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CNN Live Today

Terror in Iraq

Aired August 29, 2003 - 11:48   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: We are going to continue our coverage of the car bombing in -- that happened in Iraq today. Hospital officials are now saying that at least 75 people have died in Najaf, Iraq, including a leading Shiite cleric. Now this bombing happened outside of a mosque in Najaf, and it deals yet another blow to the effort to bring stability to Iraq.
Joining us now to talk about the implications of this latest act of terror is CNN analyst Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution.

Thanks for hustling over to the cameras for us on this one. It just happened a matter of hours ago, Ken. I have yet to hear anyone say this is not going to have a bad impact on the efforts right now to bring stability to Iraq. What do you make of all of this?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes, unfortunately, Leon, this is an important event. It has two negative repercussions. A, because of the location. You have to understand that the shrine of the Imam Ali in Najaf is one of, if not the most, holy site of Shia Islam. It's kind of like a bomb going off outside of St. Peter's in Rome or outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to Catholics.

And beyond that, there's also the fact that the bomb resulted in the death of Ayatollah Baqir Al-Hakim.

Now Baqir Al-Hakim was an important Shia figure. We shouldn't exaggerate. He wasn't the leader of all Iraqis Shias, but he was a very important Iraqi Shia leader. And what's more, he was an Iraqi Shia leader with close ties to Iran, who everyone was a little bit nervous he might not be willing to cooperate in the reconstruction, and he had been doing so. He was part of the interim governing council. He had been saying all of the right things in terms of the need for the Shia to work with the United States and with the reconstruction. These were all very powerful, important messages coming from him, and his death calls into question a lot of the progress being made with the Shia.

HARRIS: Well, considering his role then, considering his stature, considering the role that the U.S. would like him to play or would have liked him to play in the rebuilding process, should this man have been protected by the U.S. troops there?

POLLACK: No, that's a simple question. Protecting with U.S. troops would have been deeply counterproductive. Certainly the U.S. might have been able to do more in terms of providing him with greater intelligence, but that's really an open question. That's one I think we will have to answer later on as more comes out about what was going on. It may have been the case that the U.S. could have provided additional protection in the form of greater intelligence. If the U.S. had known something like this was going on or an indication that someone might try to kill him, all that would have suggested maybe we should give him more information. But again, that really in the realm of speculation.

HARRIS: But what I can tell you is U.S. troops around him would not have helped. They would have only hurt his stature inside of Iraq.

We just got more video that came in. We understand this video is pictures taken immediately after the bomb blast. As you can see, there's a fire there fully engaged there. As you can tell, a number of vehicles taken out by this explosion, and had to be a massive one considering the damage to the building and all of the different vehicles that were strewn around the streets there and gutted.

Ken, with these pictures now as a backdrop, let me ask you about something I heard our Walt Rodgers reporting earlier this morning. He said something about people in Baghdad being so riled up about this they were considering, or thinking about at least, getting in vehicles, taking up arms and going down to Najaf. And if that sort of thing were to happen, how far away would we possibly be, Ken, from a civil war in Iraq?

POLLACK: Well, I don't think that we should push too far. Obviously, this is the kind of event that makes people very angry and the idea would have people, and the fact that saying things like that doesn't strike me out of the norm. The big question is, who exactly are they going to start shooting at? If they jump in their cars and go down to Najaf, what exactly are they planning on doing? It is unclear who is responsible for this attack? It may have been another Shia group. We have seen a lot of inter-Shia violence over the past three months.

HARRIS: Who would you be betting on, though?

POLLACK: Well, at this point, I just don't think we know. I think that there's a real possibility that this could be another Shia group. I think that there's a real possibility that this could be some kind of a Sunni group, whether it's Saddam loyalists or Sunni tribesman who are looking to stir up the Shia and create additional fissures, we don't know. But at the moment, I think there are a lot of Shia who are going to be angry, but it will be hard for them to find out and who to direct the anger against.

HARRIS: Whoever it was, they stirred up a big hornet's nest here.

