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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
U.S. Government Overhears Intercepted Conversations by Iraqi Officials Who Believe Saddam Hussein is Dead; Looting in Baghdad, Mosul Continues for Third Day; Mohammed Aldouri Departs
Aired April 11, 2003 - 22:00 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.
AARON BROWN, ANCHOR: Well good evening again, everyone. "Freedom is untidy," said the defense secretary today. And there was lots of untidy scenes in Iraq today. Some freedom, too; bordering on anarchy.
We begin, as we always do, with the pieces in play tonight. The military victories, the liberated cities, the looting that we have come to expect. The images familiar by now except for one. It is a picture not seen before of an Arab capital under American occupation, with all of the promise and the peril that that picture holds for the future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Friday prayers in Baghdad, the first under American control of the city. Peaceful enough inside, but on the streets of the city it was day two of getting away with whatever you could.
A piano on the street outside the Al Rashid hotel, formerly under control of the Ministry of Information. Furniture was popular, and so was anything that even remotely smacked of privilege and control. Unless the there was an American presence outside, hospitals were particularly targets. The Red Cross reeling.
RONALD HUGENIN-BENJAMIN, INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS: We still do have equipment in our warehouses. It is physically impossible to move about from one warehouse to a hospital with a truckload of equipment without being attacked and looted.
BROWN: But in Washington, the secretary of defense said it was all more or less understandable.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And while no one condones looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of oppression and people who have had members of their family killed by that regime.
BROWN: The president made his first public comments since the day the statue fell.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think I will ever forget, I am sure a lot of other people will never forget the statue of Saddam Hussein falling in Baghdad. And then seeing the jubilation on the faces of ordinary Iraqis as they realized that the grip of fear that had them by the throat had been released.
BROWN: As for combat itself, inside Baghdad there was very little. Marines manning checkpoints seemed a bit skittish. In the suburbs, the Army forced these men to lie on the ground on suspicion of looting. They were later released.
Outside of Baghdad, American troops consolidated their hold on both Mosul and Kirkuk, a great deal of looting in both places. In Mosul, gunfire outside the bank there, men with bundles of bank notes outside the building. But in the oilfields, only a single fire among the hundreds of wells in the region. And you can see American soldiers beginning to set up what the Pentagon says will be a ring of protection around the wells.
The only major Iraqi city not under coalition control is Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral home. You could clearly see the effects of the American bombing. But on the roads into the city, there was plenty of danger. CNN's Kevin Sites and his crew were held for several hours by the Iraqi Fedayeen.
KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And they tied me up. They tied my hands behind my back and they threw us in a truck and said that they were going to take us to Tikrit to the intelligence headquarters.
BROWN: Some fierce fighting was also said to have taken place in a small outpost called Kiam (ph), near the Syrian border. No pictures, but the town has been mentioned as a possible site of an Iraqi nuclear weapons facility.
Some Iraqi towns got their first look at coalition soldiers today. But these troops are not with the regular Army or the Marines. They were part of the so-called FIF, free Iraqi forces, made up mostly of Iraqis who fled to the United States years ago to escape the regime. Now they operate under the umbrella of the coalition.
GEN. JAY GARNER (RET.), U.S.-IRAQ RECONSTRUCTIN ADMINISTRATION: This country has great vibrancy to it. And it has an educated population. It was the jewel of the Middle East at one time. It can be the jewel of the Middle East again.
BROWN: A foothold finally in the southern port city of Umm Qasr for a post-war Iraq. The man named to relieve the recovery effort, retired General Jay Garner, getting his first look at the problems ahead.
It was in the capital city itself that life seemed most uneasy. Fires continue to smolder during the day, and just after nightfall, a huge fire and an Iraqi government ministry. Not caused by combat, say the Americans, but by the looters who continue to roam unabated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is some reporting that perhaps that fire was not the subject of looters but something else, and we will continue to work on that. That's the big picture tonight. We will spend the rest of the hour or so putting the individual pieces in play, and we will start with Saddam Hussein.
Word surfaced today that we have come to connect with the war on terror. This time it involves the war in Iraq. "Chatter" is the word, as intelligence people put it. Chatter about the fate of Saddam Hussein.
The latest now on what they're hearing, or should we say overhearing, from our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, good evening.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well, U.S. officials say that the U.S. government has overheard or intercepted conversations by Iraqi officials who seem to believe that Saddam Hussein is dead. That he may have died in this latest strike against a Baghdad residential neighborhood.
