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Analysis of Iraqi Information Minister's Remarks

Aired April 01, 2003 - 12:05   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.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Nic Robertson, our long-time Baghdad correspondent is standing -- standing by along the border between Iraq and Jordan. He was listening, he was watching. Nic, what's your assessment?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is quite extraordinary. We haven't heard Saddam Hussein appeal in such a way in such strong terms to the -- -- to people's -- to the country's Islamic roots, if you will -- that this is a fight against -- a fight against them in an Islamic nation, this is a jihad, that they should take up arms and fight. This is their chance to win immortality. We haven't heard this coming on such strong terms from the Iraqi leader. Clearly the message being read by the information minister there from the Iraqi leader, clearly a very strong, strong message of defiance, exulting the people to take up arms and fight the coalition forces.

But to hear him put it and set it in the terms of jihad, in Islamic terms rather than defending the nation, this is a very new move. We know 60 percent of the population in Iraq are Shiia Muslims. There have been -- in the -- in the last Gulf War they revolted against President Saddam Hussein. It appears very much at this time as if -- as if he is appealing to the Islamist nature of the country, rather than the country as a nation to rise up and defend against the coalition forces at this time, Wolf.

BLITZER: Nic, the fact that it was the information minister who read the statement on behalf of Saddam Hussein instead of Saddam Hussein appearing on a videotape -- what, if anything, should we draw from that?

ROBERTSON: We may draw that this is the Iraqi leadership trying to confound the coalition. The coalition keeps asking the question, where is Saddam Hussein? Is he well, is he in good health? It could be an effort merely to confound that. It could be because he is -- he is concerned about his security, doesn't want to give away his location, even to people he would normally trust that perhaps videotape the event. There's a possibility of that. And there's a possibility, as well, that this message is just deemed better delivered through the information minister.

Certainly Iraqi people watching it will have taken note that it wasn't President Saddam Hussein making this speech, that it was the information minister. If it had been the Iraqi leader, for the Iraqi people, it would have had, perhaps, more symbolism, more importance coming from him, but very, very difficult at this stage to analyze exactly why the information minister chosen to give this very, very hard line speech to the Iraqi people at this time.

BLITZER: Well, that's a -- that's a good point, Nic, because had Saddam Hussein actually appeared on television tonight, on Iraqi television, even if it had been videotaped and made specific references to events that occurred over the past nearly two weeks, the -- the -- the mere presence of him on Iraqi television presumably would have stiffened the backbone of a lot of his fighters, would have shown the Iraqi people that he's still in business. He's still in power and that the U.S. and the coalition have not brought him down. The fact that he didn't use this occasion to do that might be an indication that he is in trouble that he's struggling to survive some place, perhaps in hiding, perhaps having been injured in that initial air strike.

ROBERTSON: I think we can take it as definitely meaning something, because it is significant that for such an important speech, such an important time, and calling on the Iraqi people essentially there to lay down their lives, that -- that it's very interesting that he wouldn't do it personally at this time.

But there could be, as I say, a number of reasons. He may -- it may be for a reason of security. It may be that he feels that it is more appropriate for the information minister to make this speech. He may feel because it appeals to the -- his appealing to the country's Islamic roots rather than the secular nation that he and his Ba'ath party have essentially been trying to build over the last three decades, that this wouldn't be in keeping for him, that it might be misinterpreted by people around the country.

But definitely it is very interesting and there will be a specific reason why he didn't do it. After all, he is asking Iraqis here to lay down their lives in the spirit of jihad, to become martyrs and essentially offer themselves up for the cause. So very -- there must be a reason here, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nic Robertson, we'll be checking back with you. Nic Robertson, our long-time reporter in Baghdad monitoring the situation. Saddam Hussein through his spokesman, his information minister, delivering a speech, in effect calling for, in his specific words, as Nic just said, jihad, holy war against the U.S. and coalition forces who now control significant parts of Iraq.

David Ensor, our national security correspondent has been watching and listening, monitoring all of this as well as talking to experts both inside and outside the U.S. Government.

