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American Morning

Analysis of Hussein Regime; Interview With Fawaz Gerges

Aired March 21, 2003 - 08:50   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld yesterday says the U.S. right now is reaching out in a big way to many people around Saddam Hussein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There are communications in every conceivable mode and method, public and private to the Iraqi forces that they can act with honor, and turn over their weapons and walk away from them, and they will be hurt, and anyone -- conversely, anyone that engages in the use of weapons on mass destruction, or supports that regime will wish they had not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Don Rumsfeld, again, his comments about what may be possibly be going on inside of Iraq. Let's talk more about it with Ken Pollack. He wrote the book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case Against Saddam Hussein." Ken, thanks for coming back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING. I want to talk about these comments from the defense secretary saying we're talking to everybody. Is it as easy as e-mail? Is it as simple as a cell phone to contact these men in Baghdad?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: No, it's actually -- it is very difficult, Bill, to get in touch with anyone in Saddam's inner circle, even anywhere in the broader circle of Saddam's command structure. It is possible, though, and over the years, the U.S. intelligence community has been accumulating all kinds of evidence, all kinds of clues about how they can find links, find ways into the Iraqi command structure. We do have some cell phone numbers. We do have some e- mail addresses and there are ways to do that, but the Iraqis tend to monitor that.

Saddam's regime monitors the e-mail system, they monitor communications going in and out. Another way to do it is through trusted interlocutors, friends of these officials who may be able to travel, cousins, relatives of other kinds, people in other countries with whom they've had contact and they might be able to speak to more easily.

Right now, there is a very deliberate, determined effort to try as best we can to make contact with any of these people. And, remember, Bill, it's also important -- what Secretary Rumsfeld is saying is important as much as a disinformation campaign as it is the actual truth, in that we want to make Saddam believe that we are penetrating his high command. We want him to believe that we are in contact with all kinds of people around him. Because what we want to do is increase his sense of paranoia, increase his sense that he can't trust anyone around him, that anyone around him might be a spy, to make him more and more inward focused, less and less willing to talk to his command staff, to isolate him as much as possible from his command staff to make his decisions that much worse and to hopefully make him miscalculate.

HEMMER: Yes, Ken -- listen. A lot of people believe that attacks south of Baghdad may have injured him or may have knocked him out of his sense of command and control for his own military. It could also be exactly the opposite. It could be that Saddam Hussein right now is going underground in order to trick the U.S. and British. How much credence would you give that possible theory right now?

POLLACK: I think it's entirely possible. If we didn't get Saddam Hussein, he may very well have decided to move to a very safe location, stop communicating for a while. He -- if we did get close to him, if we came close to killing him, he's got to ask himself the question, how did the Americans know where I am? Do I have a spy in my midst who is talking to them in real time? Have they found some kind of a technical means to locate me?

And I think, under those circumstances, what we've seen from Saddam is, in the past, when that happens, his first priority is his own safety, and he will do what is necessary to ensure his own safety, and that probably will mean distancing himself from a number of his close associates, not communicating with people until he figures out how it is that the leak came about, and until he can take measures to rectify it, whether that is changing a communication system, or not using a communication system, or shooting a bunch of people who he suspects as spies.

HEMMER: Let's talk about the inner circle, and we have to mention his family too. He has five children: three daughters and two sons, and the two sons apparently have an awful lot of control over the Iraqi people. The oldest son, Uday, his second youngest son, Qusay. In addition to these two men, though, I want to talk about this man known Chemical Ali, and also his own personal secretary. I know you have a lot of information tracking these men over the years. Of those four that I just mentioned, is one more important than another, and is there someone that I did not just mention that you may think is quite critical?

POLLACK: I think you hit the top four. And of those four, the two who are truly most important are Saddam's second son, Qusay, and the personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud. Qusay is probably the second most powerful man in Iraq. He seems to be the heir apparent. He is the one Saddam trusts. He is in charge of all of Saddam's security services, and he is also in charge of the Republican Guard and the special Republican Guard. He has been given tremendous amounts of authority by his father, takes all kinds of independent decisions. He really is the No. 2. The No. 3 is Abid Hamid Mahmud, Saddam's personal secretary, and it goes way beyond that. It doesn't mean that he takes dictation for Saddam. Hardly.