But intelligence analysts warn that these officials are on the periphery and could be misinformed or even intentionally trying to mislead the United States while Saddam Hussein still plots an escape. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today says he's reviewed lots of intelligence on this subject and he's seen nothing yet to convince him Saddam Hussein is truly dead. And that's not all Secretary Rumsfeld had to say today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): With television images showing looting and lawlessness in Baghdad, the Pentagon was again on the defensive.
RUMSFELD: It's untidy and freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here.
MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says limited numbers of U.S. troops now in Baghdad are stopping looting when they can, especially to ensure hospitals and other vital civil services continue to operate. But even as more U.S. troops move into the city from the south, the Pentagon is pressing other countries to donate police forces for Iraq so the U.S. can concentrate on finishing the war and finding POWs, banned weapons, and Saddam Hussein's regime. To that end, U.S. troops are being issued a unique set of wanted posters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this deck of cards is one example of what we provide to soldiers and Marines out in the field with the faces of the individuals and what their role is.
MCINTYRE: Top of deck is the ace of spades, Saddam Hussein. The U.S. still doesn't know if he was killed in a devastating air strike that leveled several buildings in a Baghdad residential area on April 7th. Saddam's two sons, Qusay and Uday, may have also been killed at the time. Since the strike, there's been no sign of the three or evidence that they are wielding any political power.
Lower in the deck is Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. His luxurious Baghdad home has been ransacked by looters, but he is nowhere to be friend.
Saddam Hussein's half brather, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan (ph), former head of internal security, was targeted in another air strike that destroyed a safehouse in a town about 55 miles west of Baghdad Thursday. Results of that still unknown.
Of the 52 cards, only the king of spades, Ali Hassan Al Majeed, the man dubbed "Chemical Ali" by the U.S., is believed to be dead as a result of an air strike on his Basra villa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: Now while these playing cards are being given to a lot of U.S. troops, most of the actual searching is done by America's unseen warriors, the Special Operations Forces, of which there are over 3,000 in Iraq now. They're not only looking for the last known location of these senior Iraqi leaders, they're also trying to seal the borders, the roads out of Baghdad, and they've also been probing Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. And there are indications tonight that resistance there may be melting away as well -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, a couple of quick ones. Is there from the Pentagon any change in plan to deal with the looting in the cities, not just in Baghdad but across the country?
MCINTYRE: Well, it's hard to tell. They claim that they planned to counter for this all along, that more troops will be flowing in, that they have got other initiatives to try to empower some of the local people. But it's hard to say that they would continue to see the pictures coming out of there and not try to make some adjustment, particularly since the hallmark of their military strategy all along has been flexibility and adjusting to what's happening on the ground.
BROWN: And I expect to know the answer here, but do they at the Pentagon or in the intelligence community have any better idea today how it came to be that the Iraqi regime just seemed to vanish three days ago?
MCINTYRE: Well, if you ask them, they say no. They say they really don't have any idea where these top 50 people are, or what's happened to them. And they insist they still don't know, for instance, what's happened to Saddam Hussein.
But what they can see -- what they do see is no evidence that any of them are whielding any power. It was interesting; one of the things that they destroyed in the last 24 hours is a small fleet of camouflage planes on the ground that they say could have been used for chemical attacks but may also have been part a plan to get some of the senior leaders out of Iraq -- those were destroyed.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.
A closer look now at Baghdad. This is what a Marine had to say about his role there, which seemed to evolve today from patrolling to policing. "We're like a dog that's been chasing a car," he said. "Now that we have caught, we are trying to figure out what to do with it."
CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now from Baghdad. Nic, good morning.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Aaron.
BROWN: What's it like there this morning?
ROBERTSN: Well, it's been a relatively quiet night. Not as many incidents of exchanges of gunfire that we heard on the last couple of nights.
The streets, although when dusk fell was still very, very rowdy, a sort of Antarctic feel, a lot of black smoke blowing in the air, looting still going on, gangs roaming around, even people out with weapons to protect the things that they'd looted on the streets. So it was still a very, very uneasy feeling. And despite the fact that there have been some calls and some of the mosques in Baghdad for people to respect their neighbors and to stop the looting, the scale of the looting by the very nature that it's continued for three days, has reached more government ministries, has essentially stopped some hospitals working, has affected many, many businesses throughout the city. Many, many shopping areas.
