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CNN Live At Daybreak
General Jay Garner Conducts Town Hall Meeting in Baghdad
Aired April 28, 2003 - 06:08 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 go back to Baghdad now, because a town hall-style meeting has been going on there for hours. It was called by retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner. In attendance, hundreds of Iraqi community leaders, and outside there are hundreds of protestors.
Rula Amin live in Baghdad to tell us more.
Hello -- Rula.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. It's Rym here.
COSTELLO: Oh, I'm sorry -- Rym.
BRAHIMI: Just to go back to this political -- that's OK. This political process has begun, at least so we're told. It's taking place at the former place where National Assembly meetings used to take place. It's the Conference Palace.
There are some 250 prominent Iraqis, and they come from a variety of groupings. Some of them come from the former opposition that was based outside of Iraq for decades. Some of them come from within Iraq. There are Kurds, there are Shiite and Sunni representatives, there is a whole group of people there.
Now, they're all there, in essence, to discuss the political future of the country. But for that, Jay Garner says, we have to, in his words, lay down the groundwork. We had to provide security for the groundwork for an interim administration in Iraq to be able to happen.
Here's how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. GEN. JAY GARNER (RET.), U.S.-IRAQ RECON. ADM.: It's very humbling for me to be here before you, because the blood in your veins and your land gave forth to the civilization. It's here that we started the government process thousands of years ago, and it's in this land that we codified laws for the first time. So, society as we know it began here in this land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRAHIMI: So, Jay Garner there, speaking in English with a translator translating everything in Arabic, calling on those delegates to start a democratic process. But, of course, not everybody is happy. As you mentioned, there are also protests actually not very far from where we are at the Palestine Hotel. A lot of Shiites saying they're not happy, because they say that their group from the holy city of Najaf, known as the Al Halda (ph) School -- it's a theological school -- well, they say their group hasn't been represented properly among the people that Jay Garner is meeting with today.
And there's probably bound to be a little bit more of those protests in the coming days. There's a lot of sensitivity over who should be participating or not in Iraq's political future -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And it's interesting. I was just curious whether Ahmed Chalabi, the supposed U.S. favorite to take part in a future Iraqi government, is he in attendance or any of his representatives?
BRAHIMI: Well, he certainly has representatives, as you can imagine. But, of course, Ahmed Chalabi has become a very controversial figure. There have been a lot of, let's say, rumors about what he intends to do. He says that he just intends to help with the political process. A lot of people suspect he just literally wants to take over Iraq in a not very democratic way either, and a lot of suspicions over his intentions.
But definitely he's been here, and he's been here since the Americans have arrived, and he's been trying to do his bit to participate as well -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Exactly. And that so-called, you know, self-ordained mayor of Baghdad, he's been arrested, so he's certainly not in the meeting this morning.
BRAHIMI: Absolutely not in the meeting this morning. He's actually over with the people who have been arrested on the Iraqi side, the former generals, the former members of the Iraqi leadership that are in U.S. custody right now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad. Many thanks to you.
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 28, 2003 - 06:08 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 go back to Baghdad now, because a town hall-style meeting has been going on there for hours. It was called by retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner. In attendance, hundreds of Iraqi community leaders, and outside there are hundreds of protestors.
Rula Amin live in Baghdad to tell us more.
Hello -- Rula.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. It's Rym here.
COSTELLO: Oh, I'm sorry -- Rym.
BRAHIMI: Just to go back to this political -- that's OK. This political process has begun, at least so we're told. It's taking place at the former place where National Assembly meetings used to take place. It's the Conference Palace.
There are some 250 prominent Iraqis, and they come from a variety of groupings. Some of them come from the former opposition that was based outside of Iraq for decades. Some of them come from within Iraq. There are Kurds, there are Shiite and Sunni representatives, there is a whole group of people there.
Now, they're all there, in essence, to discuss the political future of the country. But for that, Jay Garner says, we have to, in his words, lay down the groundwork. We had to provide security for the groundwork for an interim administration in Iraq to be able to happen.
Here's how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. GEN. JAY GARNER (RET.), U.S.-IRAQ RECON. ADM.: It's very humbling for me to be here before you, because the blood in your veins and your land gave forth to the civilization. It's here that we started the government process thousands of years ago, and it's in this land that we codified laws for the first time. So, society as we know it began here in this land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRAHIMI: So, Jay Garner there, speaking in English with a translator translating everything in Arabic, calling on those delegates to start a democratic process. But, of course, not everybody is happy. As you mentioned, there are also protests actually not very far from where we are at the Palestine Hotel. A lot of Shiites saying they're not happy, because they say that their group from the holy city of Najaf, known as the Al Halda (ph) School -- it's a theological school -- well, they say their group hasn't been represented properly among the people that Jay Garner is meeting with today.
And there's probably bound to be a little bit more of those protests in the coming days. There's a lot of sensitivity over who should be participating or not in Iraq's political future -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And it's interesting. I was just curious whether Ahmed Chalabi, the supposed U.S. favorite to take part in a future Iraqi government, is he in attendance or any of his representatives?
BRAHIMI: Well, he certainly has representatives, as you can imagine. But, of course, Ahmed Chalabi has become a very controversial figure. There have been a lot of, let's say, rumors about what he intends to do. He says that he just intends to help with the political process. A lot of people suspect he just literally wants to take over Iraq in a not very democratic way either, and a lot of suspicions over his intentions.
But definitely he's been here, and he's been here since the Americans have arrived, and he's been trying to do his bit to participate as well -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Exactly. And that so-called, you know, self-ordained mayor of Baghdad, he's been arrested, so he's certainly not in the meeting this morning.
BRAHIMI: Absolutely not in the meeting this morning. He's actually over with the people who have been arrested on the Iraqi side, the former generals, the former members of the Iraqi leadership that are in U.S. custody right now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad. Many thanks to you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
