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American Morning

Interview With Evan Thomas

Aired July 14, 2003 - 09:04   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to Iraq, it's still like a war zone for U.S. troops long after the president declared major combat over. Nearly three dozen Americans have been killed by hostile fire since then. Now a report in "NEWSWEEK" says guerrilla warfare was the plan long before the fall of Iraq's leadership. "The Shadow of Saddam" is "Newsweek's" cover story and Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor for "Newsweek." He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C. Thanks for being with us.
EVAN THOMAS, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: The secret document comes courtesy the Iraqi secret police. It was dated before the war and I want to run through some of the orders that are given first. Loot and burn government institutions, sabotage power plants, assassinate Muslim clerics and obtain weapons and create mayhem. The is just a partial list. The actual list has 11 steps. Do you think that this list explain the state of violence that we are seeing in Iraq?

THOMAS: Maybe. We couldn't get the documents verified by the government, but a Pentagon source told it was plausible.

Certainly is a laundry list for what they've been doing. If you go down the list, it's pretty much what's been happening. It makes sense that they would have -- the secret police would have some kind of preparation for when or if the government fell. And that's what's been happening. It looks like, at least, a semiorganized guerrilla warfare.

O'BRIEN: Where did "Newsweek" get the document from?

THOMAS: I can't tell you about the sourcing on it, but we've run it by the government, and as I said we can't verify it for sure, but it's plausible.

O'BRIEN: You say it came from the secret police but it must be expected that Saddam Hussein obviously had a heavy hand in the creation of this document, right?

THOMAS: It's covered with stamps and seals from all sorts of government agencies. It was issued by the Mukhabarat, the secret police. But there are other agencies mentioned on (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: As you say, mostly the list has been carried out. What is still on the list to do, so to speak?

THOMAS: Well, they've pretty much done everything on the list. The overall for us is general mayhem. It's to make life as miserable as possible for the occupiers and they're doing that. They're killing soldiers at the rate of about one every other day. And they've killed almost 80 -- or actually by violent fire by about 40 since hostilities were declared over. And we think that this -- the United States thinks that this week could be the worst yet.

O'BRIEN: U.S. officials are acknowledging now that there is some sort of coordination, even if just on the regional level, on those attacks against the coalition forces in Iraq. Do you think that's a correct assessment? Do you think goes beyond coordination just at a regional level?

THOMAS: It's interesting. The government's been gradually ratcheting that up. But first they said uncoordinated. Now it's regional coordination. There are little hints that maybe it's national coordination.

The problem is Saddam is still alive, he's got millions and millions of dollars. Last week they caught a truck full of $40,000 in cash and a lot of RPGs. So he has the funds to finance, to help finance, at least, an insurrection. A lot of these are soldiers who were in Saddam's army who were fired, let go by the Americans when we took over. Some have been rehired, but there are a lot of disconsolate angry young men with weapons out there, and knowledge of how to use explosives, and Saddam could be paying them.

O'BRIEN: You are referring, of course, to Paul Bremer's decision to go ahead and fire, essentially, the Ba'ath Party members, and, also, members of the Iraqi army. And then he reversed himself, put them back on the pay roll. Do you think the damage, though, is done?

THOMAS: Some of the damage, clearly. They now regret that decision. And "Newsweek" talked to people in Iraq about this. They thought it was a big blunder, just for the kind of common sense reason that you're turning loose all these people on the streets with weapons and weapons training and explosive training and no cash and anger that they've lost their job. It's a natural pool of resources for any kind of guerrilla action.

Now it is important to say that a lot of them have been rehired. So presumably, there's less incentive than there used to be. But they're out there. Somebody is shooting at American troops and they're doing it in a lot of different places.

Mostly, i should say, in the Sunni areas. Not in the Shi'ite areas. It's important to put a limit on this, because this is really in the Sunni triangle in central Iraq around Baghdad. The Shi'ite and Kurdish areas have been relatively safe.

O'BRIEN: Just over a week ago President Bush was saying bring it on when it came on any kinds of attacks on American troops or coalition troops. Do you think the tone has changed?

THOMAS: Yes, his own tone has changed. I mean last week he was saying, you know, we clearly have a security issue here. It's going to be long and hard. At Pentagon they used the word "messy" to describe it. Rumsfeld yesterday was warning that there's more trouble ahead, and even saying they might raise the troop level, if necessary.

O'BRIEN: Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor for "Newsweek." Thanks for joining us this morning.

