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CNN Live Today
CNN Journalists Targeted in Northern Iraq
Aired April 11, 2003 - 11:48 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, Brent Sadler is a name and a face with which our audience should be quite familiar. We've seen Brent throughout this entire conflict, as well as other stories in the past, and Brent is in northern Iraq. Brent is the one who, actually, did come up with these tapes of these confessions here, and Brent is joining us right now on the telephone. And Brent, as I understand it, you were one of the journalists who basically was -- would be walking around with a bullseye on your back, correct?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Leon. Absolutely. We were the team that was targeted. I have been, for the past many, many months building up our operations here in northern Iraq to cover the war, to cover the conflict which is now coming to an end.
We were aware, many, many times the deep Kurdish concerns about our safety, and to correspond with those concerns, we took extraordinary security precautions in terms of sandbagging, around the clock guards to try and make sure that we had a good chance of withstanding such an attack. I did see these tapes. I was given access to them several weeks ago. And it was 500 kilos, 1,000 pounds of TNT was targeted to be used in a machine gun and rocket propelled grenade attack that was aimed at blowing us up.
If not blowing us up, then either taking some of us hostage, killing the others. If you go through all these tapes, and possibly to make it look like an Islamic extremist, a fundamentalist operation. This was a detailed plot to take CNN and our reporting ability off the map in northern Iraq, in crucial buildup months to the war.
What makes it even worse, like Eason Jordan, our chief news executive, I know many of these officials personally, myself. Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf I know personally. Many of the Iraqi senior levels for many, many years, and to have this information that they were plotting with agents on the ground to blow us up, to kill us, is obviously very chilling, and has put tremendous stress on all our team members working under extremely difficult conditions and under duress during these critical weeks and months -- Leon.
HARRIS: Brent, real quickly. Did you ever found out who gave the order to actually put this plan into effect? Did this order come from Saddam Hussein himself? Did it come from the information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahaf, and how close did it actually come to being pulled off, do you know?
SADLER: I think if you put the pieces together, the confessions of those agents who, at the end of those tapes, if you saw them in their entirety, apologize for the deeds they would have done against us. These are people acting under duress from the old Iraqi regime. I can't say whether Sahaf, the information minister, gave the order. I doubt it, because he wasn't a military man, he was an information man, a propaganda man. We are talking here about the very core of the old regime, the intelligence that is at the very heart of that dark -- that dark regime, which would get involved in all sorts of acts against its own citizens to repress, to keep them from speaking their thoughts, their minds.
The whole game from Iraq's point of view was to keep Western media out of the north, to keep CNN in particular out of the north, in the weeks to build up -- the months to the build up of the war, and I am sure that would have come from the very highest level of the old Iraqi regime -- Leon.
HARRIS: Well, Brent, I speak for everyone in this room, everyone in this building, everyone in this organization without a shadow of a doubt that we are glad this plot had no chance of being pulled off, and that you and your colleagues were able to pull off what you did pull off in your coverage in northern Iraq. All the best to you, Brent. Thanks much.
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 - 11:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, Brent Sadler is a name and a face with which our audience should be quite familiar. We've seen Brent throughout this entire conflict, as well as other stories in the past, and Brent is in northern Iraq. Brent is the one who, actually, did come up with these tapes of these confessions here, and Brent is joining us right now on the telephone. And Brent, as I understand it, you were one of the journalists who basically was -- would be walking around with a bullseye on your back, correct?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Leon. Absolutely. We were the team that was targeted. I have been, for the past many, many months building up our operations here in northern Iraq to cover the war, to cover the conflict which is now coming to an end.
We were aware, many, many times the deep Kurdish concerns about our safety, and to correspond with those concerns, we took extraordinary security precautions in terms of sandbagging, around the clock guards to try and make sure that we had a good chance of withstanding such an attack. I did see these tapes. I was given access to them several weeks ago. And it was 500 kilos, 1,000 pounds of TNT was targeted to be used in a machine gun and rocket propelled grenade attack that was aimed at blowing us up.
If not blowing us up, then either taking some of us hostage, killing the others. If you go through all these tapes, and possibly to make it look like an Islamic extremist, a fundamentalist operation. This was a detailed plot to take CNN and our reporting ability off the map in northern Iraq, in crucial buildup months to the war.
What makes it even worse, like Eason Jordan, our chief news executive, I know many of these officials personally, myself. Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf I know personally. Many of the Iraqi senior levels for many, many years, and to have this information that they were plotting with agents on the ground to blow us up, to kill us, is obviously very chilling, and has put tremendous stress on all our team members working under extremely difficult conditions and under duress during these critical weeks and months -- Leon.
HARRIS: Brent, real quickly. Did you ever found out who gave the order to actually put this plan into effect? Did this order come from Saddam Hussein himself? Did it come from the information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahaf, and how close did it actually come to being pulled off, do you know?
SADLER: I think if you put the pieces together, the confessions of those agents who, at the end of those tapes, if you saw them in their entirety, apologize for the deeds they would have done against us. These are people acting under duress from the old Iraqi regime. I can't say whether Sahaf, the information minister, gave the order. I doubt it, because he wasn't a military man, he was an information man, a propaganda man. We are talking here about the very core of the old regime, the intelligence that is at the very heart of that dark -- that dark regime, which would get involved in all sorts of acts against its own citizens to repress, to keep them from speaking their thoughts, their minds.
The whole game from Iraq's point of view was to keep Western media out of the north, to keep CNN in particular out of the north, in the weeks to build up -- the months to the build up of the war, and I am sure that would have come from the very highest level of the old Iraqi regime -- Leon.
HARRIS: Well, Brent, I speak for everyone in this room, everyone in this building, everyone in this organization without a shadow of a doubt that we are glad this plot had no chance of being pulled off, and that you and your colleagues were able to pull off what you did pull off in your coverage in northern Iraq. All the best to you, Brent. Thanks much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com