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CNN Live Today
Talk with Scott Nelson of 'Boston Globe'
Aired April 01, 2003 - 11:06 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: Quickly want to take you back into the theater of operations and Scott Nelson. He's a writer for "The Boston Globe," embedded with the U.S. Marines. We heard from Scott yesterday, and, again, we pick up things with him today.
I understand word of a firefight, Scott. What's happening there?
SCOTT NELSON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I'm with the 11th Marines. Based on the intelligence you were hearing about a minute ago that the Republican Guard units are in fact moving around considerably and massing in certain areas, the Marines turned east today and headed across what is known in the area as the "Saddam Canal." It a major canal that runs essentially down the middle of the Fertile Crescent here, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. And one of the major checkpoints, the Marines I'm with got in about a 45-minute firefight with the Iraqi soldiers who were guarding essentially the bridge that crosses over the Saddam Canal. It was fairly fierce. The unit I'm with was not at the front of the battle.
But as we passed through at the tail end of it, we saw scores of Iraqi bodies shot all over the place, and some POWs being interrogated. I'm told there were no American casualties, but I can't vouch for that personally.
HEMMER: Scott, can you tell, are you still moving at this time?
NELSON: No, it's nighttime here, and most of the units are sort of digging in for the night. I can still see some explosions on the horizon several miles ahead of us. It looks like attack helicopters are pounding some other positions up there that are Iraqi positions, or are soon to be Iraqi positions.
But most of the U.S. movement, it looks like it slowing down for the night, and they're digging in.
HEMMER: Scott, when we talked yesterday, you talked about a five-day pause for your unit, but then you started moving, I believe it was about 24 hours, maybe 30 hours ago. There was another report with the U.S. Marines, that once they started moving again, they felt a sense of electricity, as if the march to Baghdad was back on again. Did you get that similar feeling with your unit?
NELSON: Absolutely. Not only is there a sense of electricity here, the officers are telling the Marines, look, we're not on anybody else's timetable anymore. We don't have to wait for the Army if they're not beside us. We don't have to wait for the politicians if they're not ready. We're now on our timetable. We're going to go until this thing is done. In the Marines, you hear that, they're ready to go, they hate waiting around. You know, whatever comes, they want to be moving.
HEMMER: All right, Scott Nelson, with the U.S. Marines, somewhere along the Saddam Canal, which again, as Scott pointed out, runs down the middle of the Fertile Crescent between the two major rivers,the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Northern part of the country, Jane Arraf is checking back in again. She's in the town of Kalak, where we know a series of bombing raids have been carried out in the past several days.
Jane, what's happening tonight? Good evening.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bill.
It's uncharacteristically quiet actually after that series of raids that you mentioned, including some spectacular ones yesterday, just on this ridge behind us. That's the Iraqi front line, and there have been Iraqi bunkers there. Yesterday, there was a series of bombings with very low-flying F-14s, indicating that they weren't meeting much resistance from anti-aircraft fire.
Now today, there's been virtually nothing. There is a buildup of U.S. forces though at the airstrip which they have been using, about 50 miles northeast of here, The Hareer (ph) Airfield.
Now U.S. special forces, as you know, have been operating in the north for a long time. But this is a much more visible U.S. presence. And in the past few days, it's grown quite dramatically. There still aren't a huge number of troops, but there are a few more, as well as armored vehicles. We are seeing transport helicopters and security increase dramatically. What was an empty airstrip now has a barbed- wire fence with armed patrols and armored vehicles.
As it was before, you could just stroll up. There are now soldiers with machine guns trained on any journalists coming within 15 meters of them. So security is increasing dramatically there, and they say they do intend to build up a robust force.
Now, also today, we saw one of the first missiles fired from Iraqi territory onto Kurdish land, and this was a missile about three miles from Salahadin (ph), which is the administrative capital of this part of northern Iraq. Kurdish officials aren't making a huge deal about it. They say it was probably an unguided missile. But in the town where it landed, there was a huge crater and pieces of shrapnel, as well as a house that was half demolished next to it. Nobody hurt in that one.
But ironically, this town was where people fled for safety from the cities -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, how much dot civilians in the north have an understanding about what's happening on the southern front there?
ARRAF: They've quite a good understanding. They're glued to the radio, television, particularly.
As you know, there has been a huge difference between the rest of Iraq and the north. The north has been under Kurdish control ever since the Gulf War. So it's progressed in a very different manner from the rest of Iraq. People here pretty well all have satellites. They have phones, satellite phones rather, things that were forbidden and are forbidden in the rest of Iraq. So they're glued to all sorts of television stations, television networks coming in from all over, and they follow it minute by minute.
Now, what no one is clear on really is a strategy going forward, whether the U.S. will build up a significant force here to attack from the north, or whether what they're seeing now is essentially it, a few thousand forces, which can be deployed to stabilize the region, but won't go much further -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, Jane, thanks. Jane Arraf, watching the northern front in the town of Kalak.