David, what's your assessment?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: As Nic says, there has to be a reason why it wasn't Saddam, why it was the information minister. I think you can be confident that as this day progresses and tomorrow you'll be hearing from bush administration officials, from U.S. Officials saying they think the reason is that Saddam Hussein is either injured or dead and he is not able to appear. For that reason -- now, in the last couple of days, U.S. intelligence officials have started to say to me and to others that while they believed up until a few days ago that Saddam Hussein was in that bunk bunker that was hit on March 19 at the open of the war, they're now saying they are convinced he was.

They're virtually sure, as sure as you get in the intelligence business that Saddam Hussein was in that bunker. There are conflicting intelligence reports as to whether he survived or not. There are reports that he emerged on a stretcher injured. So a great deal of confusion about what his status is. And there is now something of a campaign by, in particular, Pentagon officials, but others as well, to sort of smoke out Saddam by saying, look, he hasn't appeared. Since the first strikes, all these tapes are running on Iraqi television. They could all be old. There's no proof that they're not. They're kind of daring him to appear.

Now, of course, as Nic said, there might be security dangers for Saddam to prepare a tape and produce it in these days. He may be hiding in a very secure place where that can't be done. So it doesn't answer the question as to whether he's alive or not, but can you be sure that the Bush administration will argue this is further evidence that he's either dead or incapacitated or injured in some way and not capable of leading the country. And they want that message to come through to the Iraqi people, particularly to those in the Republican Guard and other forces who might feel they should go on fighting if Saddam's alive and might feel they should not if he's not -- Wolf.

BLITZER: One thing, David, that military commanders have pointed out over the past couple, three days is they haven't seen the kind of evidence indications that Saddam Hussein and his top leadership are actually communicating with the rest of the leadership. The command and control capabilities under normal circumstances apparently don't operate right now, and that that's an indication that there could be some serious disarray within the top leadership from Saddam Hussein on down.

What have you heard about that?

ENSOR: Well, you're absolutely right. They are saying that the communication, sort of the chatter, the communications, particularly military communications, from the top leadership in Iraq to forces who are further out from Baghdad, that amount of communication dropped drastically from the night of the 19th onward. So there are questions about whether there really is a cohesive leadership in charge, able to communicate with its forces. At the same time, they do say you can assume this man and this regime has had plenty of time to put in redundant systems.

You can assume there are all sorts of other communication systems, some of which U.S. intelligence and military systems have not found. Of course, they're obviously looking for them. And then there's the old-fashioned method sending envelopes with couriers, and there might be certain amount of that going on. Getting the commands of Saddam Hussein or whoever is in charge out to his commanders in the field -- Wolf.

BLITZER: David Ensor, stand by. I want to bring in Ken Pollack, our analyst who knows a great deal about what's going on inside Iraq. Studied the issue for the U.S. government for many, many years.

Ken, the fact that Saddam Hussein through his information minister, now calling for a Jihad, a holy war, for people to lay down their lives, presumably engage in suicide bombings, if you will, that does, as Nic Robertson pointed out, seems to suggest a new trend, a new development on the part of the Iraqi leadership?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes and no, Wolf. I don't think we want to make too much of it. Saddam Hussein has been willing to cloak himself in the garb of religion and the garb of Islam whenever it suited him.

Saddam Hussein was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Arabist, and then the Iran/Iraq war broke out and then he suddenly discovered that he was a Iraqi nationalist. At different points in 1990s, we saw Saddam suddenly rediscover his Islamic heritage. This is a man who will do whatever he thinks is useful to him to try to motivate his people in a particular direction.

Clearly he believes that that's the case now. And in particular, I think what Saddam is really trying to do is appeal not so much from his own people, because he knows what he is going to get from them, but more to appeal to the rest of the Arab and Islamic world. To try and cloak this war in the garb of a religious war against Christian and Jewish invaders in some cases. And try to create much more public sympathy in the Arab world, tap into the anti-Americanism he sees and the rest of the Arab world and try and build support as much as he can among other countries, less so among his own people.

BLITZER: Can the fact that this was delivered through the information minister and not Saddam Hussein himself, you used to work at the CIA, you used to be an analyst on Iraq-related matters over at the National Security Council for many years. When they a tape like this, when they see this on Iraqi television, walk us through what they're doing presumably right now to get a better assessment of what's going on inside the Iraqi leadership.

