Target: Terrorism - Preemptive Bombings?
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The Pentagon has been considering preemptive bombing of some targets in Afghanistan. Let's get more now on that from Jeanne Meserve in Washington. Jeanne.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, first let me tell you about the secretary of defense and his continuing travels in the region. He at this point is scheduled to arrive shortly in Uzbekistan. He will be having meetings in Tashkent. They're scheduled to last about three hours. Don't draw from that the conclusion that these meetings are not important. They definitely are. Uzbekistan is potentially a key player in any U.S. military action because of its location. It is just north of Afghanistan, as you can see on this map, a border about 80 miles long. It would be the perfect place to put any special operations forces, also, possibly, any troops that might be needed for extractions out of Afghanistan. This is how Donald Rumsfeld framed the purpose of his trip there.</s>DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The United States, of course, does not have any longstanding relationship with Uzbekistan and it is in a significant geographic location and we have had a number of interactions over the period of weeks and it seemed to me that it's a useful thing to meet the people and get to know them a bit and to express appreciation for any cooperation they care to offer in this exercise.</s>MESERVE: Rumsfeld is traveling to Uzbekistan from Cairo, where he met with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. The U.S. is a major patron of Mubarak's. Egypt gets about $1 billion in U.S. military aid annually. But Egypt not expected to cooperate in any significant way in any U.S. military action because of the domestic political situation. Some of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants are Egyptians. There's a very strong and active Islamic fundamentalist movement there. There already have been anti-American demonstrations. So what the U.S. wants to see and has gotten from Mubarak is a statement against terrorism, something the U.S. needs from some of its Muslim allies in the region. One additional stop on the Secretary's schedule, he has decided to stop in Turkey on his way home. Turkey, a NATO ally. It has agreed to allow U.S. planes, transport planes to stop on its, at its air bases and use its air space, the U.S. wanting to cement that relationship. You asked me about the possibility of preemptive strikes against Afghanistan. This is in reference to the massive drop of food and medicine that the U.S. is considering undertaking, $320 million worth. The secretary of defense said to reporters on his trip that the U.S. would only undertake this if it knew that U.S. aircraft would not be under threat from Stinger missiles or surface to air missiles. Senior U.S. defense officials telling us that the U.S. is considering preemptive strikes. Paula back to you.</s>ZAHN: All right, Jeanne. How much reaction is there this morning to that "Washington Post" story which basically is trying to assess a bunch of intelligence information which would indicate that there will be more terrorist strikes if the U.S. hits Afghanistan?</s>MESERVE: Paula, this building is sewn up very tight. The word here is say as little as possible. I have to tell you, quite honestly, we've had no reaction from this building to those reports yet this morning. Paula, back to you.</s>ZAHN: All right, Jeanne Meserve, thanks so much. See you a little bit later on this morning.