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Moammar Gadhafi Addresses the U.N.

Aired September 23, 2009 - 12:00   ET

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

MOAMMAR GADHAFI, PRESIDENT OF LIBYA: No, nobody should have this bad thought. America, I'm sure, will be committed to its international obligations, and America will not be angry, and America will thank you for alleviating the hardship of America. And America should thank us for taking all the hardship and all the restrictions for the -- this, plus -- even though this place is targeted by terrorists. Then we come to the -- we come to the issues that will be taken by the General Assembly.

Either we have to try ourselves. Either we do the right thing, or whether we have a new meeting. This is not a normal meeting. This is not a normal gathering.

This is -- even my son, Obama said that. He said that this is a historical one. This is not a normal gathering. This is not a normal one.

Now, the wars that took place after the establishment of the Second World War, why did it happen? Where was the Security Council? Where was the charter? Where was the United Nations?

There should be investigations, and there should be court orders. And why there was massacres? We start with the Korean War.

This was taken after the establishment of the United Nations. How a war broke out and millions of people fell victims, and perhaps there was even a nuclear -- a nuclear -- the world was about -- the world was about to witness a nuclear war. And those who are responsible, and those who caused the war should be tried and should pay the consequence.

Then we come to the Suez Canal war in 1956. The file should be opened. Why three countries who have permanent seats in the Security Councils enjoyed the right, the veto of the Security Council's attack, a member state in this General Assembly?

A country that is Egypt in this case, that was a sovereign state, was attacked and the army was destroyed. And thousands of Egyptian people were killed, and towns, villages were destroyed.

How could such a thing happen during the era of the United Nations? And how can we guarantee that such a thing will not be repeated unless we redeem the past?

And this is a very dangerous thing. The Suez Canal war, the Korean War, we should open the files. And then we come to the Vietnam War. Three million victims of the Vietnam War. During 11 days, bombs were used more than the bombs used during the whole war. And during the Second World War, all the shells and the bombs that were used, or bombed during the four years of the war, the bombs that were used in the 12 days were more than.

This was a fierce war. And this war took place after the establishment of the United Nations. And we decided that there would be no wars.

This is the future of the mankind, and we cannot keep quiet. How can we be -- how can we be safe? How can we feel accomplished? How can we feel complacent, I mean. This is the future of the world and this is the General Assembly of the world, and we have to make sure that such wars will not be repeated in the future.

Then Panama was attacked, even though it was an independent state, a member state of the General Assembly, of the United Nations. And 4,000 peoples were killed, and the president of this country was taken as a prisoner and was taken -- put in prison.

And Noriega should be released, and we should open the file. And how we give the right to a country that is a member state of the United Nations to go and wage a war against a country and take the president of such a country and take him as a criminal and put him in prison? Who would accept that?

This may be repeated. And we should not be quiet, and we should make investigations, and we should -- each one of us may face the same destiny. Each member state of us may face the same, especially if this aggression is made by a member state that is -- has a member seat in the Security Council and supposed to look and maintain the world peace security.

Then we have the Grenada War. This country was attacked, was invaded even though it was a member state, by 7,000 -- 5,000 warships and using 7,000 troops. It is the smallest country in the world.

And after the establishment of the Security Council, after the establishment of the United Nations, and the (INAUDIBLE). And the president of this country, Maurice Bishop, was assassinated. How this can be done with impunity? This is a tragedy.

And then how can we guarantee that the United Nations is good or not, that the Security Council is good enough? Can we be safe and happy about our future or not? Can we trust the Security Council or not? Can we trust the United Nations or not?

Then we have to check and investigate the bombing of Somalia. Somalia was a member state of the United Nations. It is an independent country. And (INAUDIBLE).

Why? Who allowed that? Who gave the green light for such a country to attack -- to be attacked?

Then the Yugoslav war. No country that is peaceful country like Yugoslavia, that was built -- that was built step by step, piece by piece, after it was destroyed by Hitler. We destroy it as if we are doing the same job like Hitler.

Hitler -- after the death of Tito -- and he built this country step by step and brick by brick, and then we come and dismember it for imperialist personal interests. How can we be satisfied? How can we be happy? If a peaceful country like Yugoslavia faced this tragedy, the General Assembly should make investigations and the General Assembly should decide who should be tried for the (INAUDIBLE).

Then we come to the Iraqi war, the mother of all evils. The United Nations also should investigate.

The General Assembly presided by (INAUDIBLE) should be investigated by the General Assembly, the invasion of Iraq itself. This was in violation of the United Nations charter without any justifications made by several countries who have member seats in the Security Council.

