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CNN Live At Daybreak
Saddam City Celebrates
Aired April 09, 2003 - 05:00 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Five o'clock Eastern time.
I'm Carol Costello. We want to bring you up to date right now.
Here are the latest headlines at this hour.
Saddam City is celebrating. Listen to this. Hundreds of people cheering U.S. Marines in Saddam City, which is located in east central Baghdad. The crowds were dancing, they are dancing, as you can see, waving. And, yes, some threw flowers at the convoy of American Marines.
A senior U.S. Army officer tells our Walter Rodgers in Baghdad that the majority of Iraqi military forces there have given up, quit, run away or just blended back into the civilian population. Right now it is quiet in some parts of Baghdad, but Rodgers says U.S. troops remain on alert for ambush attacks. And while there seems to be no military action, some Baghdad citizens are on the move, looting government offices. People are carrying chairs and other furniture, anything they can carry. Plus, there are some reports that government workers, including Iraq's information minister, did not show up for work today.
Coalition forces are searching for two airmen. The two were aboard an F-15E that went down Sunday night near Tikrit. Tikrit is an area where there are not a lot of coalition forces. The F-15E was from the Fourth Fighter Wing out of the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog group, is accusing the U.S. military of deliberately firing on journalists. Three journalists were killed on Tuesday, two here at the Palestine Hotel and one at the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau. In both cases, the Pentagon says U.S. troops fired after being fired upon from those buildings.
The status of Saddam Hussein and his two sons remains a mystery this morning more than 24 hours after a U.S. air strike intended to kill the Iraqi leader. U.S. intelligence sources say they still don't know if Hussein was buried in the rubble.
And there is no confirmation that a voice heard on a new cassette tape from Afghanistan is actually Osama bin Laden. But the voice warns Muslims everywhere they are under threat from the United States. The message calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests to avenge the deaths in Iraq. For the first time in days, the streets of central Baghdad appear quiet. But behind the shuttered store fronts, on the side streets of this ancient city, tensions do remain high and U.S. troops stay alert for an ambush.
Good morning to you.
I'm Carol Costello at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, where it is five o'clock in the morning on the East Coast.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Bill Hemmer live in Kuwait City.
Carol, it is high noon here in Kuwait. It is one o'clock in the afternoon in Baghdad, Wednesday, April 9, day 21, three weeks to the date since the war in Iraq broke out.
And, Carol, you've watched those pictures a few moments ago. We want to take you back again to the demonstrations, the celebrations on the area known as Saddam City north and east of the capital of Baghdad. We are getting reports of widespread looting in areas, especially around the U.N. headquarters and also the Olympic Committee building. Police and other officials apparently absent from the streets to stop it. Cheering crowds hitting the U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel. We're told some were seen driving off in U.N. cars. Other eyewitnesses say that looters raided sports shops around the bombed Iraqi Olympic Committee building, which was run by one of Saddam Hussein's sons, the elder one, Uday, Carol.
But, again, all these images coming in right now. The Arabic translation, we are told, goes something like this: "There is only one god and Saddam is the enemy of god."
COSTELLO: And what a contrast these pictures are to closer to the airport, Bill. These are Iraqis in the streets literally cheering the end of Saddam's reign, at least we think so. As a Marine convoy pulled through this area of Baghdad, Iraqis hugged them. And, yes, they even threw flowers at them. And as you said, they were chanting something like, "The tyrant of the world is finished, thanks to the coalition. Thank god for Iraq, the victorious."
We actually saw earlier, too, Bill, that people were destroying large pictures of Saddam Hussein. We actually saw one Iraqi spitting on a large poster of Saddam Hussein and another hitting it with his shoe.
HEMMER: Yes, and all this, Carol, comes in an afternoon when the morning was described to us as mostly quiet along much of Baghdad after that power vacuum has now been filled, largely by the U.S. military. And if the reports continue to hold up the way we're getting them, Carol, it indicates the police is not there. The security presence is not there either. So it's quite possible these are the first of many images we will get in Baghdad.
We want to get away from that for a moment, give you the latest right now as we understand it right now on the war in Iraq. Rym Brahimi has checked her sources in the city. We want to show you a live picture of Baghdad right now. Rym tells us many still are fearful that pro-Saddam Hussein militias may be hiding out in preparation for more attacks. There was a report earlier that said perhaps 28,000 Fedayeen militia members might still be hiding in the city.
Meanwhile, as we have mentioned, some Iraqis are celebrating. Video just fed in in the last 30 minutes. And, again, that is something that we will continue to keep a track on.
Couple that now with a senior U.S. Army official officer who says the majority of Iraqi forces in the Baghdad area have abandoned their posts and abandoned their equipment. While elements of the 3rd Infantry occupy the heart of the capital, U.S. Marines occupying part of the southeastern portion of the town and outside Baghdad troops from the 101st Airborne Division are approaching the capital from the south. Walt Rodgers tells us coalition forces expect to double their troop strength in Baghdad over the next 24 hours or so.
We want to get more now on the celebrating in the streets of that Baghdad neighborhood under Saddam City.
And for that Rula Amin is with us in eastern Jordan -- Rula, what are you learning from your post there?
RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, sources at Saddam City say that crowds there are cheering. The residents at Saddam City seem to have decided the regime of Saddam Hussein is over. No more fear. They're out on the streets cheering the fall of the Iraqi government, welcoming U.S. troops and thanking U.S. President George Bush.
Saddam City is a poor, very populous neighborhood in Baghdad. About two million people live there, mostly Shiite Iraqis. For years they have been very angry at the Iraqi regime. They accuse the Iraqi regime of all kind of different things. Many of them have been in Iraqi government prisons. Many of their sons have been killed. Many have fled the country in fear of the regime. And today they went out on the streets with no fear and expressed all their anger and all of their jubilation that those days are over.
We saw pictures of them waving the black flag. That's a very symbolic flag for the Shiite community. Some of them were hitting at one of Saddam Hussein's pictures with his shoes, very angry. So it seems they are firm, they are sure there's no more Saddam Hussein, no more of the security forces.
We also know that there's been some looting in Baghdad. Many people stormed government buildings, grabbed whatever they can have -- refrigerators, plastic flowers, files, documents, whatever. Iraqi, for 12 years many were, after the U.N. sanctions, are very poor. Anything is valuable now, no matter what.
It seems it's also a mixed feeling, that they can do that. They can go into these government buildings where they couldn't go before, or if they did go, they went with fear. Going in there, storming it, taking everything they can have, chairs, and it's kind of trying to express that there is no more fear and that they can do it.
We also know that on the streets of Baghdad, Iraqi security forces almost disappeared. Very few on the streets with guns. Even Fedayeen Saddam, the most loyal to the regime, with their black uniforms, they got rid of their uniforms, out of the street and it seems that they are blending within the civilian neighborhood and community.
At the Palestine Hotel, where Western journalists are staying and where the Iraqi Information Ministry had had a desk and offices, no one, no official from that Ministry showed up this morning, including the information minister, who had been going to that hotel daily, giving his daily briefings there.
No one showed up today. This is very significant because in Iraq, journalists are not allowed to roam around without a government minder, a government escort, in order to make sure on what they report. Today, those minders didn't show up. Journalists were roaming around freely. We also do know that eyewitnesses say that the looting included going to the U.N. headquarters. People went into that building where the U.N. inspectors used to stay and where United Nations humanitarian workers, those who were in charge of distributing food to Iraqis, were staying.
