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CNN Live Today
Troops Have Had Warm Welcome in Najaf
Aired April 03, 2003 - 10:10 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR; We've got Ryan Chilcote now with us. He is with the 101st Airborne Division, Third Brigade. He joins us from Najaf, Iraq.
Ryan, what's the latest from there.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm actually with the 101st Airborne's 1st Brigade in the holy city of Najaf in central Iraq. And today, for First Brigade, 2nd Battalion, also known as the "no slack Battalion." It began with what was supposed to be a very routine patrol. The goal of that patrol was for the troops' commander, the soldiers' commander, to meet with the grand Ayatollah Sistani who lives here in the city. Now on the way to that meeting, the troops stopped down, and the ayatollah, via radio, asked the troops' commander to -- before the meeting to secure his compound before they start the meeting.
Now the ayatollah's compound is located about half of the way down the road from where the troops were when they stopped to go to the Iman Ali Mosque, which you see over my shoulder right now. The troops agreed, and that was their intention, was to go to the Ayatollah's house, and secure it for them to provide the ayatollah some kind of security in what's not the most secure situation yet in this city.
Well, no one told the crowd that that was the plan, and chaos, as you'll see right now, quite literally, ensued. The crowd apparently believed that the troops were going to approach the mosque itself.
Now both the ayatollah's representative on location on hand and the troop's commander took some very commendable steps to try to diffuse the situation, given the misunderstanding that the soldiers' commander telling his troops to take a knee, to point their weapons at the ground and to appear as little hostile as possible as a soldier possibly can.
The ayatollah's representatives doing much the same, trying to diffuse the situation on the ground, but really, it was a little too late. It was much too loud there for the people on the ground to really hear what was going on, and at a certain point, I think the commander just decided, look, this is enough, I'm going to pull the troops back, and when cooler heads prevail, then we'll try this again.
So what began as a routine patrol really ended up in a sticky situation here in the city of Najaf.
Back to you. ZAHN: Ryan, what else can you tell us what these men and women may be up against down the road?
CHILCOTE: Well, generally speaking, the reception of why this comes as a surprise. If it wasn't for the fact that the crowd believes that these troops were actually making their way to the Imam Ali Mosque, what comes as a surprise is the troops have gotten a very warm reception here in the city of Najaf. Najaf is home to a lot of Shi'a Muslims, and obviously those Shi'a Muslims have no love loss for the Iraqi leader, President Saddam Hussein. They say that the Iraqi leader has been repressing them for a number of years under his rule. And they were very happy to see not only the troops attack the Fedayeen fighters, who had taken root in the city here and were using it to stage attacks against the troops, but they were really happy when the troops came into the city.
In fact, just yesterday, they staged a spontaneous, very pro- American demonstration, when a similar convoy was using the very same route, and with the same mission actually in mind. This very pro- American demonstration. But on this day, as you can see, something went wrong, and obviously miscommunication really took the day.
ZAHN: Well, it's fascinating to see contracts in the pictures, and it certainly gives us all an idea of some of the gray areas that these troops have to deal with on an hourly basis.
Ryan Chilcote, thank you very much for that live update. Ryan Chilcote with the 101st Airborne Division.
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 3, 2003 - 10:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR; We've got Ryan Chilcote now with us. He is with the 101st Airborne Division, Third Brigade. He joins us from Najaf, Iraq.
Ryan, what's the latest from there.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm actually with the 101st Airborne's 1st Brigade in the holy city of Najaf in central Iraq. And today, for First Brigade, 2nd Battalion, also known as the "no slack Battalion." It began with what was supposed to be a very routine patrol. The goal of that patrol was for the troops' commander, the soldiers' commander, to meet with the grand Ayatollah Sistani who lives here in the city. Now on the way to that meeting, the troops stopped down, and the ayatollah, via radio, asked the troops' commander to -- before the meeting to secure his compound before they start the meeting.
Now the ayatollah's compound is located about half of the way down the road from where the troops were when they stopped to go to the Iman Ali Mosque, which you see over my shoulder right now. The troops agreed, and that was their intention, was to go to the Ayatollah's house, and secure it for them to provide the ayatollah some kind of security in what's not the most secure situation yet in this city.
Well, no one told the crowd that that was the plan, and chaos, as you'll see right now, quite literally, ensued. The crowd apparently believed that the troops were going to approach the mosque itself.
Now both the ayatollah's representative on location on hand and the troop's commander took some very commendable steps to try to diffuse the situation, given the misunderstanding that the soldiers' commander telling his troops to take a knee, to point their weapons at the ground and to appear as little hostile as possible as a soldier possibly can.
The ayatollah's representatives doing much the same, trying to diffuse the situation on the ground, but really, it was a little too late. It was much too loud there for the people on the ground to really hear what was going on, and at a certain point, I think the commander just decided, look, this is enough, I'm going to pull the troops back, and when cooler heads prevail, then we'll try this again.
So what began as a routine patrol really ended up in a sticky situation here in the city of Najaf.
Back to you. ZAHN: Ryan, what else can you tell us what these men and women may be up against down the road?
CHILCOTE: Well, generally speaking, the reception of why this comes as a surprise. If it wasn't for the fact that the crowd believes that these troops were actually making their way to the Imam Ali Mosque, what comes as a surprise is the troops have gotten a very warm reception here in the city of Najaf. Najaf is home to a lot of Shi'a Muslims, and obviously those Shi'a Muslims have no love loss for the Iraqi leader, President Saddam Hussein. They say that the Iraqi leader has been repressing them for a number of years under his rule. And they were very happy to see not only the troops attack the Fedayeen fighters, who had taken root in the city here and were using it to stage attacks against the troops, but they were really happy when the troops came into the city.
In fact, just yesterday, they staged a spontaneous, very pro- American demonstration, when a similar convoy was using the very same route, and with the same mission actually in mind. This very pro- American demonstration. But on this day, as you can see, something went wrong, and obviously miscommunication really took the day.
ZAHN: Well, it's fascinating to see contracts in the pictures, and it certainly gives us all an idea of some of the gray areas that these troops have to deal with on an hourly basis.
Ryan Chilcote, thank you very much for that live update. Ryan Chilcote with the 101st Airborne Division.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
