Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Jack Reed Visit Iraq

Aired November 28, 2003 - 11:33   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.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: As President Bush visited U.S. troops in Baghdad for Thanksgiving, some candidates reached out to constituents a little closer to home. Democratic candidate Wesley Clark carved up turkey for the needy at a community center in Arkansas yesterday. He's spending part of the holiday weekend in Little Rock, before heading back out on the campaign trail.
Well, President Bush is not the only politician to pay a visit to troops in Iraq. Senators Jack Reed and Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Baghdad today after a visit to Afghanistan.

And CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour interviewed the senators, joining us now live from Baghdad with the latest on the senators' trip -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Catherine, as you say, they came from Afghanistan. And they are here now today and they will be here tomorrow.

They're coming here to provide support for the troops, for the new Iraq. They've been meeting with not only American troops and American occupation officials here, but also with members of the new Iraqi Governing Council and others.

Basically, what they have told us is that they're encouraged, they're pleased, they're proud of their troops and all the work American and other civilians are doing here. But, they say, they have got a lot more work to do. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic senator of New York, also on the Senate Arms Services Committee, who had voted for the congressional resolution authorizing war, says that there is a great deal more to do before U.S. troops or a U.S. political authority can withdraw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: ... face a very big hill to climb. This is a complicated situation. And there are still a lot of issues concerning security that I've heard about in every stop I have made, starting with the briefing that Ambassador Bremer provided, and that the process of trying to put something self-governance in a relatively short period of time is an extremely complicated undertaking.

So I'm going to do everything I can to support our civilian and military presence here, recognizing that I still think we need more help, we need more support from the international community, because this is the kind of challenge that really takes a very long time to pull off.

SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: Well, we have some shortcomings in intelligence. We have some institutional shortcomings. One, we don't have the number of intelligence analysts we need. We don't have the translators that we need. We haven't built them up over the course of the last 10 years.

And you can't build them up in 10 days or 10 weeks. But, more than that, we are in a society which is still trying to calculate whether we're here for the long run, whether it's safe to confide in us. And these issues are real. And until we get a handle on the intelligence situation, then we never can be quite sure whether our departure is timely or premature.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, also on the Armed Services Committee, but he had voted against the congressional resolution authorizing war.

And he is saying that, although he's very proud, as Senator Clinton, of the U.S. troops here, they need to do a lot more groundwork here, they need to beef up security. He was specifically talking about the very hard slog to try to hunt down and beat back this insurgency, the guerrilla campaign against the U.S. forces. And both senators said that, from all the people they were talking to, whether U.S., whether military or civilian, whether Iraqi, security was No. 1 of everybody's top priority.

CALLAWAY: Christiane, we certainly know that security was a concern for President Bush, his trip being top secret. But what about the senators? Were they as concerned about their own security?

AMANPOUR: Well, I think, any time high-profile people come to a place like this, of course, security for them is paramount. And they made their own careful preparations to come here.

Certainly, they may not be spending the night in Iraq, as many of the congressional delegations now do not. But these two senators apparently are planning to come back here tomorrow to visit with more troops. And they're basically taking their security as their security details have instructed them to do so.

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you, Christiane, Christiane Amanpour.

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 November 28, 2003 - 11:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: As President Bush visited U.S. troops in Baghdad for Thanksgiving, some candidates reached out to constituents a little closer to home. Democratic candidate Wesley Clark carved up turkey for the needy at a community center in Arkansas yesterday. He's spending part of the holiday weekend in Little Rock, before heading back out on the campaign trail.
Well, President Bush is not the only politician to pay a visit to troops in Iraq. Senators Jack Reed and Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Baghdad today after a visit to Afghanistan.

And CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour interviewed the senators, joining us now live from Baghdad with the latest on the senators' trip -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Catherine, as you say, they came from Afghanistan. And they are here now today and they will be here tomorrow.

They're coming here to provide support for the troops, for the new Iraq. They've been meeting with not only American troops and American occupation officials here, but also with members of the new Iraqi Governing Council and others.

Basically, what they have told us is that they're encouraged, they're pleased, they're proud of their troops and all the work American and other civilians are doing here. But, they say, they have got a lot more work to do. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic senator of New York, also on the Senate Arms Services Committee, who had voted for the congressional resolution authorizing war, says that there is a great deal more to do before U.S. troops or a U.S. political authority can withdraw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: ... face a very big hill to climb. This is a complicated situation. And there are still a lot of issues concerning security that I've heard about in every stop I have made, starting with the briefing that Ambassador Bremer provided, and that the process of trying to put something self-governance in a relatively short period of time is an extremely complicated undertaking.

So I'm going to do everything I can to support our civilian and military presence here, recognizing that I still think we need more help, we need more support from the international community, because this is the kind of challenge that really takes a very long time to pull off.

SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: Well, we have some shortcomings in intelligence. We have some institutional shortcomings. One, we don't have the number of intelligence analysts we need. We don't have the translators that we need. We haven't built them up over the course of the last 10 years.

And you can't build them up in 10 days or 10 weeks. But, more than that, we are in a society which is still trying to calculate whether we're here for the long run, whether it's safe to confide in us. And these issues are real. And until we get a handle on the intelligence situation, then we never can be quite sure whether our departure is timely or premature.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, also on the Armed Services Committee, but he had voted against the congressional resolution authorizing war.

And he is saying that, although he's very proud, as Senator Clinton, of the U.S. troops here, they need to do a lot more groundwork here, they need to beef up security. He was specifically talking about the very hard slog to try to hunt down and beat back this insurgency, the guerrilla campaign against the U.S. forces. And both senators said that, from all the people they were talking to, whether U.S., whether military or civilian, whether Iraqi, security was No. 1 of everybody's top priority.

CALLAWAY: Christiane, we certainly know that security was a concern for President Bush, his trip being top secret. But what about the senators? Were they as concerned about their own security?

AMANPOUR: Well, I think, any time high-profile people come to a place like this, of course, security for them is paramount. And they made their own careful preparations to come here.

Certainly, they may not be spending the night in Iraq, as many of the congressional delegations now do not. But these two senators apparently are planning to come back here tomorrow to visit with more troops. And they're basically taking their security as their security details have instructed them to do so.

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you, Christiane, Christiane Amanpour.

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