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CNN Live Today
Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier
Aired December 02, 2003 - 11:15 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: In Iraq today, a roadside bomb kills a U.S. soldier, but his death may have been hastened by a tragic mixup.
Let's bring in our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf on duty this morning.
Hello, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
It was a roadside bomb, an explosion that hit a convoy, and the result of it was one soldier from the 4th Infantry Division, a combat engineer, killed. According to the U.S. military, he bled to death. They say his convoy called in the wrong grid coordinates for the medevac team. He was declared dead on arrival.
Now, Samarra of course, about 75 miles -- 70 miles north of Baghdad, is the site of that horrendous and very fierce firefight on Sunday, in which the U.S. military says they killed at least 46 Iraqis after an ambush of a money convoy.
But on a somewhat happier note for the coalition, they did something pretty symbolic, but also in their mind, pretty huge today, here at the Republican Palace in Baghdad. That was Saddam Hussein's main palace. And just to make sure there was no doubt about it, he installed four very large busts heads of himself, cast bronze, on each corner of that main palace. Each one is seven tons, 13 feet high. And today, the coalition started taking them down, a big job in itself. It's going take several weeks.
Now, they are taking down his image. This is man who obviously saw himself as much larger than life. And although his images are disappearing all over the place as part of a de-Baath-ification law, he, of course, is still at large somewhere out there -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Jane Arraf, live from Baghdad 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 December 2, 2003 - 11:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: In Iraq today, a roadside bomb kills a U.S. soldier, but his death may have been hastened by a tragic mixup.
Let's bring in our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf on duty this morning.
Hello, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
It was a roadside bomb, an explosion that hit a convoy, and the result of it was one soldier from the 4th Infantry Division, a combat engineer, killed. According to the U.S. military, he bled to death. They say his convoy called in the wrong grid coordinates for the medevac team. He was declared dead on arrival.
Now, Samarra of course, about 75 miles -- 70 miles north of Baghdad, is the site of that horrendous and very fierce firefight on Sunday, in which the U.S. military says they killed at least 46 Iraqis after an ambush of a money convoy.
But on a somewhat happier note for the coalition, they did something pretty symbolic, but also in their mind, pretty huge today, here at the Republican Palace in Baghdad. That was Saddam Hussein's main palace. And just to make sure there was no doubt about it, he installed four very large busts heads of himself, cast bronze, on each corner of that main palace. Each one is seven tons, 13 feet high. And today, the coalition started taking them down, a big job in itself. It's going take several weeks.
Now, they are taking down his image. This is man who obviously saw himself as much larger than life. And although his images are disappearing all over the place as part of a de-Baath-ification law, he, of course, is still at large somewhere out there -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Jane Arraf, live from Baghdad 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
