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CNN Live Sunday

Saddam Captured: Mood in Tikrit

Aired December 14, 2003 - 14:02   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 LIN, CNN ANCHOR: People are celebrating around the world, as well, but what about in Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace? CNN's Nic Robertson is there right now.
Nic, what is the reaction there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, there's certainly reaction here, one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces, the base for the 4th Infantry Division who conducted that raid to capture Saddam Hussein.

Out on the streets, it's a different picture, though. People here are not celebrating as we've seen in Baghdad. The people we have talked to here have said, on the one hand, well, Saddam Hussein was just a man. Governments come and go. Presidents come and go. That doesn't mean anything to us.

Somebody else said the Iraqi anti-coalition elements, the resistance, as they call them here, will not be affected Saddam Hussein's capture. The reason, this man told us, he said, because they were not fighting for Saddam Hussein. They were fighting for Iraq. He says they'll continue to fight for Iraq because Iraq is occupied.

Now, Tikrit is a town that has been very loyal to Saddam Hussein over the years. It is the town in which he was born. It is a town that has benefited a huge amount under his regime. It has had better electricity, better infrastructure, better roads, better buildings, better health care over the years. But General Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division here today, reached out to Iraqis. He told them with Saddam Hussein's capture, their lives would now improve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR GENERAL RAYMOND ODIERNO, CMDR. 4th INFANTRY DIV.: This is a significant event for the Iraqi people. The intimidation and fear this man generated for over 30 years are now gone. Many will rest much better tonight knowing that Iraq is moving forward to a more secure environment. A significant blow has been dealt to the former regime elements, still trying to hamper progress in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, the General Odierno said that he thought that the people of Tikrit and this area would, in fact, be quietly happy that Saddam Hussein was gone. He said he'd have to judge the situation over the next few weeks and days to see how people responded.

But he did make one very important and enlightening comment about Saddam Hussein when he was picked up. He said he had no communications equipment with him at that location. And for the General Odierno, he said that that was an indication that Saddam Hussein was not really involved in the day-to-day anti-coalition activity that was going on in Iraq. And indication, he feels, that perhaps more of these attacks could continue in the near future, at least.

Carol?

LIN: Nic, any word on the street out there, anybody talking about who might have snitched on Saddam Hussein, given away his location?

ROBERTSON: No word on the street yet. It's very likely -- and we saw this after the killing of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein's two sons back in the summer, the rumors will start very quickly. And perhaps those rumors will get some lift from the information coming from the 4th Infantry Division today.

We were told that the 4th Infantry Division, the coalition had decided that it needed to capture some of the mid-level people, the bodyguards around Saddam Hussein's infrastructure. Through them, they needed to get to tribal families who were loyal to Saddam Hussein, tribes that were loyal to Saddam Hussein.

And what we were told today was that over the last 10 days, five to 10 key people, people with either tribal connections or family connections to Saddam Hussein, who knew his whereabouts, those people walked in. And 48 hours ago, one of those people cracked, they gave the critical information, which lead the coalition to where Saddam Hussein was found hiding in that hole. Very disheveled when he was lifted out.

Carol?

LIN: Thanks very much, Nic Robertson, reporting live from Tikrit, interesting.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the White House where the war in Iraq has offered little to celebrate of late. There is a good deal of jubilation there today. CNN's Dana Bash is there with more.

Hello, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is the speech that President Bush has been hoping to give, waiting to give for some nine months since the first strike in Iraq. On March 19, that was aimed at Saddam Hussein. Now, he is able to tell the world that Saddam Hussein is in U.S. custody.

Now, Mr. Bush's short address from the White House was targeted first at the Iraqi people. Telling them that they should understand that Saddam Hussein, now they should know Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to them. And as he said, "The dark, painful era is no more." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people. You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That is something that President Bush said time and time again, but obviously, the fact that the Iraqi people can now see photographs, pictures of Saddam Hussein, their former leader in the shape that he is in; and obviously, in U.S. custody. The president and his aides are certainly hoping this will give a whole new meaning to those statements by the president, that they will understand that things they hope are going to perhaps calm down on the ground.