Iraq is an independent country, member in this General Assembly. How this country is attacked and how this country -- how we have already read in the general -- in the -- in the charter that the United Nations should have interfered and stopped.

We have come to General Assembly, and we have resorted to the General Assembly. We said that we should go to the General Assembly and use the charter for the checking (ph). We were against this invasion of Kuwait, but Arab countries fought with foreign countries in the name of the General Assembly with foreign countries.

In the first place, the U.N. charter was respected. And the second time we wanted to use to it stop the war against Iraq, no one used the U.N. charter. And it was discarded in the dustbin.

Why? General Assembly should investigate. Why? Why there was any reason to invade Iraq? Because it is mysterious, ambiguous, and we may face the same destiny. Why did we invade Iraq?

The invasion in itself is a serious violation of the U.N. charter. I mean, the invasion itself, per se, is wrong. Then the total massacre, or the genocide. More than 1.5 million Iraqi people were killed.

We want the -- we want to take this file and we want to -- those who have committed the general mass murder against the Iraqi people should be tried. Yes.

Make it easy for (INAUDIBLE) to go to be tried, or Bashir to be tried. Or it is easy for (INAUDIBLE) to be tried, or Noriega to be tried. That is an easy job to be done.

OK. What about those who have committed mass murder against Iraqis? Cannot be tried? Cannot go to the -- we should not accept it. Either it is meant for all of us, big or small, or we should not accept it and refuse it. If anyone who commits a crime and can be tried, we are not animals in the livestock, or in -- that we slaughter -- we have the right. We are ready to fight. We are ready to defend ourselves. And we have the right to live dignified under the sun, on the earth, and they have already tested us, and we can put up to test.

The other thing, how come that prisoners of war of Iraq can be sentenced to death? Then when Iraq was invaded and the president of the Iraqi war was caught, it was made as a prisoner of war. He should not be tried. He should not be hanged. And after the end of war, he should be released.

So, we want to know why the prisoner of war have been tried or should have been tried. Who sentenced to death the president of Iraq? Is there an answer to that?

We know who tried -- who tried him, the name of the judge, the identity of the judge. Who put on the sacrifice day the rope around the neck and killed -- or hanged the president? People we don't know, they have a mask over their face.

If this is a civilized war, these are prisoners of war under civilized countries, under the international law. How a member of a government and the president of a country should be sentenced to death and hanged, do they have the right? Are they legal people? Are they a member of a judicial system?

Do you know what other people say -- or what the people say? People say that the American president and the president -- the British president are wearing the masks, and they have already put to death the president of Iraq.

This is -- why don't they uncover their face? Why don't we know their ranks? Why don't we know, is he an officer or a judge, a doctor?

Who is he? How come a president of a country, a member state, is sentenced to death and killed? We don't know the identity.

Those countries, the implementation -- the United Nations has the duty to answer these questions. Who have exercised or implemented the death sentence? Those foreigners, they should have the legal status (ph), and they should have the legal status (ph), and we should know the identity of the presence of the doctor, and all the legal procedures should be, even for a layman, let alone as the president of a country, a member state in the United Nations to be sentenced in such a way and put to death in such a way.

This is the Iraqi war.

Point number three in the Iraqi war is the Abu Ghraib situation, which is a disgrace to mankind. I know America made the investigations for this scandal, or the authorities under the Americans, but the United Nations also should not forget it. The United Nations should -- the General Assembly of the United Nations should investigate and look into this matter. The Abu Ghraib decisions, the prisoners of war who were prosecuted there and who were badly treated, and dogs were used on them, and men were made love to. And no one has done this before in previous wars, sodomy, and this is unprecedented. No one -- no previous aggressions, or no -- or aggressors and prisoners of war, there are -- there are soldiers, and they are raped in prisons.

Then by a member state of the Security Council, this Security Council, this is against civilization. And this is a humane kind, and we should not keep quiet. We should know the facts.

And up to now, a quarter of a million prisoners are still -- men and women are in Abu Ghraib. They are badly treated and persecuted and raped. We should never forget, and we should open an investigation for that.

Then Afghanistan. Then we have the Afghani war.

There should also be an investigation for the Afghani war. Why are we against Taliban? Why are we against Afghanistan? Who's Taliban?

If Taliban wants to make a religious state, OK, like the Vatican. Vatican doesn't constitute a danger against us? No. It's a religious country, very peaceful. And if Taliban wants to make an Islamic emirate, who said that the Taliban is an enemy?