They left that building, took everything they can get, and then drove off in the U.N. cars.
So it seems that the residents in Baghdad have decided no more Saddam Hussein. We don't know where he's about. We don't know where his sons are. But they are nowhere on the streets -- Bill.
HEMMER: Rula, thanks.
Rula Amin in eastern Jordan.
More from Baghdad when we get it.
Here's Carol again now in Atlanta.
COSTELLO: Yes, we want to head to the Pentagon right now, Bill, because when Americans see pictures like these, it's easy to come to the conclusion that, yes, the war may be over now, maybe soon -- Chris Plante, caution us.
CHRIS PLANTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.
Well, you know, these are the pictures that the Pentagon has sort of been waiting to see, to some extent, maybe minus the looting. But the celebration of large numbers of people coming out into the street. It should be noted because it's important to note, I think, that this is the Shia neighborhood in Baghdad, in the north and eastern part of the city. It's called Saddam City, this area.
It's generally regarded as being a, you know, I mean it's a low income area often described as the ghetto. Saddam Hussein and his inner circle, of course, are Sunni Muslims and there's not a great deal of love, at least in Iraq, between the Shia and the Sunni populations.
You know, southern Iraq is largely Shia. Iran, of course, largely Shia, also. But in the 1991 uprising in southern Iraq, the Shia Muslims rising up after the Persian Gulf War, the first Persian Gulf War, against the administration in Baghdad, the regime in Baghdad, that was an uprising that was put down brutally, 50,000 to 100,000 Shia killed by Saddam's forces there, the special Republican Guard, and the security forces there.
So there's certainly no love lost and these Shia Muslims inside of Baghdad also not treated as first class citizens. So you can expect to see this sort of reaction from them inside of the city.
There has been some indication of similar responses in Shia communities further south in Iraq. Certainly the Kurdish population in the north also welcoming the coalition forces.
Now, early on in this conflict, people were sort of wondering why there wasn't more celebrating in the streets at the arrival of the coalition troops. Many in the U.S. administration and in the British administration saying that they expected to be greeted as liberators and not as invaders or conquerors. Clearly, that is becoming more and more the case.
The math that has been done on this by people in Washington essentially suggests that the slow emergence of people coming out and celebrating in the street is as a result of their concern that the coalition wouldn't finish the job, that they would once again leave them hanging, as they did in 1991, that they would be cracked down on again, as they were in 1991, and there would be a great loss of life.
Now it appears that the public is coming to the realization or the conclusion that this really is the end of the regime of Saddam Hussein and celebrations are beginning. But fear kept them indoors before, fear that the Fedayeen would come out and retaliate against them if they did celebrate. There was at least one report out of Basra early on that a woman that came out to greet the forces, British forces, as they arrived there, waved, you know, in a cheerful fashion, was grabbed by the Fedayeen shortly after the British troops left and she was hanged from a lamppost to set an example for the rest there.
So this is the type of treatment that the Shia have received. The Kurds in the north, of course, have received similar treatment, and perhaps worse.
Now, members of Saddam's inner circle and the Fedayeen are the ones that have been coming out and striking against the military forces of the coalition.
One of the concerns that the Pentagon is looking at now is that once these public uprisings come into full swing, that there may be retaliatory killings of members of the Fedayeen and members of the Baath Party that have effectively brutalized the population of the country for decades now and repressed these populations. You know, it's a small inner circle of Saddam's friends and cronies that have profited from the oil revenues of the country and so on. And this is essentially what the planners of this military operation expected to happen or had hoped would happen earlier on in this process.
So now that it is happening, even with some sporadic fighting still taking place throughout the city, they expect that this will prompt more and more people to come out in the city. It's what the Pentagon refers to as the tipping point.
COSTELLO: Yes, and Chris...
PLANTE: That is when -- yes?
COSTELLO: I just want to interrupt you for a second because these pictures are such a contrast to what Walter Rodgers was reporting earlier in other parts of Baghdad, because I want everyone to keep in mind, this is a very large city. There is an eerie calm there and there are no signs of paramilitaries of the Fedayeen and literally didn't the U.S. military think there were tens of thousands of these kinds of troops within Baghdad? And, if so, where did they go?
PLANTE: Well, you know, the concern is that there still are at least thousands of these, particularly Fedayeen and some of the special Republican Guard people, soldiers inside of Baghdad. But when, again, it's, you know, I was just referring to the tipping point, when it reaches the stage, when a conflict like this reaches the stage where it becomes clear that the leadership is no longer in control, then those loyal, those that have been loyal to the leadership, that have been fighting to the last drop of blood, as it were, to defend the regime, once they see that the regime may be gone, if the information minister stopped showing up for work today -- this is the man who was saying that the coalition would find their graves here, that they would be destroyed -- if that has all come to an end, then today may be the final day, from what we're seeing here, of any significant resistance.
Now, organized resistance really melted away in the last couple of days and it's been sporadic guerrilla irregular warfare, picking at U.S. forces, sniping and that sort of thing.
COSTELLO: Well, on that note, Chris, will the mission of the coalition troops within Baghdad change?
PLANTE: Well, they still have to maintain a tight defensive posture and wait and see, quite honestly, whether these Fedayeen forces try to regroup. I, in conversations I've just had in the last couple of hours, I've been told that over the last 24 hours there have still been some instances where special Republican Guard units, along with Fedayeen and some other irregular forces, have been rallying up in mosques and in schools, gathering up in groups of 100 to 200 and confronting the U.S. forces head on.
They have not fared very well. I'm told that hundreds and hundreds of these troops, Iraqi troops, have been killed, very lopsided confrontations. Fifteen or 20 vehicles rushing a U.S. armored convoy and being destroyed in a matter of two to three minutes, I'm told, in each and every instance. So clearly the scale is being tipped to the other side here and as it becomes more and more clear that the coalition is there to stay and that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I think you're going to see these parties that feel that they have been repressed by the regime coming up and taking it out on the regime. One of the things that the coalition is concerned about is that they don't want to see a frenzy of killing of Saddam loyalists in the cities, you know, for just the maintenance of order, if nothing else.
But it seems likely that there will be at least some of that taking place. When, you know, when oppressors are toppled, the oppressed tend to rise up and exact vengeance. So now that you see celebrating in the streets, it's just another major -- and this is a major and very significant sign that the regime is losing or has lost control of the city of Baghdad, at least, certainly areas in the south. And U.S. and coalition forces continue to pound the remaining organized Iraqi forces in the north, as well.
So this may be a defining moment, a defining day, certainly, in the course of this conflict.
COSTELLO: Certainly so.
Chris Plante, we're going to let you get back to work so you can gather more information for us.
Thank you for that insight as we continue to look at these extraordinary pictures.
Let's throw it back to Kuwait City and Bill.
HEMMER: All right, look, Carol, listening to you and Chris Plante talk about that, it reminds us an awful lot of what happened yesterday in Basra with the looting that we saw, the British military witnessing that. We are under the understanding, though, that that was about a 24 hour period in which that looting was conducted in Basra. Largely a Shia population, as well, in Basra in the southeast.
Since that time, though, there has been some order restored in Basra and today we're told that it remains much more quiet than it has been over the past two days.
Back in Baghdad, though, clearly that is the story of the day at this point.
We want to get down to Tom Mintier at Central Command in Qatar with the U.S. military.
