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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

U.S. Military Team Due in Liberia This Morning

Aired July 7, 2003 - 06:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: A U.S. assessment team is now in Liberia. What they see and hear on this fact-finding mission could very well determine whether U.S. troops get orders to head to the war- torn African country.
Let's get more now from Brent Sadler. He's been tracking these developments. He's at the airport in Monrovia, where the team just arrived.

Brent -- so, they just arrived it appears.

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Kris, it's almost happening, and we're not at the airport in Monrovia. We're actually inside the U.S. compound here in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.

Behind me over there you see a helipad, and pretty soon there's going to be a lot of action over there with the first helicopter of one or perhaps two or maybe more helicopters coming in here, bringing this humanitarian survey team, an advance team if you like, to help the U.S. try and assess the very many challenges, not least humanitarian and survey challenges that have to be faced here and try to help bring peace to this country and to get it over its ruinous history.

Now, this team will be possibly moving out of the compound here as early as today to start checking on what needs to be done here. The team left Rota in Spain. It consists of military personnel, about 20 experts from the fields of health, construction, logistics and other humanitarian specialties. They're coming to Monrovia with a protection force of about 15. So, 30 to 40 personnel will be disembarking from one of two helicopters over the next hour or so. In fact, any minute now, we understand, we may well be hearing the clatter of rotor blades over the embassy compound here.

Now, this deployment is not to be seen as part of a deployment of peacekeepers. That's jumping the gun. What we're seeing here now is a preliminary assessment to get U.S. eyes and ears on the ground to establish tracks so that they can report back to military commanders, so that President Bush can eventually make the kind of crucial decision about whether or not U.S. forces are going to take part in a mission here, primarily humanitarian says the U.S., but linked in with military personnel from West African states to try and end this country's war.

That all depends, of course, on the future of Liberia's President Charles Taylor, whether or not he's going to fulfill his commitment to step down. But he says he won't go unless peacekeepers are on the ground first -- Kris.

OSBORN: Well, I wanted to ask you about the possible participation if in the event there is some multinational peacekeeping force sent into Liberia, what kind of West African participation might that be comprised of? Many reports from the region are suggesting, and you've been referring to this, that the belief may be that the United States might have the clout to prevent violence in a way that some others might not.

SADLER: Indeed. There are many components on this, the final figures of participation not worked out, but basically look at it in two parts. The economic community of West African states, as many as 3,000 troops, Nigeria will be a key player in that. And Nigeria is, remember, a country which is offering Charles Taylor, the Liberian president, political asylum in Nigeria. That invitation is being made. Mr. Taylor has accepted it in principle but not saying precisely how and the mechanics -- rather, the mechanics of how and when he would leave office here.

Also, the United States still not committed to numbers, no decision made. This is fact-finding that's going to be going on starting day, laying the groundwork for possible inclusion in this force. But the United States has seen -- will be seen as the backbone that supports this mission should it get under way. And Liberians are looking to the United States, particularly from the moral standpoint, because it was freed American slaves back in the early part of the 19th century that founded this state of Liberia.

So, the U.S. is seen really here as the guarantor of the kind of peace that Liberians are desperately hoping for -- Kris.

OSBORN: CNN's Brent Sadler live in Monrovia, Liberia, the capital, in anticipation of what is believed to be the imminent arrival of the assessment team.

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