Who said Taliban -- is bin Laden Afghani? Is Afghani bin Laden? Is bin Laden from Taliban? No, he's in the Taliban. He's not Afghan.

Those terrorists who hit New York, the city that we're now (ph), are they Taliban? Are they from Afghanistan? They are neither Afghan nor Taliban?

Then why Iraq? Why Afghanistan?

I mean, if I wanted to really deceive my friends of America and Britain, maybe I will not say this. Maybe I encourage them, and I encourage them to send more troops and encourage them in this bloodbath. But they will never come to a fruitful result in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

Look what happened to Afghanistan -- look what happened to them in Iraq. Even though it is a desert, and let alone -- let alone Afghanistan -- it is a mountainous area. And if I wanted to deceive them, I will say to them, OK, carry on war in Iraq, carry on war in Afghanistan.

But I want to save the peoples of America and the peoples of Britain, the peoples of other countries who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I tell them, leave Afghanistan to the Afghanis. Leave the Iraqi to the Iraqis.

If they want to fight each other, they are free. There was civil war in America. No one interfered in the civil war of America. There was a civil war in America. But there was a civil war in Spain, in China, civil war in everywhere. And nowhere on earth there was no civil war in it.

Let there be a civil war in Iraq. Let -- the Iraqis want to have a civil war, fight each other, that's fair enough.

Who said that Taliban -- if the Taliban becomes in government, they would have a nuclear weapon or they have transatlantic missiles, or those airplanes who hit New York, this very same place? Do the airplanes take off from Afghanistan, from Iraq? No.

These planes were in JFK Airport. How come that we'll go and hit Afghanistan? They are not Afghan. They are not Taliban. They are not Iraqis.

How come? How come that we keep quiet?

No, we should never be devils. Anyone who does not speak the truth is a silent devil. We are peace -- we are committed to peace, world peace and security, and we don't want to despise the mankind, and we don't want to ridicule mankind, and we want to save the mankind and humanity.

(INAUDIBLE) General Assembly, then you should also open the investigations of the file of assassinations, apart from the war crimes. Once a new -- who killed (INAUDIBLE) member? Why?

We just want to record it in our African history. We want to know how an African liberator, how an African leader, that he was killed, he was assassinated. Who killed him?

Even for our sons to read history that our brother (INAUDIBLE), the hero of the struggle of Angola, the liberation struggle, that he was assassinated, that he was killed. We want to know the facts about that.

Even after 50 years maybe this is one file that should be reopened again. And who killed the secretary-general (INAUDIBLE)? Who bombed the airplane of this secretary-general in '62 or '61? How come that the airplane of the security -- that the General Assembly of the -- that the secretary-general of the United Nations, his airplane, was bombed?

And then the assassination or the killing of Kennedy in '63 or '62, the president of the United States of America, why? We want to know who killed him?

Somebody who by the name of Lee Harvey, and then another Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey. Why did he kill him?

Jack Ruby, an Israeli, killed Lee Harvey, who killed Kennedy. Why did the Israeli kill the killer of Kennedy?

Then the killer -- the killer -- the killer of Jack Ruby, the killer of Kennedy, died ambiguously and mysteriously. We don't know -- before the trial. We have to open the files, the whole -- the whole world should be -- we know when we read it that Kennedy wanted to investigate the files -- or the nuclear -- the nuclear reactor of the Israeli -- and then it is to do with the Security Council. It is to do with the peace and the security of the world. And then we should open this file.

Why? And then the killing of Martin Luther King, this black reverend who -- a human rights activist. His killing was a plot, and we should know why he was killed and who killed him.

And then (INAUDIBLE), the Palestinian. And he was attacked.

He was in Tunisia, living peacefully there, and he was -- and the independence of this country was not respected. We cannot keep quiet. So, even though submarines and ships came along the shores of Tunisia and he was killed there, and then no one is blamed and no one is judged for that.

And then Abu Yad (ph) also was killed, and we should know how he was killed. He was killed ambiguously.

And then (INAUDIBLE). In this operation (INAUDIBLE), three Palestinians were killed in a country that is sovereign, member state in the Security Council, member of General Assembly. In Lebanon, they were living or sleeping peacefully, they were attacked and assassinated. We should know who killed them. And we should judge so that these violations of mankind should not be repeated.

We have already talked about the invasion of Grenada and how many ships were used. Grenada was 7,000 -- 7,000 and 15 warships and hundreds of bombs -- or 10 of bombs. And President Bishop was killed and assassinated, and even though it was a member.