But the president did try to walk a very fine line and that was made clear in the message to the American people, wanting to make them understand that although there are jubilation in the streets today of Iraq, that violence isn't necessarily over. Try to lower expectations that the situation on the ground will improve immediately.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Today on behalf of the nation I thank the members of our armed forces and I congratulate them. I also have a message for all Americans. The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people. And they will be defeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So while this is clearly an extraordinary day for the president and for the Bush administration, as a whole, their public comments are low key. Trying to make the point that although this is something that they have been waiting for, for a long time and they hope it changes things on the ground and around the world, they also want to set a different kind of tone than we have seen perhaps in the past, perhaps on May 1 when President Bush declared major victory over -- that was quite a different speech, quite a different scene than what we saw today.

O'BRIEN: Entirely different, that is for sure. Dana Bash at the White House, thank you very much.

Carol?

LIN: Imagine what it might be like to be an Iraqi today. The haggard captive on Baghdad television screens used to be the man who determined who lived and died in that country. CNN's Jane Arraf comes to us live from Baghdad.

Jane, what are people saying there about the capture? JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Carol, they're absolutely stunned. And now, of all the things that people never would have been able to imagine here, a year ago. Perhaps one of them was this image of Saddam Hussein, on television, looking barely human. Reduced to living in hiding underground and having his mouth open with a tongue depressor, by what appears to be a U.S. soldier.

Absolutely extraordinary. They heard the news, they saw this image, and some of them took to the streets in celebration. There was dancing in the streets. And people getting on buses, holding up banners saying congratulations to all Iraqis and everywhere there was gunfire, a traditional form of celebration.

Now, while U.S. forces took the credit for this one in capturing Saddam and capturing him without a single shot fired, the chief civilian administrator here, L. Paul Bremer, said this really was a day for Iraqis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

L. PAUL BREMER, U.S. CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: This is a great day in Iraq's history. For decades, hundreds of thousands of you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, Saddam Hussein divided you citizens against each other. For decades, he threatened and attacked your neighbors. Those days are over forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARRAF: There's some things though, that aren't over, Carol. Nobody expects these attacks to be over and, in fact, officials are warning they could perhaps for a while, at least, increase.

Carol?

LIN: Jane, who -- is there a sense out there, who is actually behind these attacks? Are they just individuals acting out or is there a sense that there is still someone out there pulling the strings?

ARRAF: Increasingly, there's a sense that there is not a single person pulling the strings. That this is become a complicated force of its own, to some extent, but generally what we're hearing in places like Baghdad, and other places, are individual cells.

Now, most of these seem to be cells made up of former Ba'ath Party members and former Saddam fighters, but they seem to be working and formed alliances some of them, with foreign fighters, particularly in the cases of suicide bombs. Those people thought to be foreigners.

And on top of all of this, just common criminals. People paid $300 to $400 to place homemade bombs in the road. It's a very difficult thing to fight. It's not necessarily tied to Saddam, a lot of it now. And it certainly does not appear to have been orchestrated by him.

Carol?

LIN: Thank you very much, Jane Arraf live in Baghdad. Wow.

O'BRIEN: From the outset of the invasion Saddam Hussein's capture was a key goal for the Pentagon, but we're still learning more about the specifics of how it happened. CNN's Barbara Starr joining us with more from Washington and how the U.S. military got the man at the top of that deck of the cards.

Hello, Barbara.

BARBARA STAR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Miles.

Well, when it started to happen, it all happened very quickly. It appears there was a detainee, an Iraqi taken into custody, interrogated by U.S. officials over the last 48 hours or so. And he had the final critical piece of information about where Saddam Hussein was hiding.

It's called actionable intelligence. It's so current, it's so fresh, U.S. forces were able to move quickly. So quickly, we are told, it was just a mere three hours between the time the final piece of information came into U.S. hands and U.S. troops were at the sight searching for Saddam Hussein.

They began their assault on the farmhouse area about 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, local time, on the ground in Iraq. And everything moved so quickly that basically Saddam Hussein was in custody and at secure location in another part of the country by 9:15.

This of course, is what military forces are trained to do. They're on stand by just for these types of missions. Special Forces were involved. Task Force 121, the very highly secretive Special Forces unit that has the specific job of hunting for the so-called high-value targets. So they all moved very quickly. It all fell into place.

