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CNN Live Today
Rumsfeld Addresses Iraq, Abu Zubaydah
Aired April 03, 2002 - 14:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Today Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was peppered with questions about the fate of Abu Zubaydah. He is by now, as you know, the high-ranking al Qaeda leader who was recently captured in Pakistan. Our national correspondent, Bob Franken, joins us now live with a report from the Pentagon. That briefing got pretty spicy, Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They have a tendency to do so. The secretary of defense says what he wants to say, and oftentimes doesn't really tolerate others trying to get him to clarify what he was trying to say.
First of all I want to talk, however, about Saddam Hussein. He has been on a tear, the secretary of defense has for the last several days, speaking about the roles of Syria, Iran and Iraq. And the secretary, of course, is part of an administration that has to sort of straddle what's going on in Israel and the Palestinian areas, and what, of course, is going on in the U.S. war on terror. Those, of course, very delicate overlapping concerns.
And so what the secretary was doing here was talking about the contribution that the longtime U.S. enemy Saddam Hussein was having. He's been deriding the fact that Hussein's government, according to public reports, has been offering suicide bomber families $25,000 if they carry out the act. He said that is something of huge significance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I'm simply trying to let the people of Iraq understand what their leadership is doing. To let the people of the Middle East and the rest of their world, the people in Europe, know what is in fact being done, to arm young people and send them out to blow up restaurants and shopping malls and pizza parlors, and have the people with weapons strapped on them killed, and kill other innocent people. Men, women and children, in those various facilities.
I think it's important for the world to think about that and understand it, and give a weight to it, a value to it. It is a particularly vicious thing to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP) FRANKEN: Left unsaid by the secretary, in spite of repeated questioning, is what weight the administration would give in its ongoing debate about what military action that they need to take against Saddam Hussein.
As for Abu Zubaydah, he is the high-ranking al Qaeda leader who has been captured in the joint operation between FBI, CIA and Pakistani forces. The secretary of defense wanted to say, to challenge some news reports that have come out that say, one, he is being taken either here or there. The secretary said the United States will not say where he's being held in custody.
Also, he was quite angry about reports that suggested the United States might turn him over to another country who could use torture in the interrogation. As importance as this man is, said Rumsfeld, that is not the plan. But in the process of answering questions, he did acknowledge explicitly that the United States does have control of Abu Zubaydah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUMSFELD: I have never been one to willy-nilly throw away options. I can't conceive of why we would not want to hold him. We currently are holding him. But I don't need to promise the world that we will hold him in perpetuity. Therefore I don't. Therefore I selected the word that is exactly the word I wanted to use. It is exactly the right word. It conveys exactly the meaning that I intended to convey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FRANKEN: Two things Donald Rumsfeld will never say. One of them is "never," Carol, and the other one is, anything besides what he wants to say -- Carol.
LIN: So we saw today. All right, thank you very much. Bob Franken reporting live at the Pentagon.
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