Ken Pollack, we appreciate your insight.

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 August 29, 2003 - 11:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to continue our coverage of the car bombing in -- that happened in Iraq today. Hospital officials are now saying that at least 75 people have died in Najaf, Iraq, including a leading Shiite cleric. Now this bombing happened outside of a mosque in Najaf, and it deals yet another blow to the effort to bring stability to Iraq.
Joining us now to talk about the implications of this latest act of terror is CNN analyst Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution.

Thanks for hustling over to the cameras for us on this one. It just happened a matter of hours ago, Ken. I have yet to hear anyone say this is not going to have a bad impact on the efforts right now to bring stability to Iraq. What do you make of all of this?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Yes, unfortunately, Leon, this is an important event. It has two negative repercussions. A, because of the location. You have to understand that the shrine of the Imam Ali in Najaf is one of, if not the most, holy site of Shia Islam. It's kind of like a bomb going off outside of St. Peter's in Rome or outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to Catholics.

And beyond that, there's also the fact that the bomb resulted in the death of Ayatollah Baqir Al-Hakim.

Now Baqir Al-Hakim was an important Shia figure. We shouldn't exaggerate. He wasn't the leader of all Iraqis Shias, but he was a very important Iraqi Shia leader. And what's more, he was an Iraqi Shia leader with close ties to Iran, who everyone was a little bit nervous he might not be willing to cooperate in the reconstruction, and he had been doing so. He was part of the interim governing council. He had been saying all of the right things in terms of the need for the Shia to work with the United States and with the reconstruction. These were all very powerful, important messages coming from him, and his death calls into question a lot of the progress being made with the Shia.

HARRIS: Well, considering his role then, considering his stature, considering the role that the U.S. would like him to play or would have liked him to play in the rebuilding process, should this man have been protected by the U.S. troops there?

POLLACK: No, that's a simple question. Protecting with U.S. troops would have been deeply counterproductive. Certainly the U.S. might have been able to do more in terms of providing him with greater intelligence, but that's really an open question. That's one I think we will have to answer later on as more comes out about what was going on. It may have been the case that the U.S. could have provided additional protection in the form of greater intelligence. If the U.S. had known something like this was going on or an indication that someone might try to kill him, all that would have suggested maybe we should give him more information. But again, that really in the realm of speculation.

HARRIS: But what I can tell you is U.S. troops around him would not have helped. They would have only hurt his stature inside of Iraq.

We just got more video that came in. We understand this video is pictures taken immediately after the bomb blast. As you can see, there's a fire there fully engaged there. As you can tell, a number of vehicles taken out by this explosion, and had to be a massive one considering the damage to the building and all of the different vehicles that were strewn around the streets there and gutted.

Ken, with these pictures now as a backdrop, let me ask you about something I heard our Walt Rodgers reporting earlier this morning. He said something about people in Baghdad being so riled up about this they were considering, or thinking about at least, getting in vehicles, taking up arms and going down to Najaf. And if that sort of thing were to happen, how far away would we possibly be, Ken, from a civil war in Iraq?

POLLACK: Well, I don't think that we should push too far. Obviously, this is the kind of event that makes people very angry and the idea would have people, and the fact that saying things like that doesn't strike me out of the norm. The big question is, who exactly are they going to start shooting at? If they jump in their cars and go down to Najaf, what exactly are they planning on doing? It is unclear who is responsible for this attack? It may have been another Shia group. We have seen a lot of inter-Shia violence over the past three months.

HARRIS: Who would you be betting on, though?

POLLACK: Well, at this point, I just don't think we know. I think that there's a real possibility that this could be another Shia group. I think that there's a real possibility that this could be some kind of a Sunni group, whether it's Saddam loyalists or Sunni tribesman who are looking to stir up the Shia and create additional fissures, we don't know. But at the moment, I think there are a lot of Shia who are going to be angry, but it will be hard for them to find out and who to direct the anger against.

HARRIS: Whoever it was, they stirred up a big hornet's nest here.

Ken Pollack, we appreciate your insight.

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