He is Saddam -- if Qusay is Saddam's right hand, Abid is Saddam's left hand. He also is responsible for Saddam's personal security. He runs the innermost group, the Marafi Keen (ph), the 40 bodyguards who are closest to Saddam, who are always around Saddam. They are run by Abid. Abid also is Saddam's gatekeeper. He decides who gets to see Saddam. He is Saddam's chief of staff, determining the flow of Saddam's government, handling most of the administrative matters. He is also a brutal thug.

And last, you did mention Chemical Ali. Ali Hassan al-Majid is his full name. He is Saddam's cousin. He is nothing but a thug. He has been Iraq's defense minister. He has held a whole bunch of different posts. He is someone who is absolutely ruthless, a mass murderer who is responsible for the Unfall (ph) campaign against the Kurds which resulted in 100 to 200,000 Kurds being killed, many of them being gassed, and Ali Hassan al-Majid is the guy that Saddam turns to whenever he has a whole bunch of people who he needs to slaughter. He puts Ali Hassan in charge of the operation because that's what Ali Hassan does.

HEMMER: Indications we have, this man known as Chemical Ali has been dispatched to the southern part of Iraq, and certainly we will track his movements the best we can. Ken Pollack, author of "Threatening Storm," thanks again, Ken. Good to talk to you.

POLLACK: Thank you, Bill. Good luck out there.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: Now Paula yet again in New York. Sure.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Bill. Arab reaction to the war ranges from noisy protests in some cities to silence in those countries that are hosting coalition forces. Fawaz Gerges is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and the author of "America and Political Islam."

He joins us now. Good to have you back, sir.

FAWAZ GERGES, AUTHOR, "AMERICA AND POLITICAL ISLAM": My pleasure.

ZAHN: Help us cut through the very complicated picture we see here emerging, and American reaction to the start of this war. You have what is said publicly...

GERGES: Public opinion.

ZAHN: We know what public opinion is, we also know what is being said privately among these officials.

GERGES: Well, I think, as you said, public protests took place in several Arab cities in the last few days, in Egypt, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in other places as well. These limited public protests do not reflect the intensity of the public opposition to the American war, and in the last few weeks, Arab governments have intensified their crackdown against positions and, in fact, have arrested dozens, scores of activists. Arab governments fear that public opposition, public sentiments could get out of control and turn violent. The danger, Paula, is that in the absence -- in the absence of legitimate outlets to express public sentiments and opposition, activists could go underground, and of course, thus undermining the legitimacy of political governments and sewing the seeds of further terrorist activities.

ZAHN: So you say the anti-war and the anti-American sentiment, then, is much more pronounced than what we're seeing...

GERGES: Absolutely. In fact, what we're seeing really is the tip of the iceberg because the expression of public sentiments is not allowed by the existing governments -- the Arab governments are terrified -- they are terrified that public sentiments and the expression that public dissent could get out of control and turn violent, and they have suppressed the ability of public ability to express itself against this war.

ZAHN: It was interesting yesterday in the Pentagon briefing that the secretary of defense said very clearly this is not a war against the people, this is not a war against a country, it is most certainly not a war against a religion. It is a war against a regime. What kind of traction does a statement like that get? Any?

GERGES: Unfortunately, the American narrative is not accepted at all in that part of the world. In fact, the dominant narrative in the Arab and Muslim world is that this war is basically designed to subjugate Arabs and Muslims and control their resources, oil. And unfortunately, again, the United States has not made a convincing case for its assault against Iraq.

ZAHN: Are you at all confident that the United States and Britain could do anything that would change those hardened opinions?

GERGES: Well, I think, Paula, at this stage, it's very late for any kind of public diplomacy. I think the challenge is, how do you limit the damage? How do you isolate the aftershocks of the Iraqi earthquake? And the big questions on the table are the following: Will the United States invest considerable resources to reconstruct state and society in Iraq? Will the United States stick around for the next few years? Will the United States double its efforts to revolve the festering Palestinian-Israeli conflict? This is really what matters now, taking concrete actions to address the legitimate concerns of Arab and Muslim public opinion.

ZAHN: You've asked the very interesting questions that we've asked as well, and topics that we certainly are going to be spending a lot of time on in the days to come.

