U.S. Military Moving a Number of Ships into Mideast Region
KAGAN: We're getting this morning that the U.S. military moving a number of ships into the region. With more on that and the view from the Pentagon, let's go to our Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, that's right. The USS Iwo Jima an amphibious assault ship that is essentially a small helicopter carrier, is being dispatched to the area off the coast of Lebanon, along with some of its support ships, that will also be there to assist in the evacuation if needed. They bring the capacity to take people from Lebanon to Cyprus, as well as helicopters that could be used. But the primary means of evacuation continues to be a plan to use commercial chartered vessels, including the Orient queen, a Greek flag vessel, which we are told is either at or close to the Port of Beirut. It'll be the first ship out. But in addition, U.S. government officials say today that the U.S. government is trying to charter four or five more cruise ships as the primary means of getting U.S. citizens out of Lebanon. Meanwhile, helicopter evacuations continue. There are now six CH-53 helicopters operating back and forth between Lebanon and Cyprus taking the most needy cases, the elderly, sick, children, so-called special needs cases. Here we see some of the people arriving in Cyprus on Sunday. Those helicopter operations continue today with another 60 or so people taken out of Lebanon. Right now, the U.S. has the ability, the capability, with those six helicopters to take out 300 people a day by helicopter, but again, they're reserving that essentially for people in a desperate situation. Most people will be going out by ship in the coming days, either on the ship that's there arriving there today or one of the other charter ships that the U.S. is about to charter. And again, the plan is to bring four or five charter ships, supplement that with the six helicopters as an air bridge between Lebanon and Cyprus, and then have the U.S. military warships there as a backup. If they need extra capacity, they could be pressed into service in a number of ways -- Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Jamie, explain to me the thinking, why are they going with commercial ships like that? Why not perhaps it could have even sped things up if they'd just sent the military in?</s>MCINTYRE: Well, believe it or not, speed was not the priority. Safety was the priority, orderliness was the priority, to make sure that they did this in a deliberate, organized way. And even, believe it or not, comfort was one of the things that they wanted to consider before they just rushed people on to warships. First of all, you have to understand, these ships aren't there yet. They were in the Red Sea. They still have to transit the Suez Canal. And most of the ships won't get there until Thursday or Friday, the U.S. warships. One of them should be there by tonight. But again, these are warships. They can take people if they had to. But they can take a limited number of people. They can move much more efficiently and with much more comfort and with perhaps a greater degree of individual safety if they can bring in cruise ships that are designed to carry passengers, and that's what they decided to do.</s>KAGAN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Jamie, thank you. We're getting word from the Department of Defense that they are about to release some videotape of Americans who are being evacuated, and we will those very shortly and bring them to you in a bit. Right now, a quick break.