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American Morning
AMERICAN MORNING Looks at Iraq War, Masters Golf
Aired April 12, 2003 - 09:00 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And, of course, it has been unusually cold and wet and unforgiving. The group that wants Augusta National to open membership to women plans a protest about a half-mile from the game.
Now, turning to some of the war developments that we're following this hour, plans for a postwar Iraq. We'll take a look at rebuilding Iraq through the eyes of the Arab world.
And we'll take you to the Masters golf tournament, where women activists plan to rally today against the Augusta's male-only membership policy.
And can he be the next pop icon? Iraq's truth-challenged, if you will, minister of information has become a very popular man.
And good morning from CNN's global headquarters in Atlanta. It's 9:00 a.m. now on the East Coast, 5:00 p.m. in Baghdad. I'm Leon Harris.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins. Today is Saturday, April 12. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING SATURDAY, everybody.
Some people living in Baghdad are taking the law into their own hands, capturing and beating up those they catch looting. A mob descended onto a government building in Mosul, breaking in to pillage and plunder. When Saddam Hussein's regime was in power, they were denied access to the same building they are now destroying.
The northern city of Kirkuk was liberated Thursday. And as the Iraqi front line moved from there to Tikrit, the looting began with some villagers even being attacked and their property stolen.
Here's a look now at our early briefing, and some of the stories you can expect later on today.
Saddam Hussein's fall from power will be the focus of President Bush's weekly radio address this morning. It begins at 10:06 Eastern, just about an hour from now.
Rescued prisoner of war Private First Class Jessica Lynch is on her way back to the U.S. from Germany today. She will get treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
And a memorial service will take place this evening in Tuba City, Arizona, for Army Private First Class Lori Piestewa. She was a member of the 507th Maintenance Unit that was ambushed in southern Iraq on March 23.
HARRIS: Well, Private Jessica Lynch was also a member of that unit, and she's practically going to be in her own backyard when she has checked into Walter Reed Hospital later on this afternoon. Lynch is from a small town in West Virginia, Palestine, West Virginia. And until now, she's been at a U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany.
Now, as you'll recall, she had some serious injuries when she was rescued by U.S. special forces. She had been taken prisoner when the Army maintenance company that she was with was ambushed by Iraqis near An Nasiriyah last month.
Forty-nine other injured troops are also on the same flight, along with Lynch's family. They've all been staying with her in Germany. Before that plane departed, her family had this statement read by a military spokesman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. MIKE YOUNG, U.S. AIR FORCE (reading): "It is almost impossible to express how grateful we are to the brave American service members who participated in Jessie's rescue and to the courageous Iraqi citizens who risked their lives to make her rescue possible. Jessie is alive because of their sacrifices.
"Jessie's recovery continues, and she is doing well. She is in pain, but she is in good spirits. Although she faces a lengthy rehabilitation, she is tough. We believe she will regain her strength soon.
"Our family is proud of Jessie. In our eyes, she and her rescuers are heroes. But we also understand that Jessie was a soldier performing her duty, the same way thousands of other service members perform their duties every day. Our thoughts and prayers go out to every military member on the battlefield and at their duty stations. We pray for their safety.
"We also offer our prayers for the families who have lost loved ones during the war or who have loved ones still designated as missing in action or confirmed as prisoners of war. We know your hearts are broken. We hope you will soon find comfort."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Well, Jessica Lynch right now, as we said, is in the air heading back to the States.
And we don't want you to miss what we have coming up in our 11:00 a.m. hour. Coming up at 11:00, we're going to hear from the pilot of the helicopter involved in the rescue of Jessica Lynch. Colonel Stewart Mill (ph) is going to join us by way of telephone, we hope, so stick with us for that.
Right now, we want to go right to the telephone and bring in our David Jolley. He's a producer for CNN who's been out there on the tarmac at Ramstein Air Base. And he was there when the plane took off just a little a while ago -- David.
DAVID JOLLEY, CNN PRODUCER (on phone): Leon, yes. A little while ago, we saw a C-17 military aircraft leave Ramstein here in southwest Germany carrying Private Lynch to Andrews Air Force Base and then on to the Walter Reed military hospital. She was accompanied by five of her family members, who've spent the past six days at her bedside here in Germany, and expected all to fly, as I said, to Andrews Air Force Base, and then be transferred to Walter Reed.
HARRIS: All right. In the meantime, David, what do we know about others who are still left behind there at Landstuhl? Are more troops coming in today, or what?
JOLLEY: At -- we haven't had any word of new flights. We're not given -- we're not privy to all information concerning incoming flights. Sometimes we're not told when injured are coming in. We're certainly not told when the dead are passing through Ramstein. As we know, they certainly are. There's no photo-ops in that situation.
So I can't really give you much of an update on injured today. We do know, to date, there have been some 436 wounded from Operation Iraqi Freedom that have passed through Landstuhl hospital. Now, some of those have gone on back to the States. But 436 of those have actually passed through the hospital.