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 March 21, 2003 - 08:50   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld yesterday says the U.S. right now is reaching out in a big way to many people around Saddam Hussein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There are communications in every conceivable mode and method, public and private to the Iraqi forces that they can act with honor, and turn over their weapons and walk away from them, and they will be hurt, and anyone -- conversely, anyone that engages in the use of weapons on mass destruction, or supports that regime will wish they had not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Don Rumsfeld, again, his comments about what may be possibly be going on inside of Iraq. Let's talk more about it with Ken Pollack. He wrote the book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case Against Saddam Hussein." Ken, thanks for coming back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING. I want to talk about these comments from the defense secretary saying we're talking to everybody. Is it as easy as e-mail? Is it as simple as a cell phone to contact these men in Baghdad?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: No, it's actually -- it is very difficult, Bill, to get in touch with anyone in Saddam's inner circle, even anywhere in the broader circle of Saddam's command structure. It is possible, though, and over the years, the U.S. intelligence community has been accumulating all kinds of evidence, all kinds of clues about how they can find links, find ways into the Iraqi command structure. We do have some cell phone numbers. We do have some e- mail addresses and there are ways to do that, but the Iraqis tend to monitor that.

Saddam's regime monitors the e-mail system, they monitor communications going in and out. Another way to do it is through trusted interlocutors, friends of these officials who may be able to travel, cousins, relatives of other kinds, people in other countries with whom they've had contact and they might be able to speak to more easily.

Right now, there is a very deliberate, determined effort to try as best we can to make contact with any of these people. And, remember, Bill, it's also important -- what Secretary Rumsfeld is saying is important as much as a disinformation campaign as it is the actual truth, in that we want to make Saddam believe that we are penetrating his high command. We want him to believe that we are in contact with all kinds of people around him. Because what we want to do is increase his sense of paranoia, increase his sense that he can't trust anyone around him, that anyone around him might be a spy, to make him more and more inward focused, less and less willing to talk to his command staff, to isolate him as much as possible from his command staff to make his decisions that much worse and to hopefully make him miscalculate.

HEMMER: Yes, Ken -- listen. A lot of people believe that attacks south of Baghdad may have injured him or may have knocked him out of his sense of command and control for his own military. It could also be exactly the opposite. It could be that Saddam Hussein right now is going underground in order to trick the U.S. and British. How much credence would you give that possible theory right now?

POLLACK: I think it's entirely possible. If we didn't get Saddam Hussein, he may very well have decided to move to a very safe location, stop communicating for a while. He -- if we did get close to him, if we came close to killing him, he's got to ask himself the question, how did the Americans know where I am? Do I have a spy in my midst who is talking to them in real time? Have they found some kind of a technical means to locate me?

And I think, under those circumstances, what we've seen from Saddam is, in the past, when that happens, his first priority is his own safety, and he will do what is necessary to ensure his own safety, and that probably will mean distancing himself from a number of his close associates, not communicating with people until he figures out how it is that the leak came about, and until he can take measures to rectify it, whether that is changing a communication system, or not using a communication system, or shooting a bunch of people who he suspects as spies.

HEMMER: Let's talk about the inner circle, and we have to mention his family too. He has five children: three daughters and two sons, and the two sons apparently have an awful lot of control over the Iraqi people. The oldest son, Uday, his second youngest son, Qusay. In addition to these two men, though, I want to talk about this man known Chemical Ali, and also his own personal secretary. I know you have a lot of information tracking these men over the years. Of those four that I just mentioned, is one more important than another, and is there someone that I did not just mention that you may think is quite critical?

POLLACK: I think you hit the top four. And of those four, the two who are truly most important are Saddam's second son, Qusay, and the personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud. Qusay is probably the second most powerful man in Iraq. He seems to be the heir apparent. He is the one Saddam trusts. He is in charge of all of Saddam's security services, and he is also in charge of the Republican Guard and the special Republican Guard. He has been given tremendous amounts of authority by his father, takes all kinds of independent decisions. He really is the No. 2. The No. 3 is Abid Hamid Mahmud, Saddam's personal secretary, and it goes way beyond that. It doesn't mean that he takes dictation for Saddam. Hardly.