These are crimes, and we cannot keep quiet. We could not keep silent. Otherwise, we shall be like sacrifices. We are not animals.

And year after year we are attacked. We defend ourselves. We defend our sons. We defend our children. And we are not afraid.

We have the right to live -- the earth is not meant for some (ph). It is meant for all of us. And we can never live humiliated on this earth, no.

So, we have the wars. And then the last file is the massacres, the (INAUDIBLE) massacres. Three thousand people were killed and massacred.

This area was under the Israeli protection, the occupying Israeli army. And a serious, big massacre were there. Children, men, women, Palestinians, were massacred, were killed, 3,000 of them were massacred and killed.

How can we keep quiet?

Lebanon is an independent state, a member in the General Assembly, was occupied and controlled, and was under the control. And then the massacre took place.

And then the 2008 massacre of Gaza. Two thousand and hundreds of children were victims, 3,200 between children and women were killed and massacred in Gaza, in the massacre in the year of 2008.

Fifty associations related to the United Nations were destroyed. And another -- another 50 non-governmental organizations were also destroyed. Fifty clinics were destroyed. Forty doctors and nurses were killed while they were exercising their humane activity and humane job.

This was done in 2010 (sic). And the commiters are still alive, and they should be tried to the ICC. Should we take only the underdog or the weak of the third countries of the small peoples? But the big -- the big people and the protected people are not supposed to be tried if they are under the control of international law.

Then they should face trial, and they should face this consequence of the crime that they committed. Otherwise, we should never accept also the rules of the ICC.

So long -- so long the ICC -- the rules or the orders are not respected and are not implemented, and the General Assembly is nothing. And the IAA is meant for certain countries, certain organizations.

Then what is the United Nations? This means that the United Nations is nothing, is insignificant.

What is it? We don't have a United Nations.

Then piracy may be a phenomenon along the high upper seas. We're talking about the piracy of Somali.

Somalis are not pirates. We are the pirates. We went there.

We took their economic zones. We took their fish. We took their wealth. Libya, India and Japan, America, any country in the world, you just name it, all of us, we're all pirates.

We all went there to the international -- the territorial water of Somali, the economic zones. And then we took, and the Somalis are protecting their own national -- protecting their own fish, the substance of their food. They have become pirates because they are defending the food of their children, the food of their babies.

Now we want to address this matter wrongly. We shall -- shall we send warships to the Somalis? We shall send warships to the pirates who have attacked and took and reserved the economic zones and the wealth of the Somalis, the food of the children.

Anyhow, I have seen the pirates, and I told them, I shall make a convention agreement between you and the world, that the whole world will respect the economic zone, the economic zone that is 200 miles, according to the national sea law. And all the wealth, marine wealth, should be protected because it belongs to the Somali people. And then all countries will stop disposing of poisonous waste along the shores of Somalis. And in return, the Somalis will not attack these ships anymore.

We shall propose and draft this international treaty, and we give it to the General Assembly. This is the solution.

The solution does not lie in sending more military ships to fight the Somalis. No, this is not the solution.

Our addressing to the phenomenon of piracy is wrong. Our addressing to the phenomenon of terror is wrong.

We -- the swine -- the swine flu, perhaps tomorrow we shall have a fish flu, because we do make sometimes viruses and we lose control of them. This means that -- it is a commission. It is business.

They make the virus so that the capitalist companies will have the vaccinations, create the vaccinations, and they want to sell it. And this is really shame, and this is really bad ethic.

Vaccinations should not be sold. Read the green (ph) book. Medicines should not be sold. Medicines should not be sold, should not be a commissioned business.

You should make a declaration that medicines should be free of charge, that vaccinations should be given free to children so that the capitalist countries may -- or capitalist companies make the viruses and make the vaccinations, and they want to make a profit. And why don't we make it free of charge? Why don't we give it to free?

We should give it free. We should not sell it. The whole world should make an effort to create and manufacture vaccinations, and protect our own people, and give it free to children and women, and should not make a profit.

And all these items are put on the agenda of the General Assembly, and the General Assembly has only this duty to exercise.

Then the (INAUDIBLE) agreement forbids the creating of mines. This is wrong. A mine is an offensive weapon. It is a defensive weapon. If you put it there, you come -- you come to it. I put it along the border of my country.

