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CNN Live At Daybreak

International News Desk

Aired April 22, 2003 - 05:35   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: Let's stay on the subject of northern Iraq. Most of the major fighting is over there, but there are still some battles taking place. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says a Marine was wounded yesterday during a firefight in Mosul.
CNN's Jane Arraf is in Mosul and joins us now with an update -- good morning, Jane.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, there still is, as you've indicated, a very tenuous peace here in this city. Now, the American forces are pouring more troops in here. As we drove in, we saw APCs, armed personnel carriers and those Humvees full of American soldiers, some with machine guns, waving the biggest American flags you have ever seen through the streets of this city.

Now, that's definitely meant to create an impression that the Americans are here and there is security, as are the helicopters we've seen circling all morning long. Now, these are attack helicopters that are going over the city. The problem is they are not on the ground and residents are still afraid that this peace just will not last.

Now, there have been scattered incidents. There's shooting at night and in the day time the situation on the humanitarian front is getting a little bit grim. The entire city has been turned into almost a gigantic parking lot, with cars waiting for gasoline that just is not coming -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jane Arraf reporting live from Mosul in northern Iraq.

Many thanks to you.

We want to get more now on what's going on elsewhere in Iraq. For that, we're joined by CNN senior international editor David Clinch -- good morning, David.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: And you're going to talk about lessons learned from the war.

CLINCH: Well, yes. I mean as you can see, we still have a lot of reporters in Iraq, a very dangerous, a very interesting place. And, you know, I haven't been live on this show for almost a month now because we have been very busy over there covering the war as it happened. And some of the lessons we learned unbelievable intense experience covering this war as an editor here in Atlanta.

I mean, for instance, what do you do when you're covering a war and we have our medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta calling in from the field telling you that he is inside a tent in the desert where they are performing an operation in real time and that we can show it live? This is something you have to immediately make decisions about can we show it live, what should we show, what should we not show.

Then, of course, he follows up a few days later and tells me not only is it surgery, but that he's performing the surgery...

COSTELLO: Because he just happened to be the only neurosurgeon there, yes.

CLINCH: He's the only brain surgeon there. You know, how did we handle those things as journalists? The situation with Walt Rodgers charging ahead with the tanks of the 7th Cavalry towards Baghdad. He's not allowed to tell us where he is. He's not allowed to say on air where he is. He's giving us and giving me a Shakespearian references to sort of make me understand where he is in the desert, where he may be going next, to try and understand, without giving the clues away.

And then, you know, live on air it turns out he's on the tank on a road going into Baghdad with street signs clearly visible. We have to immediately work out how we can continue covering the story without showing those street signs.

COSTELLO: And even for us, it's easy for us to get wrapped up in the speculate that Walter Rodgers, you know, presented to us.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: And to remove ourselves and determine what we show, what we don't show...

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: ... when to stop the tape, what might happen during that, you know, tip of the spear.

CLINCH: Right. Sure. You can't just sit there with your mouth wide open going "Wow!" all the time. As an editor, there are decisions to be made every moment of the day, as these things are happening. And the most important thing is safety.

For instance, the pictures you see here are not out of context. This is actually the same situation, celebrations in Baghdad the day the regime disappeared. Our people in Baghdad, local hires, called us to say people are celebrating in the streets. We have the pictures. Do you want them?

If we take those pictures and air them, we put those people at risk if, in fact, the regime has not disappeared. We had to make those decisions in real time.

We took the pictures in, didn't say where we got them, put them on air and to a certain degree that changed the way that day went. The Marines, the U.S. military saw those pictures on CNN and went immediately into the center of the city.

COSTELLO: Understand.

CLINCH: So these decisions are being made at that time and now every day, even as it is happening, we have to make those decisions.

COSTELLO: And I understand you have a few to make.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: OK, thank you, David Clinch.

CLINCH: See you later.

COSTELLO: Appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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 22, 2003 - 05:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's stay on the subject of northern Iraq. Most of the major fighting is over there, but there are still some battles taking place. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says a Marine was wounded yesterday during a firefight in Mosul.
CNN's Jane Arraf is in Mosul and joins us now with an update -- good morning, Jane.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, there still is, as you've indicated, a very tenuous peace here in this city. Now, the American forces are pouring more troops in here. As we drove in, we saw APCs, armed personnel carriers and those Humvees full of American soldiers, some with machine guns, waving the biggest American flags you have ever seen through the streets of this city.

Now, that's definitely meant to create an impression that the Americans are here and there is security, as are the helicopters we've seen circling all morning long. Now, these are attack helicopters that are going over the city. The problem is they are not on the ground and residents are still afraid that this peace just will not last.

Now, there have been scattered incidents. There's shooting at night and in the day time the situation on the humanitarian front is getting a little bit grim. The entire city has been turned into almost a gigantic parking lot, with cars waiting for gasoline that just is not coming -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jane Arraf reporting live from Mosul in northern Iraq.

Many thanks to you.

We want to get more now on what's going on elsewhere in Iraq. For that, we're joined by CNN senior international editor David Clinch -- good morning, David.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: And you're going to talk about lessons learned from the war.

CLINCH: Well, yes. I mean as you can see, we still have a lot of reporters in Iraq, a very dangerous, a very interesting place. And, you know, I haven't been live on this show for almost a month now because we have been very busy over there covering the war as it happened. And some of the lessons we learned unbelievable intense experience covering this war as an editor here in Atlanta.

I mean, for instance, what do you do when you're covering a war and we have our medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta calling in from the field telling you that he is inside a tent in the desert where they are performing an operation in real time and that we can show it live? This is something you have to immediately make decisions about can we show it live, what should we show, what should we not show.

Then, of course, he follows up a few days later and tells me not only is it surgery, but that he's performing the surgery...

COSTELLO: Because he just happened to be the only neurosurgeon there, yes.

CLINCH: He's the only brain surgeon there. You know, how did we handle those things as journalists? The situation with Walt Rodgers charging ahead with the tanks of the 7th Cavalry towards Baghdad. He's not allowed to tell us where he is. He's not allowed to say on air where he is. He's giving us and giving me a Shakespearian references to sort of make me understand where he is in the desert, where he may be going next, to try and understand, without giving the clues away.

And then, you know, live on air it turns out he's on the tank on a road going into Baghdad with street signs clearly visible. We have to immediately work out how we can continue covering the story without showing those street signs.

COSTELLO: And even for us, it's easy for us to get wrapped up in the speculate that Walter Rodgers, you know, presented to us.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: And to remove ourselves and determine what we show, what we don't show...

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: ... when to stop the tape, what might happen during that, you know, tip of the spear.

CLINCH: Right. Sure. You can't just sit there with your mouth wide open going "Wow!" all the time. As an editor, there are decisions to be made every moment of the day, as these things are happening. And the most important thing is safety.

For instance, the pictures you see here are not out of context. This is actually the same situation, celebrations in Baghdad the day the regime disappeared. Our people in Baghdad, local hires, called us to say people are celebrating in the streets. We have the pictures. Do you want them?

If we take those pictures and air them, we put those people at risk if, in fact, the regime has not disappeared. We had to make those decisions in real time.

We took the pictures in, didn't say where we got them, put them on air and to a certain degree that changed the way that day went. The Marines, the U.S. military saw those pictures on CNN and went immediately into the center of the city.

COSTELLO: Understand.

CLINCH: So these decisions are being made at that time and now every day, even as it is happening, we have to make those decisions.

COSTELLO: And I understand you have a few to make.

CLINCH: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: OK, thank you, David Clinch.

CLINCH: See you later.

COSTELLO: Appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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