HARRIS: All right, thank you, David. David Jolley, CNN producer there at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Now let's go to Kuwait City, Daryn Kagan checking in from her post there. Hello, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Greetings from Kuwait City, Leon.
Want to go ahead and check in on Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, which fell a lot more quickly than a lot of people anticipated, but also brought a lot more looting. Let's see if things are calming down as it's the end of another day there.
Martin Savidge is standing by. Marty, hello.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.
Well, the U.S. military may be in Baghdad, but they are certainly not in complete control of Baghdad. From a rooftop position up here, we can see at least four, maybe even five, heavy black plumes of smoke rising into the air, and that's usually an indicator of looting taking place.
Looting has been the problem for the past couple of days now. It's subsided a little bit today, but it is still ongoing. The U.S. military's trying to cope with this. They even have now -- the U.S. Marines not only patrolling with vehicles, but they've sent them out on foot, hoping that by having the soldiers and the Marines on the ground, on patrol, it may do something to try to bring calm to the area. Also there are vigilante teams that are out there guarding their storefronts, and also guarding streets, and a lot of barricades have been set up by civilians hoping to keep the looters away by blocking traffic.
So it's still an ongoing problem, not as bad, but fires now starting to burn in Baghdad.
Saddam Hussein, and where is he? It's a good question, and the military's been asking it. Today they may have a key find in the search for Saddam Hussein and others -- other members of the regime. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, on patrol this morning, came across a man who turned himself in and identified himself as Saddam's plastic surgeon.
Says that he did surgery on not only Saddam Hussein but many members of his family, and key most of all, he says he knows where those family members have now gone off to. he's been taken into custody, and you can bet he's getting through going-over by the people from the intelligence unit.
Also, remember the firefight last Wednesday at Baghdad University? It was quite a firefight. Well, they've been going over that university from top to bottom, the grounds outside. Turns out that the Marines say they find what is tantamount to an ammunition dump, massive, massive amounts of ammunition, weaponry systems, technos, those pickup trucks with machine guns on the back and antiaircraft guns.
So much of it, they are not sure how to get rid of it all in the time they have left. They are thinking about burning it. The rest of it, they may haul away and destroy somewhere else. But other indication of how schools have been used by the Iraqi regime, the Marines say, to hide their weaponry. It was a place of higher education, now, apparently, a place of high explosives.
And one positive note, those stores starting to reopen today. Long lines of people trying to the buy the basics. And the city is also reporting that some of the civil servants have begun showing up for work, but they need a lot more of them. The U.S. military putting the word out on shortwave radio asking for police officers, those that run the power, run the water, and those that help keep the city clean, to come back to their jobs, Daryn.
KAGAN: Martin, I'm going to assume the folks back home can hear you just fine. I am missing every third word that you are saying. So we're going to work on getting my earpiece to work a little bit better. And thank you from Baghdad, and toss it back to Leon in Atlanta.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Daryn. We'll see you in just a bit -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Let's go ahead and see now what the Pentagon is saying this morning about the war in Iraq. For that, we turn to our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Good morning, Barbara. BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, at the Central Command briefing earlier today, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks offered his usual operational update, but he started with a fascinating anecdote about an encounter that U.S. troops had on the road in western Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: At a checkpoint in the west, coalition special operations forces stopped a bus with 59 military-aged men traveling west. Among their possessions were letters offering financial rewards for killing American soldiers, and $630,000 U.S. in $100 bills. The men and all of their possessions have been taken into coalition control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: So still an indication plenty of work ahead for U.S. troops.
Now, still lots of questions at the Central Command briefing about the looting situation. Now, the U.S. military is trying to get that under control, as Marty Savidge reported, more troops in the street. And indeed, within the last couple of days, 7,000 to 10,000 troops from the 101st Airborne have been freed up from their work in southern Iraq. They are now in Baghdad, moving onto the streets, trying to improve the security situation there, helping out where they can.
The Pentagon is also trying to work to get some of those Iraqi Baghdad police forces back on the job and talking to the international community to see if they can send some policing and security forces.
All of that, of course, going to take some time, however.
What's shaping up as possibly the last major military operation for this war is the battle for the city of Tikrit in the north, the last stronghold of the regime. Forces are moving in that direction. Members of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force now moving out from Baghdad, moving north towards Tikrit.
What the U.S. military's trying to figure out right now is what kind of opposition they will face in Tikrit. They are trying to get some better fix on how many and what types of troops are there, special Republican Guard, paramilitaries, but definitely everything is headed in that direction, Heidi.
COLLINS: Certainly seems obvious there is more work to be done in that direction.
Barbara, I wanted to ask you about something else here and -- that has sort of fascinated me, a development yesterday, where the U.S. Marines say that they found the plastic surgeon of Saddam Hussein. Is this any sort of a significant development? Do they really have any sort of confidence that he knows where the rest of Saddam Hussein's family is? And what could that mean?