I'm certain, no doubt, Tom, they're watching these images and seeing what they are under way right now in Baghdad. I'm not sure if it brings a smile to their face. I don't know if it says see, we told you so. But at this point reaction is what?
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, I think over the last 20 days they have been waiting to see the signs of what would be perceived by some as victory. They always say the end of the regime, the end of the control of Saddam Hussein over the population would be seen as victory, if, indeed, there is a victory here.
Joining me now, Captain Frank Thorp, public affairs officer for CENTCOM.
You can't see the pictures we're getting in right now, new pictures from Baghdad. But there is jubilation in the streets. There are people going out and picking up refrigerators and carrying them on their back, anything that's not tied down in an office that was controlled by the regime is being picked up. The same signs, pictures that we saw in Basra are now being repeated in Baghdad.
What does this mean?
CAPT. FRANK THORP, CENTCOM SPOKESMAN: I think this needs to be taken in a broad context as to what is happening with the regime. In Basra, we saw this happen. The British have transitioned to more of a security and stabilization force there in Basra. And this is a one step at a time pace that we have to be on.
I think what some of these pictures that we're seeing this morning indicate is that the Iraqi people are no longer living under that tight grip of fear and torture and humiliation that the regime has exerted upon them for two or three decades.
So time will tell as we move forward here. Again, the ultimate goal, as you very well said, is the end of the regime. And if that's what we're starting to see here, again, it's one step.
MINTIER: Are these pictures an indication of that?
THORP: It could be that these pictures are indicating that the end of the regime is on its way, as we've been saying. It's a very deliberate pace we're on. It's not over. Tom, I would hazard that there may very well be some fierce days of fighting ahead. There's still some of the country, cities to the north, that we have not gotten into.
So we need to be very settled in our pace as we look at this and ensure that we look at the ultimate goal, the overall goal, and not to be too hasty in our conclusions here.
MINTIER: What challenges do you face in the days ahead? You have a city that's obviously erupting right now. There is no control per se. The police are not on the streets, people are driving the wrong way on one way streets, not obeying traffic lights. You're increasing the size of the military force in the ground. What's going to be their role in the coming hours in Baghdad with the current situation?
THORP: Well, I think what you're going to see is what you've overnight, is a continuing expansion of the areas that we're operating in, continuing to keep those forces supplied, continuing to defeat Iraqi resistance. We're still seeing some resistance there in the city.
MINTIER: Well, this is still a military operation? THORP: This is very clearly still a military operation. Reports overnight of sporadic but fierce firefights. And when I say that, I mean brief firefights lasting perhaps minutes, small numbers of vehicles, not an operate -- not an organized operation, but fierce fighting. And for those young soldiers and Marines who are on the ground and they're having weapons fired at them, we can only describe that as fierce as they continue to pursue this.
So as far as we're concerned, there's still a military operation going on. There's still many military objectives and step by step we need to look at this with that overall objective of the end of the regime.
MINTIER: But clearly there has been some trigger, whether it's the police pulling out, whether it's the minders not showing up for the journalists, the minister of information not holding his briefing, the clear lack of control by the regime on the city of Baghdad.
THORP: I think there's probably many different triggers that are happening. We are operating right there in the heart of the city. The Iraqi people are seeing that the, that what the coalition was saying for the last days, weeks and months, that we were committed to their liberation, we were committed to ridding the regime of weapons of mass destruction, that we're true to our word and that that commitment is being fulfilled.
And they're seeing it firsthand, as they've seen it in Basra and Najaf and al-Nasiriya. And now they're seeing it in Baghdad firsthand. That's perhaps one of the biggest triggers is that they're seeing our forces there and we're seeing that tight grip of the regime loosening up. But loosening up only in certain areas of the country.
So still a long way to go.
MINTIER: Where do these forces, these fighters that existed 24 hours ago in Baghdad, where have they gone?
THORP: Well, there's still a lot of them there. We have not seen the end of the Iraqi resistance in the city. A lot of them, quite frankly, have been defeated. We have several reports overnight, both from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force operating in the east of Baghdad and the 5th Corps operating there in the heart of the city of vehicles, of military vehicles confronting our forces, trying to take them under attack, being defeated, very firmly defeated.
But there's still forces operating in there. Several times I hear the term used melting away or something like that. Now, I have to be really clear, there are still fighting forces committed to the regime. Some of these forces, the special Republican Guard, they're committed to this regime and they know that when the end of the regime comes, their influence is over.
So they're still fighting for that power and influence that they think they may be able to maintain. The fact of the matter is they won't be able to.
MINTIER: What about Tikrit? We don't hear much about what's going on in Tikrit. It's still an ongoing operation up there?
THORP: Tikrit is an ongoing operation. We have blocked the roads between Baghdad and Tikrit to ensure that leadership regime leadership cannot escape to that city, as well as we have used our air dominance over the country to conduct air strikes on leadership facilities there in the city, as well as military forces that continue to be in and around that city.
MINTIER: All right, while we're seeing the pictures of celebrations in downtown Baghdad, there is definitely here at CENTCOM an air of cautious optimism, very cautious optimism, saying that while there is celebration on the streets and you see people rejecting, that all of Iraq, and even parts of the city of Baghdad, may not be showing the same images that you're seeing now in the center of the city, that there are still operations going on, there are still hostilities going on, that the word that apparently is spreading in downtown Baghdad has not gotten to the rest of the country yet -- Bill.
HEMMER: Tom, thanks.
Tom Mintier at CENTCOM.
We'll get a briefing in 90 minutes down there in Qatar at Central Command when they conduct their debriefing.
A few other things we're picking up watching the wires based on other reports we're getting, and not just cheering, but also the looting, as well. Some reporters in Baghdad indicate that military sites are favored targets. Government buildings are targets, as well, with Iraqis taking computers and book shelves, tables. Some reports of Iraqi jeeps being taken, as well.
There's a U.N. headquarters also in the city and there were earlier reports that indicated that some of the U.N. vehicles are being driven away, as well. They are well marked. They are white. They have U.N. stickers on them. A good chance you're not going to get very far driving that thing without somebody stopping and noticing.
Nonetheless, these are the images in parts of Baghdad today, we understand, it's the eastern part of the city, near Saddam City, and, again, as we have pointed out, mostly Shia. The country's population more than 60 percent is Shia, the rest being Kurds and Sunnis.
Carol, we'll watch it from here. Extraordinary images already today in Baghdad -- back to you now in Atlanta.
COSTELLO: Oh, certainly so. And you hear Tom Mintier says he's not sure if word of what's happening in Baghdad has spread to the rest of Iraq. Well, let's see if it has.
Let's go to northern Iraq right now, where Brent Sadler has been during this war -- Brent, has news of what's happening in Baghdad traveled to you?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, you couldn't get a sharper contrast between those incredibly active scenes in Baghdad of looting, of cheering the apparent demise of Saddam Hussein. I can tell you, having spent many, many years in Iraq myself in Baghdad, you know, you have the whole section of population there deprived after 12 years of sanctions. Many folks had to sell their belongings just to sustain a life there.
So the opportunity of being able to break into regime offices and walk off with refrigerators and household goods and this kind of thing, you know, it's hardly surprising. You know, the fact that they've been ruled the way they have, under that tyranny, for 30 years, there's going to be a free period of freefall, if you like, where people are just not going to be able to understand how life will take off again given the fact that all those instruments of tyranny are slowly being torn away.
