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American Morning

Stories of War

Aired May 19, 2003 - 07:42   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Nic Robertson, it seems like his home away from home when he's not in London certainly is in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Nic Robertson, going back to the fall of last year, has spent about five months in Iraq, and his dramatic reports on the night of the bombings in Baghdad and the war to the final conclusion on day 21 in the central part of the city, Nic Robertson was essentially front and center for all of it. He's here in New York to receive the very prestigious Peabody award for his work on the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Nic -- good morning again to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

HEMMER: Great to have you. It's an honor and a pleasure to have you here in New York.

ROBERTSON: Well, likewise.

HEMMER: Listen, we are going to take our viewers through three different stories you've done in Baghdad recently to try and illustrate the difficulties of life in Iraq today. The first one is security that we mentioned about 15 minutes ago. You did a profile on a leading Iraqi atomic physicist about how his story illustrates this point. How so?

ROBERTSON: Shekha al-Junabi (ph), he was a leading physicist. He worked in the al-Tuwaitha (ph) nuclear research facility. He took us to a storage facility just outside the highly-guarded perimeter of that site and showed us how the local people had looted radioactive material.

Now, his story is really complex. It's not just about the looting and about the fact that people now have in their hands dangerous material. It's about the fact that this material could have wound up in the hands potentially of terrorists. People could have come to buy it. It could have been part of a larger and more complex plot that we saw unfold at the National Museum in Iraq.

But there is another part to his story, too. Here is a highly- skilled, a highly-trained Iraqi man, who wants to go back to work. But where can he go back to work? Where can he take these skills? Should he leave Iraq? In his case, his skills are highly valuable potentially to regimes around the world, even to Americans.

HEMMER: Well, why wouldn't the Americans hire this man then, or would they?

ROBERTSON: There is still so much to do. There is security to be established, a political regime to be built up and got running. So, people like him, they're low down the list of priorities. It's a huge country. The whole infrastructure essentially had collapsed. It takes time to replace these things and to get down to people like him, who are just looking for security, who are just looking for work, but who are thinking, how am I going to get it? Where am I going to get it from? Shall I leave? Shall I sell my services to, let's say, North Korea or to whomever?

HEMMER: Wow!

ROBERTSON: Yes.

HEMMER: Second story here, a lawyer in prison for four years, helping I guess to represent Saddam's daughters?

ROBERTSON: Waffa al-Bulemi (ph), an amazing story. Here is a woman who could tell us so much about the inside workings of Saddam Hussein' family, the fact that his daughters disliked him. They felt that they were prisoners in Iraq, that they wanted to leave the country, that they didn't have control over their own children, Saddam Hussein's grandchildren.

And here is a woman who exemplifies what's happened to many Iraqis. The regime has essentially destroyed their lives, has made their livers a misery. She spent four years in jail. She has come out. Her family is in ruins. Her husband had a top job in the army, he was a general, forced out of that, the family ostracized in their neighborhood. And they have these mental scars to bear, again, for them.

People have a lot potentially to contribute to society, but are not able to do it. Should they leave the country? Should they stay and help build the new Iraq? Their feelings, is the old regime still around in some forms? Will they be up against the same prejudices?

So, an amazing story of a woman with so much to tell about Saddam's family, yes.

HEMMER: And you point out the difficulties, too, in the there.

Quickly here, third story, the task of getting back to work, rebuilding the lives of the people. A former police captain and his wife, what is their story?

ROBERTSON: Their story is they were unfortunate enough to live right by the northern gates of Baghdad, and they had a house. Taha's (ph) wife was a veterinarian. They had the clinic right by the gates. The Iraqis came and parked about five tanks right outside their house. The soldiers left the tanks. The coalition came in and bombed the tanks, destroyed the gate. Their house was knocked flat. They ran away. The family was lucky to survive, six children.

But now, there are looters standing right outside their house. There are unexploded munitions where their children play. They want these tidied up. But the husband, Taha (ph), says I'm a captain in the police. But how can I go back to work as a policeman? My wife is not safe in the house. The looters will come in and take what little we have left. We can't even get the kids out to play.

HEMMER: Yes, and these are just three stories that really illustrate the difficulties today, and there are literally thousands, if not millions, of stories now in Iraq.

We're going to get your e-mails, Nic, as well, am@cnn.com. We encourage viewers to go ahead and send them in for Nic. We'll get to them a bit later in our program -- am@cnn.com. We can talk about the situation in Iraq today as, again, we progress throughout the morning here.

Talk to you again in a couple of minutes, Nic. Thanks for that, OK?

ROBERTSON: Thank you.

HEMMER: Pleasure.

