Speaker 1: One tunnel in Gaza was wide enough for a top
Speaker 1: AMAS official to drive his car back and forth inside
Speaker 1: Another stretch nearly three football fields long, and was hidden
Speaker 1: beneath a hospital under the house of a senior Hamas commander.
Speaker 1: The Israeli military found a spiral staircase leading to a
Speaker 1: tunnel approximately seven stories deep. More and more information about
Speaker 1: the tunnel complex under Gaza is coming to light as
Speaker 1: the Israeli military explorers and documents and ladies journalists to
Speaker 1: them as time goes by. It's unbelievable and really illustrates
Speaker 1: why the tunnels were considered a major threat to the
Speaker 1: Israeli military in Gaza even before the war started. But man,
Speaker 1: they had no idea and we had no idea to
Speaker 1: discuss that in the state of the Israeli Hamas conflict.
Speaker 1: Jeff mccauslin joins us. Jeff is CBS News military consultant. Jeff,
Speaker 1: it's always a pleasure. How are you, sir?
Speaker 2: You won't do it very well. Kind of a frigid
Speaker 2: morning here, it's about eleven degrees outside.
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that. And just as a personal aside,
Speaker 1: you made a lovely and lovely offer several months ago
Speaker 1: that if I and my bride could make it to
Speaker 1: the Gettysburg battlefield, that you'd be happy to do a
Speaker 1: tour with us. And I have not forgotten that, and
Speaker 1: I hope I can take you up on that someday.
Speaker 2: I would cherish that and pre lunch and a beer
Speaker 2: to boot. How's that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Stop it too good? So let's get back to Gaza.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen the accounts of the tunnel complex.
Speaker 1: It's mind blowing, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It is pretty mind blowing. But you know, I have
Speaker 2: to challenge that some of you suggested they're at the top.
Speaker 2: You know, we had no idea. Well, it's really intelligence.
Speaker 2: I think more and more is being described as pretty
Speaker 2: at fault in this particular operation, not having obviously situational
Speaker 2: awareness of the preparation Bijamas to conduct this attack on
Speaker 2: the seventh of October, because they actually had a copy
Speaker 2: of the actual plan, but they described it as asked,
Speaker 2: didn't think Hamas could pull it off, and in fact
Speaker 2: also should have had more I think situational awareness of
Speaker 2: what Hamas is doing. I mean, my goodness, it's one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five square mile all surrounded by Israeli territory,
Speaker 2: and you control the airspace. And furthermore, to some degree,
Speaker 2: the Israeli took a blind eye to the importation of
Speaker 2: an awful lot of construction material provided by Katar and
Speaker 2: others here the Gaza Trip over the years. I think
Speaker 2: actually because they wanted to use Hamas as sort of
Speaker 2: a vehicle in which they could describe to people who said,
Speaker 2: you should negotiate with the Palestinians, how came we negotiate
Speaker 2: with these people. But while they did all that, they
Speaker 2: allowed that importation of construction material to enter the Gaza Shrip,
Speaker 2: a lot of which ended up in those tones right.
Speaker 1: It is a public works project, though for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term, of amazing ambition and complexity. It's estimated
Speaker 1: currently that the network of tunnels is between three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty and four hundred and fifty miles, which is
Speaker 1: astonishing considering that the territory itself, at its longest point
Speaker 1: is only twenty five miles long, and a couple of
Speaker 1: IDF officials assays that they're close to fifty seven hundred
Speaker 1: separate shafts leading down to the tunnels. Fifty seven hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Some people have said this is a more extensive
Speaker 2: tunnel complex than the entire London subway system. And keep
Speaker 2: in mind, as you say, trying to paint a picture here,
Speaker 2: because of the strip is about twice the land area
Speaker 2: size to metropolitan Las Vegas, so it's not that big
Speaker 2: a place. But this extensive tunnel complex makes for a
Speaker 2: tremendous military problem in two ways. One, obviously for the
Speaker 2: israelis to get down those tunnels and try to fight
Speaker 2: them out and destroy them. Underground, well, you give away
Speaker 2: all of the military advantages you have of armor, artillery, aircraft,
Speaker 2: and it's based like fighting under water exactly. Some places
Speaker 2: you have to use breeding apparatuses, so all those advantages
Speaker 2: you have above ground go away. Becomes a much more
Speaker 2: equal fight below grounds, and you're going to take an
Speaker 2: awful lot of cashers in the Israeli military historically has
Speaker 2: been historically adverse. And then second of all, it allows
Speaker 2: Kamas frankly, to re infiltrate. They can fall back as
Speaker 2: they have from Northern Gaza, the Central Gaza, the southern Gaza.