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 April 1, 2003 - 11:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Quickly want to take you back into the theater of operations and Scott Nelson. He's a writer for "The Boston Globe," embedded with the U.S. Marines. We heard from Scott yesterday, and, again, we pick up things with him today.
I understand word of a firefight, Scott. What's happening there?
SCOTT NELSON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I'm with the 11th Marines. Based on the intelligence you were hearing about a minute ago that the Republican Guard units are in fact moving around considerably and massing in certain areas, the Marines turned east today and headed across what is known in the area as the "Saddam Canal." It a major canal that runs essentially down the middle of the Fertile Crescent here, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. And one of the major checkpoints, the Marines I'm with got in about a 45-minute firefight with the Iraqi soldiers who were guarding essentially the bridge that crosses over the Saddam Canal. It was fairly fierce. The unit I'm with was not at the front of the battle.
But as we passed through at the tail end of it, we saw scores of Iraqi bodies shot all over the place, and some POWs being interrogated. I'm told there were no American casualties, but I can't vouch for that personally.
HEMMER: Scott, can you tell, are you still moving at this time?
NELSON: No, it's nighttime here, and most of the units are sort of digging in for the night. I can still see some explosions on the horizon several miles ahead of us. It looks like attack helicopters are pounding some other positions up there that are Iraqi positions, or are soon to be Iraqi positions.
But most of the U.S. movement, it looks like it slowing down for the night, and they're digging in.
HEMMER: Scott, when we talked yesterday, you talked about a five-day pause for your unit, but then you started moving, I believe it was about 24 hours, maybe 30 hours ago. There was another report with the U.S. Marines, that once they started moving again, they felt a sense of electricity, as if the march to Baghdad was back on again. Did you get that similar feeling with your unit?
NELSON: Absolutely. Not only is there a sense of electricity here, the officers are telling the Marines, look, we're not on anybody else's timetable anymore. We don't have to wait for the Army if they're not beside us. We don't have to wait for the politicians if they're not ready. We're now on our timetable. We're going to go until this thing is done. In the Marines, you hear that, they're ready to go, they hate waiting around. You know, whatever comes, they want to be moving.
HEMMER: All right, Scott Nelson, with the U.S. Marines, somewhere along the Saddam Canal, which again, as Scott pointed out, runs down the middle of the Fertile Crescent between the two major rivers,the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Northern part of the country, Jane Arraf is checking back in again. She's in the town of Kalak, where we know a series of bombing raids have been carried out in the past several days.
Jane, what's happening tonight? Good evening.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bill.
It's uncharacteristically quiet actually after that series of raids that you mentioned, including some spectacular ones yesterday, just on this ridge behind us. That's the Iraqi front line, and there have been Iraqi bunkers there. Yesterday, there was a series of bombings with very low-flying F-14s, indicating that they weren't meeting much resistance from anti-aircraft fire.
Now today, there's been virtually nothing. There is a buildup of U.S. forces though at the airstrip which they have been using, about 50 miles northeast of here, The Hareer (ph) Airfield.
Now U.S. special forces, as you know, have been operating in the north for a long time. But this is a much more visible U.S. presence. And in the past few days, it's grown quite dramatically. There still aren't a huge number of troops, but there are a few more, as well as armored vehicles. We are seeing transport helicopters and security increase dramatically. What was an empty airstrip now has a barbed- wire fence with armed patrols and armored vehicles.
As it was before, you could just stroll up. There are now soldiers with machine guns trained on any journalists coming within 15 meters of them. So security is increasing dramatically there, and they say they do intend to build up a robust force.
Now, also today, we saw one of the first missiles fired from Iraqi territory onto Kurdish land, and this was a missile about three miles from Salahadin (ph), which is the administrative capital of this part of northern Iraq. Kurdish officials aren't making a huge deal about it. They say it was probably an unguided missile. But in the town where it landed, there was a huge crater and pieces of shrapnel, as well as a house that was half demolished next to it. Nobody hurt in that one.
But ironically, this town was where people fled for safety from the cities -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, how much dot civilians in the north have an understanding about what's happening on the southern front there?
ARRAF: They've quite a good understanding. They're glued to the radio, television, particularly.
As you know, there has been a huge difference between the rest of Iraq and the north. The north has been under Kurdish control ever since the Gulf War. So it's progressed in a very different manner from the rest of Iraq. People here pretty well all have satellites. They have phones, satellite phones rather, things that were forbidden and are forbidden in the rest of Iraq. So they're glued to all sorts of television stations, television networks coming in from all over, and they follow it minute by minute.
Now, what no one is clear on really is a strategy going forward, whether the U.S. will build up a significant force here to attack from the north, or whether what they're seeing now is essentially it, a few thousand forces, which can be deployed to stabilize the region, but won't go much further -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, Jane, thanks. Jane Arraf, watching the northern front in the town of Kalak.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
