us tonight. Well before we go to a break, an abbreviated "MONEYLINE" roundup. Tomorrow kicks off the holiday retail season and the National Retail Foundation expects a good one. Sales up 5.7 percent compared to last year. Now that's on the bullish side. Wall Street anticipates a 4- percent sales growth this year. Markets are closed for the holiday. They're going to pick up where they left off yesterday slightly on the upside for the day and the week so far. Still to come on NEWSNIGHT for this Thanksgiving -- morale booster, media event or both? We're going to take a look at the aftereffects of the president's visit with Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" in a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: By most accounts, the White House press corps is still steaming mad tonight, mad that they didn't know about the president's trip to Iraq until after he had left Baghdad. To most Americans, that feeling of reporters being in the dark might be all well and good. But for our next guest, the secret trip to Iraq is much more than a well executed surprise. Howard Kurtz is the media writer for "The Washington Post" and host of the CNN broadcast "RELIABLE SOURCES". Howie, tell it like it is. How do you really feel about the president's trip?
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, CNN "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well look, it's a great thing for the president to have gone to Baghdad, boosted the morale of the troops and probably boosted his own political standing as well. But there is the small, but inconvenient fact that the White House lied to the press. They put out a story saying the president will be spending Thanksgiving in Crawford with his family. They even put out the menu, free range turkey, if you're interested, and a lot of the journalists I've talked to today are upset that this kind of deception was engaged in, not for military secrecy -- although clearly there was a security aspect, but to set up this grand turkey photo op for the president.
(CROSSTALK)
KURTZ: Other journalists, I should add, say...
LIN:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE)
KURTZ: ... they don't think it's a big deal.
LIN: Well wait a second. I mean don't you think this is sour grapes because those people weren't included on the plane?
KURTZ: I don't think it's sour grapes because some of the people I talked to were bureau chiefs and news executives who wouldn't be going on the trip themselves. And they feel that, you know, they take very seriously the notion that the White House ought not to mislead the press and through the press, the public. Clearly, there are some people who are just angry because they got stranded in Crawford and missed the big story. But also the White House by doing this as a super-secret operation put a handful of journalists, those in the pool, who did go on the trip in the uncomfortable position of having to keep that secret. For example, Mike Allen of "The Washington Post" didn't tell any of his editors that he was going and they were quite surprised to learn that he was in Baghdad.
LIN: Well, but at the same time, I mean do you think the public really cares that a bunch of reporters are saying -- are crying foul because they were told the menu and turned out that the menu was taking place in Baghdad?
KURTZ: I don't think 98 percent of the public cares about the press and its predilections. I do think perhaps some people will care about the deception aspect. Most people I am sure will say that the White House was justified because of any possible security risk to the president in putting out what amounted to a cover story. But I must say in terms of the media, the impact is not just on the reporters who got shortchanged, not just on the news executives who didn't know about it, but in terms of the coverage today watching all three cable news networks, I would say it ranged from upbeat to gushing. A retired colonel on MSNBC, for example, saying this shows you can't underestimate George Bush. So by limiting it to that video, which everybody had to rerun again and again, there was no real live coverage because of the quick nature of the trip and the secretive nature of the trip. The White House got a really good ride on television today.
LIN: Well if you had full access, Howard, I mean what's the downside really? What's the dark side of a trip like this? It was great for troop morale, it made pretty pictures, it made people feel good on an American holiday.
KURTZ: Well you know you might have some reporters doing stand- ups raising the question of whether this would have any lasting effect, whether people will forget about this after the glow wears off if there are continued attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. In other words, dealing with the politics of -- not just the politics of the situation, but the continued dangerous situation for all the American servicemen and women who are working there.
LIN: What about the -- how the White House handled the press corps, which was actually allowed to fly on Air Force One? I mean the fact that they were sworn to secrecy, that they had to give up their cell phones, that you know the president would look them in the eye and say, no phone calls and made a cutting motion across his throat, threatening them if they should actually reveal any of the plans and that the reporters went along with it.
KURTZ: Well, look, once they had bought into the idea that they were go on this secret trip, they didn't really have any choice and they weren't about to get on their cell phones and call their moms and say guess what I'm doing on Thanksgiving. But at the same time, they did become -- you know the press was used to some degree because these were very pretty pictures, very uplifting story for a president, who clearly has been struggling on this issue, as so much of the news out of Iraq has been depressing, has been difficult for the U.S. forces there. But, you know, you should keep in mind that the press routinely keeps secrets when it...