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 July 14, 2003 - 09:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to Iraq, it's still like a war zone for U.S. troops long after the president declared major combat over. Nearly three dozen Americans have been killed by hostile fire since then. Now a report in "NEWSWEEK" says guerrilla warfare was the plan long before the fall of Iraq's leadership. "The Shadow of Saddam" is "Newsweek's" cover story and Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor for "Newsweek." He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C. Thanks for being with us.
EVAN THOMAS, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: The secret document comes courtesy the Iraqi secret police. It was dated before the war and I want to run through some of the orders that are given first. Loot and burn government institutions, sabotage power plants, assassinate Muslim clerics and obtain weapons and create mayhem. The is just a partial list. The actual list has 11 steps. Do you think that this list explain the state of violence that we are seeing in Iraq?

THOMAS: Maybe. We couldn't get the documents verified by the government, but a Pentagon source told it was plausible.

Certainly is a laundry list for what they've been doing. If you go down the list, it's pretty much what's been happening. It makes sense that they would have -- the secret police would have some kind of preparation for when or if the government fell. And that's what's been happening. It looks like, at least, a semiorganized guerrilla warfare.

O'BRIEN: Where did "Newsweek" get the document from?

THOMAS: I can't tell you about the sourcing on it, but we've run it by the government, and as I said we can't verify it for sure, but it's plausible.

O'BRIEN: You say it came from the secret police but it must be expected that Saddam Hussein obviously had a heavy hand in the creation of this document, right?

THOMAS: It's covered with stamps and seals from all sorts of government agencies. It was issued by the Mukhabarat, the secret police. But there are other agencies mentioned on (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: As you say, mostly the list has been carried out. What is still on the list to do, so to speak?

THOMAS: Well, they've pretty much done everything on the list. The overall for us is general mayhem. It's to make life as miserable as possible for the occupiers and they're doing that. They're killing soldiers at the rate of about one every other day. And they've killed almost 80 -- or actually by violent fire by about 40 since hostilities were declared over. And we think that this -- the United States thinks that this week could be the worst yet.

O'BRIEN: U.S. officials are acknowledging now that there is some sort of coordination, even if just on the regional level, on those attacks against the coalition forces in Iraq. Do you think that's a correct assessment? Do you think goes beyond coordination just at a regional level?

THOMAS: It's interesting. The government's been gradually ratcheting that up. But first they said uncoordinated. Now it's regional coordination. There are little hints that maybe it's national coordination.

The problem is Saddam is still alive, he's got millions and millions of dollars. Last week they caught a truck full of $40,000 in cash and a lot of RPGs. So he has the funds to finance, to help finance, at least, an insurrection. A lot of these are soldiers who were in Saddam's army who were fired, let go by the Americans when we took over. Some have been rehired, but there are a lot of disconsolate angry young men with weapons out there, and knowledge of how to use explosives, and Saddam could be paying them.

O'BRIEN: You are referring, of course, to Paul Bremer's decision to go ahead and fire, essentially, the Ba'ath Party members, and, also, members of the Iraqi army. And then he reversed himself, put them back on the pay roll. Do you think the damage, though, is done?

THOMAS: Some of the damage, clearly. They now regret that decision. And "Newsweek" talked to people in Iraq about this. They thought it was a big blunder, just for the kind of common sense reason that you're turning loose all these people on the streets with weapons and weapons training and explosive training and no cash and anger that they've lost their job. It's a natural pool of resources for any kind of guerrilla action.

Now it is important to say that a lot of them have been rehired. So presumably, there's less incentive than there used to be. But they're out there. Somebody is shooting at American troops and they're doing it in a lot of different places.

Mostly, i should say, in the Sunni areas. Not in the Shi'ite areas. It's important to put a limit on this, because this is really in the Sunni triangle in central Iraq around Baghdad. The Shi'ite and Kurdish areas have been relatively safe.

O'BRIEN: Just over a week ago President Bush was saying bring it on when it came on any kinds of attacks on American troops or coalition troops. Do you think the tone has changed?

THOMAS: Yes, his own tone has changed. I mean last week he was saying, you know, we clearly have a security issue here. It's going to be long and hard. At Pentagon they used the word "messy" to describe it. Rumsfeld yesterday was warning that there's more trouble ahead, and even saying they might raise the troop level, if necessary.

O'BRIEN: Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor for "Newsweek." Thanks for joining us this morning.

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