Was Al Qaeda Hit or Innocents?
JEFF GREENFIELD, HOST: Boston's Cardinal Law says he's not resigning, but for decades his church failed to protect children from pedophile priests. Why? And has bad intelligence led to deadly U.S. attacks on innocent civilians? Is that the price of waging war? Painful truths, tonight on GREENFIELD AT LARGE. Last week, U.S. forces fired a missile from an unmanned CIA predator drone. The target, a group of people believed to be al Qaeda. Maybe, the Pentagon hinted, Osama bin Laden himself. Today, human remains from that attack are being sent to the U.S., to see what, if anything, can be learned of their identities. Some of the local Afghan commanders say the men hit were not terrorists, just smugglers. This is another in a series of incidents involving military action against targets who may or may not be the enemy. Confusion seems to be part of the landscape, as Pentagon officials acknowledged today.</s>VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: To say that the situation, to say that conditions in Afghanistan are confusing is an understatement. You know, and it's impossible to say these people are on this side and these people are on the other side. People are on multiple sides and they switch sides.</s>JOHN STUFFLEBEEM, REAR ADMIRAL, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: And once got in there, the more we learned about it is, the more difficult it is to operate, certainly as Americans, in a difficult country like this. Because you hear a piece of information from this individual, who will tell you things like, "You ought to go hit those guys because they're al Qaeda." But then that individual says, "Well, I'm not al Qaeda. I'm anti-Taliban."</s>GREENFIELD: Joining us now to talk about how to penetrate the fog of war are; in Washington, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby. He's vice chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence. And in Oakbrook, Illinois, CNN military analyst, retired Brigadeer General David Grange. General Grange, when you hear those statements and you think back to your own career, what -- how does it happen that in a situation where it is literally life and death to pick the right targets, with all the attention now being focused in Afghanistan, we still may find ourselves, American forces, picking the wrong targets?</s>DAVID GRANGE, RETIRED BRIG. GEN., U.S. ARMY: It's a very difficult situation to be in. When you act, you have to act with not 100 percent intelligence. You want the most clear, accurate picture as possible. You use different sources of intelligence, whether it be signal, overhead, human intelligence. But at one point in time, a commander on the ground, the commander in charge of the operation, whichever level that may be that the decision's made for that type of target, he has to make that decision. He has to make that decision with maybe 80, 85 percent, to the best of his ability. And there's a risk benefit that he goes through in his analysis to say, OK, go after it. And it's tough to make.</s>GREENFIELD: But in a situation like Afghanistan, where you have to make that risk benefit analysis, knowing the centuries long history of blood feuds, of tweed and among tribes, at what does a commander have to say, "I'm just going to have to take a -- take my best shot at this, so to speak. And I've got to -- I can't stay my hand completely. So I'm going to go, even though I know in this particular situation, the odds of somebody giving me deliberately, maliciously false information may be fairly high."</s>GRANGE: Yes, that risk is always there. And that's what commanders get paid to do. They make the decisions. They get paid for judgment. And it's not easy. In this type of environment, it's very confusing. You have people that are opportunists, people that are putting out disinformation. They're great at deception. They're tribal feuds. It's very difficult to vett the source of information. But then again, we're working on -- think that very hard. And probably better than many other nations would, you know, in a fight like this. But you know, it's a tough environment to work in. Maybe one of the toughest that I've seen.</s>GREENFIELD: And Senator Shelby, that I think, leads to a somewhat broader question. Because you're part of the effort to try to find out what happened in the -- leading up to September 11 in terms of what you, among others have called it, "failure of intelligence." But doesn't this situation maybe tell us that there are some things, maybe a lot of things, that we simply can't know with any reliable certainty, particularly given this confusing part of the world?</s>SEN RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, you will never know everything. And as the general just said, after a while, you have to make a judgment, especially if you're in war. And we are in war there. But Afghanistan is a complex situation because of the shifting alliances it was talked about. The tribal feuds, everything that goes with it. But I believe that our intelligence, overall, has been pretty good on the ground. It's not perfect. We're sorry about when we make mistakes, but we will make mistakes, but we're trying to minimize those mistakes more and more. As a matter of fact, we're trying to train more and more of the Afghan people that are loyal to us, that are working with us, to help us with intelligence on the ground. And a lot of that's coming through, but it's not perfect, Jeff.</s>GREENFIELD: But I guess what I'm getting at is, we've heard so often that we, meaning the United States, should have known what was coming September 11. Given the fact that even in this arena where our intelligence efforts are focused like a laser, if you will, on trying to find out what's going on in Afghanistan, we still don't know with absolute certainty, doesn't that tell us that there may simply be human limits to what we can know, even in a situation like how we may be attacked again?</s>SHELBY: Well, that's true. What you're saying is true. We will never know everything, but we try to minimize this. Now on -- what I would call in Afghanistan, I'd call that tactical intelligence, as opposed to strategic surprises. We were warned in '93 that terrorists, after the terrorist attack in New York, that they would hit. In '98, they hit. Our embassies in Africa. And then, the U.S.S. Cole, Khobar Towers in '96. We had a lot of warnings. The question is what have we learned, Jeff?</s>GREENFIELD: OK. General Grange, if I may, does this kind of an incident, knowing that the commander may have made a good faith, but mistaken decision, does it have a chilling effect on future decisions?</s>GRANGE: Yes, it does, because I can assure you that from the investigations, the chain of command, does get asked questions about just what happened, what's going on here. And it's tough on the commanders. I'm not saying that's wrong, but we do follow up with investigations in the United States of America. And this is a situation where you have nine good targets. And you have one that goes bad. And you're dealing with the attitude of the local populace. You're trying to win their support. It has a lot of effect with the media, with world opinion on how we're doing this fight. But I can assure you that when our military operates, from my experience, we have quite a few constraints on our people. In fact, the rules of engagement and the authorization to do a hit has several checks and balances, moreso than many other military. So it's already pretty difficult for the commanders, but it will have an effect. Sure, it will.</s>GREENFIELD: Senator Shelby, we're just about out of time. So quickly, is this, in the end, the final analysis, just something where what the United States has to say to the world is, "We don't want it to happen. We'll make every effort not to have it happen, but we know it's going to happen. And it's the price of war?"</s>SHELBY: I think it's the price of war, but we try to minimize it. And I think we will do better.</s>GREENFIELD: All right. Senator Richard Shelby, General David Grange, thank you both very much. And still ahead, why would a church let a pedophile run free for decades? And still later, a time honored contest that gives us pause.