(AUDIO GAP)
KURTZ: ... military conflict. The question here is whether the level of deception was justified for what was the president serving turkey to the troops as opposed to something where you know there was actually a military operation under way. And that's something that's going to be debated pretty heavily I would say over the next few days.
LIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Howard Kurtz, food for thought. Thanks so much.
KURTZ: Thank you.LIN: President Bush's trip wasn't the only one. Senator Hillary Clinton turned up at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, along with Jack Reed, her Democratic colleague from Rhode Island. After a turkey dinner with the troops, Senator Clinton said the American people are fully behind them. Back in her home state, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade came off without a hitch. Sunny skies, gentle winds and despite a whole lot of extra security, no one had any trouble getting into the holiday spirit. Thanksgiving also means the flu season is in full swing, an especially rough one this year. Four youngsters in Colorado have died of an aggressive strain of the disease, one that came on the scene too late to be included in this year's flu shot. That said, health officials still recommend getting vaccinated because the other strains aren't exactly a walk in the park either. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the shock and awe visit. We'll have more on the president's comment and the reaction of the soldiers to them. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: For many of us, Thanksgiving is a day to grab a great meal and take a lot of obligatory holiday photographs, you know, the ones that mom usually insists on taking and going and putting them into the holiday cards. As we've been saying, George Bush's Thanksgiving was a lot like that, except the cameras were bigger. Here's some of what it looked like and how it was received.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anybody back there who is more senior than us?
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I think it was really inspiring for the soldiers to see him here today. This is exactly what we needed to do for our soldiers today. And it is just inspiring when you see that kind of leadership, stand in front of the soldiers and you get the reaction that he got. They trust the leadership. It's very inspiring today to have him here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did y'all think when the president walked out behind the curtain there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shocked. Surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big surprise...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any idea? No clue at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No clue...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought it was pretty nice that he came down and spent Thanksgiving with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does it mean to you guys being here and have the president show up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's sacrificing a little bit for us too. It's nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where your mind is. It's on home at this time of year and think about your loved ones and friends and things like that. And then you have the leader of our country come here and share dinner with us. That's actually very special.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It helps a lot, knowing that you know the commander-in-chief himself is going to come out here and make some of the same sacrifices, away from his family, away from his home, to show that he's (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen him. So like for the first time, you know, it was a great surprise and it felt good. It really boosted my morale up, you know, knowing that he was here and started serving with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a great surprise. And it's what we expect, you know. Because he's here with us, where he's needed (UNINTELLIGIBLE) he's showing us support. I think it's great (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I think it's great (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think these soldiers appreciate him showing up. That means that his words ring true. I think they understand what he was saying. They understand why they're here (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today was the day to do it
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: A lot more happening around the world today. Here's a quick roundup. Israel's prime minister appears to be preparing the political ground for giving up settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. It is clear, he said, that we, meaning settlers, will not be in all the places we are right now. Now, by the same token, Prime Minister Sharon said time is running out for a deal with the Palestinians. He raised the possibility he would take certain unilateral steps absent a negotiated settlement. Next to Taipei where Taiwanese lawmakers raised the stakes in the conflict with mainland China. They voted to give the Taiwanese president the power to call a referendum on independence if China appears ready to invade the island. For its part, China's official media warns that Taiwan is courting disaster. Police in Western England have arrested a man believed to have ties to al Qaeda. They later found explosives at his house. The man who is a 20-year-old British subject of Asian origin was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Authorities are saying little more than that. And Britain's best known footballer now has OBE at the end of his name. David Beckham played -- paid the queen a visit today and walked away with an order of the British Empire. The always fashionable Beck's (ph), as he is called, wore a top hat and tails and a posh spice on his arm. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the job of saving lives in wartime. We'll look at the newest and best trained medics in America's arsenal, the 91 Whiskeys. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Finally from us tonight, a big reason why some of the troops made it home this holiday, home safely in spite of battlefield injuries that not so long ago might have been fatal. The reason is combat medics with a difference. Every war from Korea to "Operation Desert Storm" has seen general improvement in the training of combat medics. But this war has seen a breakthrough. Civilians might call them super medics. In military lingo, they're 91 Whiskeys. Here is NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, soldiers drill for a bio/chem attack, practice how to take care of themselves on the battlefield and how to take care of others, the wounded, the injured.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medic.
NISSEN (voice-over): These are the Army's newest combat medics. Military designation, 91 W's or 91 Whiskeys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) NISSEN: The most advanced combat medics ever fielded by the U.S. military.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got it.