By the very nature it's been going on so long, it may about to run its course. But it is having a significant impact on the city. And while the Marines will do what they can, and the infantry men on the west of the city will do what they can, they're not here in significant enough numbers to really cope with the scale of what is happening in the city, Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, not from a military point of view, but just from the perspective of people living in the city, is it a more dangerous city to live in today than it was a week ago?
ROBERTSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. People are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to come into the city. Afraid to leave them because their houses may be looted, afraid that they may get caught up in some sort of situation if they come into the city.
It is certainly more dangerous in that regard, because we know that civilians weren't being targeted by the bombing that was going on a week ago. That it was government buildings and the interior ministry and Saddam Hussein's regime that were being targeted. So at the moment, no, it's more dangerous -- Aaron.
BROWN: You talked last night about Friday being the first time in a generation really that religious leaders would be able to preach without the government looking over their shoulders. Were there signs today that it changed their message?
ROBERTSON: Their message was very much focused on the issues of the day, on the issues of looting. It did not appear, we did not -- we were not aware of any religious leaders picking up a political baton, if you will, and charging at one particular direction with it. The message seemed to be very much at a human level that people should respect their neighbors and that they shouldn't keep looting.
BROWN: And is there a wave of people coming back into the city? A lot of people left the city as the Americans advanced. Are they now coming home, or whatever's left of their homes?
ROBERTSON: People are coming back. We did see them when we were driving into the city yesterday. Driving down the road, cars stacked full of family possessions, pots, pans, carpets, children, mother-in- laws, perhaps people who looked like mother-in-laws. I shouldn't prejudge that.
But certainly there were people coming back into the city with their extended families. But it's not clear how many and what percentage of the population this represents. The roads I would judge leading into the city were still relatively empty compared to normal traffic here. So I would say that a lot people are still holding back at this time -- Aaron.
BROWN: And just again, this is a city where almost literally everyone is armed?
ROBERTSON: That's what we've been told. That's the evidence -- well, the evidence is hard to see, because obviously a lot of people don't carry their weapons or show them all the time.
I was surprised today to see a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder and another man stuffing a pistol in his pocket when he thought he was about to be confronted by somebody who wanted to take away his wheelbarrow of goods that he just looted. So there are weapons. And a lot of people in the city do have them.
But again, it's very difficult to judge. It's sort of common folklore, if you will, that a lot of people here are armed. Perhaps some of them just have hunting rifles for hunting birds. But the evidence today is that people -- in the past, they wouldn't have been able to take those weapons out on the streets; they certainly are now.
BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson who is in Baghdad. A Wild West in Baghdad.
We move up north to Mosul, where the fighting never happened but the looting certainly did. Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was Iraq's central bank, the Mosul branch. After Friday morning, there seemed to be more cash outside than in.
After hours, a stream of Iraqis helped themselves. Even smoke pouring from a fire set inside the building and shots fired by local guards didn't deter them for long. Some said they'd been robbed all these years by Saddam Hussein, and they kept coming back.
"We're tired, we're hungry," said this man. "For 23 years we've had oil and we've got nothing from it, only missiles." There was nobody to stop the looting. Kurdish officials say only a small number of U.S. and Kurdish troops entered the city hours after the looting began. And several hours after the commander of 15,000 Iraqi soldiers from Mosul surrendered Friday to the U.S. military.
With no army, no police, no government, across the city people rampaged. Some of the worst destruction was in the most hated of government buildings: Ba'ath Party headquarters and secret police buildings.
"For almost 24 years, we've been destroyed by Saddam Hussein," said Ahmed (ph). "We want someone to bring democracy, freedom of speech. We don't want someone who, if we say, this is electricity, says no, this is not electricity. Saddam Hussein blindfolded us."
With the end of the Iraqi leaders' iron grip went the obedience to law and order. Much of the looting was simply because people said they wanted those things. Mosul's biggest and best hotels (UNINTELLIGIBLE) before the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi government operated afterward. Looted from basement to rooftop with no one to stop them.
And across the river, a building that most people didn't even dare mention in public, President Saddam Hussein's Mosul palace. With the withdrawal of Iraqi forces to protect it, ordinary Iraqis simply walked through the gates and ran riots.
(on camera): Until today, most Iraqis would never even have dreamed of being able to come to this palace, let alone walk away with pieces of it.