STARR: Well, it's unclear. I mean, this man will have to be interrogated quite closely, his information looked at and then vetted and rechecked by probably several elements of the U.S. intelligence community.
General Brooks has been asked about this, Secretary Rumsfeld's been asked about it almost every day. Saddam Hussein, dead or alive? And they say they simply do not know. Until they can get some sort of confirmed evidence, their working assumption is, he may still be out there somewhere, along with other members of regime. But interestingly, they say, it's no longer that important, that the regime is basically gone, and that is the ultimate U.S. military goal, Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. We will check in with you later, I am sure.
All right. Coming up now, next, we are going to talk a little bit more about that. Barbara Starr was just mentioning the troop deployment moving north, Tikrit as an area of concern still. General Shepperd is going to be coming up next to give us a little bit more analysis on that.
HARRIS: Don't go away, much more coming up right after break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: There's been a lot going on in the past few hours. Let's take a step back now for a moment and review the day's fast- moving developments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS (voice-over): One-oh-six a.m. Eastern, 9:06 in Baghdad. CNN's Ryan Chilcote, embedded with the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, reports two-thirds of the 101st have moved into southern Baghdad, the first light infantry coalition troops to enter the Iraqi capital. The primary goal, to help restore order.
One-thirty-nine a.m. CNN's Art Harris reports leaders in Kut plan to turn the southern Iraqi city over to Marines today. But he says according to U.S. intelligence reports, paramilitaries from outside Iraq are in Kut and may launch terror attacks to disrupt those plans.
Four-oh-three a.m. Eastern, just after noon in Iraq. CNN's Michael Holmes reports lawlessness continues in Baghdad, and some residents beating up looters and using firearms to protect their property. He says authorities hope to get an Iraqi police force up and running in a few days.
Five-forty a.m. Central Command tells CNN lead elements of the Army's 4th Infantry Division have crossed into Iraq from Kuwait. CENTCOM also says that some U.S. Marines are heading north from Baghdad for unspecified reasons. Six-fifty-seven a.m. Rescued POW Jessica Lynch is carried aboard a C-17 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. She's being transferred from a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for further treatment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And here now is a look at the latest casualty figures. U.S. and British officials say 138 coalition forces have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 107 of them are U.S. service members, 95 were killed in combat and 12 died in nonhostile situations. Seven service members are POWs at this hour.
Now, 31 British troops have been killed, 9 of them in hostile fire and 20 in noncombat situations. Two are still undetermined, and there are no British POWs.
The Iraqi government has not released any information on their military losses, and there are no reliable figures on the number of civilians wounded. There are more than 7,300 Iraqi POWs.
COLLINS: As you know, the war is not over, as Central Command is eager to remind us as well. We wanted to get some military expertise here. For that we turn our attention to the military desk and retired Air Force general Don Shepperd.
Good morning to you, General Shepperd.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning to you, Heidi.
COLLINS: Tell us about this -- the troop movement now. We are seeing a lot of movement from the south to the north, correct?
SHEPPERD: Indeed. Let me take you to the map table here if I can, give you a quick update across the country.
Elements of the 4th Infantry Division are well ahead of schedule, moving now from their assembly areas in Kuwait into southern Iraq, starting to move north, providing extra forces. Airlift continues to all of the cities here, humanitarian airlift as well as resupply of forces.
Up here in the Al Kut area right here, the city is rumored to be turned over to the Marines probably as early as today, some elements remaining in Kut.
Clean-up in all of the cities up the Tigris and Euphrates valley here toward Baghdad. The 101st Airborne, light infantry, arriving in Baghdad, freeing up the 3rd Infantry Division and also the Marines to move further north toward Tikrit, where there may be a battle, and where the deployed enemy forces there, Iraqi forces, are being pounded by air.
Up here in the very northern part of the country, it's basically secure, no fighting going on. The oil fields have been secured around Kirkuk, and the good news is, the Kurds have agreed to let the 173rd Airborne Brigade take over the oil fields so they do not provoke a confrontation with the Turks.
Over here at Al Qaim, or Kum as they say in Iraq, the entry point in the Euphrates river into Syria, some operations going on there that have uncovered a couple of missiles and secured this entry into secure -- into Syria as well, Heidi.
COLLINS: Obviously, a couple of hotbeds left. What does it tell you about, I guess, Tikrit in particular, that it seems like, as you say, areas to the north are secure, and the U.S. forces, coalition forces are coming up from the south as well? Does it tell you anything that this particular area -- it seems to be almost surrounded, but still some vehement fighting going on there.
SHEPPERD: Yes, it's not surrounded. What -- there -- you have coalition forces moving up that way, and it's the last redoubt, if you will, of the Tikriti clan, Saddam's ancestral homeland. That's probably where his men -- minions, if you will, would retreat to make a last stand, if there is one.
But it's being pounded by air. There may not be a fight. They may simply melt away, as we have seen most of the north melt away. And, of course, execute their escape plans. Yesterday, five airplanes were found. They're light airplanes that probably were meant to escape for the high, for the high minions, if you will.