You know, tearing down a picture carried a death sentence. I was just holding a torn picture of Saddam myself in this location I'm reporting to you from. I mean the fact that you are holding shreds of Saddam Hussein in very many parts of Iraq now is an incredible feeling just in itself.
If you come back to where I am now and look at the contrast here, I'm now speaking to you from an area of the southeastern part of the northern front, which has just come under the control of peshmerga. And if we swing the camera around, you'll see peshmerga having just taken this command bunker over here. (AUDIO GAP)
COSTELLO: We seem to have lost Brent.
We're going to take a break.
Hopefully we'll get Brent Sadler back up.
But as you saw, much celebration in parts of Baghdad this morning.
We're going to show you more when we come back.
COMMERCIAL
COSTELLO: 5:31 Eastern Time.
Carol Costello here.
Here are the headlines at this hour.
Saddam City is celebrating. Take a look. Hundreds of people cheering U.S. Marines in Saddam City, which is located in east central Baghdad. And you can see these extraordinary pictures, too, of people actually hitting with a shoe a giant poster of Saddam Hussein and shortly you'll see another man come over and he actually spits on this picture. This would mean a death sentence if Saddam Hussein were still in power.
Soon you'll see cheering in the streets as a Marine convoy passed through this part of Baghdad. People actually came hugging them and, yes, they were even throwing flowers. And there you see more of that destruction of the poster of Saddam Hussein.
A senior U.S. Army officer tells our Walter Rodgers, though, in Baghdad, that the majority of Iraqi military forces there have given up, quit, run away or just blended into the civilian population. Right now it's quiet, but Rodgers says U.S. troops remain on alert for ambush attacks.
And while there seems to be no military action, some Baghdad citizens are on the move, looting government offices. People are carrying chairs and other furniture, anything they can carry, plus there are some reports some government workers, including Iraq's information minister, did not even show up for work today.
Coalition forces are searching for two airmen. The two were aboard an F-15E that went down Sunday night near Tikrit. Tikrit is an area where there are not a lot of coalition forces. The F-15E was from the Fourth Fighter Wing out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog group, is accusing the U.S. military of deliberately firing on journalists. Three journalists were killed on Tuesday, two here at the Palestine Hotel and one at the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau. In both cases the Pentagon says U.S. troops fired after being fired upon from those buildings.
And the status of Saddam Hussein and his two sons remains a mystery more than 24 hours after a U.S. air strike intended to kill the Iraqi leader. U.S. intelligence sources say they still don't know if Hussein was buried in the rubble.
And there is no confirmation that a voice heard on a new cassette tape from Afghanistan is actually Osama bin Laden. But the voice does warn Muslims everywhere they are under threat from the United States. The message calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests to avenge deaths in Iraq.
HEMMER: Back here in Kuwait City, I'm Bill Hemmer.
Good afternoon from Kuwait.
Good morning back there in the U.S. Right about 5:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Just talking with Brent Sadler and his observations about what we're witnessing right now on the streets of Baghdad. In the north, though, fighting does continue. The Pentagon warned again yesterday that the war is not over. In fact, CENTCOM is talking that same way yet again today. A few moments ago we hared from that and Frank Thorp down in Qatar.
Brent Sadler is back with us, watching the northern front. Mortar rounds, I understand, Brent, going off yet again.
What's happening there? SADLER: That's right, Bill. Let me just catch you up here. There are still, as we heard from CENTCOM there, forces committed to the regime of Saddam Hussein still covering a huge area of territory here in northern Iraq. Just behind me over here, you'll see a .50 caliber machine gun on the back of that truck. That's U.S. special forces there, not peshmerga Iraqi Kurds on the ground. That's U.S. special forces working in small units, now having just begun, the special forces, that is, opening fire with mortar rounds against a ridge line position still held by Iraqi troops.
Now, this follows, this area in here follows intense air strikes over the past several days against this southeastern sector of the northern front. And what we're seeing here, if we pan around, is an abandoned, recently abandoned Iraqi position. But really all this begs the question as to how much of what's happening in Baghdad is getting to these remote locations. We're seeing the collapse of the regime, the very fabric of the regime collapsing, with these pictures we've had in over the past hour of people going on the streets celebrating, but in most cases looting the areas of around Saddam City, a very poor Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
But here in the north, you have really sharp contrasts. They're preparing for battle here, battle to take these areas behind me over there, which is about 90 miles north of Baghdad. The Iraqis have only pulled back over tonight about six or seven miles and they're still in this territory behind me, over there.
So U.S. special forces, we have a small group of them here now, really drawing up battle plans with the peshmerga to try and push those Iraqis away. At the same time, it's hoped here that news of what's happening in Baghdad has a ripple effect through the north in places like Mosul, in Tikrit, in Kirkuk, and really ripples through the north and that these people who are holding these lines committed to Saddam simply pack up the fight.
But there's no sign of that happening on the ground here as things stand now and we are expecting these positions to face heavy air strikes across the northern front -- Bill.
HEMMER: Brent, thank you.
Brent Sadler watching that northern front, as testament to that in the U.S. effort right now that says that the fighting is not yet over, especially in the north. Even yesterday, the U.S. Army started bringing more tanks and more armored vehicles in that part of the theater.
So as Brent pointed out, there is still some fighting under way. Perhaps the word hasn't trickled through.
Carol, I think it's interesting. It's about 1:30, about quarter to two local time in Baghdad. We have yet to hear from the minister of information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf. Every day he has spoken, sometimes many times in one day, be it live or on tape, conducting interviews with reporters in Baghdad. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, he was literally holding his press conferences on a sidewalk near a street in Baghdad. We have yet to see that tape. It may come today, perhaps, but at this point it has not been seen. The only sights we have are these scenes in eastern Baghdad of these people on the street cheering and, in some cases, we now know looting a number of government offices and military headquarters, as well -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And the other interesting thing, the Iraqi minders haven't shown up either at the Palestine Hotel, because as journalists travel through Baghdad, they're always accompanied by an Iraqi minder just to keep track of what those journalists might say, and they haven't showed up either.
We want to show you more of those extraordinary pictures from east central Baghdad, in case you're just joining us. Literal jubilation in the streets. I hope we show those pictures right now. In fact, as a Marine convoy passed through the streets there, people actually ran up to the Marines hugging them, throwing flowers at them. And as you can see, these men are chanting, and I'm going to translate for you now, they are chanting, "There is only one god and the enemy of god is Saddam Hussein."
Let's bring in Rula Amin now, who's spent a lot of time in Baghdad.
Did you ever think you would see this, Rula?
AMIN: It's a very astonishing scene, Carol, and I think even people, residents of Saddam City have been waiting for this moment. But I don't know how much faith they had that it will come. Now, all the signs are saying that the regime is collapsing. The U.S. is cautioning that this is not over yet.
However, residents of Saddam City seem to have made up their minds, it's over. Saddam Hussein no longer matters and his security troops no matter -- don't matter anymore. And that's why they are on the streets, cheering his fall, cheering the fall of the ruling Baath Party and welcoming U.S. troops, saying thank you for President Bush.
Now this is a very expected welcome from these people specifically. Saddam City is a very large, poor, over populous neighborhood, mostly Shiite Iraqis. Many of them have been imprisoned in Saddam Hussein's prisons. Some of them have been killed by his security forces. Other relatives, other members of their families have fled the country, away from his regime.
Very strong opposition to Saddam Hussein among these people. And so it's no wonder they are so happy to see him go. We did see these cheerful crowds. We also saw looting, as you had mentioned before.