(voice-over): Woodwork, marbled, bathroom fixtures, the very doors that for so long they had been denied entry through, ripped off their hinges. Later in the day, others came just to look. Many condemned the looting and the man they said spent money on palaces instead of his people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no food. There's no clothes. There's no good schools. There's no everything here.
We are damaged. Damaged people. They -- he left us damaged.
ARRAF: For many, damaging just one of Saddam Hussein's palaces was a small price to pay in revenge. Jane Arraf, CNN, Mosul, northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Retired General David Grange is with us tonight. He is in Oak Brook, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
General, there is an interesting dilemma for the Americans and the coalition. Obviously, the rioting or the looting can't be allowed to go on. On the other hand, clamped down too hard and you create a whole set of different problems.
GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a balance; that's exactly right. And what you will see I think is that, first of all, these pent-up emotions of people being denied and not being allowed to do some of the things that many of us take for granted.
And they've gone crazy. It's just a swelling of resentment and action, and focused mainly on some type of government buildings or something that represents the previous government, and sometimes not. Sometimes just people taken advantage of the chaos and the fear and the absence of a government, of a rule of law.
But what will happen is it will slowly transition back. It will transition back to some rule of law enforced by U.S. military and enforced by some of the -- for instance, in the north, the Kurdish military forces.
You will get some emergent leaders that will get together with the coalition, they'll make some plans and they'll start getting these things organized. They'll do things, Aaron, like giving rewards for every AK-47 that's turned in. And eventually, as these weapons come in for some kind of money, whatever it may be -- it won't be Iraqi money up front, but it will be something else -- and these things will finally start to get resolved.
But it's a natural transition period. Though it's terrible to look at, I believe it will phase out eventually here.
BROWN: Does it end on its own inertia, or does it end because the Americans and the British put an end to it?
GRANGE: The coalition forces will obviously assist in putting an end to it. But the Iraqi people almost have to get involved. '
If you noticed on some of the other footage you were showing when some of the Iraqi free army members were walking through some of the streets, and the attitude of the Iraqi people to them is very powerful. And so some of those groups need to be at the coalition forces throughout Iraq. And then some of these again, these natural leaders, or these leaders that will be vetted somehow -- I mean, you can't get any (ph) criminal back in there -- will help talk to the people, the clerics and those, and they'll start to have a sense of calm to the situation. And it will improve.
BROWN: David, thank you. General Grange. He'll be with us -- General Grange will -- for the next couple of hours tonight.
Not to make light of anything to do with war -- we wouldn't want to do that -- but it does seem to us that one little slice of it would make a good sitcom. A government sent some guy overseas as his official representative, and then while the guy's out of the country working, the government up and disappears. So where does that leave the representative?
For more on the real-life version of that scenario, we are joined by CNN's United Nations correspondent, Richard Roth. Richard, good evening.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron Mohammed Aldouri, Iraq's ambassador in name only, is now leaving the country tonight, headed to Paris, en route to Damascus, Syria.
He leaves behind a staff of 10. He says he's practically retiring. This university professor, who spent a lot more time in academia than diplomacy, is very concerned about his family. But he had some interesting final thoughts upon his departure here at the home of the Iraqi ambassador.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Hi, Richard. Good evening. How are you?
ROTH: How are you?
ALDOURI: Thank you very, very much.
ROTH: I understand you have a statement. Would you like to...
ALDOURI: Well, really I have -- I don't have a statement. I want to just say thank you very much, Richard. And thanks for the CNN and thanks for all of your colleagues.
I was really happy. Thank you for your awareness. Thank you for all that you did with me.
Sometimes I was very tough. I am sorry for that, I regret. So please accept my apologies. I will see you I hope in a peaceful time with a good friendship between Iraq and the United States.
ROTH: Are you happy to go back to the region? Are you happy to at least be going back?
ALDOURI: I am going to the region -- you know, I have no information from my family, from the beginning of the war. The events. So I hope that I can -- I am seeking any kind of information.
I will go in the region to ask somebody to -- if there is something -- any kind of information about my family. This is my -- this is the most important reason why I am leaving the United States. Hopefully I can return back to the United States with another -- better time, better conditions, and better friendship between Iraqi people and the people of the United States.
Thank you very much. I would like it thank also the people of New York and the people of the United States. They are very decent people.
I hope that our future will be better for the interests of the United States and Iraq. So I am very hopeful and very confident for the future. I hope that the United States Army will leave Iraq soon and we will have free election for a free government for a free future for Iraq and the people for Iraq.