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 May 19, 2003 - 07:42   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Nic Robertson, it seems like his home away from home when he's not in London certainly is in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Nic Robertson, going back to the fall of last year, has spent about five months in Iraq, and his dramatic reports on the night of the bombings in Baghdad and the war to the final conclusion on day 21 in the central part of the city, Nic Robertson was essentially front and center for all of it. He's here in New York to receive the very prestigious Peabody award for his work on the war on terror in Afghanistan.
Nic -- good morning again to you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

HEMMER: Great to have you. It's an honor and a pleasure to have you here in New York.

ROBERTSON: Well, likewise.

HEMMER: Listen, we are going to take our viewers through three different stories you've done in Baghdad recently to try and illustrate the difficulties of life in Iraq today. The first one is security that we mentioned about 15 minutes ago. You did a profile on a leading Iraqi atomic physicist about how his story illustrates this point. How so?

ROBERTSON: Shekha al-Junabi (ph), he was a leading physicist. He worked in the al-Tuwaitha (ph) nuclear research facility. He took us to a storage facility just outside the highly-guarded perimeter of that site and showed us how the local people had looted radioactive material.

Now, his story is really complex. It's not just about the looting and about the fact that people now have in their hands dangerous material. It's about the fact that this material could have wound up in the hands potentially of terrorists. People could have come to buy it. It could have been part of a larger and more complex plot that we saw unfold at the National Museum in Iraq.

But there is another part to his story, too. Here is a highly- skilled, a highly-trained Iraqi man, who wants to go back to work. But where can he go back to work? Where can he take these skills? Should he leave Iraq? In his case, his skills are highly valuable potentially to regimes around the world, even to Americans.

HEMMER: Well, why wouldn't the Americans hire this man then, or would they?

ROBERTSON: There is still so much to do. There is security to be established, a political regime to be built up and got running. So, people like him, they're low down the list of priorities. It's a huge country. The whole infrastructure essentially had collapsed. It takes time to replace these things and to get down to people like him, who are just looking for security, who are just looking for work, but who are thinking, how am I going to get it? Where am I going to get it from? Shall I leave? Shall I sell my services to, let's say, North Korea or to whomever?

HEMMER: Wow!

ROBERTSON: Yes.

HEMMER: Second story here, a lawyer in prison for four years, helping I guess to represent Saddam's daughters?

ROBERTSON: Waffa al-Bulemi (ph), an amazing story. Here is a woman who could tell us so much about the inside workings of Saddam Hussein' family, the fact that his daughters disliked him. They felt that they were prisoners in Iraq, that they wanted to leave the country, that they didn't have control over their own children, Saddam Hussein's grandchildren.

And here is a woman who exemplifies what's happened to many Iraqis. The regime has essentially destroyed their lives, has made their livers a misery. She spent four years in jail. She has come out. Her family is in ruins. Her husband had a top job in the army, he was a general, forced out of that, the family ostracized in their neighborhood. And they have these mental scars to bear, again, for them.

People have a lot potentially to contribute to society, but are not able to do it. Should they leave the country? Should they stay and help build the new Iraq? Their feelings, is the old regime still around in some forms? Will they be up against the same prejudices?

So, an amazing story of a woman with so much to tell about Saddam's family, yes.

HEMMER: And you point out the difficulties, too, in the there.

Quickly here, third story, the task of getting back to work, rebuilding the lives of the people. A former police captain and his wife, what is their story?

ROBERTSON: Their story is they were unfortunate enough to live right by the northern gates of Baghdad, and they had a house. Taha's (ph) wife was a veterinarian. They had the clinic right by the gates. The Iraqis came and parked about five tanks right outside their house. The soldiers left the tanks. The coalition came in and bombed the tanks, destroyed the gate. Their house was knocked flat. They ran away. The family was lucky to survive, six children.

But now, there are looters standing right outside their house. There are unexploded munitions where their children play. They want these tidied up. But the husband, Taha (ph), says I'm a captain in the police. But how can I go back to work as a policeman? My wife is not safe in the house. The looters will come in and take what little we have left. We can't even get the kids out to play.

HEMMER: Yes, and these are just three stories that really illustrate the difficulties today, and there are literally thousands, if not millions, of stories now in Iraq.

We're going to get your e-mails, Nic, as well, am@cnn.com. We encourage viewers to go ahead and send them in for Nic. We'll get to them a bit later in our program -- am@cnn.com. We can talk about the situation in Iraq today as, again, we progress throughout the morning here.

Talk to you again in a couple of minutes, Nic. Thanks for that, OK?

ROBERTSON: Thank you.

HEMMER: Pleasure.

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