POLLACK: Well, they'll do two things. First of all, you'll have political analysts watching a tape like, this watching a tape of Saddam Hussein just to see what it is that he's saying to look for subtle clues and hints and what it is that he's saying. If he is using a word that he hasn't beforehand, if he is developing an argument that people haven't heard before. In addition, you'll have technical experts both at CIA and over at the National Security Agency who will be doing sophisticated analyses of the audio and visual portions of the tape.

So, you'll have imagery analysts will sit down and measure (ph), that is measure, the distances on Saddam's faces, to determine whether or not it is Saddam or a double. To find out if his find out if his ears are the right amount of centimeters or inches apart. To find out if his jaws big as they actually are on Saddam Hussein to make sure this is actually Saddam. In addition, they'll be running sophisticated audio tests on it to make sure this is Saddam's actual voice, looking for inflections in voice, pronunciations, in some cases differentials in voice patterns that only a computer can recognize. So, it's a strange combination of art and science to determine both if this is Saddam Hussein and if it is, what's the message that he's trying to send.

BLITZER: That would be the case if in fact we saw Saddam Hussein. In this particular case, we saw the information minister reading a statement on behalf of Saddam Hussein.

What's the likely impact of this statement going to be on the Iraqi people? Some 25 million of them, of course, at a huge country roughly the size of California. If they're still watching Iraqi television tonight, what do you think the impact of the statement read by Muhammad Saeed Sahaf will be?

POLLACK: I'll be honest with you. I don't think it will be much of an impact at all. You know, we're all over here trying desperately to read tea leaves. To figure out whether Saddam is alive or is hurt, what the actual situation is. And that's obviously very important to us. As far as the Iraqi people are concerned, I think what we're seeing in Basra, in Nasiryah in other cities, that's what's really important.

The fact of the matter, the Iraqi people are so terrified of Saddam Hussein that until they see his body hanging from a lamp post in Baghdad, they're going to assume that he's alive. And I don't think that, you know, us sitting back here and saying, it was supposed to have been Saddam but it wasn't, the tape might have been taped or it might have been live, who really knows. That's not the kind of thing the Iraqi people will be asking themselves.

What they are going to be asking ourselves is, are we certain that Saddam and his regime are gone? Until they're certain, I think they'll assume he is alive.

BLITZER: Ken Pollack, we'll be getting back to you, our analyst. Thanks very much Ken.

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 - 12:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Nic Robertson, our long-time Baghdad correspondent is standing -- standing by along the border between Iraq and Jordan. He was listening, he was watching. Nic, what's your assessment?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is quite extraordinary. We haven't heard Saddam Hussein appeal in such a way in such strong terms to the -- -- to people's -- to the country's Islamic roots, if you will -- that this is a fight against -- a fight against them in an Islamic nation, this is a jihad, that they should take up arms and fight. This is their chance to win immortality. We haven't heard this coming on such strong terms from the Iraqi leader. Clearly the message being read by the information minister there from the Iraqi leader, clearly a very strong, strong message of defiance, exulting the people to take up arms and fight the coalition forces.

But to hear him put it and set it in the terms of jihad, in Islamic terms rather than defending the nation, this is a very new move. We know 60 percent of the population in Iraq are Shiia Muslims. There have been -- in the -- in the last Gulf War they revolted against President Saddam Hussein. It appears very much at this time as if -- as if he is appealing to the Islamist nature of the country, rather than the country as a nation to rise up and defend against the coalition forces at this time, Wolf.

BLITZER: Nic, the fact that it was the information minister who read the statement on behalf of Saddam Hussein instead of Saddam Hussein appearing on a videotape -- what, if anything, should we draw from that?

ROBERTSON: We may draw that this is the Iraqi leadership trying to confound the coalition. The coalition keeps asking the question, where is Saddam Hussein? Is he well, is he in good health? It could be an effort merely to confound that. It could be because he is -- he is concerned about his security, doesn't want to give away his location, even to people he would normally trust that perhaps videotape the event. There's a possibility of that. And there's a possibility, as well, that this message is just deemed better delivered through the information minister.

Certainly Iraqi people watching it will have taken note that it wasn't President Saddam Hussein making this speech, that it was the information minister. If it had been the Iraqi leader, for the Iraqi people, it would have had, perhaps, more symbolism, more importance coming from him, but very, very difficult at this stage to analyze exactly why the information minister chosen to give this very, very hard line speech to the Iraqi people at this time.