COLLINS: Help us understand, General Shepperd, real quickly, about the humanitarian aid. Obviously things are getting to the point where it is a little bit safer to bring that humanitarian aid in, correct?
SHEPPERD: Yes. You have to have conditions so that the aircraft can fly in, and also that it can be distributed, so you don't have riots around the point where it's brought in. So as security generally tightens down and starts to develop across the country, you can bring humanitarian aid in everywhere.
Water is the key, and then food. All of that is brought in now, and it's starting to happen across the country. So you're seeing a fairly familiar pattern, from chaos to control, Heidi, it's happening.
COLLINS: Very good. We also heard from CENTCOM today that some of the military's bringing in their purification equipment in as well to get that water up and running. Very good, General Shepperd, thanks so much for your insight today.
Our Wolf Blitzer goes right to the top of U.S. Central Command tomorrow at noon Eastern when he talks with General Tommy Franks about the war in Iraq on "LATE EDITION." And then at 1:00 Eastern, he talks about postwar Iraq with exiled Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi.
Images of war, how one Iraqi town is coping with the pain of war. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Those aren't current pictures of Baghdad right now, but our Martin Savidge, who is there, did report himself seeing right now at this moment about maybe four plumes of smoke emanating over the skyline, thinking there being that maybe more evidence of looting.
But humanitarian aid is now beginning to make its way deeper into Iraq. And while some aid began arriving in border areas early in the war, there are pressing humanitarian needs all across the country there.
U.N. representatives are headed to an Iraqi town near the Iranian border, where they say some 30,000 to 60,000 displaced Iraqis have taken shelter.
Meanwhile, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq says that the first relief convoy is now on its way from Basra from Iran.
Let's go now to our Daryn Kagan, standing by in Kuwait City, for more -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Leon, we've been focusing so much today on Baghdad. We want to move to the southern part of Iraq and talk about Basra, and that's where coalition officials there say that looting in that southern port city has died down. A British command spokesman says the he hopes that Iraqis there return to their normal way of life.
But our John Vause is in Umm Qasr, and he says that it might never be able for these Iraqis to return to normal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fight for Basra took less than two weeks, but the war will last a lifetime for this little girl. Zanab (ph), just 10 years old, has lost her right leg. There are compound fractures in the left. Her mother is dead. So too, her three brothers. Her home was destroyed. Her younger sister and father, Hameed (ph), survived. He says they were hit by a coalition air strike.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see the planes (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the bombardment on our town.
VAUSE: Hameed says 17 people, all relatives, were killed in that house. He says he watched his wife die. Zanab tells me there is now pain where the doctors amputated.
DR. NAFFIES JASSIM: We are still deeply sad about the future of this child and the future of many hundred of childrens. You see just one. We have many. They will live in a bad situation as an handicapped child.
VAUSE: Other children, like 9-year-old Saleem (ph), he was hit by liberation fire. The men of his village fired their AK-47s into the air to celebrate the end of the war, but one bullet downed Saleem's right arm.
(on camera): Will there be permanent damage?
DR. M.M. MUDHI, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON: Probably, because he has got probably damage to the radial nerve. There is a big segment lost, and he may have a deformity like (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
VAUSE (voice-over): A tour through Dr. Mudhi's wards at Basra General Hospital is as sad as it is grim.
(on camera): His prognosis?
MUDHI: His prognosis, we don't know, because he's in state of septicemia. Probably he's going to may have very bad complications.
VAUSE: Complications, because, the doctor says, he does not have the right drugs or the equipment to treat this man -- not because of the war, he says, but because of 12 years of sanctions.
But this man's burns, he points out, were the result of coalition bombing.
The hospital is short on everything from water to electricity, which runs for just a few hours a day. It's the best their old generator can do.
Normally, they could admit 700 patients. Right now there are just 80. The rest are treated and sent home.
But worst of all, they say, are the looters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want us to get out and to steal something.
VAUSE (on camera): Anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We are present just to protect the hospital.
VAUSE (voice-over): Of the 1,200 people employed here, about 100 have turned up for work over the last few days. Most are too scared, and, the administrator told me, no one has been paid for months.
The hospital corridors have now become makeshift shelters for those whose homes that were destroyed. Everyone here thought the end of Saddam would be a time of celebration. Instead, there is uncertainty and disappointment mixed with a growing anger because there has been little sign of that much-promised humanitarian aid.
John Vause, CNN, Basra.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: You know, as we've just been saying, hearing a little bit more now about how the humanitarian aid is hopefully going to be coming, at least, through Umm Qasr, where we heard about that. HARRIS: That's right. And that's the kind of thing that's going to be needed to heal the hearts and minds of everyone involved in this situation as well.
COLLINS: That's right.
Well, the heart of Baghdad is in chaos. What's next in the days to come, post-Saddam Hussein, that is?
HARRIS: Coming up, we'll get the Arab world perspective. Stay with us. Much more coming up.