But what now? Well, Pentagon officials tell us that nobody, they say, in their words, is doing high fives around the Pentagon today. A lot of caution, the belief still is as our other correspondents are reporting, that there could be, in fact, there's most likely to be, more violence, more attacks, especially over the next several weeks.

Iraq, as you know, is moving towards a procedure of self- governance in Iraqis in just six months, in June 2004. It is believed some of these groups will become more desperate by then, possibly engage in revenge attacks.

Clearly, the feeling at the Pentagon is the capture of Saddam Hussein, while important, does not solve the problem because it's been sometime since they had any indication that he was really pulling the strings on any of these attacks, anyhow. Senior military officials had been saying for some weeks now that they believe there was a so-called cellular structure, a group of cells of opposition across Iraq, very loosely organized, perhaps very limited regional connections, no real national connections, no one pulling the strings at the top.

So, as Jane Arraf said, a very complex network of opposition in Iraq and not at all clear today that the capture of Saddam Hussein is going to change any of that any time soon.

Miles?

O'BRIEN: Barbara, there's not any technology in the U.S. arsenal that would find a rat hole like this. Clearly, this is all about human intelligence. And we've been talking a long time about how the U.S. has been working very hard to improve its ability to gather intelligence on the ground. Does this represent truly a turning of the tide on that?

STARR: You know, I think it's going to be difficult to say because we're still in the very early hours. We don't know how this precisely all unfolded. It is clear that the 4th Infantry Division, which has the responsibility for Tikrit, over the last several weeks had come into possession of people and information that increasingly was sharp information, focused intelligence about what was going on in the Tikrit area.

They had seen an increase, if you will, in anti-coalition activity. They had seen some things that caused them to think that they might be on to something. And then it was in the last couple of days as they began to take more detainees into custody, people perhaps with direct connections to Saddam Hussein's inner circle that they began to assemble and get these critical last pieces of information.

What's so interesting here that we don't know the answer to is whoever gave them that final critical piece of information, was it just pure luck that Saddam Hussein didn't move in that final 48 hours? Had he run out of places to go to? Because by all accounts, he had constantly been on the move, but apparently in this last 48-hour period, this is the place he had decided to stay and where he finally got caught.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Barbara Starr in Washington, thank you very much.

Carol?

LIN: President Bush said that just because the Saddam Hussein has been actually captured doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be an end to the violence in Iraq. CNN Analyst Kenneth Pollack, or the Brookings Institution's Sabin Center is in Washington and joins us right now.

Ken, good to see you.

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Hi, Carol. How are you?

LIN: I'm doing just fine.

And the Bush administration very pleased about the capture of Saddam Hussein. But I'm wondering, what is your analysis of how this changes anything on the ground? I mean, according to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, the Bush administration seems to be pretty pessimistic saying that attacks not only will continue, but will actually increase against U.S. coalition forces. POLLACK: Right. Well, I think what Barbara is reporting about the Pentagon is the right approach for the administration to take. They need to be very cautious. Look, this was a very good day for the Iraqi people; it was also a good day for the American people.

This is a necessary step in dealing with the problems of post-war Iraq, but it is not over by a long shot as both the president has suggested and others in the U.S. administration suggested. There are lots of problems in Iraq. Just sticking with the insurgency itself, as you are hearing a lot of people suggesting, no one really knows what role Saddam Hussein was playing.

It does seem very clear over the last three or four months, U.S. intelligence has increasingly indicating that there are foreigners in Iraq, al Qaeda personnel in Iraq. There's Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists who are also opposing the United States, who have no love for Saddam Hussein whatsoever.

And beyond that, you have a fairly sizable segment of the Iraqi population, Sunni tribesmen, who make up 1 to 2 million people inside of Iraq, and a big chunk of territory in western Iraq, who have been completely alienated by the course of the U.S.-led reconstruction and they all oppose the U.S. presence and are taking up arms against us.

LIN: All right. Let's focus on the capture itself and those incredibly powerful images of Saddam Hussein sitting there completely disheveled, his hair grown out. A U.S medic picking through his hair for any type of vermin, sticking a tongue depressor into his mouth, these obviously very humiliating pictures of Saddam Hussein. How are these images likely to have an impact on those individual cells and what happens on the ground?