This is my message to you, to the people of the United States. I hope that I will be again here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it emotionally -- is it hard to have taken Mr. Hussein's portrait down?
ALDOURI: This is something else. He is not now. He is no more in the government. So we are looking for the future.
The future is the best. The peace we want. This is what we are looking for, and we have to work together to have this peaceful relationship between Iraq and the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to return perhaps in a similar capacity one day?
ALDOURI: Well, it's not important. But I hope that I will come back within a better atmosphere, better conditions and, as I told you, with a better friendly relationship between Iraq and the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do you have a message to the people who are still fighting? To those people in your country with the weapons and guns? What should they do?
ALDOURI: Well, I hope that peace will prevail very, very soon. We need peace. We don't need war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.
ROTH: Ambassador, thank you very much.
ALDOURI: Thank you. Richard, good luck. Good luck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
ALDOURI: All the best.
ROTH: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: You saw with Ambassador Aldouri a sense of relief now that he is departing. That it seems for him the war here is over.
He had been under tremendous pressure, certainly in the last few months, before the outbreak of the war, and even in last three weeks, as he was pursued heavily by the media and people questioned just what was going on back home. But he soon lost touch with Iraq and the government, or what was the government.
And now he is at Kennedy Airport waiting for a flight that will take him to Europe and then on to Damascus, Syria. He was liked by many of his diplomatic colleagues here on Ambassadorial Row. They said he was a decent man, but he was just representing a bad cause -- Aaron.
BROWN: Richard, thank you. Richard Roth at the U.N. Or at least in the streets of New York. It looks like a wet New York tonight.
We'll take a break. When we come back, the road ahead.
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BROWN: Decades ago, a political scientist coined a phrase, "the crisis of rising expectations," he called it. It's the instability that stems from hopeless people getting a taste of hope and an appetite for more. The chaos when the lid comes off the pot.
This is the challenge facing the Americans in Iraq today, and for months to come at least. Joining us to talk about it tonight, Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." Robin is in Washington tonight. Nice to see you.
We talk a lot about American expectations here. Expectations in other Arab countries. But the Iraqis have expectations, too.
ROBIN WRIGHT, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Enormous expectations, more than anyone else. Twenty-four years of Saddam's rule is over and there are reprisals that are playing out on a lot of levels.
We're seeing it visibly now in the looting of facilities. There is the real danger that this kind of instability could then end up expanding into areas of political reprisals. People taking out their anger, frustration on other people. The old rivalries that were once a hallmark of Iraqi politics re-emerging.
So this, you know, it's going to take an enormous amount of intervention by the United States at a lot of different levels, politically as well as militarily, to make sure that Iraq holds together and the sense of law and order is restored for its -- the physical future as well as the political future.
BROWN: Actually, there were signs yesterday, some troubling signs of political reprisals in place. A governor selected in Basra met some problems from other tribes. And in Najaf, what appeared to be an assassination.
WRIGHT: Yes, and the assassination really was very serious for Iraq. This is a man who had good relations with -- had been based in London. He had good relations both with the United States and the British. And was seen to a certain degree as a man who was their ally. He came back and called for cooperation.
The fact that he was murdered so brutally could send a kind of chill across those who are considering emerging as allies of the United States and Britain as they try to find new leaders to replace Saddam Hussein. And they will need them in a lot of different levels. So this is not a good omen.
BROWN: Someone has to select the leaders, and that creates part of the problem. That you're unfairly giving one group, one tribe, one religious sect, one something or another an unfair advantage to whatever the future becomes.
WRIGHT: That's right. And the initial responsibility will be given to the U.S. military. The young colonels and majors who have operated in the field. And they're going to try to identify people who have been helpful to the United States.
The upside of that is that there are some of these people emerging. There's going to be a meeting next Tuesday, the first of several to try to begin the process of forming an interim Iraqi authority. The danger is that these people will be seen as American -- not just American allies, but American puppets. And that makes them vulnerable and therefore the system vulnerable.
BROWN: In the meantime, you have got literally chaos going on. Order, restoring order brings -- or at least can bring resentment of its own. It's just a very complicated cocktail that's out there.
WRIGHT: Enormously complicated.
And there's -- I have a little bit of concern, frankly, that the United States didn't see this coming. There had been problems a couple of weeks ago in the early stages of military intervention, that there had been looting in some of areas where the United States had managed to force Saddam's troops back or out of the area.