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Aired April 12, 2003 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And, of course, it has been unusually cold and wet and unforgiving. The group that wants Augusta National to open membership to women plans a protest about a half-mile from the game.
Now, turning to some of the war developments that we're following this hour, plans for a postwar Iraq. We'll take a look at rebuilding Iraq through the eyes of the Arab world.
And we'll take you to the Masters golf tournament, where women activists plan to rally today against the Augusta's male-only membership policy.
And can he be the next pop icon? Iraq's truth-challenged, if you will, minister of information has become a very popular man.
And good morning from CNN's global headquarters in Atlanta. It's 9:00 a.m. now on the East Coast, 5:00 p.m. in Baghdad. I'm Leon Harris.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins. Today is Saturday, April 12. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING SATURDAY, everybody.
Some people living in Baghdad are taking the law into their own hands, capturing and beating up those they catch looting. A mob descended onto a government building in Mosul, breaking in to pillage and plunder. When Saddam Hussein's regime was in power, they were denied access to the same building they are now destroying.
The northern city of Kirkuk was liberated Thursday. And as the Iraqi front line moved from there to Tikrit, the looting began with some villagers even being attacked and their property stolen.
Here's a look now at our early briefing, and some of the stories you can expect later on today.
Saddam Hussein's fall from power will be the focus of President Bush's weekly radio address this morning. It begins at 10:06 Eastern, just about an hour from now.
Rescued prisoner of war Private First Class Jessica Lynch is on her way back to the U.S. from Germany today. She will get treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
And a memorial service will take place this evening in Tuba City, Arizona, for Army Private First Class Lori Piestewa. She was a member of the 507th Maintenance Unit that was ambushed in southern Iraq on March 23.
HARRIS: Well, Private Jessica Lynch was also a member of that unit, and she's practically going to be in her own backyard when she has checked into Walter Reed Hospital later on this afternoon. Lynch is from a small town in West Virginia, Palestine, West Virginia. And until now, she's been at a U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany.
Now, as you'll recall, she had some serious injuries when she was rescued by U.S. special forces. She had been taken prisoner when the Army maintenance company that she was with was ambushed by Iraqis near An Nasiriyah last month.
Forty-nine other injured troops are also on the same flight, along with Lynch's family. They've all been staying with her in Germany. Before that plane departed, her family had this statement read by a military spokesman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. MIKE YOUNG, U.S. AIR FORCE (reading): "It is almost impossible to express how grateful we are to the brave American service members who participated in Jessie's rescue and to the courageous Iraqi citizens who risked their lives to make her rescue possible. Jessie is alive because of their sacrifices.
"Jessie's recovery continues, and she is doing well. She is in pain, but she is in good spirits. Although she faces a lengthy rehabilitation, she is tough. We believe she will regain her strength soon.
"Our family is proud of Jessie. In our eyes, she and her rescuers are heroes. But we also understand that Jessie was a soldier performing her duty, the same way thousands of other service members perform their duties every day. Our thoughts and prayers go out to every military member on the battlefield and at their duty stations. We pray for their safety.
"We also offer our prayers for the families who have lost loved ones during the war or who have loved ones still designated as missing in action or confirmed as prisoners of war. We know your hearts are broken. We hope you will soon find comfort."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Well, Jessica Lynch right now, as we said, is in the air heading back to the States.
And we don't want you to miss what we have coming up in our 11:00 a.m. hour. Coming up at 11:00, we're going to hear from the pilot of the helicopter involved in the rescue of Jessica Lynch. Colonel Stewart Mill (ph) is going to join us by way of telephone, we hope, so stick with us for that.
Right now, we want to go right to the telephone and bring in our David Jolley. He's a producer for CNN who's been out there on the tarmac at Ramstein Air Base. And he was there when the plane took off just a little a while ago -- David.
DAVID JOLLEY, CNN PRODUCER (on phone): Leon, yes. A little while ago, we saw a C-17 military aircraft leave Ramstein here in southwest Germany carrying Private Lynch to Andrews Air Force Base and then on to the Walter Reed military hospital. She was accompanied by five of her family members, who've spent the past six days at her bedside here in Germany, and expected all to fly, as I said, to Andrews Air Force Base, and then be transferred to Walter Reed.
HARRIS: All right. In the meantime, David, what do we know about others who are still left behind there at Landstuhl? Are more troops coming in today, or what?
JOLLEY: At -- we haven't had any word of new flights. We're not given -- we're not privy to all information concerning incoming flights. Sometimes we're not told when injured are coming in. We're certainly not told when the dead are passing through Ramstein. As we know, they certainly are. There's no photo-ops in that situation.
So I can't really give you much of an update on injured today. We do know, to date, there have been some 436 wounded from Operation Iraqi Freedom that have passed through Landstuhl hospital. Now, some of those have gone on back to the States. But 436 of those have actually passed through the hospital.