BLITZER: Well, that's a -- that's a good point, Nic, because had Saddam Hussein actually appeared on television tonight, on Iraqi television, even if it had been videotaped and made specific references to events that occurred over the past nearly two weeks, the -- the -- the mere presence of him on Iraqi television presumably would have stiffened the backbone of a lot of his fighters, would have shown the Iraqi people that he's still in business. He's still in power and that the U.S. and the coalition have not brought him down. The fact that he didn't use this occasion to do that might be an indication that he is in trouble that he's struggling to survive some place, perhaps in hiding, perhaps having been injured in that initial air strike.

ROBERTSON: I think we can take it as definitely meaning something, because it is significant that for such an important speech, such an important time, and calling on the Iraqi people essentially there to lay down their lives, that -- that it's very interesting that he wouldn't do it personally at this time.

But there could be, as I say, a number of reasons. He may -- it may be for a reason of security. It may be that he feels that it is more appropriate for the information minister to make this speech. He may feel because it appeals to the -- his appealing to the country's Islamic roots rather than the secular nation that he and his Ba'ath party have essentially been trying to build over the last three decades, that this wouldn't be in keeping for him, that it might be misinterpreted by people around the country.

But definitely it is very interesting and there will be a specific reason why he didn't do it. After all, he is asking Iraqis here to lay down their lives in the spirit of jihad, to become martyrs and essentially offer themselves up for the cause. So very -- there must be a reason here, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nic Robertson, we'll be checking back with you. Nic Robertson, our long-time reporter in Baghdad monitoring the situation. Saddam Hussein through his spokesman, his information minister, delivering a speech, in effect calling for, in his specific words, as Nic just said, jihad, holy war against the U.S. and coalition forces who now control significant parts of Iraq.

David Ensor, our national security correspondent has been watching and listening, monitoring all of this as well as talking to experts both inside and outside the U.S. Government.

David, what's your assessment?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: As Nic says, there has to be a reason why it wasn't Saddam, why it was the information minister. I think you can be confident that as this day progresses and tomorrow you'll be hearing from bush administration officials, from U.S. Officials saying they think the reason is that Saddam Hussein is either injured or dead and he is not able to appear. For that reason -- now, in the last couple of days, U.S. intelligence officials have started to say to me and to others that while they believed up until a few days ago that Saddam Hussein was in that bunk bunker that was hit on March 19 at the open of the war, they're now saying they are convinced he was.

They're virtually sure, as sure as you get in the intelligence business that Saddam Hussein was in that bunker. There are conflicting intelligence reports as to whether he survived or not. There are reports that he emerged on a stretcher injured. So a great deal of confusion about what his status is. And there is now something of a campaign by, in particular, Pentagon officials, but others as well, to sort of smoke out Saddam by saying, look, he hasn't appeared. Since the first strikes, all these tapes are running on Iraqi television. They could all be old. There's no proof that they're not. They're kind of daring him to appear.

Now, of course, as Nic said, there might be security dangers for Saddam to prepare a tape and produce it in these days. He may be hiding in a very secure place where that can't be done. So it doesn't answer the question as to whether he's alive or not, but can you be sure that the Bush administration will argue this is further evidence that he's either dead or incapacitated or injured in some way and not capable of leading the country. And they want that message to come through to the Iraqi people, particularly to those in the Republican Guard and other forces who might feel they should go on fighting if Saddam's alive and might feel they should not if he's not -- Wolf.

BLITZER: One thing, David, that military commanders have pointed out over the past couple, three days is they haven't seen the kind of evidence indications that Saddam Hussein and his top leadership are actually communicating with the rest of the leadership. The command and control capabilities under normal circumstances apparently don't operate right now, and that that's an indication that there could be some serious disarray within the top leadership from Saddam Hussein on down.

What have you heard about that?

ENSOR: Well, you're absolutely right. They are saying that the communication, sort of the chatter, the communications, particularly military communications, from the top leadership in Iraq to forces who are further out from Baghdad, that amount of communication dropped drastically from the night of the 19th onward. So there are questions about whether there really is a cohesive leadership in charge, able to communicate with its forces. At the same time, they do say you can assume this man and this regime has had plenty of time to put in redundant systems.