POLLACK: Obviously, there are going to be some who are so committed to Saddam Hussein they're likely to act -- react with outrage. That this is the humiliation of someone who they look up to. That said, as best we can tell, that number of people is extremely small inside of Iraq. For the vast majority of Iraqis I think this is going to be seen as something very positive. They want to see Saddam humiliated.

And even for many members of the resistance, seeing Saddam in this state, to the extent they do actually see him in this state, probably will be quite demoralizing. Some of them will remain committed they'll want to fight. But many others are going to simply question the status of what they can do. They're going to reach out and just find out, is there still someone out there giving the orders? Is there someone to pay me if I kill an American? Which is what is motivating many of them.

LIN: Ken, who will give the orders with what happens to Saddam Hussein next? The Iraqi governing council gave a news conference this morning, saying it plans to try him, with their war crimes tribunal. How might that affect the U.S. coalition's plan to interrogate him on what he knows about weapons of mass destruction?

POLLACK: Yeah. It's a really important question, Carol. Because you're going to now get into a situation, there's a bit of a tension. The Iraqis are going to want to put Saddam on trial and they'll probably going to want to do it sooner than later. They want to show the people that Saddam is there.

What's more, especially for this governing council, the more that they can get Saddam out there talking about all the horrible things he did to Iraqi society, the more that it may bring people around to seeing them as the alternative to Saddam Hussein. Something they want to do.

On the other hand, the U.S. is going to want to spend a lot of time with Saddam going over all the information they can, getting out of him everything they need to about weapons of mass destruction, possible ties to terrorists.

LIN: Which brings up another point, Ken. I mean, what if the United States -- would the United States be willing to cut a deal with Saddam Hussein for that information, if it's for the greater good of the world? And how would the governing council react to that?

POLLACK: Yes, that could be a really thorny issue. I think it would be a huge mistake for the United States to even try to do something like that without the explicit consent of the Iraqis -- and more than just the governing council. It would have to be a much broader consensus in Iraq that somehow this was worth doing. I can't imagine that consensus emerging.

LIN: We'll see what happens. Thank you very much, Kenneth Pollack.

POLLACK: Thank you, Carol.

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 14, 2003 - 14:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: People are celebrating around the world, as well, but what about in Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace? CNN's Nic Robertson is there right now.
Nic, what is the reaction there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, there's certainly reaction here, one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces, the base for the 4th Infantry Division who conducted that raid to capture Saddam Hussein.

Out on the streets, it's a different picture, though. People here are not celebrating as we've seen in Baghdad. The people we have talked to here have said, on the one hand, well, Saddam Hussein was just a man. Governments come and go. Presidents come and go. That doesn't mean anything to us.

Somebody else said the Iraqi anti-coalition elements, the resistance, as they call them here, will not be affected Saddam Hussein's capture. The reason, this man told us, he said, because they were not fighting for Saddam Hussein. They were fighting for Iraq. He says they'll continue to fight for Iraq because Iraq is occupied.

Now, Tikrit is a town that has been very loyal to Saddam Hussein over the years. It is the town in which he was born. It is a town that has benefited a huge amount under his regime. It has had better electricity, better infrastructure, better roads, better buildings, better health care over the years. But General Odierno, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division here today, reached out to Iraqis. He told them with Saddam Hussein's capture, their lives would now improve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR GENERAL RAYMOND ODIERNO, CMDR. 4th INFANTRY DIV.: This is a significant event for the Iraqi people. The intimidation and fear this man generated for over 30 years are now gone. Many will rest much better tonight knowing that Iraq is moving forward to a more secure environment. A significant blow has been dealt to the former regime elements, still trying to hamper progress in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, the General Odierno said that he thought that the people of Tikrit and this area would, in fact, be quietly happy that Saddam Hussein was gone. He said he'd have to judge the situation over the next few weeks and days to see how people responded.

But he did make one very important and enlightening comment about Saddam Hussein when he was picked up. He said he had no communications equipment with him at that location. And for the General Odierno, he said that that was an indication that Saddam Hussein was not really involved in the day-to-day anti-coalition activity that was going on in Iraq. And indication, he feels, that perhaps more of these attacks could continue in the near future, at least.

Carol?