Speaker 2: They can use that tunnel complex to basically reinfiltrate behind
Speaker 2: you and come up behind you. And that's why as
Speaker 2: you do clearing operations, you literally and I was in Pellujah,
Speaker 2: rack a city of two or thousand, which we had
Speaker 2: to go through that against insurgence al Kaida groups. You
Speaker 2: have to go building the building, room to room, door
Speaker 2: to door, closet the closet, basement de basement, addic to addic,
Speaker 2: not only looking for fighters, but looking for weapons explosives
Speaker 2: that people will leave behind because they know they can
Speaker 2: re infiltrate, gather up that weapons and attack you from behind.
Speaker 2: So that makes the whole military operation a lot more complex.
Speaker 1: And I know in the New York Times coverage of
Speaker 1: the recent discoveries rea the tunnels, they mentioned one they
Speaker 1: quoted one IDF soldier is saying every single tunnel he's
Speaker 1: seen has been booby trapped. Now the IDF in the
Speaker 1: Israeli government has said they need to destroy the entire
Speaker 1: tunnel complex to have any hope at peace going forward.
Speaker 1: Considering that it could be three hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty miles of tunnels, some of them
Speaker 1: seven stories down underground. That is a year's long effort,
Speaker 1: isn't that wouldn't it have to be?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a year's long effort, and you've got to
Speaker 2: understand that doing so, you may compromise structures above ground.
Speaker 2: What does that do then to the you know, the
Speaker 2: structures above ground number one? Number two? What does that do?
Speaker 2: One of the real concerns about going after those tunnels.
Speaker 2: Some people are said to flood them, for example with
Speaker 2: seawater due to the proximity of the coast. But ensuing though,
Speaker 2: you may compromise the water supply in the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 2: which obviously been as a tremendous problem with a two
Speaker 2: point two million Palestinian hitnocent civilians who lived there, and
Speaker 2: then last not least as the Bass with Jory. Now
Speaker 2: two million of the two point two million population, two
Speaker 2: million of them are refugees. They have had to leave
Speaker 2: their homes. Estimated eighty to eighty five percent of all
Speaker 2: the structures in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or
Speaker 2: damaged and moved south. At the urging of the Israeli
Speaker 2: military as this invasion began, well you really can't, the
Speaker 2: Israeli military argue, we really can't allow them to go
Speaker 2: to their homes, even after we believe we've cleared it
Speaker 2: of the fighters, because of two problems. One reinfiltration number
Speaker 2: one and number two. As you point out the ongoing
Speaker 2: operation to destroy the tunnel complex.
Speaker 1: Boy, this is the future of this is hazy. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the Israeli military has announced that they're going into the
Speaker 1: most hazardous phase of this, which is clearing out the
Speaker 1: tunnels and rooting out the hidden fighters and arms and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So this is so far from
Speaker 1: over it seems silly to even talk about it being over. Jeff,
Speaker 1: anything else top of mind about the conflict before we
Speaker 1: let you go?
Speaker 2: Well, what I'm doing concerned about is still in all
Speaker 2: the Israelis have not really talked about what do you
Speaker 2: do the day after, even after you think you've destroyed
Speaker 2: I think destroying Hamas is a bridge too far, perhaps
Speaker 2: destroying its military capabilities. And you know, President or I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Yahoo just yesterday said, you know, the war
Speaker 2: will continue until the end, until we achieve our goals
Speaker 2: returning to hostage elmiting Hamas and insuring Gaza never again
Speaker 2: constitute the threat to Israel. Well, that may sound reasonable,
Speaker 2: but as you suggest, that's a monumental task. If you've
Speaker 2: got to occupy this particular area of two million people,
Speaker 2: we our rough rule of thumb in Iraq and Afghanistan
Speaker 2: was five to twenty soldiers per thousand to control the population.
Speaker 2: So you're talking forty to fifty thousand israel Israeli soldiers
Speaker 2: in a semi permanent status just to occupy this place
Speaker 2: long term, and you may end up then if you're
Speaker 2: the Israelis looking at the Third Intifada or not. Unlike
Speaker 2: the British army which occupied northern Ireland in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: eight and they were there until nineteen ninety three, and
Speaker 2: I lived in England during some of the ira bombings.
Speaker 2: I remember a scene of Greece often when I asked him,
Speaker 2: what are you guys accomplishing? His only reply was, we
Speaker 2: have achieved an acceptable level of violence that we're no
Speaker 2: longer including only closer to a long term solution than
Speaker 2: we were in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's difficult to come up with
Speaker 1: alternatives for the Israelis that make any sense, and so
Speaker 1: goes history. Sometimes you have a palliative incredibly unpalatable choices.
Speaker 1: Jeff mccauslin's CBS News military consultant, Jeff, Thanks for the enlightenment.
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you. Come out to Gaysburg all right,
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Thank you very much,