And now it's going to take weeks before the United States can put in place an alternative police. They can't rely completely on the old regime's forces. They don't have the kind of military police to do it themselves. And they're actually contracting out to bring some people in to help train a new police force. But this could take weeks and potentially even months to do in a way that could ensure that there is a sense of law and order restored.
BROWN: Robin, good talk to you again -- Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent of "The Los Angeles Times," in Washington tonight.
We will take a break and update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.
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BROWN: CNN's Ryan Chilcote has spent the last three weeks embedded with 101st Airborne as it fought its way toward Baghdad. Today, he is still with them as they begin a new role: local cops.
Ryan joins us this morning now. It's morning in Baghdad.
Good to see you.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the 101st Airborne 2nd and 3rd Brigades, a good two-thirds of this very large division have moved into southern Baghdad.
They are the first light infantry unit to really move into the capital. What we have seen up until now has primarily been armor, tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. What they will be able to do as light infantry is to go through this city and try and restore some order with, as the military puts it, boots on the ground, troops at checkpoints, troops clearing buildings. So, this could really be a new chapter in the fighting and, maybe a little bit later, in the policing of this city.
Now, as the troops rolled in, we saw a lot of destroyed vehicles. First, on the American side, we saw two American tanks destroyed on Highway 8 rolling into the city. We saw a Humvee jeep destroyed. And we saw a refueling truck destroyed, along with a very large number of Iraqi cars and military vehicles.
The 101st also got a situational report from the 3rd Infantry Division unit that had been here previously. They described a very harrowing scene, saying they are getting attacked daily, that U.S. forces here are getting attacked daily. They also said they're looking for a U.S. soldier who was killed four days ago, still looking for his remains, asked the 101st to keep their eyes and ears open, should they -- when they're out talking to the public, to look for that soldier's remains, so a very harrowing scene here, lots of fighting, obviously, over the preceding days -- no fighting, however, yesterday for the 101st.
What they did find -- and I know people are finding this throughout Baghdad -- is a lot of looting. As we came in, we saw a lot of people, believe it or not, with clothing and tires. And I was later told that that is because there is a textile and tire factory in this area. That is what the run appears to be on in southern Baghdad.
Also, we went to a meat and poultry factory, the 101st hitting it, thinking that they might find some Iraqi fighters there. There, too, they found looters instead. I had a chance to go inside. The place was completely picked dry. I was told that it had been -- they had been looting the place for four days. It's tough to imagine how much longer, based on what I saw there, this looting can go on. It seems like everything has been really cleared out -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ryan, stay with us for a second.
General Grange, you know the 101st pretty well. Do they have any training, any real training in being police officers?
RET. BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, they have real training in urban fighting. They have real training on controlling people, whether they're the enemy or suspected enemy or civilians.
All military units actually get training in this domain. Very difficult, very hard to sort out, dangerous, obviously, because you don't know who to trust. You always have to cover each other. You always have to cover the suspect at the time. But putting in the 101st into these areas within neighborhoods in Baghdad will help quite a bit, because the 101st brings more infantry, more dismounted soldiers.
The mechanized unit, though more powerful in weaponry, has fewer foot soldiers. So, in this type of business, you need a lot of foot soldiers. So, the 101st will make a difference.
BROWN: And, Ryan, you talked about this unit that was still saying it was being attacked daily. What kind of attacks are these? Is this like a sniper or is it something more complicated?
CHILCOTE: Yes, they described rocket-propelled grenade attacks primarily. They also said that there have been attempted suicide attacks on their unit.
They basically said that this place comes alive at night, that the attacks are primarily at night. They also said that yesterday -- that would be Thursday -- they got a tip from some locals that some Syrian and Palestinian fighters were holed up in a nearby mosque. They said they went there and detained as many as 40 Palestinian and Syrian Fedayeen-type, paramilitary-type fighters inside a mosque in this part of Baghdad.
So they are facing irregular forces. There is no question about that. And they are facing sporadic fighting. It's not as if they are fighting an organized unit of the Iraqi military -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ryan, thank you -- Ryan Chilcote with the 101st.
We will take a break. Our coverage continues in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: The first phase of this is almost complete. Our soldiers have done a spectacular job.
I don't think there's any American in the country today that does not understand that we are now moving into a new phase, a complicated, difficult phase. And that is putting that country back together and trying to help the Iraqi people establish a new government and future for themselves. There is uncertainty there, yes.
