Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Iraqis Target Saddam Symbols in Baghdad

Aired April 09, 2003 - 10:23   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: I think we have Simon Robinson back on the telephone with us from "Time" magazine, who is standing right there in the middle of this square, as this tank tow vehicle gets ready to pull down the statue, along with the help of a lot of Iraqi civilians.
Simon, are you with us?

SIMON ROBINSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: I am with you.

I'm seeing, there is an Iraqi up on the statue. What happened was rather than the rope, which was around his neck, which the Iraqis put on, they've got a steel cable now, which seems to come with the tank. They put it around the leg. It slipped down the leg. So it was a little bit dangerous, I think, to pull it over. The Marines and the Iraqis are now working together to work out engineering, if you like, the best way to topple this statue.

ZAHN: It's a remarkable scene, isn't it, the forging of these coalition forces with Iraqi civilians to bring down this statue, Simon.

ROBINSON: It is. You can probably see on the picture now, they're using the rope to pull up a heavy chain. I guess they'll attach the chain around the legs of the statue and try and pull it back with this big tank. It's a tank with a turret. It's in fact a rescue tank in a battle. This type of vehicle is used if a tank is damaged in any way. It can go in and use a crane on the top of it to pull it back from the battlefield.

But a very, very heavy vehicle. We're talking thousands of tons. Once they get this big metal chain attached around the base of the metal statue, and I'm sure that they will put this tank into reverse and try and topple the statue.

ZAHN: Simon, you were also saying, mixed in with this crowd of Iraqi civilians were probably a couple dozen human shields. Have you had the opportunity to talk with these folk and see where they were from?

ROBINSON: Not yet. I did overhear a couple. Some are from Europe. And as Christiane mentioned, there was a sign held up by some Iraqis, which in no uncertain terms, told them to go home. But mostly it's amusement seemingly that the Iraqis see them with some amusement, perhaps, is my limited impression from here.

ZAHN: Simon, as we lost our signal with you, we caught up with -- we actually gathered some new information. The Vice President Dick Cheney saying this morning -- quote -- "We are seeing the collapse of the central regime authority." And that's according to Reuters. He apparently said that in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And he also said he could not predict with certainty how long this war with Iraq will last. Let me see if I can see if the -- and he cautioned the American public there was still a lot of work to get done. This is not over yet.

ROBINSON: Obviously, yes, that's true.

I think what we're seeing today is very important symbolically, however, because as I moved with the Marines through southern Iraq and to the north, at first I had very little interaction with Iraqis.

But after talking to colleagues who were working in Southern Iraq, the overwhelming impression that everyone's got, is that until a town is secure and Baath Party officials and local military officials have been neutralized, either killed, I guess, by American forces or put under some sort of arrest, they won't feel confident enough to come out on to the streets, as we're seeing now. They don't feel -- they still are scared.

And as we saw in Basra, until the British forces went into central Basra, secured that area, the Iraqi people didn't feel -- didn't have enough confidence to come out themselves. They still remember 1991 when there was the uprising after the first Gulf War, and it was put down quite ruthlessly by the Saddam -- Saddam's dictatorship. But now, as we're seeing around this square, at least, in this small portion of central eastern Baghdad, there's enough confidence with locals to come out to show that they're no longer scared, at least in this second of the city.

And as we heard earlier from Martin Savidge, only two miles away, there is some fierce fighting going on. So while what we're seeing might be isolated, symbolically it's quite important.

ZAHN: Simon, we are breaking away in the left-hand portion of our screen to a picture that is on fire. We have no context for this. But Al-Jazeera reporting that this -- and we're not scene sure whether it's a government building or not, but this particular building is on fire as a result of looting. We have heard many stories about the kind of looting that is going on across the city, particularly in Saddam City, where dozens and dozens of Iraqis have gone into government buildings and taken furniture. and ashtrays and plumbing fixtures, and once again, we're going to break away from that picture now. That is a picture that Al-Jazeera is broadcasting live.

Simon, are you still with me?

ROBINSON: I am with you, yes. Shots just were fired. I think they're coming from a building close to the -- the Iraqis are -- everyone on the square kind of, you know, getting low to the ground and moving away. Even as we talk about the importance of seeing people on the streets, there is trepidation and fear obviously still.

ZAHN: And from where you're standing in the square, could you see what direction those shots were coming from?

ROBINSON: They looked like they were coming from the west. It's very difficult to tell. But everyone did look to the west when those shots rang out. People are kind of milling around. I wouldn't say everyone's kind of disappeared. Still from the scene that you can probably see in front of you, they're still milling around, but a little trepidation.

