Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Look at What It's Like For Journalists to Live and Work in Cairo

Aired August 13, 2002 - 06:38   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Pakistan, the West Bank, Afghanistan and Iraq. Our next guest is very familiar with all of those places. You've probably seen him on CNN many, many times before from all over the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. diplomats are throwing cold water on a report that Egypt had information about a major terrorist attack against a U.S. target or targets in the days leading up to September 11.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Just a small sample from the work from our Cairo bureau chief Ben Wedeman, who is, of course, very happy to be with us this morning.

And thanks for getting up so early.

WEDEMAN: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

First of all, tell us what it's like to live in Cairo. And you're an American, so it must be rather strange sometimes.

WEDEMAN: No, it's not strange. Actually, I spend very little time in Cairo. Most of the time I'm on the road, much to the unhappiness of my wife. Cairo is a great big city of more than 16 million people. It's very vibrant, very exciting. There's always something to do day or night. So it's really quite a pleasant place. It's a bit like New York. There's always something going on.

COSTELLO: How do people treat you there?

WEDEMAN: In general the Egyptians are very hospitable, very friendly. Sometimes there are political discussions that get heated. But by and large it's a friendly place. I've been going there for many years. I used to live there when I was a student. And I've always found the Egyptians to be very sort of friendly and they have a great sense of humor.

COSTELLO: Wow.

Let's talk about Iraq, because that's probably the place you're going to be covering for quite some time to come in these times. How likely is it that the United States will invade Iraq?

WEDEMAN: That is the big question. Everybody's asking that. And it's hard to say. Certainly here in the United States, one gets the impression that they've decided to go ahead with it and it's almost a done deal. On the other hand, outside the United States, in Europe, in the Middle East, there's a lot of unhappiness with the idea. There's a lot of dread.

In the Middle East, ordinary people are unhappy with U.S. policy in general, with the Israel-Palestine situation. With Iraq, among the governments, there's a good deal of nervousness because many of these governments are not -- in fact, all of them are not democratically elected. They're very unpopular. They've taken a real battering in terms of popularity since the beginning of the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza.

And for the United States to come along at this point and attack Iraq is going to cause even more problems for these regimes. Therefore, many people are hoping that the United States, for one reason or another, does not go ahead with this plan.

COSTELLO: And, of course, that may be one of the reasons that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is so outspoken in his hatred of America and its policies.

WEDEMAN: Well, certainly this is, he's following a course we've seen, a pattern, many times. He rarely is conciliatory. He usually comes out with defiant statements, and this is for not only his domestic audience, but the wider Arab and Islamic audience that by and large does not have the sort of problems that the United States has with him.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about the Middle East and Gaza right now, because you've done stories there, many stories, and you were actually shot there. Tell us about that.

WEDEMAN: Well, Gaza is a unique place. It's a very crowded place with many people, most of them incredibly poor. And it's a pressure cooker. The passions run hot there. And it's a place where one can get into trouble very easily in terms of firefights, in terms of demonstrations. And it's a place you approach carefully. You make sure when you're going out to do a story you know what you're doing, you know who you're going to see, you take into account the dangers involved, because the dangers are there.

On the other hand, there's certain aspects of Gaza that we usually don't see because we cover the news. But Gaza City, for instance, is a big bustling city where, if one wants to avoid trouble, one can. You can go to restaurants. There's a good deal of social life there. So it's not a black and white situation.

Gaza is a dangerous place, but it's also a place where a million people live and work and try to live ordinary lives.

COSTELLO: Well, and it is especially dangerous now for reporters to cover the news there. WEDEMAN: No more dangerous than it's been for the last two years, really. There was one incident, I believe, last summer in which a few journalists were taken into custody by a group of Palestinians who claimed to have a certain agenda. But really by and large it's no more dangerous than it's always been there. There's...

COSTELLO: But you got hurt there. I mean aren't you afraid?

WEDEMAN: I'm cautious. One has to approach this thing carefully. But people are not hostile there. If they know you're an American or a journalist they don't somehow bear any grudge against you personally. People by and large are polite and kind. But, yes, it's dangerous. There are gun battles. There are lots of potential problems. But you try to avoid them and if you do have to go into them, you take the precautions that we've been taught to and you wear your flak jacket and your helmet and you're just very careful.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding.

You've also been in Pakistan covering the Daniel Pearl kidnapping. Are things getting dicier -- well, they are getting dicier for Americans in Pakistan.

WEDEMAN: Certainly. Pakistan was one place where I had the feeling that we really had to be careful. I mean we were there just about, just a couple days after Danny Pearl was kidnapped and we had to take extraordinary precautions. And you had a feeling in a city like Karachi, which is huge, millions of people, that you really have to -- you had to look behind you, watch where you're going.

And that's -- the situation in Pakistan is a situation that we have to be mindful of because as the world becomes a more tense and dangerous place, this in a sense could be the beginning of the kind of dangers journalists -- not only journalists but foreigners, non- locals, could face in countries like Pakistan and elsewhere.

COSTELLO: Right, because now either Christians or Westerners are being targeted, and they're not really sure which, and there is some concern that the government of Pervez Musharraf can't stop these attacks or is not doing enough.

WEDEMAN: Well, the problem in Pakistan is that for many years you had the intelligence agency there that was working, in a sense, to its own agenda. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, they were the main funnel for weapons and money to the Afghan groups. And because of that, obviously there was a good deal of skimming going on. They became very powerful. And in a sense, they had their own agenda.

And there are suspicions that members of the Pakistani intelligence were independently involved in the kidnapping of Danny Pearl. So a very dicey situation.

COSTELLO: Yes.

OK, so you're off to Cairo again in just a couple of days? WEDEMAN: Yes, I'll be there, I'm leaving on Thursday and who knows what comes after that?

COSTELLO: You'll be dispatched somewhere, we don't know.

WEDEMAN: No question about it.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Ben Wedeman for joining us on set this morning. We really appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com