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CNN Live At Daybreak

International News Desk

Aired October 07, 2003 - 05:36   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: At times, the news media has been criticized for its reporting on Iraq. You know, all bad news, not no good news coming out of the country.
Well, today, our senior international editor David Clinch is here with what you might consider positive developments. Unfortunately, it comes on a morning when there's another explosion in Iraq.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Absolutely. Well, there is another explosion in Baghdad today. But that actually fits into the pattern with what I'm talking about. There was a grenade, a mortar or something like that, shot towards the Iraqi Foreign Ministry today. It was an unsuccessful attack and a very small scale attack. We're not going to make anything bigger of it than it is.

President Bush described yesterday, I think it was, during the day yesterday in a press conference about this reorganization. The White House now taking charge in Iraq and Afghanistan directly, talking about how you wouldn't know about the good news in Iraq and Afghanistan because of what he called the filter.

Well, that's us. Not just us, but the filter, the media talking about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there is news. I like to think there's no such thing as good news and bad news. There's just what happens.

But certainly a couple of the things that we're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last couple of days could be described as good news. U.S. officials saying yesterday for the first time that the power, electrical power in Iraq is now back to prewar levels.

Now, prewar levels weren't that great, really, in the first place. But at least they can say they have achieved that. They're back to the level. Pretty much everybody in Iraq has access to power most of the time. Still far less power than Iraq, as it is now, needs, probably about 50 percent of what Iraq needs now, and way less than they predict Iraq will need in the years ahead. But they're getting there. They are putting power. And the Iraqi people, generally speaking, are very happy about that.

This is what we talked about immediately after the war, you know, people saying how can they possibly be greeted as...

COSTELLO: Liberators, yes.

CLINCH: ... liberators, if they can't even turn the power on? Well, it took time, but they have turned the power back on. So that's, relatively speaking, good news.

And two years later in Afghanistan, two years today since the United States launched its attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan, two years later there's also, generally speaking, some good news there. Boys and girls able to go to school. Girls able to go to school, having never been able to go to school before. Generally speaking, again, people in Afghanistan, when they think about life now in Afghanistan compared to under the Taliban, very happy about that. At least certainly we can say that those girls are getting an opportunity to go to school in Afghanistan, something they never had the chance to do before, are very happy about that.

COSTELLO: And I don't see any burkhas.

CLINCH: There are still burkhas, but not all the time. And certainly the younger girls not very keen on wearing the burkhas and certainly they're learning far more about the world than they ever did before.

I don't know if we have the picture, but connecting to what I'm going to talk about at 6:00 a.m., though, in researching some of the stuff about Afghanistan and the second anniversary, we did find a picture -- I don't know if we have it in the control room. Anyway, we'll see if we can find it. But it's -- oh, here we go.

In Afghanistan today...

COSTELLO: Oh, no.

CLINCH: That's Arnold Schwarzenegger up there. It's nothing to do with the recall as such, but just...

COSTELLO: Oh...

CLINCH: It's actually an ad for a gym, a gymnasium in Kabul. But just illustrating what I'm going to talk about at 6:00 a.m., that the California recall is a global story because of him, because of Arnold Schwarzenegger. People in Kabul know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is. Everybody in the world knows who he is.

COSTELLO: That's just insane.

CLINCH: And we'll talk a little bit more...

COSTELLO: Well, I know that Al-Arabiyah is in California covering that recall.

CLINCH: Oh, all of them are. Al Jazeera, they're all there. Absolutely. Everybody is there. We've actually even sent Richard Quest from London to be in Los Angeles to cover this because we need a more global perspective on it. So we'll talk a little bit more at 6:00 about how it is a world story and why.

COSTELLO: I can't wait.

CLINCH: All right? COSTELLO: Thank you, David.

We appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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 October 7, 2003 - 05:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: At times, the news media has been criticized for its reporting on Iraq. You know, all bad news, not no good news coming out of the country.
Well, today, our senior international editor David Clinch is here with what you might consider positive developments. Unfortunately, it comes on a morning when there's another explosion in Iraq.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Absolutely. Well, there is another explosion in Baghdad today. But that actually fits into the pattern with what I'm talking about. There was a grenade, a mortar or something like that, shot towards the Iraqi Foreign Ministry today. It was an unsuccessful attack and a very small scale attack. We're not going to make anything bigger of it than it is.

President Bush described yesterday, I think it was, during the day yesterday in a press conference about this reorganization. The White House now taking charge in Iraq and Afghanistan directly, talking about how you wouldn't know about the good news in Iraq and Afghanistan because of what he called the filter.

Well, that's us. Not just us, but the filter, the media talking about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there is news. I like to think there's no such thing as good news and bad news. There's just what happens.

But certainly a couple of the things that we're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last couple of days could be described as good news. U.S. officials saying yesterday for the first time that the power, electrical power in Iraq is now back to prewar levels.

Now, prewar levels weren't that great, really, in the first place. But at least they can say they have achieved that. They're back to the level. Pretty much everybody in Iraq has access to power most of the time. Still far less power than Iraq, as it is now, needs, probably about 50 percent of what Iraq needs now, and way less than they predict Iraq will need in the years ahead. But they're getting there. They are putting power. And the Iraqi people, generally speaking, are very happy about that.

This is what we talked about immediately after the war, you know, people saying how can they possibly be greeted as...

COSTELLO: Liberators, yes.

CLINCH: ... liberators, if they can't even turn the power on? Well, it took time, but they have turned the power back on. So that's, relatively speaking, good news.

And two years later in Afghanistan, two years today since the United States launched its attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan, two years later there's also, generally speaking, some good news there. Boys and girls able to go to school. Girls able to go to school, having never been able to go to school before. Generally speaking, again, people in Afghanistan, when they think about life now in Afghanistan compared to under the Taliban, very happy about that. At least certainly we can say that those girls are getting an opportunity to go to school in Afghanistan, something they never had the chance to do before, are very happy about that.

COSTELLO: And I don't see any burkhas.

CLINCH: There are still burkhas, but not all the time. And certainly the younger girls not very keen on wearing the burkhas and certainly they're learning far more about the world than they ever did before.

I don't know if we have the picture, but connecting to what I'm going to talk about at 6:00 a.m., though, in researching some of the stuff about Afghanistan and the second anniversary, we did find a picture -- I don't know if we have it in the control room. Anyway, we'll see if we can find it. But it's -- oh, here we go.

In Afghanistan today...

COSTELLO: Oh, no.

CLINCH: That's Arnold Schwarzenegger up there. It's nothing to do with the recall as such, but just...

COSTELLO: Oh...

CLINCH: It's actually an ad for a gym, a gymnasium in Kabul. But just illustrating what I'm going to talk about at 6:00 a.m., that the California recall is a global story because of him, because of Arnold Schwarzenegger. People in Kabul know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is. Everybody in the world knows who he is.

COSTELLO: That's just insane.

CLINCH: And we'll talk a little bit more...

COSTELLO: Well, I know that Al-Arabiyah is in California covering that recall.

CLINCH: Oh, all of them are. Al Jazeera, they're all there. Absolutely. Everybody is there. We've actually even sent Richard Quest from London to be in Los Angeles to cover this because we need a more global perspective on it. So we'll talk a little bit more at 6:00 about how it is a world story and why.

COSTELLO: I can't wait.

CLINCH: All right? COSTELLO: Thank you, David.

We appreciate it.

CLINCH: OK.

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