Yesterday, I saw quite a lot of looting that you were referring to in southeastern Baghdad. We were in an area where there was a technical college, and people were going into that technical college and taking everything from desks to fridges, swivel office chairs, air-conditioning units. So any kind of government or official building they -- the people once they have been -- the areas taken by Americans, people do seem to be looting those areas.

ZAHN: Yes, we are reminded of some of the looting that I guess took place at the Iraqi Olympic Committee building, which was considered the headquarters of Saddam's elder son, Uday . Apparently, anything that could have been removed from that building was taken out.

As we watch the quick reaction to some of the gunfire these Marines heard, can you describe to us the level of concerns the Marines have about just these kind of encounters and what it is they have to be prepared for?

ROBINSON: One of the big concerns with this, and this is the first time that at least this battalion has encountered anything quite like this, but one of their concerns is that a lot of the enemy resistance they have come up against in the last, especially week, has involved the use of civilians as shields or enemy in -- Iraqi soldiers in plainclothes in urban areas, blending into the local population, working in small gangs of two or three people. They'll fire a weapon, then they'll drop the weapon and simply walk into the street and blend in with other civilians or walk down the street with a white flag out as if they had nothing to do with whatever just happened.

And obviously, that's a concern for the Marines, because it makes engaging with enemy forces very, very difficult, next to impossible to work out who is friendly and who is not.

So balancing out kind of the aggression needed to be able to come into central Baghdad and witness the things that we're seeing, and balancing that with not intimidating locals so that you're not scaring anyone is a very, very difficult proposition that they're facing.

ZAHN: We have the screen now divided into two parts, where we're keeping an eye on the Marines responding to that sporadic gunfire, and then, of course, on the right-hand part of the screen, which we've been watching now for an hour and a half, Iraqi citizens at first throwing shoes at the statue, then wrapping a rope around the neck of the statue, now being helped out by a U.S. tow truck vehicle to bring down the statue.

We saw another part of the statue come down, another part of Iraq, a couple days ago, and I was looking at a recipe that someone from the U.S. Army used to bring that down, and he just recited the explosive recipe as eight blocks of C-4, one M-12, that shock tube. It will detonate when you push the button, one M-11, another shock tube, one M-14, a timer fuse set for five minute, two M-81 fuse igniters, in case the shock tube doesn't blow, 50 feet of detonation cord. That's what it took to bring down another statue earlier.

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 9, 2003 - 10:23   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: I think we have Simon Robinson back on the telephone with us from "Time" magazine, who is standing right there in the middle of this square, as this tank tow vehicle gets ready to pull down the statue, along with the help of a lot of Iraqi civilians.
Simon, are you with us?

SIMON ROBINSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: I am with you.

I'm seeing, there is an Iraqi up on the statue. What happened was rather than the rope, which was around his neck, which the Iraqis put on, they've got a steel cable now, which seems to come with the tank. They put it around the leg. It slipped down the leg. So it was a little bit dangerous, I think, to pull it over. The Marines and the Iraqis are now working together to work out engineering, if you like, the best way to topple this statue.

ZAHN: It's a remarkable scene, isn't it, the forging of these coalition forces with Iraqi civilians to bring down this statue, Simon.

ROBINSON: It is. You can probably see on the picture now, they're using the rope to pull up a heavy chain. I guess they'll attach the chain around the legs of the statue and try and pull it back with this big tank. It's a tank with a turret. It's in fact a rescue tank in a battle. This type of vehicle is used if a tank is damaged in any way. It can go in and use a crane on the top of it to pull it back from the battlefield.

But a very, very heavy vehicle. We're talking thousands of tons. Once they get this big metal chain attached around the base of the metal statue, and I'm sure that they will put this tank into reverse and try and topple the statue.

ZAHN: Simon, you were also saying, mixed in with this crowd of Iraqi civilians were probably a couple dozen human shields. Have you had the opportunity to talk with these folk and see where they were from?

ROBINSON: Not yet. I did overhear a couple. Some are from Europe. And as Christiane mentioned, there was a sign held up by some Iraqis, which in no uncertain terms, told them to go home. But mostly it's amusement seemingly that the Iraqis see them with some amusement, perhaps, is my limited impression from here.

ZAHN: Simon, as we lost our signal with you, we caught up with -- we actually gathered some new information. The Vice President Dick Cheney saying this morning -- quote -- "We are seeing the collapse of the central regime authority." And that's according to Reuters. He apparently said that in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And he also said he could not predict with certainty how long this war with Iraq will last. Let me see if I can see if the -- and he cautioned the American public there was still a lot of work to get done. This is not over yet.

ROBINSON: Obviously, yes, that's true.