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Aired April 9, 2003 - 05:00 ET
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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Five o'clock Eastern time.
I'm Carol Costello. We want to bring you up to date right now.
Here are the latest headlines at this hour.
Saddam City is celebrating. Listen to this. Hundreds of people cheering U.S. Marines in Saddam City, which is located in east central Baghdad. The crowds were dancing, they are dancing, as you can see, waving. And, yes, some threw flowers at the convoy of American Marines.
A senior U.S. Army officer tells our Walter Rodgers in Baghdad that the majority of Iraqi military forces there have given up, quit, run away or just blended back into the civilian population. Right now it is quiet in some parts of Baghdad, but Rodgers says U.S. troops remain on alert for ambush attacks. And while there seems to be no military action, some Baghdad citizens are on the move, looting government offices. People are carrying chairs and other furniture, anything they can carry. Plus, there are some reports that government workers, including Iraq's information minister, did not show up for work today.
Coalition forces are searching for two airmen. The two were aboard an F-15E that went down Sunday night near Tikrit. Tikrit is an area where there are not a lot of coalition forces. The F-15E was from the Fourth Fighter Wing out of the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog group, is accusing the U.S. military of deliberately firing on journalists. Three journalists were killed on Tuesday, two here at the Palestine Hotel and one at the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau. In both cases, the Pentagon says U.S. troops fired after being fired upon from those buildings.
The status of Saddam Hussein and his two sons remains a mystery this morning more than 24 hours after a U.S. air strike intended to kill the Iraqi leader. U.S. intelligence sources say they still don't know if Hussein was buried in the rubble.
And there is no confirmation that a voice heard on a new cassette tape from Afghanistan is actually Osama bin Laden. But the voice warns Muslims everywhere they are under threat from the United States. The message calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests to avenge the deaths in Iraq. For the first time in days, the streets of central Baghdad appear quiet. But behind the shuttered store fronts, on the side streets of this ancient city, tensions do remain high and U.S. troops stay alert for an ambush.
Good morning to you.
I'm Carol Costello at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, where it is five o'clock in the morning on the East Coast.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Bill Hemmer live in Kuwait City.
Carol, it is high noon here in Kuwait. It is one o'clock in the afternoon in Baghdad, Wednesday, April 9, day 21, three weeks to the date since the war in Iraq broke out.
And, Carol, you've watched those pictures a few moments ago. We want to take you back again to the demonstrations, the celebrations on the area known as Saddam City north and east of the capital of Baghdad. We are getting reports of widespread looting in areas, especially around the U.N. headquarters and also the Olympic Committee building. Police and other officials apparently absent from the streets to stop it. Cheering crowds hitting the U.N. headquarters in the Canal Hotel. We're told some were seen driving off in U.N. cars. Other eyewitnesses say that looters raided sports shops around the bombed Iraqi Olympic Committee building, which was run by one of Saddam Hussein's sons, the elder one, Uday, Carol.
But, again, all these images coming in right now. The Arabic translation, we are told, goes something like this: "There is only one god and Saddam is the enemy of god."
COSTELLO: And what a contrast these pictures are to closer to the airport, Bill. These are Iraqis in the streets literally cheering the end of Saddam's reign, at least we think so. As a Marine convoy pulled through this area of Baghdad, Iraqis hugged them. And, yes, they even threw flowers at them. And as you said, they were chanting something like, "The tyrant of the world is finished, thanks to the coalition. Thank god for Iraq, the victorious."
We actually saw earlier, too, Bill, that people were destroying large pictures of Saddam Hussein. We actually saw one Iraqi spitting on a large poster of Saddam Hussein and another hitting it with his shoe.
HEMMER: Yes, and all this, Carol, comes in an afternoon when the morning was described to us as mostly quiet along much of Baghdad after that power vacuum has now been filled, largely by the U.S. military. And if the reports continue to hold up the way we're getting them, Carol, it indicates the police is not there. The security presence is not there either. So it's quite possible these are the first of many images we will get in Baghdad.
We want to get away from that for a moment, give you the latest right now as we understand it right now on the war in Iraq. Rym Brahimi has checked her sources in the city. We want to show you a live picture of Baghdad right now. Rym tells us many still are fearful that pro-Saddam Hussein militias may be hiding out in preparation for more attacks. There was a report earlier that said perhaps 28,000 Fedayeen militia members might still be hiding in the city.
Meanwhile, as we have mentioned, some Iraqis are celebrating. Video just fed in in the last 30 minutes. And, again, that is something that we will continue to keep a track on.
Couple that now with a senior U.S. Army official officer who says the majority of Iraqi forces in the Baghdad area have abandoned their posts and abandoned their equipment. While elements of the 3rd Infantry occupy the heart of the capital, U.S. Marines occupying part of the southeastern portion of the town and outside Baghdad troops from the 101st Airborne Division are approaching the capital from the south. Walt Rodgers tells us coalition forces expect to double their troop strength in Baghdad over the next 24 hours or so.
We want to get more now on the celebrating in the streets of that Baghdad neighborhood under Saddam City.
And for that Rula Amin is with us in eastern Jordan -- Rula, what are you learning from your post there?
RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, sources at Saddam City say that crowds there are cheering. The residents at Saddam City seem to have decided the regime of Saddam Hussein is over. No more fear. They're out on the streets cheering the fall of the Iraqi government, welcoming U.S. troops and thanking U.S. President George Bush.
Saddam City is a poor, very populous neighborhood in Baghdad. About two million people live there, mostly Shiite Iraqis. For years they have been very angry at the Iraqi regime. They accuse the Iraqi regime of all kind of different things. Many of them have been in Iraqi government prisons. Many of their sons have been killed. Many have fled the country in fear of the regime. And today they went out on the streets with no fear and expressed all their anger and all of their jubilation that those days are over.
We saw pictures of them waving the black flag. That's a very symbolic flag for the Shiite community. Some of them were hitting at one of Saddam Hussein's pictures with his shoes, very angry. So it seems they are firm, they are sure there's no more Saddam Hussein, no more of the security forces.
We also know that there's been some looting in Baghdad. Many people stormed government buildings, grabbed whatever they can have -- refrigerators, plastic flowers, files, documents, whatever. Iraqi, for 12 years many were, after the U.N. sanctions, are very poor. Anything is valuable now, no matter what.
It seems it's also a mixed feeling, that they can do that. They can go into these government buildings where they couldn't go before, or if they did go, they went with fear. Going in there, storming it, taking everything they can have, chairs, and it's kind of trying to express that there is no more fear and that they can do it.
We also know that on the streets of Baghdad, Iraqi security forces almost disappeared. Very few on the streets with guns. Even Fedayeen Saddam, the most loyal to the regime, with their black uniforms, they got rid of their uniforms, out of the street and it seems that they are blending within the civilian neighborhood and community.
At the Palestine Hotel, where Western journalists are staying and where the Iraqi Information Ministry had had a desk and offices, no one, no official from that Ministry showed up this morning, including the information minister, who had been going to that hotel daily, giving his daily briefings there.
No one showed up today. This is very significant because in Iraq, journalists are not allowed to roam around without a government minder, a government escort, in order to make sure on what they report. Today, those minders didn't show up. Journalists were roaming around freely. We also do know that eyewitnesses say that the looting included going to the U.N. headquarters. People went into that building where the U.N. inspectors used to stay and where United Nations humanitarian workers, those who were in charge of distributing food to Iraqis, were staying.