You can assume there are all sorts of other communication systems, some of which U.S. intelligence and military systems have not found. Of course, they're obviously looking for them. And then there's the old-fashioned method sending envelopes with couriers, and there might be certain amount of that going on. Getting the commands of Saddam Hussein or whoever is in charge out to his commanders in the field -- Wolf.

BLITZER: David Ensor, stand by. I want to bring in Ken Pollack, our analyst who knows a great deal about what's going on inside Iraq. Studied the issue for the U.S. government for many, many years.

Ken, the fact that Saddam Hussein through his information minister, now calling for a Jihad, a holy war, for people to lay down their lives, presumably engage in suicide bombings, if you will, that does, as Nic Robertson pointed out, seems to suggest a new trend, a new development on the part of the Iraqi leadership?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes and no, Wolf. I don't think we want to make too much of it. Saddam Hussein has been willing to cloak himself in the garb of religion and the garb of Islam whenever it suited him.

Saddam Hussein was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Arabist, and then the Iran/Iraq war broke out and then he suddenly discovered that he was a Iraqi nationalist. At different points in 1990s, we saw Saddam suddenly rediscover his Islamic heritage. This is a man who will do whatever he thinks is useful to him to try to motivate his people in a particular direction.

Clearly he believes that that's the case now. And in particular, I think what Saddam is really trying to do is appeal not so much from his own people, because he knows what he is going to get from them, but more to appeal to the rest of the Arab and Islamic world. To try and cloak this war in the garb of a religious war against Christian and Jewish invaders in some cases. And try to create much more public sympathy in the Arab world, tap into the anti-Americanism he sees and the rest of the Arab world and try and build support as much as he can among other countries, less so among his own people.

BLITZER: Can the fact that this was delivered through the information minister and not Saddam Hussein himself, you used to work at the CIA, you used to be an analyst on Iraq-related matters over at the National Security Council for many years. When they a tape like this, when they see this on Iraqi television, walk us through what they're doing presumably right now to get a better assessment of what's going on inside the Iraqi leadership.

POLLACK: Well, they'll do two things. First of all, you'll have political analysts watching a tape like, this watching a tape of Saddam Hussein just to see what it is that he's saying to look for subtle clues and hints and what it is that he's saying. If he is using a word that he hasn't beforehand, if he is developing an argument that people haven't heard before. In addition, you'll have technical experts both at CIA and over at the National Security Agency who will be doing sophisticated analyses of the audio and visual portions of the tape.

So, you'll have imagery analysts will sit down and measure (ph), that is measure, the distances on Saddam's faces, to determine whether or not it is Saddam or a double. To find out if his find out if his ears are the right amount of centimeters or inches apart. To find out if his jaws big as they actually are on Saddam Hussein to make sure this is actually Saddam. In addition, they'll be running sophisticated audio tests on it to make sure this is Saddam's actual voice, looking for inflections in voice, pronunciations, in some cases differentials in voice patterns that only a computer can recognize. So, it's a strange combination of art and science to determine both if this is Saddam Hussein and if it is, what's the message that he's trying to send.

BLITZER: That would be the case if in fact we saw Saddam Hussein. In this particular case, we saw the information minister reading a statement on behalf of Saddam Hussein.

What's the likely impact of this statement going to be on the Iraqi people? Some 25 million of them, of course, at a huge country roughly the size of California. If they're still watching Iraqi television tonight, what do you think the impact of the statement read by Muhammad Saeed Sahaf will be?

POLLACK: I'll be honest with you. I don't think it will be much of an impact at all. You know, we're all over here trying desperately to read tea leaves. To figure out whether Saddam is alive or is hurt, what the actual situation is. And that's obviously very important to us. As far as the Iraqi people are concerned, I think what we're seeing in Basra, in Nasiryah in other cities, that's what's really important.

The fact of the matter, the Iraqi people are so terrified of Saddam Hussein that until they see his body hanging from a lamp post in Baghdad, they're going to assume that he's alive. And I don't think that, you know, us sitting back here and saying, it was supposed to have been Saddam but it wasn't, the tape might have been taped or it might have been live, who really knows. That's not the kind of thing the Iraqi people will be asking themselves.

What they are going to be asking ourselves is, are we certain that Saddam and his regime are gone? Until they're certain, I think they'll assume he is alive.

BLITZER: Ken Pollack, we'll be getting back to you, our analyst. Thanks very much Ken.

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