Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Devil Docs Not Far From Baghdad; Is Saddam Dead?

Aired April 08, 2003 - 11:20   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: Back here in Kuwait City a short time ago, speaking with Marty Savidge embedded with the Marines in the Eastern part of Baghdad.
Around that same area, I believe anyway, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is traveling with the Devil Docs, a group of Navy Corpsmen traveling with the Marines, offering -- what it amounts to is a MASH unit. It moves up and down the Iraqi desert. And again, Sanjay has made his way along with photographer Mark Miello (ph) to Baghdad -- good evening, Sanjay, what's happening there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening. About 6:30 in the evening here, and Mark Miello (ph) and I have been making our way, as you know, Bill, through Iraq. A lot of the surgical units now converging in this area just east of Baghdad.

Bill, they have been doing all sorts of different operations. They have been taking care of all patients that come, both Iraqi and coalition force members, been very busy. Helicopters coming in and out.

I will tell you a couple of things. First of all, a lot of the surgical stations now converging here, preparing for just about anything. Over the next several days, a fleet hospital, about a 500- bed fleet hospital, will also be setting up shop here as well to take care of patients that will come. As well as to probably handle a lot of humanitarian efforts afterwards. Seeing all sorts of different patients. They're changing a bit in terms of who they are. The patients -- the Iraqis specifically, are better nourished than some of the patients we saw earlier. They are also -- one of the patients was carrying a large amount of cash in his wallet. That's something we hadn't seen before.

Again, the Bravo Surgical Company, the forward resuscitative surgical system, they are starting to converge here, getting prepared for what might come next -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right, Sanjay, thanks. You and Mark take care out there. Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the Devil Docs now in Baghdad.

Want to talk more about this -- essentially bombardment of this residential place in west Baghdad yesterday. Upscale neighborhood, four -- we're hearing now, earlier it was four 2,000-pound bombs. It's been changed, according to Barbara Starr, about the exact munitions that were used, but bottom line is they were substantial, and they were huge, leaving a giant crater right now where a home once stood, or a restaurant once stood as well. Ken Pollack is back with us, the author of "The Threatening Storm," now working on behalf of the Saban Center, part of the Brookings Institution, and Ken is back with us live in D.C. I'll ask you the question -- I don't think you can answer it, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Did they get him this time?

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes, I'm sorry, Bill. I wish I had the answer to that question. Believe me, I am here in New York and I could probably make a whole lot of money off of it if I did, but I don't think any of us knows. Clearly this was a pretty good target. The little bits -- the scraps that we're hearing about the intelligence picture that they had. Barbara Starr's report about how they quickly diverted the B-1 over all speaks to the presence that the U.S. has got in Baghdad right now, and an increasing ability to track the movements of senior Iraqi leadership. But as to whether we actually got Saddam Hussein or not, I'm going to wait with the rest of us.

HEMMER: OK. Listen -- we're all speaking here hypothetically, but does it make much sense to you that Saddam Hussein would be meeting in the middle of the day, 3:00 in the afternoon is our understanding is when this strike took place, with his two sons at the same time and possibly other ranking members of the Iraqi regime who are still alive? Does that make much sense to you?

POLLACK: It's certainly possible. We know from the experience during the Gulf War that this is how Saddam conducted business during the Gulf War is everyone would stay spread out, and then all of a sudden he'd call a meeting, they'd all come together. He'd make some decisions, and they'd all be dispatched to actually go and implement the decisions. That said, if this is what the Iraqis are doing, I think that they are probably figuring out that this is not a smart way to do business, and that they may -- assuming that Saddam has survived this attack, that what you may see in the future is Saddam moving to an even more decentralized method, whereby he doesn't meet with groups of people. Instead, he meets with individuals, or maybe even going a step further and saying that he will simply give orders through couriers. So, he meets face to face with a courier. The courier is tasked to deliver instructions to a single individual, and that is how you do it. You eliminate that kind of an intelligence footprint that U.S. Special Forces are looking for.

