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American Morning

More Captured From Former Iraqi Regime

Aired April 24, 2003 - 07:14   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, several members of the former Iraqi regime are in U.S. custody, including the former commander of Iraq's air defense force, the queen of hearts in the U.S. military's most wanted deck of cards.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon now with more on that.

Barbara -- what's the significance of this arrest?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, the four -- actually four people came in yesterday, and all of them are pretty interesting to U.S. officials. As you just said, one of them is Zuhayr al Naqib. He is the head of military intelligence, pretty self-explanatory there. They think he may have quite a bit of information.

Hassan al Tikriti, the former director of air defense forces, actually no one is really sure about him, because the information is that he was fired very early on in the war for incompetence, but nonetheless appears to have some information about the operations of the regime.

Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, the minister of trade. The view here is that he may know about arms purchases that Iraq made abroad.

The fourth man was not on the list, but he is equally interesting. His name is Salim Jamali (ph). He's an intelligence operative who the U.S. believes knew a great deal about Iraqi intelligence operations inside the United States -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Barbara, I'd also like to ask you about a different topic that we already kind of touched on this morning. And that is this apparent new evidence about Navy pilot Scott Speicher. What do you make of it?

STARR: Well, we've spoken to officials here this morning. They find the initials carved in that wall of the prison extremely interesting. But what they tell us is that at the moment it does not change the fundamental intelligence assessment about what did happen to Scott Speicher, and that's a bit unsettling as it always has been to many people in the U.S. military.

The assessment is that Scott Speicher probably did survive the ejection out of his aircraft when he was hit by a surface-to-air missile on the first night of Operation Desert Storm. He probably did survive, and he probably, the intelligence community believes, was held in Iraqi custody for some period of time. Now, what's interesting to them about these initials is apparently the Iraqi informant that told them to go to this prison, the al-Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad, said that there had been some sightings, some information about Scott Speicher being at that location in the mid-1990s.

And the fact that they went to the prison and found these initials now makes them believe that this particular informant might have been credible, but they are not sure, and they emphasize they've had a number of other informants that have not been credible. So the books are still open on this one -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Yes, I wonder what that white stuff is. All right, very good. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. Thank you, Barbara.

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 24, 2003 - 07:14   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, several members of the former Iraqi regime are in U.S. custody, including the former commander of Iraq's air defense force, the queen of hearts in the U.S. military's most wanted deck of cards.
Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon now with more on that.

Barbara -- what's the significance of this arrest?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, the four -- actually four people came in yesterday, and all of them are pretty interesting to U.S. officials. As you just said, one of them is Zuhayr al Naqib. He is the head of military intelligence, pretty self-explanatory there. They think he may have quite a bit of information.

Hassan al Tikriti, the former director of air defense forces, actually no one is really sure about him, because the information is that he was fired very early on in the war for incompetence, but nonetheless appears to have some information about the operations of the regime.

Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, the minister of trade. The view here is that he may know about arms purchases that Iraq made abroad.

The fourth man was not on the list, but he is equally interesting. His name is Salim Jamali (ph). He's an intelligence operative who the U.S. believes knew a great deal about Iraqi intelligence operations inside the United States -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Barbara, I'd also like to ask you about a different topic that we already kind of touched on this morning. And that is this apparent new evidence about Navy pilot Scott Speicher. What do you make of it?

STARR: Well, we've spoken to officials here this morning. They find the initials carved in that wall of the prison extremely interesting. But what they tell us is that at the moment it does not change the fundamental intelligence assessment about what did happen to Scott Speicher, and that's a bit unsettling as it always has been to many people in the U.S. military.

The assessment is that Scott Speicher probably did survive the ejection out of his aircraft when he was hit by a surface-to-air missile on the first night of Operation Desert Storm. He probably did survive, and he probably, the intelligence community believes, was held in Iraqi custody for some period of time. Now, what's interesting to them about these initials is apparently the Iraqi informant that told them to go to this prison, the al-Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad, said that there had been some sightings, some information about Scott Speicher being at that location in the mid-1990s.

And the fact that they went to the prison and found these initials now makes them believe that this particular informant might have been credible, but they are not sure, and they emphasize they've had a number of other informants that have not been credible. So the books are still open on this one -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Yes, I wonder what that white stuff is. All right, very good. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. Thank you, Barbara.

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