They left that building, took everything they can get, and then drove off in the U.N. cars.
So it seems that the residents in Baghdad have decided no more Saddam Hussein. We don't know where he's about. We don't know where his sons are. But they are nowhere on the streets -- Bill.
HEMMER: Rula, thanks.
Rula Amin in eastern Jordan.
More from Baghdad when we get it.
Here's Carol again now in Atlanta.
COSTELLO: Yes, we want to head to the Pentagon right now, Bill, because when Americans see pictures like these, it's easy to come to the conclusion that, yes, the war may be over now, maybe soon -- Chris Plante, caution us.
CHRIS PLANTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.
Well, you know, these are the pictures that the Pentagon has sort of been waiting to see, to some extent, maybe minus the looting. But the celebration of large numbers of people coming out into the street. It should be noted because it's important to note, I think, that this is the Shia neighborhood in Baghdad, in the north and eastern part of the city. It's called Saddam City, this area.
It's generally regarded as being a, you know, I mean it's a low income area often described as the ghetto. Saddam Hussein and his inner circle, of course, are Sunni Muslims and there's not a great deal of love, at least in Iraq, between the Shia and the Sunni populations.
You know, southern Iraq is largely Shia. Iran, of course, largely Shia, also. But in the 1991 uprising in southern Iraq, the Shia Muslims rising up after the Persian Gulf War, the first Persian Gulf War, against the administration in Baghdad, the regime in Baghdad, that was an uprising that was put down brutally, 50,000 to 100,000 Shia killed by Saddam's forces there, the special Republican Guard, and the security forces there.
So there's certainly no love lost and these Shia Muslims inside of Baghdad also not treated as first class citizens. So you can expect to see this sort of reaction from them inside of the city.
There has been some indication of similar responses in Shia communities further south in Iraq. Certainly the Kurdish population in the north also welcoming the coalition forces.
Now, early on in this conflict, people were sort of wondering why there wasn't more celebrating in the streets at the arrival of the coalition troops. Many in the U.S. administration and in the British administration saying that they expected to be greeted as liberators and not as invaders or conquerors. Clearly, that is becoming more and more the case.
The math that has been done on this by people in Washington essentially suggests that the slow emergence of people coming out and celebrating in the street is as a result of their concern that the coalition wouldn't finish the job, that they would once again leave them hanging, as they did in 1991, that they would be cracked down on again, as they were in 1991, and there would be a great loss of life.
Now it appears that the public is coming to the realization or the conclusion that this really is the end of the regime of Saddam Hussein and celebrations are beginning. But fear kept them indoors before, fear that the Fedayeen would come out and retaliate against them if they did celebrate. There was at least one report out of Basra early on that a woman that came out to greet the forces, British forces, as they arrived there, waved, you know, in a cheerful fashion, was grabbed by the Fedayeen shortly after the British troops left and she was hanged from a lamppost to set an example for the rest there.
So this is the type of treatment that the Shia have received. The Kurds in the north, of course, have received similar treatment, and perhaps worse.
Now, members of Saddam's inner circle and the Fedayeen are the ones that have been coming out and striking against the military forces of the coalition.
One of the concerns that the Pentagon is looking at now is that once these public uprisings come into full swing, that there may be retaliatory killings of members of the Fedayeen and members of the Baath Party that have effectively brutalized the population of the country for decades now and repressed these populations. You know, it's a small inner circle of Saddam's friends and cronies that have profited from the oil revenues of the country and so on. And this is essentially what the planners of this military operation expected to happen or had hoped would happen earlier on in this process.
So now that it is happening, even with some sporadic fighting still taking place throughout the city, they expect that this will prompt more and more people to come out in the city. It's what the Pentagon refers to as the tipping point.
COSTELLO: Yes, and Chris...
PLANTE: That is when -- yes?
COSTELLO: I just want to interrupt you for a second because these pictures are such a contrast to what Walter Rodgers was reporting earlier in other parts of Baghdad, because I want everyone to keep in mind, this is a very large city. There is an eerie calm there and there are no signs of paramilitaries of the Fedayeen and literally didn't the U.S. military think there were tens of thousands of these kinds of troops within Baghdad? And, if so, where did they go?
PLANTE: Well, you know, the concern is that there still are at least thousands of these, particularly Fedayeen and some of the special Republican Guard people, soldiers inside of Baghdad. But when, again, it's, you know, I was just referring to the tipping point, when it reaches the stage, when a conflict like this reaches the stage where it becomes clear that the leadership is no longer in control, then those loyal, those that have been loyal to the leadership, that have been fighting to the last drop of blood, as it were, to defend the regime, once they see that the regime may be gone, if the information minister stopped showing up for work today -- this is the man who was saying that the coalition would find their graves here, that they would be destroyed -- if that has all come to an end, then today may be the final day, from what we're seeing here, of any significant resistance.
Now, organized resistance really melted away in the last couple of days and it's been sporadic guerrilla irregular warfare, picking at U.S. forces, sniping and that sort of thing.
COSTELLO: Well, on that note, Chris, will the mission of the coalition troops within Baghdad change?
PLANTE: Well, they still have to maintain a tight defensive posture and wait and see, quite honestly, whether these Fedayeen forces try to regroup. I, in conversations I've just had in the last couple of hours, I've been told that over the last 24 hours there have still been some instances where special Republican Guard units, along with Fedayeen and some other irregular forces, have been rallying up in mosques and in schools, gathering up in groups of 100 to 200 and confronting the U.S. forces head on.
They have not fared very well. I'm told that hundreds and hundreds of these troops, Iraqi troops, have been killed, very lopsided confrontations. Fifteen or 20 vehicles rushing a U.S. armored convoy and being destroyed in a matter of two to three minutes, I'm told, in each and every instance. So clearly the scale is being tipped to the other side here and as it becomes more and more clear that the coalition is there to stay and that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I think you're going to see these parties that feel that they have been repressed by the regime coming up and taking it out on the regime. One of the things that the coalition is concerned about is that they don't want to see a frenzy of killing of Saddam loyalists in the cities, you know, for just the maintenance of order, if nothing else.
But it seems likely that there will be at least some of that taking place. When, you know, when oppressors are toppled, the oppressed tend to rise up and exact vengeance. So now that you see celebrating in the streets, it's just another major -- and this is a major and very significant sign that the regime is losing or has lost control of the city of Baghdad, at least, certainly areas in the south. And U.S. and coalition forces continue to pound the remaining organized Iraqi forces in the north, as well.
So this may be a defining moment, a defining day, certainly, in the course of this conflict.
COSTELLO: Certainly so.
Chris Plante, we're going to let you get back to work so you can gather more information for us.
Thank you for that insight as we continue to look at these extraordinary pictures.
Let's throw it back to Kuwait City and Bill.
HEMMER: All right, look, Carol, listening to you and Chris Plante talk about that, it reminds us an awful lot of what happened yesterday in Basra with the looting that we saw, the British military witnessing that. We are under the understanding, though, that that was about a 24 hour period in which that looting was conducted in Basra. Largely a Shia population, as well, in Basra in the southeast.
Since that time, though, there has been some order restored in Basra and today we're told that it remains much more quiet than it has been over the past two days.
Back in Baghdad, though, clearly that is the story of the day at this point.
We want to get down to Tom Mintier at Central Command in Qatar with the U.S. military.
