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American Morning
Is Saddam Alive?
Aired June 20, 2003 - 07:30 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: The question this morning is Saddam Hussein alive? Increasingly, intelligence community analysts now believe the answer is probably yes.
Barbara Starr is standing by live at the Pentagon. She has more on this.
Good morning -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Well, officials from two intelligence agencies here in Washington say, yes, there is now an assessment, not cold, hard facts, but an assessment that Saddam Hussein is alive and inside Iraq.
Now, they have come to this assessment, they say, based on several factors that include interrogations of those being held in custody, interviews with Iraqis on the streets who are offering information, plausible accounts of sightings and indeed, yes, some secret intercepts of communications amongst Saddam loyalists. They're watching very carefully, of course, to make sure that that is not planted fake information designed to mislead U.S. forces. But right now, their assessment is, yes, that he is somewhere inside Iraq.
Now, you might remember during the war, there were two specific strikes aimed at sights where they thought he was, and they believed they might have killed him. Well, the assessment there now is that first site back on March 19 just before the war really started that he may have escaped from that particular site. And the other one, the Monsoor (ph) district of Baghdad where it was believed he was during the war, a site that was bombed, it is believed that perhaps now he was never there.
Let's also mention that the official they captured the other day, General Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, that top bodyguard to Saddam Hussein, the man closest to him, next to his two sons, well, officials tell CNN this morning that he is now beginning to talk. They won't tell us exactly what he's saying. You see him here always at Saddam's shoulder, always quite close to him.
But he is expected to be one of the last people to have seen Saddam Hussein before he vanished, and he may have very valuable information to tell the U.S. And now they say he is beginning to talk -- Leon.
HARRIS: Yes, Barbara, you mentioned the fact that General Mahmud and Saddam Hussein were almost always together. Was there any surprise in the capture of General Mahmud in that Saddam Hussein was not with him now? Any indication with that?
STARR: Well, that's a very closely-held intelligence secret at the moment, because it's quite interesting. When he was captured, it was not immediately announced. That information was held for some period of time. And even after that, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to talk about it. He wouldn't even acknowledge that this was an important capture, that this man might have very good information about Saddam Hussein.
They want to keep a very close hold, because they are concerned that maybe Saddam was somewhere in that area and they don't want to upset any information they may have. So, they're keeping everything, he says, very close hold -- Leon.
HARRIS: Very interesting. Thank you very much, Barbara -- Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.
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 June 20, 2003 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The question this morning is Saddam Hussein alive? Increasingly, intelligence community analysts now believe the answer is probably yes.
Barbara Starr is standing by live at the Pentagon. She has more on this.
Good morning -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Well, officials from two intelligence agencies here in Washington say, yes, there is now an assessment, not cold, hard facts, but an assessment that Saddam Hussein is alive and inside Iraq.
Now, they have come to this assessment, they say, based on several factors that include interrogations of those being held in custody, interviews with Iraqis on the streets who are offering information, plausible accounts of sightings and indeed, yes, some secret intercepts of communications amongst Saddam loyalists. They're watching very carefully, of course, to make sure that that is not planted fake information designed to mislead U.S. forces. But right now, their assessment is, yes, that he is somewhere inside Iraq.
Now, you might remember during the war, there were two specific strikes aimed at sights where they thought he was, and they believed they might have killed him. Well, the assessment there now is that first site back on March 19 just before the war really started that he may have escaped from that particular site. And the other one, the Monsoor (ph) district of Baghdad where it was believed he was during the war, a site that was bombed, it is believed that perhaps now he was never there.
Let's also mention that the official they captured the other day, General Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, that top bodyguard to Saddam Hussein, the man closest to him, next to his two sons, well, officials tell CNN this morning that he is now beginning to talk. They won't tell us exactly what he's saying. You see him here always at Saddam's shoulder, always quite close to him.
But he is expected to be one of the last people to have seen Saddam Hussein before he vanished, and he may have very valuable information to tell the U.S. And now they say he is beginning to talk -- Leon.
HARRIS: Yes, Barbara, you mentioned the fact that General Mahmud and Saddam Hussein were almost always together. Was there any surprise in the capture of General Mahmud in that Saddam Hussein was not with him now? Any indication with that?
STARR: Well, that's a very closely-held intelligence secret at the moment, because it's quite interesting. When he was captured, it was not immediately announced. That information was held for some period of time. And even after that, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to talk about it. He wouldn't even acknowledge that this was an important capture, that this man might have very good information about Saddam Hussein.
They want to keep a very close hold, because they are concerned that maybe Saddam was somewhere in that area and they don't want to upset any information they may have. So, they're keeping everything, he says, very close hold -- Leon.
HARRIS: Very interesting. Thank you very much, Barbara -- Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