LIN: Nic, any word on the street out there, anybody talking about who might have snitched on Saddam Hussein, given away his location?

ROBERTSON: No word on the street yet. It's very likely -- and we saw this after the killing of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein's two sons back in the summer, the rumors will start very quickly. And perhaps those rumors will get some lift from the information coming from the 4th Infantry Division today.

We were told that the 4th Infantry Division, the coalition had decided that it needed to capture some of the mid-level people, the bodyguards around Saddam Hussein's infrastructure. Through them, they needed to get to tribal families who were loyal to Saddam Hussein, tribes that were loyal to Saddam Hussein.

And what we were told today was that over the last 10 days, five to 10 key people, people with either tribal connections or family connections to Saddam Hussein, who knew his whereabouts, those people walked in. And 48 hours ago, one of those people cracked, they gave the critical information, which lead the coalition to where Saddam Hussein was found hiding in that hole. Very disheveled when he was lifted out.

Carol?

LIN: Thanks very much, Nic Robertson, reporting live from Tikrit, interesting.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the White House where the war in Iraq has offered little to celebrate of late. There is a good deal of jubilation there today. CNN's Dana Bash is there with more.

Hello, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is the speech that President Bush has been hoping to give, waiting to give for some nine months since the first strike in Iraq. On March 19, that was aimed at Saddam Hussein. Now, he is able to tell the world that Saddam Hussein is in U.S. custody.

Now, Mr. Bush's short address from the White House was targeted first at the Iraqi people. Telling them that they should understand that Saddam Hussein, now they should know Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to them. And as he said, "The dark, painful era is no more." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people. You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That is something that President Bush said time and time again, but obviously, the fact that the Iraqi people can now see photographs, pictures of Saddam Hussein, their former leader in the shape that he is in; and obviously, in U.S. custody. The president and his aides are certainly hoping this will give a whole new meaning to those statements by the president, that they will understand that things they hope are going to perhaps calm down on the ground.

But the president did try to walk a very fine line and that was made clear in the message to the American people, wanting to make them understand that although there are jubilation in the streets today of Iraq, that violence isn't necessarily over. Try to lower expectations that the situation on the ground will improve immediately.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Today on behalf of the nation I thank the members of our armed forces and I congratulate them. I also have a message for all Americans. The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people. And they will be defeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So while this is clearly an extraordinary day for the president and for the Bush administration, as a whole, their public comments are low key. Trying to make the point that although this is something that they have been waiting for, for a long time and they hope it changes things on the ground and around the world, they also want to set a different kind of tone than we have seen perhaps in the past, perhaps on May 1 when President Bush declared major victory over -- that was quite a different speech, quite a different scene than what we saw today.

O'BRIEN: Entirely different, that is for sure. Dana Bash at the White House, thank you very much.

Carol?

LIN: Imagine what it might be like to be an Iraqi today. The haggard captive on Baghdad television screens used to be the man who determined who lived and died in that country. CNN's Jane Arraf comes to us live from Baghdad.

Jane, what are people saying there about the capture? JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Carol, they're absolutely stunned. And now, of all the things that people never would have been able to imagine here, a year ago. Perhaps one of them was this image of Saddam Hussein, on television, looking barely human. Reduced to living in hiding underground and having his mouth open with a tongue depressor, by what appears to be a U.S. soldier.

Absolutely extraordinary. They heard the news, they saw this image, and some of them took to the streets in celebration. There was dancing in the streets. And people getting on buses, holding up banners saying congratulations to all Iraqis and everywhere there was gunfire, a traditional form of celebration.

Now, while U.S. forces took the credit for this one in capturing Saddam and capturing him without a single shot fired, the chief civilian administrator here, L. Paul Bremer, said this really was a day for Iraqis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

L. PAUL BREMER, U.S. CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: This is a great day in Iraq's history. For decades, hundreds of thousands of you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, Saddam Hussein divided you citizens against each other. For decades, he threatened and attacked your neighbors. Those days are over forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARRAF: There's some things though, that aren't over, Carol. Nobody expects these attacks to be over and, in fact, officials are warning they could perhaps for a while, at least, increase.

Carol?

LIN: Jane, who -- is there a sense out there, who is actually behind these attacks? Are they just individuals acting out or is there a sense that there is still someone out there pulling the strings?