If you want to invade me, then you may be killed. But that's OK because they're invading me. I'm not taking this defensive weapon to your country. You are coming to me and there is a Web site for Gadhafi talks and you can read it. This treaty should be modified or should be annulled. This treaty should be modified or should be annulled. I mean, I -- I -- I want to create or have a mine (ph) against the personnel (ph) because -- for defense against -- against my home, against invasion of my home (ph). We should -- should discard (INAUDIBLE).

As regards to Palestinians, the solution is a democratic country for the Palestinian, for the Jewish -- for the Israelis. This solution, the two-state solution, is not practical. From now these two states are totally overlapped. The inevitability of the failure of partition, these two states are not neighborly. They are inter lapped. They are overlapped. From the population, from the geographic point of view and, therefore, you cannot even create a buffer zone between the two states because they -- because the West Bank has half a million Israeli settlers. And what is called Israel, there are a million Arab Palestinians there. So the solution is an Arab democratic -- is a democratic state without religious fanaticism. The Sharon and the Arafat are over. This generation is over. We need a new generation in which everybody lives in peace.

Look at the Palestinian youth. This is -- look at the Israeli youth. They both want peace. They want to live under one state. This -- this conflict poisons the world. This white -- this white book actually has the solution and I here give it to you. It's Isratine (ph). Israltine is the solution. Arabs have no hostility nor animosity towards Israel. We're from the same race. We live -- we want to live in peace. The refugees should go back.

You are the ones. You are the ones who wrote upon them the Holocaust. You're the one who burned them, not us. We gave them refuge, we gave them safe havens during the Romans, during the Arab reign in Andalusia (ph), you are the ones who poisoned them, you're the ones who annihilated them. We provided them with protection. You expelled them. Let's see the truth. We're not -- we're not hostile. We're not enemies of the Jews. And the Jews will one day need the Arabs.

At that point, Arabs will be the ones to give them protection, to save them, as they've done in -- look at what everybody else did to the Jews. Hitler is an example. You are the ones who hate the Jews, not us.

In brief, Kashmir. Kashmir should be an independent state. Not Indian, not Pakistani. We should end this conflict. It should be a buffer state between India and Pakistan.

Darfur, I really hope that the assistance provided by international organizations would be -- would be -- would become development projects for agriculture, for irrigation. You are the ones who made it a crisis. And you've put it on the altar. You wanted to sacrifice Darfur.

You have -- you've turned the Hariri problem into the United Nations. Why? You sell the body of Hariri. You just want to settle scores with Syria. Lebanon is an independent state. It has law. It has courts. It has judiciary. It has police. What really -- what we are after are not the perpetrators at that point. What they really wanted was to settle scores with Syria. They're not after justice for Hariri. Hariri, Wazil (ph), Lumomba (ph), Kennedy could have been turned into the United Nations as well if the Hariri case was turned into the United Nations.

The General Assembly is now under the presidency of Libya. This is our right. And Libya hopes that you would assist the world to move from one stage to the other. From a world that is scattered, that is fraught with crises and tension, to a world in which humanity prevails, in which tolerance prevails. And I will personally follow up on this issue with the General Assembly, with Traki (ph), with the secretary-general. It's not part of our courtesies or our habits to compromise when it has to do with the destiny of humanity, the struggle of the third world, the struggle of -- of small nations should live in peace to the end.

God's peace be upon you. I thank my brother, the leader of the revolution, and chairperson of the African union for his statement.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: OK. I guess I wanted to stay to the bitter end, and I think we're there. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the United Nations. His first general address to the General Assembly. Forty years, huh, Jim Clancy?

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Forty years.

HARRIS: For this moment.

CLANCY: He's never been there before.

HARRIS: Yes.

CLANCY: And it seems like every issue, everything that happened in the last 40 . . .

HARRIS: He wanted to weigh in on.

CLANCY: He went back even longer than 40 years. That was really who Moammar Gadhafi is. He saw this an opportunity to go three times as long as he should have or more.

HARRIS: Right. Right.

CLANCY: But at the same time, he saw it as an opportunity. The world's been missing his analysis and his view on all of these points. You haven't gotten to hear from him. He took me right back to a tent outside Cert (ph) in Libya. It was like sitting down with a great leader and warm camel milk. I'm telling you, we could talk about what he's had to say and go on.

HARRIS: Yes.

CLANCY: The conspiracy theories.

HARRIS: Yes.

CLANCY: Everything is there.

HARRIS: All right, let's do this . . .

CLANCY: That, ladies and gentlemen, was Moammar Gadhafi.

HARRIS: And then some.

All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back with more analysis. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Let's do this. Let's continue our analysis of the speech from Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi. Jim Clancy, CNN International, terrific anchor, is with us with a deeper reservoir of knowledge on this topic.

