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CNN Live Today
Iraq Blasts Bush's Speech
Aired October 08, 2002 - 11:12 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: You may not be surprised to learn that Iraq today blasted President Bush's speech, saying that it provided no evidence, only aggressive lies.
Our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf joins us now with more reaction from there. Let's check in with her.
Hello, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Leon.
As you said, the official reaction from the government here to that speech was a set of false accusations without a shred of evidence. And more than that, they say, the speech was geared at attacking Iraq because of the support for the Palestinians. Now this is what the Iraqi government and a lot of Iraqis and people in the region feel, that this isn't about disarmament, it actually is about Iraqi support for the Palestinians against Israel and about oil.
Now the government here is preoccupied with one other thing, and as you might expect, that's their president, Saddam Hussein.
They are holding a referendum on the 15th of October in which Iraqis are supposed to go out and vote, Iraqi style. Now there is only one candidate, but to foreshadow that, they held a rally today in which people took one of the common slogans, which is, "With our blood and our souls we sacrificed for you oh, Saddam" and made it real. That pot of red ink, that substance that looks like red ink you may be seeing is actually blood. People gathered to donate their blood to be able to write slogans that say they will in fact back the Iraqi president. That is at least a message the regime would like to get across.
HARRIS: Jane, if you listen to President Bush's speech last night, he went out of his way to make sure he and especially and specifically delineated that the fight the U.S. has right now is with Saddam Hussein's regime and not with the Iraqi people. President Bush said that America is a friend of the Iraqi people. Does that message have any traction whatsoever there in Baghdad?
ARRAF: That's a really key thing. That message actually does ring a little bit hollow. People here aren't really anti-American. There's no real deep hatred of the United States, but they don't trust it, and they've learned not to trust it over the last 100 years -- 10 years of sanctions, their experience after the Gulf War, when the United States urged the Kurds and the Shiites to rise up, and then, in their mind, abandoned them. Now, you've got to understand that here, a lot of people remember when the United States was a friend of Iraq. It's backed Iraq in the entire Iran/Iraq War, eight years of it. And that was substantially the same regime, much better armed than it is now. So no, people aren't really buying that friend of the Iraqi people line, I'm afraid.
HARRIS: The PR work does have to continue there.
Jane Arraf in Baghdad, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 8, 2002 - 11:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: You may not be surprised to learn that Iraq today blasted President Bush's speech, saying that it provided no evidence, only aggressive lies.
Our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf joins us now with more reaction from there. Let's check in with her.
Hello, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Leon.
As you said, the official reaction from the government here to that speech was a set of false accusations without a shred of evidence. And more than that, they say, the speech was geared at attacking Iraq because of the support for the Palestinians. Now this is what the Iraqi government and a lot of Iraqis and people in the region feel, that this isn't about disarmament, it actually is about Iraqi support for the Palestinians against Israel and about oil.
Now the government here is preoccupied with one other thing, and as you might expect, that's their president, Saddam Hussein.
They are holding a referendum on the 15th of October in which Iraqis are supposed to go out and vote, Iraqi style. Now there is only one candidate, but to foreshadow that, they held a rally today in which people took one of the common slogans, which is, "With our blood and our souls we sacrificed for you oh, Saddam" and made it real. That pot of red ink, that substance that looks like red ink you may be seeing is actually blood. People gathered to donate their blood to be able to write slogans that say they will in fact back the Iraqi president. That is at least a message the regime would like to get across.
HARRIS: Jane, if you listen to President Bush's speech last night, he went out of his way to make sure he and especially and specifically delineated that the fight the U.S. has right now is with Saddam Hussein's regime and not with the Iraqi people. President Bush said that America is a friend of the Iraqi people. Does that message have any traction whatsoever there in Baghdad?
ARRAF: That's a really key thing. That message actually does ring a little bit hollow. People here aren't really anti-American. There's no real deep hatred of the United States, but they don't trust it, and they've learned not to trust it over the last 100 years -- 10 years of sanctions, their experience after the Gulf War, when the United States urged the Kurds and the Shiites to rise up, and then, in their mind, abandoned them. Now, you've got to understand that here, a lot of people remember when the United States was a friend of Iraq. It's backed Iraq in the entire Iran/Iraq War, eight years of it. And that was substantially the same regime, much better armed than it is now. So no, people aren't really buying that friend of the Iraqi people line, I'm afraid.
HARRIS: The PR work does have to continue there.
Jane Arraf in Baghdad, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