HARRIS: All right, thank you, David. David Jolley, CNN producer there at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Now let's go to Kuwait City, Daryn Kagan checking in from her post there. Hello, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Greetings from Kuwait City, Leon.
Want to go ahead and check in on Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, which fell a lot more quickly than a lot of people anticipated, but also brought a lot more looting. Let's see if things are calming down as it's the end of another day there.
Martin Savidge is standing by. Marty, hello.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.
Well, the U.S. military may be in Baghdad, but they are certainly not in complete control of Baghdad. From a rooftop position up here, we can see at least four, maybe even five, heavy black plumes of smoke rising into the air, and that's usually an indicator of looting taking place.
Looting has been the problem for the past couple of days now. It's subsided a little bit today, but it is still ongoing. The U.S. military's trying to cope with this. They even have now -- the U.S. Marines not only patrolling with vehicles, but they've sent them out on foot, hoping that by having the soldiers and the Marines on the ground, on patrol, it may do something to try to bring calm to the area. Also there are vigilante teams that are out there guarding their storefronts, and also guarding streets, and a lot of barricades have been set up by civilians hoping to keep the looters away by blocking traffic.
So it's still an ongoing problem, not as bad, but fires now starting to burn in Baghdad.
Saddam Hussein, and where is he? It's a good question, and the military's been asking it. Today they may have a key find in the search for Saddam Hussein and others -- other members of the regime. The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, on patrol this morning, came across a man who turned himself in and identified himself as Saddam's plastic surgeon.
Says that he did surgery on not only Saddam Hussein but many members of his family, and key most of all, he says he knows where those family members have now gone off to. he's been taken into custody, and you can bet he's getting through going-over by the people from the intelligence unit.
Also, remember the firefight last Wednesday at Baghdad University? It was quite a firefight. Well, they've been going over that university from top to bottom, the grounds outside. Turns out that the Marines say they find what is tantamount to an ammunition dump, massive, massive amounts of ammunition, weaponry systems, technos, those pickup trucks with machine guns on the back and antiaircraft guns.
So much of it, they are not sure how to get rid of it all in the time they have left. They are thinking about burning it. The rest of it, they may haul away and destroy somewhere else. But other indication of how schools have been used by the Iraqi regime, the Marines say, to hide their weaponry. It was a place of higher education, now, apparently, a place of high explosives.
And one positive note, those stores starting to reopen today. Long lines of people trying to the buy the basics. And the city is also reporting that some of the civil servants have begun showing up for work, but they need a lot more of them. The U.S. military putting the word out on shortwave radio asking for police officers, those that run the power, run the water, and those that help keep the city clean, to come back to their jobs, Daryn.
KAGAN: Martin, I'm going to assume the folks back home can hear you just fine. I am missing every third word that you are saying. So we're going to work on getting my earpiece to work a little bit better. And thank you from Baghdad, and toss it back to Leon in Atlanta.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Daryn. We'll see you in just a bit -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Let's go ahead and see now what the Pentagon is saying this morning about the war in Iraq. For that, we turn to our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Good morning, Barbara. BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, at the Central Command briefing earlier today, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks offered his usual operational update, but he started with a fascinating anecdote about an encounter that U.S. troops had on the road in western Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: At a checkpoint in the west, coalition special operations forces stopped a bus with 59 military-aged men traveling west. Among their possessions were letters offering financial rewards for killing American soldiers, and $630,000 U.S. in $100 bills. The men and all of their possessions have been taken into coalition control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: So still an indication plenty of work ahead for U.S. troops.
Now, still lots of questions at the Central Command briefing about the looting situation. Now, the U.S. military is trying to get that under control, as Marty Savidge reported, more troops in the street. And indeed, within the last couple of days, 7,000 to 10,000 troops from the 101st Airborne have been freed up from their work in southern Iraq. They are now in Baghdad, moving onto the streets, trying to improve the security situation there, helping out where they can.
The Pentagon is also trying to work to get some of those Iraqi Baghdad police forces back on the job and talking to the international community to see if they can send some policing and security forces.
All of that, of course, going to take some time, however.
What's shaping up as possibly the last major military operation for this war is the battle for the city of Tikrit in the north, the last stronghold of the regime. Forces are moving in that direction. Members of 1st Marine Expeditionary Force now moving out from Baghdad, moving north towards Tikrit.
What the U.S. military's trying to figure out right now is what kind of opposition they will face in Tikrit. They are trying to get some better fix on how many and what types of troops are there, special Republican Guard, paramilitaries, but definitely everything is headed in that direction, Heidi.
COLLINS: Certainly seems obvious there is more work to be done in that direction.
Barbara, I wanted to ask you about something else here and -- that has sort of fascinated me, a development yesterday, where the U.S. Marines say that they found the plastic surgeon of Saddam Hussein. Is this any sort of a significant development? Do they really have any sort of confidence that he knows where the rest of Saddam Hussein's family is? And what could that mean?