HEMMER: Yes, Ken. How about this theory -- we heard this from an expert a few hours ago. He was telling us that there are very few members of the Iraqi regime who actually have a cell phone, or are actually qualified to have one, or have the means of having one, and that it is likely that you can track down through the signal emitted from the cell phone. Word that a meeting is taking place, possibly tap the line or pick up on the signal. Does that sound viable to you?

POLLACK: It certainly is possible, and I'll be honest with you. Our knowledge of exactly how the Iraqi top leadership communicates with each other is somewhat limited. We do have some understanding. We do know about some of the systems that the Iraqi leadership uses to communicate. But again, our information has never been complete. This is one of the problems with Iraq. It's a very hard target. Saddam is paranoid. He is very good about his security, and my guess is that U.S. forces are trying to take advantage of every possible lead out there. One thing that I think he can say is that while who knows how many cell phones Saddam and his leadership have, chances are right now there aren't a whole lot of Iraqis in Baghdad who are using their cell phones, but chances are they are assuming that the U.S. might target them, and they're probably not using it very much. And as a result, if there is cell phone chatter, I think it is probably fair to assume, that it's more likely to be one of the top level leaders than necessarily an ordinary Iraqi.

HEMMER: All good questions, answers that are illusive right now.

In the 15 seconds that we have here, Ken, there are some who do believe that the initial air strikes of March 19, killed Saddam Hussein then. Nothing to prove it, nothing to substantiate it. Do you believe, since March 20, the day after and up until this point, Saddam was alive in Baghdad?

POLLACK: Well, I think that he was alive for that March 24 videotape, the one where he described the Apache shoot down, which was on March 24. Whether he died subsequently of wounds sustained in that initial strike, I don't know. But what I can say is that a number of things that have gone on in Baghdad over the last two days have not looked very Saddam-like, and it may be that he was killed.

HEMMER: Ken, thanks. Ken Pollack, in New York, and not Washington, D.C. Sorry about the locater, Ken. We'll talk to you again a bit later, possibly again tomorrow.

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 8, 2003 - 11:20   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back here in Kuwait City a short time ago, speaking with Marty Savidge embedded with the Marines in the Eastern part of Baghdad.
Around that same area, I believe anyway, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is traveling with the Devil Docs, a group of Navy Corpsmen traveling with the Marines, offering -- what it amounts to is a MASH unit. It moves up and down the Iraqi desert. And again, Sanjay has made his way along with photographer Mark Miello (ph) to Baghdad -- good evening, Sanjay, what's happening there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening. About 6:30 in the evening here, and Mark Miello (ph) and I have been making our way, as you know, Bill, through Iraq. A lot of the surgical units now converging in this area just east of Baghdad.

Bill, they have been doing all sorts of different operations. They have been taking care of all patients that come, both Iraqi and coalition force members, been very busy. Helicopters coming in and out.

I will tell you a couple of things. First of all, a lot of the surgical stations now converging here, preparing for just about anything. Over the next several days, a fleet hospital, about a 500- bed fleet hospital, will also be setting up shop here as well to take care of patients that will come. As well as to probably handle a lot of humanitarian efforts afterwards. Seeing all sorts of different patients. They're changing a bit in terms of who they are. The patients -- the Iraqis specifically, are better nourished than some of the patients we saw earlier. They are also -- one of the patients was carrying a large amount of cash in his wallet. That's something we hadn't seen before.

Again, the Bravo Surgical Company, the forward resuscitative surgical system, they are starting to converge here, getting prepared for what might come next -- Bill.

HEMMER: All right, Sanjay, thanks. You and Mark take care out there. Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the Devil Docs now in Baghdad.

Want to talk more about this -- essentially bombardment of this residential place in west Baghdad yesterday. Upscale neighborhood, four -- we're hearing now, earlier it was four 2,000-pound bombs. It's been changed, according to Barbara Starr, about the exact munitions that were used, but bottom line is they were substantial, and they were huge, leaving a giant crater right now where a home once stood, or a restaurant once stood as well. Ken Pollack is back with us, the author of "The Threatening Storm," now working on behalf of the Saban Center, part of the Brookings Institution, and Ken is back with us live in D.C. I'll ask you the question -- I don't think you can answer it, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Did they get him this time?