BROWN: Are you comfortable with the way the administration is going about this, that it will be the Pentagon, essentially, that runs the show from here on out?
HAGEL: Well, I'm not sure that the Pentagon's going to run the show from here on out.
Certainly, General Garner's initial task force will start, I believe, this weekend putting together meetings with the various representatives of the Iraqi people, which is appropriate. The State Department will have a very significant role here. I am hoping that we will see the United Nations involved here very soon, as other allies need to be in very soon, because the legitimacy of what comes next in the eyes of the world, but, in particular, the eyes of the Iraqi people, is critical to the success of the future in Iraq.
BROWN: The president talked the other day about a vital role for the United Nations, but it does seem that that vital role is pretty much going to be limited, at least initially, to humanitarian assistance, as opposed to political reconstruction.
HAGEL: Aaron, obviously, the first task that we have ahead of us, as we clean up the military pieces here -- and that's not yet complete, as you know -- is establish order.
There is great chaos right now. Essentially, there's anarchy in many parts of Iraq. So the military is going to be required to help establish that order, as we move into these next phases. But I think the United Nations' role will go well beyond just humanitarian, for example, the financial role. Right now, there are over $60 billion of debt repayment claims on Iraq. There are over $200 billion in reparation claims against Iraq.
The World Bank, IMF, other multilateral institutions are not going to be in there to help sort this out until there is a multilateral organization like the U.N. that can sit everybody down and try and work it out. So this role for the U.N. will go much beyond just humanitarian. Obviously, the U.N. role can't be to run Iraq. That was never the intention, but it'll be wider and deeper than just humanitarian.
BROWN: There's been a fair amount of criticism today and yesterday, particularly in Arab media, but in other places, too, about the chaos that exists in Baghdad and the rest of country, that the Americans should have been prepared for that, that the Americans should have had plans in place to deal with that. Is that criticism fair or not, in your view?
HAGEL: Aaron, this is an imperfect business, as you know. Whatever is possible to go wrong will go wrong.
You've got a nation of 25 million people the size of California. It is a disparate nation. It is a tribal, religious ethnic makeup. So I think the reaction you're seeing here, especially after the people of Iraq have been pinned down by this ruthless Saddam Hussein regime for 25 years, you're going to see some of that come out. I mean, the anger and all the reaction somewhat predictable.
I don't know that the United States could have not only anticipated all of it, but actually controlled it. Now we've got to get control of it. We don't have any -- we don't have any options. We cannot let this go on and on. And that's going to be a difficult part of establishing order.
BROWN: It's an awfully complicated task.
Senator, it's always good to have a bit of your time. Thank you, again. And have a good weekend.
HAGEL: Thank you, Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
We'll take a break.
When we come back: The living room war, what's next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: A wise man today wonders what happens when the storyline in Iraq stops being so camera-friendly. Will we lose interest when pictures of meetings replace pictures of war?
The wise man who wondered this is CNN's Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): This is what this medium conveys with unparalleled power: the sheer emotional impact of a moment.
JOHN IRVINE, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): This is one of those extraordinary moments, something I never really thought I would see on the streets of the Iraqi capital.
GREENFIELD: Sometimes with a force so potent that it is absorbed the instant it is seen. We have known this for four decades now, since the image of an unthinkable killing froze us before our sets. It is what we remember of a war gone bad, a presidential resignation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, go with throttle up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GREENFIELD: A disaster in space, the end of the Cold War, an attack on America. But now, barring a sudden surprise or the public display of Saddam Hussein, the time for those compelling images may already be passing. Some of the journalists are already heading home.
Now what everyone has called the real fight begins: to bring order out of chaos, to rebuild what has been destroyed, to set Iraq on a course towards stability, maybe even liberty.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GREENFIELD: And these stories cannot be told with riveting images, because they evolve over weeks and months. And how many reporters will be embedded in those stories? How many lights will shine brightly on those stories, which may, in the end, be more consequential than all these images we have seen so far? -- Aaron.
BROWN: Can I add a line to that? How many viewers will want to sit and watch those stories?
GREENFIELD: I think this is a dilemma that television has lived with, as I said in that piece, all of its life.
When explosions happen, when that statue falls, when iconic moments occur, we understand it instantly. And this medium has always been better -- it's in the nature of it -- at delivering that visceral kind of information than analytic information. The story of reconstructing a country, of who governs, of whether the water is turned on, it doesn't have that kind of potency. And yet, as everybody has been saying, here and everywhere else, that, in the end, is really going to determine whether this is a success or not. And it is a challenge. I was thinking of Afghanistan. We all remember the pictures of the women coming out to dance and celebrate. Are we covering Afghanistan now? Not so much.