STARR: Well, it's unclear. I mean, this man will have to be interrogated quite closely, his information looked at and then vetted and rechecked by probably several elements of the U.S. intelligence community.
General Brooks has been asked about this, Secretary Rumsfeld's been asked about it almost every day. Saddam Hussein, dead or alive? And they say they simply do not know. Until they can get some sort of confirmed evidence, their working assumption is, he may still be out there somewhere, along with other members of regime. But interestingly, they say, it's no longer that important, that the regime is basically gone, and that is the ultimate U.S. military goal, Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. We will check in with you later, I am sure.
All right. Coming up now, next, we are going to talk a little bit more about that. Barbara Starr was just mentioning the troop deployment moving north, Tikrit as an area of concern still. General Shepperd is going to be coming up next to give us a little bit more analysis on that.
HARRIS: Don't go away, much more coming up right after break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: There's been a lot going on in the past few hours. Let's take a step back now for a moment and review the day's fast- moving developments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS (voice-over): One-oh-six a.m. Eastern, 9:06 in Baghdad. CNN's Ryan Chilcote, embedded with the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, reports two-thirds of the 101st have moved into southern Baghdad, the first light infantry coalition troops to enter the Iraqi capital. The primary goal, to help restore order.
One-thirty-nine a.m. CNN's Art Harris reports leaders in Kut plan to turn the southern Iraqi city over to Marines today. But he says according to U.S. intelligence reports, paramilitaries from outside Iraq are in Kut and may launch terror attacks to disrupt those plans.
Four-oh-three a.m. Eastern, just after noon in Iraq. CNN's Michael Holmes reports lawlessness continues in Baghdad, and some residents beating up looters and using firearms to protect their property. He says authorities hope to get an Iraqi police force up and running in a few days.
Five-forty a.m. Central Command tells CNN lead elements of the Army's 4th Infantry Division have crossed into Iraq from Kuwait. CENTCOM also says that some U.S. Marines are heading north from Baghdad for unspecified reasons. Six-fifty-seven a.m. Rescued POW Jessica Lynch is carried aboard a C-17 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. She's being transferred from a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for further treatment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And here now is a look at the latest casualty figures. U.S. and British officials say 138 coalition forces have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 107 of them are U.S. service members, 95 were killed in combat and 12 died in nonhostile situations. Seven service members are POWs at this hour.
Now, 31 British troops have been killed, 9 of them in hostile fire and 20 in noncombat situations. Two are still undetermined, and there are no British POWs.
The Iraqi government has not released any information on their military losses, and there are no reliable figures on the number of civilians wounded. There are more than 7,300 Iraqi POWs.
COLLINS: As you know, the war is not over, as Central Command is eager to remind us as well. We wanted to get some military expertise here. For that we turn our attention to the military desk and retired Air Force general Don Shepperd.
Good morning to you, General Shepperd.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning to you, Heidi.
COLLINS: Tell us about this -- the troop movement now. We are seeing a lot of movement from the south to the north, correct?
SHEPPERD: Indeed. Let me take you to the map table here if I can, give you a quick update across the country.
Elements of the 4th Infantry Division are well ahead of schedule, moving now from their assembly areas in Kuwait into southern Iraq, starting to move north, providing extra forces. Airlift continues to all of the cities here, humanitarian airlift as well as resupply of forces.
Up here in the Al Kut area right here, the city is rumored to be turned over to the Marines probably as early as today, some elements remaining in Kut.
Clean-up in all of the cities up the Tigris and Euphrates valley here toward Baghdad. The 101st Airborne, light infantry, arriving in Baghdad, freeing up the 3rd Infantry Division and also the Marines to move further north toward Tikrit, where there may be a battle, and where the deployed enemy forces there, Iraqi forces, are being pounded by air.
Up here in the very northern part of the country, it's basically secure, no fighting going on. The oil fields have been secured around Kirkuk, and the good news is, the Kurds have agreed to let the 173rd Airborne Brigade take over the oil fields so they do not provoke a confrontation with the Turks.
Over here at Al Qaim, or Kum as they say in Iraq, the entry point in the Euphrates river into Syria, some operations going on there that have uncovered a couple of missiles and secured this entry into secure -- into Syria as well, Heidi.
COLLINS: Obviously, a couple of hotbeds left. What does it tell you about, I guess, Tikrit in particular, that it seems like, as you say, areas to the north are secure, and the U.S. forces, coalition forces are coming up from the south as well? Does it tell you anything that this particular area -- it seems to be almost surrounded, but still some vehement fighting going on there.
SHEPPERD: Yes, it's not surrounded. What -- there -- you have coalition forces moving up that way, and it's the last redoubt, if you will, of the Tikriti clan, Saddam's ancestral homeland. That's probably where his men -- minions, if you will, would retreat to make a last stand, if there is one.
But it's being pounded by air. There may not be a fight. They may simply melt away, as we have seen most of the north melt away. And, of course, execute their escape plans. Yesterday, five airplanes were found. They're light airplanes that probably were meant to escape for the high, for the high minions, if you will.