I'm certain, no doubt, Tom, they're watching these images and seeing what they are under way right now in Baghdad. I'm not sure if it brings a smile to their face. I don't know if it says see, we told you so. But at this point reaction is what?
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, I think over the last 20 days they have been waiting to see the signs of what would be perceived by some as victory. They always say the end of the regime, the end of the control of Saddam Hussein over the population would be seen as victory, if, indeed, there is a victory here.
Joining me now, Captain Frank Thorp, public affairs officer for CENTCOM.
You can't see the pictures we're getting in right now, new pictures from Baghdad. But there is jubilation in the streets. There are people going out and picking up refrigerators and carrying them on their back, anything that's not tied down in an office that was controlled by the regime is being picked up. The same signs, pictures that we saw in Basra are now being repeated in Baghdad.
What does this mean?
CAPT. FRANK THORP, CENTCOM SPOKESMAN: I think this needs to be taken in a broad context as to what is happening with the regime. In Basra, we saw this happen. The British have transitioned to more of a security and stabilization force there in Basra. And this is a one step at a time pace that we have to be on.
I think what some of these pictures that we're seeing this morning indicate is that the Iraqi people are no longer living under that tight grip of fear and torture and humiliation that the regime has exerted upon them for two or three decades.
So time will tell as we move forward here. Again, the ultimate goal, as you very well said, is the end of the regime. And if that's what we're starting to see here, again, it's one step.
MINTIER: Are these pictures an indication of that?
THORP: It could be that these pictures are indicating that the end of the regime is on its way, as we've been saying. It's a very deliberate pace we're on. It's not over. Tom, I would hazard that there may very well be some fierce days of fighting ahead. There's still some of the country, cities to the north, that we have not gotten into.
So we need to be very settled in our pace as we look at this and ensure that we look at the ultimate goal, the overall goal, and not to be too hasty in our conclusions here.
MINTIER: What challenges do you face in the days ahead? You have a city that's obviously erupting right now. There is no control per se. The police are not on the streets, people are driving the wrong way on one way streets, not obeying traffic lights. You're increasing the size of the military force in the ground. What's going to be their role in the coming hours in Baghdad with the current situation?
THORP: Well, I think what you're going to see is what you've overnight, is a continuing expansion of the areas that we're operating in, continuing to keep those forces supplied, continuing to defeat Iraqi resistance. We're still seeing some resistance there in the city.
MINTIER: Well, this is still a military operation? THORP: This is very clearly still a military operation. Reports overnight of sporadic but fierce firefights. And when I say that, I mean brief firefights lasting perhaps minutes, small numbers of vehicles, not an operate -- not an organized operation, but fierce fighting. And for those young soldiers and Marines who are on the ground and they're having weapons fired at them, we can only describe that as fierce as they continue to pursue this.
So as far as we're concerned, there's still a military operation going on. There's still many military objectives and step by step we need to look at this with that overall objective of the end of the regime.
MINTIER: But clearly there has been some trigger, whether it's the police pulling out, whether it's the minders not showing up for the journalists, the minister of information not holding his briefing, the clear lack of control by the regime on the city of Baghdad.
THORP: I think there's probably many different triggers that are happening. We are operating right there in the heart of the city. The Iraqi people are seeing that the, that what the coalition was saying for the last days, weeks and months, that we were committed to their liberation, we were committed to ridding the regime of weapons of mass destruction, that we're true to our word and that that commitment is being fulfilled.
And they're seeing it firsthand, as they've seen it in Basra and Najaf and al-Nasiriya. And now they're seeing it in Baghdad firsthand. That's perhaps one of the biggest triggers is that they're seeing our forces there and we're seeing that tight grip of the regime loosening up. But loosening up only in certain areas of the country.
So still a long way to go.
MINTIER: Where do these forces, these fighters that existed 24 hours ago in Baghdad, where have they gone?
THORP: Well, there's still a lot of them there. We have not seen the end of the Iraqi resistance in the city. A lot of them, quite frankly, have been defeated. We have several reports overnight, both from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force operating in the east of Baghdad and the 5th Corps operating there in the heart of the city of vehicles, of military vehicles confronting our forces, trying to take them under attack, being defeated, very firmly defeated.
But there's still forces operating in there. Several times I hear the term used melting away or something like that. Now, I have to be really clear, there are still fighting forces committed to the regime. Some of these forces, the special Republican Guard, they're committed to this regime and they know that when the end of the regime comes, their influence is over.
So they're still fighting for that power and influence that they think they may be able to maintain. The fact of the matter is they won't be able to.
MINTIER: What about Tikrit? We don't hear much about what's going on in Tikrit. It's still an ongoing operation up there?
THORP: Tikrit is an ongoing operation. We have blocked the roads between Baghdad and Tikrit to ensure that leadership regime leadership cannot escape to that city, as well as we have used our air dominance over the country to conduct air strikes on leadership facilities there in the city, as well as military forces that continue to be in and around that city.
MINTIER: All right, while we're seeing the pictures of celebrations in downtown Baghdad, there is definitely here at CENTCOM an air of cautious optimism, very cautious optimism, saying that while there is celebration on the streets and you see people rejecting, that all of Iraq, and even parts of the city of Baghdad, may not be showing the same images that you're seeing now in the center of the city, that there are still operations going on, there are still hostilities going on, that the word that apparently is spreading in downtown Baghdad has not gotten to the rest of the country yet -- Bill.
HEMMER: Tom, thanks.
Tom Mintier at CENTCOM.
We'll get a briefing in 90 minutes down there in Qatar at Central Command when they conduct their debriefing.
A few other things we're picking up watching the wires based on other reports we're getting, and not just cheering, but also the looting, as well. Some reporters in Baghdad indicate that military sites are favored targets. Government buildings are targets, as well, with Iraqis taking computers and book shelves, tables. Some reports of Iraqi jeeps being taken, as well.
There's a U.N. headquarters also in the city and there were earlier reports that indicated that some of the U.N. vehicles are being driven away, as well. They are well marked. They are white. They have U.N. stickers on them. A good chance you're not going to get very far driving that thing without somebody stopping and noticing.
Nonetheless, these are the images in parts of Baghdad today, we understand, it's the eastern part of the city, near Saddam City, and, again, as we have pointed out, mostly Shia. The country's population more than 60 percent is Shia, the rest being Kurds and Sunnis.
Carol, we'll watch it from here. Extraordinary images already today in Baghdad -- back to you now in Atlanta.
COSTELLO: Oh, certainly so. And you hear Tom Mintier says he's not sure if word of what's happening in Baghdad has spread to the rest of Iraq. Well, let's see if it has.
Let's go to northern Iraq right now, where Brent Sadler has been during this war -- Brent, has news of what's happening in Baghdad traveled to you?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, you couldn't get a sharper contrast between those incredibly active scenes in Baghdad of looting, of cheering the apparent demise of Saddam Hussein. I can tell you, having spent many, many years in Iraq myself in Baghdad, you know, you have the whole section of population there deprived after 12 years of sanctions. Many folks had to sell their belongings just to sustain a life there.
So the opportunity of being able to break into regime offices and walk off with refrigerators and household goods and this kind of thing, you know, it's hardly surprising. You know, the fact that they've been ruled the way they have, under that tyranny, for 30 years, there's going to be a free period of freefall, if you like, where people are just not going to be able to understand how life will take off again given the fact that all those instruments of tyranny are slowly being torn away.
