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NEWS FROM CNN

Mission Iraq: Playing Hardball

Aired November 26, 2003 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: But first, though, this hour, hardball tactics in Iraq against a former regime official suspected of leading insurgents. Try as they might, U.S. forces have come up blank in efforts to find Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, but now they have two of his loved ones.
CNN's Walter Rodgers is in Baghdad to tell us why -- Walter.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the rationale in all of this, of course, is that the United States wants Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri very, very badly. He was Saddam's No. 2. An Iraqi friend of mine just told me the man has a reputation for being -- quote -- "a butcher." He is indeed wanted for war crimes. The Americans now believe that al-Duri is responsible for coordinating at least some of the attacks against American forces here.

So when the U.S. Army arrested his wife, Janar, and his daughter, Alba, there are two reasons for that. One, of course they hope that by arresting them and questioning them they might get some answers as to al-Duri's whereabouts. And the other possibility, of course, is that al-Duri is a sick man and if you arrest his loved ones, perhaps he'll give himself in.

By way of footnote, we should add that the United States has a $10 million bounty on al-Duri. And you have to ask yourself, Martin, how many men do you know that if their wives could collect 10 million bucks for turning him in, would turn it down -- Martin?

SAVIDGE: Well, Walter, it may make logic or make good sense as far as grabbing family members, but PR wise, how does it play out in the Arab world when this tactic is used?

RODGERS: Well, there isn't -- well, it would play very, very badly, because family, and particularly females, are supposed to be placed in the highest of esteem. Having said all that, there isn't much the U.S. can do here these days that's going to play very, very well in this part of the world. And so this is really just another bit of bad publicity for the Americans. The best thing the Americans can do at this point here in Iraq, and perhaps the Arab world, is find Saddam Hussein, put him totally out of business, and that would cause a great sigh of relief among the Iraqi people -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: That would be both a military and PR coup. Thanks, very much, Walter Rodgers in Baghdad.

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