ARRAF: Increasingly, there's a sense that there is not a single person pulling the strings. That this is become a complicated force of its own, to some extent, but generally what we're hearing in places like Baghdad, and other places, are individual cells.

Now, most of these seem to be cells made up of former Ba'ath Party members and former Saddam fighters, but they seem to be working and formed alliances some of them, with foreign fighters, particularly in the cases of suicide bombs. Those people thought to be foreigners.

And on top of all of this, just common criminals. People paid $300 to $400 to place homemade bombs in the road. It's a very difficult thing to fight. It's not necessarily tied to Saddam, a lot of it now. And it certainly does not appear to have been orchestrated by him.

Carol?

LIN: Thank you very much, Jane Arraf live in Baghdad. Wow.

O'BRIEN: From the outset of the invasion Saddam Hussein's capture was a key goal for the Pentagon, but we're still learning more about the specifics of how it happened. CNN's Barbara Starr joining us with more from Washington and how the U.S. military got the man at the top of that deck of the cards.

Hello, Barbara.

BARBARA STAR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Miles.

Well, when it started to happen, it all happened very quickly. It appears there was a detainee, an Iraqi taken into custody, interrogated by U.S. officials over the last 48 hours or so. And he had the final critical piece of information about where Saddam Hussein was hiding.

It's called actionable intelligence. It's so current, it's so fresh, U.S. forces were able to move quickly. So quickly, we are told, it was just a mere three hours between the time the final piece of information came into U.S. hands and U.S. troops were at the sight searching for Saddam Hussein.

They began their assault on the farmhouse area about 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, local time, on the ground in Iraq. And everything moved so quickly that basically Saddam Hussein was in custody and at secure location in another part of the country by 9:15.

This of course, is what military forces are trained to do. They're on stand by just for these types of missions. Special Forces were involved. Task Force 121, the very highly secretive Special Forces unit that has the specific job of hunting for the so-called high-value targets. So they all moved very quickly. It all fell into place.

But what now? Well, Pentagon officials tell us that nobody, they say, in their words, is doing high fives around the Pentagon today. A lot of caution, the belief still is as our other correspondents are reporting, that there could be, in fact, there's most likely to be, more violence, more attacks, especially over the next several weeks.

Iraq, as you know, is moving towards a procedure of self- governance in Iraqis in just six months, in June 2004. It is believed some of these groups will become more desperate by then, possibly engage in revenge attacks.

Clearly, the feeling at the Pentagon is the capture of Saddam Hussein, while important, does not solve the problem because it's been sometime since they had any indication that he was really pulling the strings on any of these attacks, anyhow. Senior military officials had been saying for some weeks now that they believe there was a so-called cellular structure, a group of cells of opposition across Iraq, very loosely organized, perhaps very limited regional connections, no real national connections, no one pulling the strings at the top.

So, as Jane Arraf said, a very complex network of opposition in Iraq and not at all clear today that the capture of Saddam Hussein is going to change any of that any time soon.

Miles?

O'BRIEN: Barbara, there's not any technology in the U.S. arsenal that would find a rat hole like this. Clearly, this is all about human intelligence. And we've been talking a long time about how the U.S. has been working very hard to improve its ability to gather intelligence on the ground. Does this represent truly a turning of the tide on that?

STARR: You know, I think it's going to be difficult to say because we're still in the very early hours. We don't know how this precisely all unfolded. It is clear that the 4th Infantry Division, which has the responsibility for Tikrit, over the last several weeks had come into possession of people and information that increasingly was sharp information, focused intelligence about what was going on in the Tikrit area.

They had seen an increase, if you will, in anti-coalition activity. They had seen some things that caused them to think that they might be on to something. And then it was in the last couple of days as they began to take more detainees into custody, people perhaps with direct connections to Saddam Hussein's inner circle that they began to assemble and get these critical last pieces of information.

What's so interesting here that we don't know the answer to is whoever gave them that final critical piece of information, was it just pure luck that Saddam Hussein didn't move in that final 48 hours? Had he run out of places to go to? Because by all accounts, he had constantly been on the move, but apparently in this last 48-hour period, this is the place he had decided to stay and where he finally got caught.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Barbara Starr in Washington, thank you very much.