You know, tearing down a picture carried a death sentence. I was just holding a torn picture of Saddam myself in this location I'm reporting to you from. I mean the fact that you are holding shreds of Saddam Hussein in very many parts of Iraq now is an incredible feeling just in itself.
If you come back to where I am now and look at the contrast here, I'm now speaking to you from an area of the southeastern part of the northern front, which has just come under the control of peshmerga. And if we swing the camera around, you'll see peshmerga having just taken this command bunker over here. (AUDIO GAP)
COSTELLO: We seem to have lost Brent.
We're going to take a break.
Hopefully we'll get Brent Sadler back up.
But as you saw, much celebration in parts of Baghdad this morning.
We're going to show you more when we come back.
COMMERCIAL
COSTELLO: 5:31 Eastern Time.
Carol Costello here.
Here are the headlines at this hour.
Saddam City is celebrating. Take a look. Hundreds of people cheering U.S. Marines in Saddam City, which is located in east central Baghdad. And you can see these extraordinary pictures, too, of people actually hitting with a shoe a giant poster of Saddam Hussein and shortly you'll see another man come over and he actually spits on this picture. This would mean a death sentence if Saddam Hussein were still in power.
Soon you'll see cheering in the streets as a Marine convoy passed through this part of Baghdad. People actually came hugging them and, yes, they were even throwing flowers. And there you see more of that destruction of the poster of Saddam Hussein.
A senior U.S. Army officer tells our Walter Rodgers, though, in Baghdad, that the majority of Iraqi military forces there have given up, quit, run away or just blended into the civilian population. Right now it's quiet, but Rodgers says U.S. troops remain on alert for ambush attacks.
And while there seems to be no military action, some Baghdad citizens are on the move, looting government offices. People are carrying chairs and other furniture, anything they can carry, plus there are some reports some government workers, including Iraq's information minister, did not even show up for work today.
Coalition forces are searching for two airmen. The two were aboard an F-15E that went down Sunday night near Tikrit. Tikrit is an area where there are not a lot of coalition forces. The F-15E was from the Fourth Fighter Wing out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog group, is accusing the U.S. military of deliberately firing on journalists. Three journalists were killed on Tuesday, two here at the Palestine Hotel and one at the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau. In both cases the Pentagon says U.S. troops fired after being fired upon from those buildings.
And the status of Saddam Hussein and his two sons remains a mystery more than 24 hours after a U.S. air strike intended to kill the Iraqi leader. U.S. intelligence sources say they still don't know if Hussein was buried in the rubble.
And there is no confirmation that a voice heard on a new cassette tape from Afghanistan is actually Osama bin Laden. But the voice does warn Muslims everywhere they are under threat from the United States. The message calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests to avenge deaths in Iraq.
HEMMER: Back here in Kuwait City, I'm Bill Hemmer.
Good afternoon from Kuwait.
Good morning back there in the U.S. Right about 5:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Just talking with Brent Sadler and his observations about what we're witnessing right now on the streets of Baghdad. In the north, though, fighting does continue. The Pentagon warned again yesterday that the war is not over. In fact, CENTCOM is talking that same way yet again today. A few moments ago we hared from that and Frank Thorp down in Qatar.
Brent Sadler is back with us, watching the northern front. Mortar rounds, I understand, Brent, going off yet again.
What's happening there? SADLER: That's right, Bill. Let me just catch you up here. There are still, as we heard from CENTCOM there, forces committed to the regime of Saddam Hussein still covering a huge area of territory here in northern Iraq. Just behind me over here, you'll see a .50 caliber machine gun on the back of that truck. That's U.S. special forces there, not peshmerga Iraqi Kurds on the ground. That's U.S. special forces working in small units, now having just begun, the special forces, that is, opening fire with mortar rounds against a ridge line position still held by Iraqi troops.
Now, this follows, this area in here follows intense air strikes over the past several days against this southeastern sector of the northern front. And what we're seeing here, if we pan around, is an abandoned, recently abandoned Iraqi position. But really all this begs the question as to how much of what's happening in Baghdad is getting to these remote locations. We're seeing the collapse of the regime, the very fabric of the regime collapsing, with these pictures we've had in over the past hour of people going on the streets celebrating, but in most cases looting the areas of around Saddam City, a very poor Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
But here in the north, you have really sharp contrasts. They're preparing for battle here, battle to take these areas behind me over there, which is about 90 miles north of Baghdad. The Iraqis have only pulled back over tonight about six or seven miles and they're still in this territory behind me, over there.
So U.S. special forces, we have a small group of them here now, really drawing up battle plans with the peshmerga to try and push those Iraqis away. At the same time, it's hoped here that news of what's happening in Baghdad has a ripple effect through the north in places like Mosul, in Tikrit, in Kirkuk, and really ripples through the north and that these people who are holding these lines committed to Saddam simply pack up the fight.
But there's no sign of that happening on the ground here as things stand now and we are expecting these positions to face heavy air strikes across the northern front -- Bill.
HEMMER: Brent, thank you.
Brent Sadler watching that northern front, as testament to that in the U.S. effort right now that says that the fighting is not yet over, especially in the north. Even yesterday, the U.S. Army started bringing more tanks and more armored vehicles in that part of the theater.
So as Brent pointed out, there is still some fighting under way. Perhaps the word hasn't trickled through.
Carol, I think it's interesting. It's about 1:30, about quarter to two local time in Baghdad. We have yet to hear from the minister of information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf. Every day he has spoken, sometimes many times in one day, be it live or on tape, conducting interviews with reporters in Baghdad. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, he was literally holding his press conferences on a sidewalk near a street in Baghdad. We have yet to see that tape. It may come today, perhaps, but at this point it has not been seen. The only sights we have are these scenes in eastern Baghdad of these people on the street cheering and, in some cases, we now know looting a number of government offices and military headquarters, as well -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And the other interesting thing, the Iraqi minders haven't shown up either at the Palestine Hotel, because as journalists travel through Baghdad, they're always accompanied by an Iraqi minder just to keep track of what those journalists might say, and they haven't showed up either.
We want to show you more of those extraordinary pictures from east central Baghdad, in case you're just joining us. Literal jubilation in the streets. I hope we show those pictures right now. In fact, as a Marine convoy passed through the streets there, people actually ran up to the Marines hugging them, throwing flowers at them. And as you can see, these men are chanting, and I'm going to translate for you now, they are chanting, "There is only one god and the enemy of god is Saddam Hussein."
Let's bring in Rula Amin now, who's spent a lot of time in Baghdad.
Did you ever think you would see this, Rula?
AMIN: It's a very astonishing scene, Carol, and I think even people, residents of Saddam City have been waiting for this moment. But I don't know how much faith they had that it will come. Now, all the signs are saying that the regime is collapsing. The U.S. is cautioning that this is not over yet.
However, residents of Saddam City seem to have made up their minds, it's over. Saddam Hussein no longer matters and his security troops no matter -- don't matter anymore. And that's why they are on the streets, cheering his fall, cheering the fall of the ruling Baath Party and welcoming U.S. troops, saying thank you for President Bush.
Now this is a very expected welcome from these people specifically. Saddam City is a very large, poor, over populous neighborhood, mostly Shiite Iraqis. Many of them have been imprisoned in Saddam Hussein's prisons. Some of them have been killed by his security forces. Other relatives, other members of their families have fled the country, away from his regime.
Very strong opposition to Saddam Hussein among these people. And so it's no wonder they are so happy to see him go. We did see these cheerful crowds. We also saw looting, as you had mentioned before.
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