I think what we're seeing today is very important symbolically, however, because as I moved with the Marines through southern Iraq and to the north, at first I had very little interaction with Iraqis.

But after talking to colleagues who were working in Southern Iraq, the overwhelming impression that everyone's got, is that until a town is secure and Baath Party officials and local military officials have been neutralized, either killed, I guess, by American forces or put under some sort of arrest, they won't feel confident enough to come out on to the streets, as we're seeing now. They don't feel -- they still are scared.

And as we saw in Basra, until the British forces went into central Basra, secured that area, the Iraqi people didn't feel -- didn't have enough confidence to come out themselves. They still remember 1991 when there was the uprising after the first Gulf War, and it was put down quite ruthlessly by the Saddam -- Saddam's dictatorship. But now, as we're seeing around this square, at least, in this small portion of central eastern Baghdad, there's enough confidence with locals to come out to show that they're no longer scared, at least in this second of the city.

And as we heard earlier from Martin Savidge, only two miles away, there is some fierce fighting going on. So while what we're seeing might be isolated, symbolically it's quite important.

ZAHN: Simon, we are breaking away in the left-hand portion of our screen to a picture that is on fire. We have no context for this. But Al-Jazeera reporting that this -- and we're not scene sure whether it's a government building or not, but this particular building is on fire as a result of looting. We have heard many stories about the kind of looting that is going on across the city, particularly in Saddam City, where dozens and dozens of Iraqis have gone into government buildings and taken furniture. and ashtrays and plumbing fixtures, and once again, we're going to break away from that picture now. That is a picture that Al-Jazeera is broadcasting live.

Simon, are you still with me?

ROBINSON: I am with you, yes. Shots just were fired. I think they're coming from a building close to the -- the Iraqis are -- everyone on the square kind of, you know, getting low to the ground and moving away. Even as we talk about the importance of seeing people on the streets, there is trepidation and fear obviously still.

ZAHN: And from where you're standing in the square, could you see what direction those shots were coming from?

ROBINSON: They looked like they were coming from the west. It's very difficult to tell. But everyone did look to the west when those shots rang out. People are kind of milling around. I wouldn't say everyone's kind of disappeared. Still from the scene that you can probably see in front of you, they're still milling around, but a little trepidation.

Yesterday, I saw quite a lot of looting that you were referring to in southeastern Baghdad. We were in an area where there was a technical college, and people were going into that technical college and taking everything from desks to fridges, swivel office chairs, air-conditioning units. So any kind of government or official building they -- the people once they have been -- the areas taken by Americans, people do seem to be looting those areas.

ZAHN: Yes, we are reminded of some of the looting that I guess took place at the Iraqi Olympic Committee building, which was considered the headquarters of Saddam's elder son, Uday . Apparently, anything that could have been removed from that building was taken out.

As we watch the quick reaction to some of the gunfire these Marines heard, can you describe to us the level of concerns the Marines have about just these kind of encounters and what it is they have to be prepared for?

ROBINSON: One of the big concerns with this, and this is the first time that at least this battalion has encountered anything quite like this, but one of their concerns is that a lot of the enemy resistance they have come up against in the last, especially week, has involved the use of civilians as shields or enemy in -- Iraqi soldiers in plainclothes in urban areas, blending into the local population, working in small gangs of two or three people. They'll fire a weapon, then they'll drop the weapon and simply walk into the street and blend in with other civilians or walk down the street with a white flag out as if they had nothing to do with whatever just happened.

And obviously, that's a concern for the Marines, because it makes engaging with enemy forces very, very difficult, next to impossible to work out who is friendly and who is not.

So balancing out kind of the aggression needed to be able to come into central Baghdad and witness the things that we're seeing, and balancing that with not intimidating locals so that you're not scaring anyone is a very, very difficult proposition that they're facing.

ZAHN: We have the screen now divided into two parts, where we're keeping an eye on the Marines responding to that sporadic gunfire, and then, of course, on the right-hand part of the screen, which we've been watching now for an hour and a half, Iraqi citizens at first throwing shoes at the statue, then wrapping a rope around the neck of the statue, now being helped out by a U.S. tow truck vehicle to bring down the statue.

We saw another part of the statue come down, another part of Iraq, a couple days ago, and I was looking at a recipe that someone from the U.S. Army used to bring that down, and he just recited the explosive recipe as eight blocks of C-4, one M-12, that shock tube. It will detonate when you push the button, one M-11, another shock tube, one M-14, a timer fuse set for five minute, two M-81 fuse igniters, in case the shock tube doesn't blow, 50 feet of detonation cord. That's what it took to bring down another statue earlier.

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