CLANCY: And you need something when you're analyzing that speech.

HARRIS: Joining us. (INAUDIBLE). And Jim Walsh is on the phone with us now. And Jim is an international security analyst from MIT.

Jim, are you there?

JIM WALSH, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, MIT (via telephone): I am.

HARRIS: All right, let's do this. Let's do this in kind of a free-flowing way here. I'm going to recap some of the points made in this speech from Moammar Gadhafi. And, guys, jump in at any point if you want to add some context to the points that the Libyan leader was making.

CLANCY: Sure.

HARRIS: He started by railing -- and this was kind of the consistent theme, Jim Walsh, throughout the speech. A railing against the United Nations. At one point threatening to rip up the U.N. charter. Gadhafi saying if you want more democracy around the world, how about more democracy at the United Nations? You want to reduce world conflict, increase the participation of nations big and small, more permanent members, and an expansion of the nations on the Security Council. He will get some support, Jim Walsh, it seems to me, in some quarters for that statement, correct?

WALSH: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, in some ways that part of the speech was the old revolutionary Gadhafi we've known for decades. But he was making really a rather narrow and technical argument that I think most citizens of the world don't pay much attention to, and that is, who gets to be on the Security Council.

HARRIS: Yes.

WALSH: The Security Council has some permanent members and it has some rotating members. And his complaint is, you know, with all these countries in the world, why is it that this small Security Council is controlling the agenda for everyone else? But I have to say, this was a bad speech. It was long. It was rambling. The poor U.N. translator was having a devil of a time, I can tell you.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes. Yes.

WALSH: And, you know, at times it was just downright incoherent.

HARRIS: Yes. Jim Clancy, jump in. CLANCY: You know, if I could say this, it was really Moammar Gadhafi. His points about the U.N. and the Security Council. If you go back to all of this and look at it -- and he got some applause on this -- it's not fair. At one point, Tony, he told everybody, you know, nobody's listening to you guys. You come up here and give your speeches. You might be -- it might as well be over at London at Hyde Park on speakers' corner talking. You come, you leave, and nothing changes. And people said, yes, that's reality.

He's talking about the Security Council. And, yes, they have more power than the other members. There probably wouldn't be a U.N. if it was done some other way. And that's why the Bretton Woods, institutions were set up. There was this fear that the General Assembly would just vote to say Britain, France, the U.S., well, give all of your money to the poor countries of the world and we've solved all the problems.

HARRIS: Clancy, weigh in on this, and then take a stab at this as well, Jim Walsh. This idea that Moammar Gadhafi is going to come to the U.N. after 40 years, give his first speech before the General Assembly and rail against all of the wrongs committed by the countries of the world and not reflect upon his own record in his own country. Clancy, I'm teeing that up for you.

CLANCY: Well, you know, that, to me, is what really stood out here. Moammar Gadhafi saying, you know, what is it that these five permanent members get to pick out a little country -- maybe we're thinking about Libya here -- and point a finger at them for terrorism. That, you know, at one point he said, we're human beings. We're not animals. We'll never live in fear.

How about the fear that he stoked in the minds and the hearts -- not only the victims of Lockerbie, the victims of the French UTA bombing. Another airliner that went. Not only for the victims of the IRA in northern Ireland that he supplied with arms. But how about the leaders that he trained, that he armed, that he sponsored in west Africa that chopped the limbs off men, women and children, raped women. And a campaign of terror in Sierra Leone. Phota Saka (ph), one of the men he trained, died while he was being tried for war crimes. Another one, Charles Taylor, the former leader of Liberia, that he trained, armed and sent into the jungles of west Africa is right in The Hague right now. Moammar Gadhafi didn't mention any of that.

HARRIS: Yes. And, Jim Walsh, he's railing on and on and going on and on about hypocrisy and didn't for a moment reflect on his record of hypocrisy.

WALSH: Yes. Although, you know . ..

HARRIS: Jim, are you there?

WALSH: Criticism of problems at home. But that didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was about three-quarters of the way through the speech, I think he went off his prepared text and started talking about Obama's speech. HARRIS: Yes.

WALSH: And actually embraced it. He actually said it was -- I think -- I think Gadhafi can't (ph) have it both ways, which is really what he's tried to do in his . . .

