Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

War in Iraq: Heading Home

Aired April 11, 2003 - 06:11   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: You heard Chris mention that in northern Iraq an informal letter of surrender has been signed by the head of Iraq's Army 5th Corps in the city of Mosul and throughout northern Iraq there have been mass surrenders.
CNN's Brent Sadler brings you pictures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am now on a main road in a recently liberated area. And what we've seen coming along this road has been an exodus, a mass movement of unarmed soldiers from Saddam Hussein's defeated army here in northern Iraq.

We brought some of the soldiers to our position and asked them what they were planning to do and how they'll get home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we are from southern of Iraq, and we don't have -- we have nothing, neither money nor water and no food. So we are going to walk -- to walk to southern of Iraq if we will not find any cars or any means to get there.

SADLER: You could see that many of the men were not wearing boots as some of their feet they complained about being cracked and blistered. A grueling journey ahead, but they said they were nevertheless thankful that the collapse of Saddam Hussein's army meant that their conscripted life as soldiers under the command and control of the former Iraqi dictator was now well and truly over.

Now they gave some incredible inside accounts of what it was like to serve in the Iraqi northern army over the past few weeks. They said they had been forced to fight at gunpoint. They said that their officers had run away several days ago, but not before confiscating their identification papers. Now you can't travel in Iraq under the old regime without travel papers. So, in effect, that force was told just to stay in their positions.

Now they looked in reasonably good shape, did not seem to pose any sort of security threat. This was an exodus, a peaceful exodus, moving, drifting along this road. Now they did, however, well, they were rather, however, clearly new staff (ph). Many of them did not know the magnitude of events that had been taking place over these past few days. They had no radios, no real forms of communication.

When they first saw Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga fighters coming towards them, they didn't know what to do they said. They simply fell back and kept their weapons. But then when it became clear they were going to be overrun, they did hand over their weapons, surrendered and then were checked -- very lightly checked.

So really an unsupervised movement, no American military presence on the ground. And the Kurds themselves, the Iraqi fighters are paying little interest now that their former enemy was on a long walk to freedom going back home to southern Iraq.

Brent Sadler, CNN, near Kifri in northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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 11, 2003 - 06:11   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: You heard Chris mention that in northern Iraq an informal letter of surrender has been signed by the head of Iraq's Army 5th Corps in the city of Mosul and throughout northern Iraq there have been mass surrenders.
CNN's Brent Sadler brings you pictures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am now on a main road in a recently liberated area. And what we've seen coming along this road has been an exodus, a mass movement of unarmed soldiers from Saddam Hussein's defeated army here in northern Iraq.

We brought some of the soldiers to our position and asked them what they were planning to do and how they'll get home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we are from southern of Iraq, and we don't have -- we have nothing, neither money nor water and no food. So we are going to walk -- to walk to southern of Iraq if we will not find any cars or any means to get there.

SADLER: You could see that many of the men were not wearing boots as some of their feet they complained about being cracked and blistered. A grueling journey ahead, but they said they were nevertheless thankful that the collapse of Saddam Hussein's army meant that their conscripted life as soldiers under the command and control of the former Iraqi dictator was now well and truly over.

Now they gave some incredible inside accounts of what it was like to serve in the Iraqi northern army over the past few weeks. They said they had been forced to fight at gunpoint. They said that their officers had run away several days ago, but not before confiscating their identification papers. Now you can't travel in Iraq under the old regime without travel papers. So, in effect, that force was told just to stay in their positions.

Now they looked in reasonably good shape, did not seem to pose any sort of security threat. This was an exodus, a peaceful exodus, moving, drifting along this road. Now they did, however, well, they were rather, however, clearly new staff (ph). Many of them did not know the magnitude of events that had been taking place over these past few days. They had no radios, no real forms of communication.

When they first saw Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga fighters coming towards them, they didn't know what to do they said. They simply fell back and kept their weapons. But then when it became clear they were going to be overrun, they did hand over their weapons, surrendered and then were checked -- very lightly checked.

So really an unsupervised movement, no American military presence on the ground. And the Kurds themselves, the Iraqi fighters are paying little interest now that their former enemy was on a long walk to freedom going back home to southern Iraq.

Brent Sadler, CNN, near Kifri in northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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