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes, I'm sorry, Bill. I wish I had the answer to that question. Believe me, I am here in New York and I could probably make a whole lot of money off of it if I did, but I don't think any of us knows. Clearly this was a pretty good target. The little bits -- the scraps that we're hearing about the intelligence picture that they had. Barbara Starr's report about how they quickly diverted the B-1 over all speaks to the presence that the U.S. has got in Baghdad right now, and an increasing ability to track the movements of senior Iraqi leadership. But as to whether we actually got Saddam Hussein or not, I'm going to wait with the rest of us.

HEMMER: OK. Listen -- we're all speaking here hypothetically, but does it make much sense to you that Saddam Hussein would be meeting in the middle of the day, 3:00 in the afternoon is our understanding is when this strike took place, with his two sons at the same time and possibly other ranking members of the Iraqi regime who are still alive? Does that make much sense to you?

POLLACK: It's certainly possible. We know from the experience during the Gulf War that this is how Saddam conducted business during the Gulf War is everyone would stay spread out, and then all of a sudden he'd call a meeting, they'd all come together. He'd make some decisions, and they'd all be dispatched to actually go and implement the decisions. That said, if this is what the Iraqis are doing, I think that they are probably figuring out that this is not a smart way to do business, and that they may -- assuming that Saddam has survived this attack, that what you may see in the future is Saddam moving to an even more decentralized method, whereby he doesn't meet with groups of people. Instead, he meets with individuals, or maybe even going a step further and saying that he will simply give orders through couriers. So, he meets face to face with a courier. The courier is tasked to deliver instructions to a single individual, and that is how you do it. You eliminate that kind of an intelligence footprint that U.S. Special Forces are looking for.

HEMMER: Yes, Ken. How about this theory -- we heard this from an expert a few hours ago. He was telling us that there are very few members of the Iraqi regime who actually have a cell phone, or are actually qualified to have one, or have the means of having one, and that it is likely that you can track down through the signal emitted from the cell phone. Word that a meeting is taking place, possibly tap the line or pick up on the signal. Does that sound viable to you?

POLLACK: It certainly is possible, and I'll be honest with you. Our knowledge of exactly how the Iraqi top leadership communicates with each other is somewhat limited. We do have some understanding. We do know about some of the systems that the Iraqi leadership uses to communicate. But again, our information has never been complete. This is one of the problems with Iraq. It's a very hard target. Saddam is paranoid. He is very good about his security, and my guess is that U.S. forces are trying to take advantage of every possible lead out there. One thing that I think he can say is that while who knows how many cell phones Saddam and his leadership have, chances are right now there aren't a whole lot of Iraqis in Baghdad who are using their cell phones, but chances are they are assuming that the U.S. might target them, and they're probably not using it very much. And as a result, if there is cell phone chatter, I think it is probably fair to assume, that it's more likely to be one of the top level leaders than necessarily an ordinary Iraqi.

HEMMER: All good questions, answers that are illusive right now.

In the 15 seconds that we have here, Ken, there are some who do believe that the initial air strikes of March 19, killed Saddam Hussein then. Nothing to prove it, nothing to substantiate it. Do you believe, since March 20, the day after and up until this point, Saddam was alive in Baghdad?

POLLACK: Well, I think that he was alive for that March 24 videotape, the one where he described the Apache shoot down, which was on March 24. Whether he died subsequently of wounds sustained in that initial strike, I don't know. But what I can say is that a number of things that have gone on in Baghdad over the last two days have not looked very Saddam-like, and it may be that he was killed.

HEMMER: Ken, thanks. Ken Pollack, in New York, and not Washington, D.C. Sorry about the locater, Ken. We'll talk to you again a bit later, possibly again tomorrow.

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