HARRIS: You know what, let me pick -- we're having problems with your phone line, Jim, but I want to pick up on the point you made because, I've got to tell you -- and, Jim Clancy, you know this to be true. We listened to the speech and we're wondering which themes, which threads, will resonate throughout the course of the day. And you look at our world, our environment, a 24-hour cable, and I'm sure cable television is going to have quite a bit of sport with the statements from Moammar Gadhafi with respect to President Obama. A son of Africa governs the United States of America.

CLANCY: He called him "my son" at one point.

HARRIS: He said "my son Obama, our son Obama, son of Africa." This idea that Obama is a glimpse in the dark, but I'm afraid you'll go back to square one after Obama. We would be happy with Obama forever.

CLANCY: Yes, he wants to redo the entire -- he thinks one of the solutions might be to redo the entire U.S. political system. But that's not surprising because that's Moammar Gadhafi. That's the way he looks at the world. He -- you know, he was saying Obama was great. The U.N. was bad. We should move it. He got into -- and this is one of his favorite topics out in the tent.

HARRIS: Yes.

CLANCY: And that is, all those conspiracy theories. I'm surprised that aliens did not come up. But he brought up -- you know, or the medical companies.

HARRIS: And the H1N1, yes.

CLANCY: Manufacturing the viruses and then making the vaccines so they can make more money. He brought up the Kennedy assassination.

HARRIS: Yes, he did.

CLANCY: He brought up the assassination of Palestinians, very interesting since he was poised against the PLO when they were in Tripoli, Lebanon.

HARRIS: Yes. That's right. That's right.

CLANCY: You know, he was involved in that conflict, attacking the Palestinian leadership. He brought up -- what else? He had all kinds of things. Oh, he wanted to know about Martin Luther King's assassination.

HARRIS: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. CLANCY: Dochomershul (ph), the former U.N. secretary-general's assassination. All of those things. All those theories. He felt like, you know, now's a good time to bring it up.

HARRIS: There's the Hariri assassination.

CLANCY: Well, yes.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes.

Jim Clancy, appreciate it. Thanks for your help.

And I apologize, we lost the line with Jim Walsh.

Jim, I know you're watching, thank you as well.

CLANCY: Great to be with you at this great, memorable moment in U.N. history, first speech by Moammar.

HARRIS: Yes, it's good to be able to see it.

My goodness. All right. Let's get you cause up on some of the other top stories we're following for you in the CNN NEWSROOM.

State investigators say a Philadelphia-area swim club's actions were racist and ordered it to pay a $50,000 fine. The swim club kicked out five dozen black and Hispanic day campers back in June. The club's director said the children had changed the complexion at the club.

Investigators have completed their search of the property at kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido. They say their initial findings don't link him to the decades old disappearances of two other young girls, but police haven't eliminated Garrido as a suspect in the cases either. Garrido and his wife are charged with kidnapping Jaycee Dugard and holding her for 18 years.

More than 70 people are in custody and several are wounded after a shooting at a busy U.S./Mexico border crossing. Immigration officials near San Diego opened fire on three van-loads of immigrants after they reportedly tried to blow through the checkpoint.

We will get another check of top stories in 20 minutes right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Still to come, the grim reality starting to sink in for thousands in the southeast as they return to homes devastated by deadly floods.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: They want health care reform, but they can't agree on a treatment. The Senate Finance Committee today hashing out 1,000-page bill with more than 500 amendments. Our Dana Bash is watching developments on Capitol Hill.

Dana, I'm sorry that we haven't had more time to spend with you. You've been watching the speech from Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi. But you were good enough to send us a note indicating that there was some pretty heated discussions this morning over this package.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And what I think was most interesting to me was that, at least for the first two hours of this debate in this committee room, it wasn't about the substance of it, it was about something that we heard a lot this summer from Americans worried about it, which is the question of, will members of Congress actually know what they're voting on. It was specifically a measure that Republican Senator Jim Bunning put up that said that he -- that the Finance Committee would not vote on anything until it was actually written in legislative language. But, more importantly, that it would be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, meaning members of Congress would know how much it cost the taxpayer. And they would wait 72 hours for that to happen.

So there was some very intense discussion about whether or not that's the right thing to do. Both from Democrats and Republicans. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MAX BAUCUS, (D) MONTANA: The fact (ph) of this amendment will be this, that after we have completed action on the bill here, we have to wait another two to three weeks before we can vote on it. After we've completed action on our bill, we have to wait another two to three weeks before we can vote on it.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE, (R) MAINE: The fact is, words matter and so do the numbers. And we want to be sure that we are absolutely confident in the integrity in the product that we are going to be voting on in the final analysis. It requires that language. It matters to the Congressional Budget Office, therefore it should matter to us. Time is our ally, not our enemy. And people in this country are rightfully worried as to whether or not we can possibly get this right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, Senator Snowe, who, of course, is a very important, very powerful voice here, because Democrats hope that she, a Republican, will come their way. She was more animated than I've seen her in a very long time on this issue.