LT. COL. BRUCE MCVEIGH, BATTALION COMMANDER, 232 MEDICAL BATTALION: Before they were trained at very rudimentary levels, basic putting on bandages, pressure dressings, stopping the bleeding. Now we're teaching them to manage the airway, manage the bleeding and also be able to do the procedures they need to get that soldier packaged up and evacuated back to the next level of care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you all save some of those bodies?
(SHOUTING)
NISSEN: In 16 intensive weeks of classroom work and practice drills, 91 Whiskey trainees certify as full-fledged EMTs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
NISSEN: They learn how to intubate patients, insert IV's, start medications.
MASTER SGT. ROGER THOMPSON, 91 WHISKEY INSTRUCTOR: A lot of these young soldiers are going to go right to Iraq. That's why every soldier that we send out has to be pretty much ready to step out the door and do their job day one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the pressure up here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's it. That's it.NISSEN: 91 Whiskeys practice on each other. They practice basic nursing care on patients at nearby Brooke Army Medical Center, taking vital signs...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: BP 149 over 84.NISSEN: ... doing patient assessments, some on casualties from "Operation Iraqi Freedom".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that hurt at all?
PVT. 2 JASON GUTIERREZ, 18 YEARS OLD, 91 WHISKEY: It's so much information you got to keep in your mind. It feels like a year's worth of training and they cram it into like 16 weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take your time hall (ph).
NISSEN: The emphasis is on hands-on training. More critical procedures are practiced on human simulators. Computerized mannequins with working lungs, circulation, human skeletal structure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Feel for the fourth rib.
(SOUNDS)
NISSEN: Computers monitor and control the simulator's breathing, pulse rate, bleeding, which change in response to the medic's treatment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) open fractures.
NISSEN: All treatments are recorded by a human controller, who reviews how well the trainees manage to do in 10 minutes in the dark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I (UNINTELLIGIBLE) towards the end of treating your patient (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stop the bleeding on your patient.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has bleeding been controlled?
NISSEN: The simulated injuries are typical of the most serious wounds seen in Iraq, open fractures, burns, amputations.
LT. COL. ERIN EDGAR, DIRECTOR COMBAT MEDIC TRAINING: Soldiers still die in combat the same ways they always have. We're trying to prevent those causes of death that are preventable. Largely, bleeding from limbs, you know controlling bleeding and managing airways and breathing.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
NISSEN: And medics have to learn to do that under combat conditions. Exercises are designed to simulate the chaos, the confusion of an active battlefield.
(SHOUTING)UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not feeling a pulse on this patient.
(SHOUTING)UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long are you going to take to do that tourniquet, medic?
NISSEN: Noise levels, stress levels are high.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long are you going to take? He's dying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got bodies lying all around.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The patient is gone. No pulse.
(SHOUTING)
SPC. CHARLES SCOGGINS, 28 YEARS OLD, 91 WHISKEY: Some are dead. Some are alive. If this person is alive, you've got to treat them. You've got to do what you can to keep them alive and move to the next person. PVT. 2 SHAUNTELYA TYLER, 91
WHISKEY: If you can't work under pressure, you have people out there who are depending on you and you're going to let them die.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can never replicate the real thing but I think we get them to the point where they have a pretty good idea of what's expected of them.
NISSEN: Nothing does that as effectively as the last phase of training. A week in the field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey hold up. Hold up.
NISSEN: 91 Whiskeys go on patrol, respond to calls for help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blackhawk down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) medic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blackhawk down!
(SHOTS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my arm.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go! Let's go!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wasted too much time. Let's go...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... let's go!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You guys got everybody out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have an amputation over here. This soldier has a head wound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to hurry up (UNINTELLIGIBLE) medic. You need to be...
(CROSSTALK)
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming...
(SHOUTING)
(CROSSTALK)
(SHOTS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make sure you roll him over. Make sure that he has no injuries on his back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not moving fast enough!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's move! Let's move...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better pick it up.
NISSEN: They try to remember all they've been taught, reassure the patient.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hang in there. Come on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, stay with me.
NISSEN: They assess the patient.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Check his airway, breathing and circulation.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't even know how I know it but I know I do. Because I learned it. I learned it. They said it and I grasped it and I'm using it.
NISSEN: Some of the 91 Whiskeys already deployed in combat. Anecdotal reports from the Hill to give graduates of the two-year program, plus the forward field hospitals credit for saving hundreds of lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The chances that America's sons and daughters are going to come home alive from these deployments are better now. They're doing a great job out there.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, San Antonio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: That's NEWSNIGHT for this Thanksgiving. Thanks for watching. I'm Carol Lin and I'll see you here again tomorrow night. Good night.
END
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