He is Saddam -- if Qusay is Saddam's right hand, Abid is Saddam's left hand. He also is responsible for Saddam's personal security. He runs the innermost group, the Marafi Keen (ph), the 40 bodyguards who are closest to Saddam, who are always around Saddam. They are run by Abid. Abid also is Saddam's gatekeeper. He decides who gets to see Saddam. He is Saddam's chief of staff, determining the flow of Saddam's government, handling most of the administrative matters. He is also a brutal thug.

And last, you did mention Chemical Ali. Ali Hassan al-Majid is his full name. He is Saddam's cousin. He is nothing but a thug. He has been Iraq's defense minister. He has held a whole bunch of different posts. He is someone who is absolutely ruthless, a mass murderer who is responsible for the Unfall (ph) campaign against the Kurds which resulted in 100 to 200,000 Kurds being killed, many of them being gassed, and Ali Hassan al-Majid is the guy that Saddam turns to whenever he has a whole bunch of people who he needs to slaughter. He puts Ali Hassan in charge of the operation because that's what Ali Hassan does.

HEMMER: Indications we have, this man known as Chemical Ali has been dispatched to the southern part of Iraq, and certainly we will track his movements the best we can. Ken Pollack, author of "Threatening Storm," thanks again, Ken. Good to talk to you.

POLLACK: Thank you, Bill. Good luck out there.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: Now Paula yet again in New York. Sure.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Bill. Arab reaction to the war ranges from noisy protests in some cities to silence in those countries that are hosting coalition forces. Fawaz Gerges is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and the author of "America and Political Islam."

He joins us now. Good to have you back, sir.

FAWAZ GERGES, AUTHOR, "AMERICA AND POLITICAL ISLAM": My pleasure.

ZAHN: Help us cut through the very complicated picture we see here emerging, and American reaction to the start of this war. You have what is said publicly...

GERGES: Public opinion.

ZAHN: We know what public opinion is, we also know what is being said privately among these officials.

GERGES: Well, I think, as you said, public protests took place in several Arab cities in the last few days, in Egypt, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in other places as well. These limited public protests do not reflect the intensity of the public opposition to the American war, and in the last few weeks, Arab governments have intensified their crackdown against positions and, in fact, have arrested dozens, scores of activists. Arab governments fear that public opposition, public sentiments could get out of control and turn violent. The danger, Paula, is that in the absence -- in the absence of legitimate outlets to express public sentiments and opposition, activists could go underground, and of course, thus undermining the legitimacy of political governments and sewing the seeds of further terrorist activities.

ZAHN: So you say the anti-war and the anti-American sentiment, then, is much more pronounced than what we're seeing...

GERGES: Absolutely. In fact, what we're seeing really is the tip of the iceberg because the expression of public sentiments is not allowed by the existing governments -- the Arab governments are terrified -- they are terrified that public sentiments and the expression that public dissent could get out of control and turn violent, and they have suppressed the ability of public ability to express itself against this war.

ZAHN: It was interesting yesterday in the Pentagon briefing that the secretary of defense said very clearly this is not a war against the people, this is not a war against a country, it is most certainly not a war against a religion. It is a war against a regime. What kind of traction does a statement like that get? Any?

GERGES: Unfortunately, the American narrative is not accepted at all in that part of the world. In fact, the dominant narrative in the Arab and Muslim world is that this war is basically designed to subjugate Arabs and Muslims and control their resources, oil. And unfortunately, again, the United States has not made a convincing case for its assault against Iraq.

ZAHN: Are you at all confident that the United States and Britain could do anything that would change those hardened opinions?

GERGES: Well, I think, Paula, at this stage, it's very late for any kind of public diplomacy. I think the challenge is, how do you limit the damage? How do you isolate the aftershocks of the Iraqi earthquake? And the big questions on the table are the following: Will the United States invest considerable resources to reconstruct state and society in Iraq? Will the United States stick around for the next few years? Will the United States double its efforts to revolve the festering Palestinian-Israeli conflict? This is really what matters now, taking concrete actions to address the legitimate concerns of Arab and Muslim public opinion.

ZAHN: You've asked the very interesting questions that we've asked as well, and topics that we certainly are going to be spending a lot of time on in the days to come.

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