Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Anti-War Activists Demonstrate in Streets of Baghdad
Aired February 20, 2003 - 06:34 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 COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All of this talk of U.S. allies wanting to take a slower approach to war and of anti-war protests is having an effect on how Saddam Hussein is doing business with arms inspectors.
We want to take you live to Baghdad now and our Rym Brahimi.
Good morning. Before we get into that, though, I understand there are protests in Iraq today.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Carol. About hundreds of priests, Christian priests and also Muslim imams protested, demonstrated in the streets of Baghdad. They actually walked all along a street to reach the United Nations Development Program headquarters in Baghdad. Some of them were carrying banners.
The Muslim priests, some of them were calling for jihad to defend Iraq. The Christian priests, Iraqi and international, were calling for the world leaders to put more faith in a peaceful solution, and also calling all of them on the United Nations to find a peaceful solution to this crisis.
Now, Carol, going back, of course, to the issue of inspectors. It's a very windy day, a very sandy day, as you can see, but inspectors are still out and about. And they went again today to those five missile sites, where they've been essentially counting and trying to locate all of those Al Samoud 2 missiles.
Now, those missiles are the ones that a panel of experts has found went beyond the authorized range of 93 kilometers. They're likely to be at the center of quite a controversy. We understand U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is expected to ask Iraq to either destroy them or disassemble them. Iraq so far hasn't responded, since there hasn't been a formal request. It seems that Iraqi officials do say they dont believe that they're in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So, that could turn into a controversy.
Going back to the pictures you just showed us of the protest there, I noticed that hundreds of Iraqis were dressed as Catholic priests.
BRAHIMI: Well, there were a lot of Catholic priests, and there were some Catholic priests, a lot of other priests of different Christian rites. And probably also a lot of -- a lot of it is about symbolism, and a lot of Muslim imams were there as well, Carol. But that's only part of a group -- a large group of peace activists that are here in Iraq, a lot of them coming from various countries in Europe, some of them from the United States. So, this is part of a bigger movement, I would say, of peace activists coming into Iraq, saying no to war, in their words -- Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, thank you -- Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad.
There were pictures of hundreds of people protesting in the outfits of Catholic priests, and we just missed those pictures again.
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 February 20, 2003 - 06:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All of this talk of U.S. allies wanting to take a slower approach to war and of anti-war protests is having an effect on how Saddam Hussein is doing business with arms inspectors.
We want to take you live to Baghdad now and our Rym Brahimi.
Good morning. Before we get into that, though, I understand there are protests in Iraq today.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Carol. About hundreds of priests, Christian priests and also Muslim imams protested, demonstrated in the streets of Baghdad. They actually walked all along a street to reach the United Nations Development Program headquarters in Baghdad. Some of them were carrying banners.
The Muslim priests, some of them were calling for jihad to defend Iraq. The Christian priests, Iraqi and international, were calling for the world leaders to put more faith in a peaceful solution, and also calling all of them on the United Nations to find a peaceful solution to this crisis.
Now, Carol, going back, of course, to the issue of inspectors. It's a very windy day, a very sandy day, as you can see, but inspectors are still out and about. And they went again today to those five missile sites, where they've been essentially counting and trying to locate all of those Al Samoud 2 missiles.
Now, those missiles are the ones that a panel of experts has found went beyond the authorized range of 93 kilometers. They're likely to be at the center of quite a controversy. We understand U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is expected to ask Iraq to either destroy them or disassemble them. Iraq so far hasn't responded, since there hasn't been a formal request. It seems that Iraqi officials do say they dont believe that they're in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So, that could turn into a controversy.
Going back to the pictures you just showed us of the protest there, I noticed that hundreds of Iraqis were dressed as Catholic priests.
BRAHIMI: Well, there were a lot of Catholic priests, and there were some Catholic priests, a lot of other priests of different Christian rites. And probably also a lot of -- a lot of it is about symbolism, and a lot of Muslim imams were there as well, Carol. But that's only part of a group -- a large group of peace activists that are here in Iraq, a lot of them coming from various countries in Europe, some of them from the United States. So, this is part of a bigger movement, I would say, of peace activists coming into Iraq, saying no to war, in their words -- Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, thank you -- Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad.
There were pictures of hundreds of people protesting in the outfits of Catholic priests, and we just missed those pictures again.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