And this really does, Tony, go to the question of trust. Do Americans trust the government to really take over -- or not take over, but specifically to change this massive system, and that is our health care system, and trust them to do it right? And do they really know what they're going to be voting on?

So that's what I thought was so interesting that they were having this debate in here. One Republican senator said, look, there's a reason why our public approval rating, in terms of Congress at large, is 12 percent. So that discussion went on in here.

At the end of the day, what they voted on was a Democratic measure that simply said that they would make sure to get some estimate, a preliminary estimate, of how much this costs before the committee votes.

HARRIS: And maybe this is an answer you know, maybe it's something that we can get just in short order. Is this legislation being scored as we go along? I know that sections are being worked on and I'm wondering if those sections are being scored as the work continues on other areas of this legislation.

BASH: As much as they possibly can. Without getting too much into the weeds -- actually, I think that this is kind of important. Our viewers are probably interested in this. What the director of the Congressional Budget Office testified in this room last night and that really got the attention of many senators was that the reality is, from his perspective, he really won't know, have hard numbers on how much this health care proposal will cost the taxpayer and the affect it would have on the health care system for about two weeks.

And that really set the chairman off. He was very unhappy about that. But that is part of the reason why you saw this pretty heated debate this morning because, you know, people are -- these members of Congress, we saw it in the town halls, they were talking about it here. They know that their constituents really aren't sure that they know what they're doing here. So that was . . .

HARRIS: And if you're talking about that kind of a delay, you're talking about it entering the public arena again and maybe a whole nother round of what we saw in August as a possibility.

BASH: Yes. Good point.

HARRIS: Dana, let's leave it here and you can have the discussion over what the committee is working on with respect to Medicare with Kyra at the top of the hour.

Thanks, Dana. Appreciate it.

BASH: Thanks, Tony.

HARRIS: Thousands in the southeast faced reality today. Dangerous flood waters take away almost everything.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: So, the flooding in the southeast has turned many lives upside down, especially in Georgia. Rob Marciano live now from Austell, Georgia.

Where, Rob, my understanding is, you still have some neighborhoods at least partially underwater.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and if not underwater, people are stranded and that becomes an issue for firefighters. In the case just about an hour ago, just off to my left and over the other side of the river, there was an issue with a house that caught on fire and surrounded by water. It was nearly impossible for fire trucks to get that way.

This is a bridge where yesterday, if I were standing here, I'd easily be swept over. You can kind of see the damage here. Asphalt and sidewalk, concrete, completely torn up. There is some serious damage to this. Engineers are going to have to come out and check it and make sure it's structural sound. That's an issue because even though the waters have receded in a lot of places and bridges are now seemingly passable, well, they've got to get checked out by engineers before they're given the all-clear.

So that's the issue with roadways. Now let's talk homes. Water receding there. For people who have their homes flooded, I mean, the work has just begun for them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO (voice-over): Friends and family of David Miller are scrambling to salvage what's left of his 88-year-old mother's home. They are prying apart swollen, waterlogged antique furniture, trying to recover whatever's inside. Lots of stuff has accumulated over the years.

DAVID MILLER: We moved to Austell in 1956. We lived on the other side of the tracks until '57, and then my daddy bought this house.

MARCIANO: This is David's boyhood home, and in the 50 years since, he's never seen the water rise this much.

MARCIANO (on camera): You ever think it could be this high?

MILLER: No. Not really.

MARCIANO (voice-over): The water rushed into the house, inundating the entire home. Living room, dining room, kitchen, a muddy mess. Separating the wet from the dry is not difficult. Only a few items are dry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that wet?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, it's not wet.

MARCIANO: More important than dry furniture are the family photos.

MILLER: That's a little store he ran.

MARCIANO (on camera): Your grandmother and grandfather?

MILLER: Uh-huh.

MARCIANO (voice-over): Some over 100 years old.

MILLER: We had a house burn.

MARCIANO: The Millers know the feeling of losing a home. Theirs burned down just 12 years ago. But this loss is much worse. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is harder for us and her. She doesn't know where she's going right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Boy. Rob, appreciate it so much. We'll see you in just a couple of minutes with Kyra. We're pushing forward right now with the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with Kyra Phillips. You rock.