Carol?

LIN: President Bush said that just because the Saddam Hussein has been actually captured doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be an end to the violence in Iraq. CNN Analyst Kenneth Pollack, or the Brookings Institution's Sabin Center is in Washington and joins us right now.

Ken, good to see you.

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Hi, Carol. How are you?

LIN: I'm doing just fine.

And the Bush administration very pleased about the capture of Saddam Hussein. But I'm wondering, what is your analysis of how this changes anything on the ground? I mean, according to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, the Bush administration seems to be pretty pessimistic saying that attacks not only will continue, but will actually increase against U.S. coalition forces. POLLACK: Right. Well, I think what Barbara is reporting about the Pentagon is the right approach for the administration to take. They need to be very cautious. Look, this was a very good day for the Iraqi people; it was also a good day for the American people.

This is a necessary step in dealing with the problems of post-war Iraq, but it is not over by a long shot as both the president has suggested and others in the U.S. administration suggested. There are lots of problems in Iraq. Just sticking with the insurgency itself, as you are hearing a lot of people suggesting, no one really knows what role Saddam Hussein was playing.

It does seem very clear over the last three or four months, U.S. intelligence has increasingly indicating that there are foreigners in Iraq, al Qaeda personnel in Iraq. There's Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists who are also opposing the United States, who have no love for Saddam Hussein whatsoever.

And beyond that, you have a fairly sizable segment of the Iraqi population, Sunni tribesmen, who make up 1 to 2 million people inside of Iraq, and a big chunk of territory in western Iraq, who have been completely alienated by the course of the U.S.-led reconstruction and they all oppose the U.S. presence and are taking up arms against us.

LIN: All right. Let's focus on the capture itself and those incredibly powerful images of Saddam Hussein sitting there completely disheveled, his hair grown out. A U.S medic picking through his hair for any type of vermin, sticking a tongue depressor into his mouth, these obviously very humiliating pictures of Saddam Hussein. How are these images likely to have an impact on those individual cells and what happens on the ground?

POLLACK: Obviously, there are going to be some who are so committed to Saddam Hussein they're likely to act -- react with outrage. That this is the humiliation of someone who they look up to. That said, as best we can tell, that number of people is extremely small inside of Iraq. For the vast majority of Iraqis I think this is going to be seen as something very positive. They want to see Saddam humiliated.

And even for many members of the resistance, seeing Saddam in this state, to the extent they do actually see him in this state, probably will be quite demoralizing. Some of them will remain committed they'll want to fight. But many others are going to simply question the status of what they can do. They're going to reach out and just find out, is there still someone out there giving the orders? Is there someone to pay me if I kill an American? Which is what is motivating many of them.

LIN: Ken, who will give the orders with what happens to Saddam Hussein next? The Iraqi governing council gave a news conference this morning, saying it plans to try him, with their war crimes tribunal. How might that affect the U.S. coalition's plan to interrogate him on what he knows about weapons of mass destruction?

POLLACK: Yeah. It's a really important question, Carol. Because you're going to now get into a situation, there's a bit of a tension. The Iraqis are going to want to put Saddam on trial and they'll probably going to want to do it sooner than later. They want to show the people that Saddam is there.

What's more, especially for this governing council, the more that they can get Saddam out there talking about all the horrible things he did to Iraqi society, the more that it may bring people around to seeing them as the alternative to Saddam Hussein. Something they want to do.

On the other hand, the U.S. is going to want to spend a lot of time with Saddam going over all the information they can, getting out of him everything they need to about weapons of mass destruction, possible ties to terrorists.

LIN: Which brings up another point, Ken. I mean, what if the United States -- would the United States be willing to cut a deal with Saddam Hussein for that information, if it's for the greater good of the world? And how would the governing council react to that?

POLLACK: Yes, that could be a really thorny issue. I think it would be a huge mistake for the United States to even try to do something like that without the explicit consent of the Iraqis -- and more than just the governing council. It would have to be a much broader consensus in Iraq that somehow this was worth doing. I can't imagine that consensus emerging.

LIN: We'll see what happens. Thank you very much, Kenneth Pollack.

POLLACK: Thank you, Carol.

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