COLLINS: Help us understand, General Shepperd, real quickly, about the humanitarian aid. Obviously things are getting to the point where it is a little bit safer to bring that humanitarian aid in, correct?
SHEPPERD: Yes. You have to have conditions so that the aircraft can fly in, and also that it can be distributed, so you don't have riots around the point where it's brought in. So as security generally tightens down and starts to develop across the country, you can bring humanitarian aid in everywhere.
Water is the key, and then food. All of that is brought in now, and it's starting to happen across the country. So you're seeing a fairly familiar pattern, from chaos to control, Heidi, it's happening.
COLLINS: Very good. We also heard from CENTCOM today that some of the military's bringing in their purification equipment in as well to get that water up and running. Very good, General Shepperd, thanks so much for your insight today.
Our Wolf Blitzer goes right to the top of U.S. Central Command tomorrow at noon Eastern when he talks with General Tommy Franks about the war in Iraq on "LATE EDITION." And then at 1:00 Eastern, he talks about postwar Iraq with exiled Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi.
Images of war, how one Iraqi town is coping with the pain of war. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Those aren't current pictures of Baghdad right now, but our Martin Savidge, who is there, did report himself seeing right now at this moment about maybe four plumes of smoke emanating over the skyline, thinking there being that maybe more evidence of looting.
But humanitarian aid is now beginning to make its way deeper into Iraq. And while some aid began arriving in border areas early in the war, there are pressing humanitarian needs all across the country there.
U.N. representatives are headed to an Iraqi town near the Iranian border, where they say some 30,000 to 60,000 displaced Iraqis have taken shelter.
Meanwhile, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq says that the first relief convoy is now on its way from Basra from Iran.
Let's go now to our Daryn Kagan, standing by in Kuwait City, for more -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Leon, we've been focusing so much today on Baghdad. We want to move to the southern part of Iraq and talk about Basra, and that's where coalition officials there say that looting in that southern port city has died down. A British command spokesman says the he hopes that Iraqis there return to their normal way of life.
But our John Vause is in Umm Qasr, and he says that it might never be able for these Iraqis to return to normal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fight for Basra took less than two weeks, but the war will last a lifetime for this little girl. Zanab (ph), just 10 years old, has lost her right leg. There are compound fractures in the left. Her mother is dead. So too, her three brothers. Her home was destroyed. Her younger sister and father, Hameed (ph), survived. He says they were hit by a coalition air strike.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see the planes (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the bombardment on our town.
VAUSE: Hameed says 17 people, all relatives, were killed in that house. He says he watched his wife die. Zanab tells me there is now pain where the doctors amputated.
DR. NAFFIES JASSIM: We are still deeply sad about the future of this child and the future of many hundred of childrens. You see just one. We have many. They will live in a bad situation as an handicapped child.
VAUSE: Other children, like 9-year-old Saleem (ph), he was hit by liberation fire. The men of his village fired their AK-47s into the air to celebrate the end of the war, but one bullet downed Saleem's right arm.
(on camera): Will there be permanent damage?
DR. M.M. MUDHI, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON: Probably, because he has got probably damage to the radial nerve. There is a big segment lost, and he may have a deformity like (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
VAUSE (voice-over): A tour through Dr. Mudhi's wards at Basra General Hospital is as sad as it is grim.
(on camera): His prognosis?
MUDHI: His prognosis, we don't know, because he's in state of septicemia. Probably he's going to may have very bad complications.
VAUSE: Complications, because, the doctor says, he does not have the right drugs or the equipment to treat this man -- not because of the war, he says, but because of 12 years of sanctions.
But this man's burns, he points out, were the result of coalition bombing.
The hospital is short on everything from water to electricity, which runs for just a few hours a day. It's the best their old generator can do.
Normally, they could admit 700 patients. Right now there are just 80. The rest are treated and sent home.
But worst of all, they say, are the looters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want us to get out and to steal something.
VAUSE (on camera): Anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We are present just to protect the hospital.
VAUSE (voice-over): Of the 1,200 people employed here, about 100 have turned up for work over the last few days. Most are too scared, and, the administrator told me, no one has been paid for months.
The hospital corridors have now become makeshift shelters for those whose homes that were destroyed. Everyone here thought the end of Saddam would be a time of celebration. Instead, there is uncertainty and disappointment mixed with a growing anger because there has been little sign of that much-promised humanitarian aid.
John Vause, CNN, Basra.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: You know, as we've just been saying, hearing a little bit more now about how the humanitarian aid is hopefully going to be coming, at least, through Umm Qasr, where we heard about that. HARRIS: That's right. And that's the kind of thing that's going to be needed to heal the hearts and minds of everyone involved in this situation as well.
COLLINS: That's right.
Well, the heart of Baghdad is in chaos. What's next in the days to come, post-Saddam Hussein, that is?
HARRIS: Coming up, we'll get the Arab world perspective. Stay with us. Much more coming up.
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