BROWN: And just to add one more thought to this, briefly, public interests drives political interest and political commitment to what is an expensive process.
GREENFIELD: Exactly. And sometimes the most important things happen way beyond the attention of either politicians or the public or the media, as we learned after Gulf War I. That culminated in 9/11. These are stories we have to pay attention to. It's very, very difficult to make that balance.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you -- Jeff Greenfield in New York tonight.
We will take a break.
When we come back: a week in history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We'd all like to think that life is like a movie, with a clear-cut beginning, a middle, and an end -- a happy ending, of course. In the movie version of this war, the climax would have been the statue falling down and we'd all be enjoying the happy ending right about now. But life isn't like the movies, and war even less so.
Some thoughts on the week from CNN's Michael Schulder (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As this week developed, scenes of battlefield bravery and blood, scenes of Marines carrying wounded Iraqi soldiers to safety with the same sense of urgency that they show one of their own, scenes of victory and celebrations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Bush.
SCHULDER: Of Iraqis pounding the image of Saddam Hussein with the soles of their shoes, an Arab symbol for dirt. Those scenes gave way to something more murky. Call it the fog after the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back, back!
SCHULDER: On night patrol in Baghdad, an Iraqi car gets too close to a U.S. Marine convoy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up!
SCHULDER: The Marines think they're being attacked. They think they must shoot to save their lives. When the shooting is over, the three people in the Iraqi car are dead. All three are civilians.
In the towns and cities that the U.S. and British now occupy, there are flowers and kisses, then more kisses. And are there efforts to make a connection.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Americans make us happy and the freedom.
SCHULDER: Efforts to find common ground. An Iraqi struggles with the few words of English he knows to tell the Americans that he has family in the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My brother Detroit, mother Detroit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detroit.
SCHULDER: As this week developed, the impression that American and British troops made on the Iraqi people depended on the circumstances of their encounters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open the door! Get your hands up and come outside. Come outside. Everybody in the house needs to come outside.
SCHULDER: As some Marines carried out the potentially dangerous task of house-to-house searches, it left a deep impression. Perhaps if the Americans had been able to communicate in Arabic, it would have lessened the fear. Speaking Arabic certainly seemed to help a Lebanese-American sergeant on this house-to-house search. After the search, the sergeant and his men were invited in for lunch.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Now we want to give you the chance to rebuild your country.
SCHULDER: As this week developed, there were promises from leaders abroad that life will get better.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the future of your country will soon belong to you.
SCHULDER: And there were difficult questions from the Iraqis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll try and help you where we can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When? When?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as we can. As soon as we can.
SCHULDER: This week, the fog of war gave way to the fog after the war. In order to declare success, the fog will have to lift.
Michael Schulder, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We'll take a break, update the day's headlines, then back to Baghdad.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Iraqi Officials Who Believe Saddam Hussein is Dead; Looting in Baghdad, Mosul Continues for Third Day; Mohammed Aldouri Departs>
Aired April 11, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, ANCHOR: Well good evening again, everyone. "Freedom is untidy," said the defense secretary today. And there was lots of untidy scenes in Iraq today. Some freedom, too; bordering on anarchy.
We begin, as we always do, with the pieces in play tonight. The military victories, the liberated cities, the looting that we have come to expect. The images familiar by now except for one. It is a picture not seen before of an Arab capital under American occupation, with all of the promise and the peril that that picture holds for the future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Friday prayers in Baghdad, the first under American control of the city. Peaceful enough inside, but on the streets of the city it was day two of getting away with whatever you could.
A piano on the street outside the Al Rashid hotel, formerly under control of the Ministry of Information. Furniture was popular, and so was anything that even remotely smacked of privilege and control. Unless the there was an American presence outside, hospitals were particularly targets. The Red Cross reeling.
RONALD HUGENIN-BENJAMIN, INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS: We still do have equipment in our warehouses. It is physically impossible to move about from one warehouse to a hospital with a truckload of equipment without being attacked and looted.
BROWN: But in Washington, the secretary of defense said it was all more or less understandable.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And while no one condones looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of oppression and people who have had members of their family killed by that regime.
BROWN: The president made his first public comments since the day the statue fell.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think I will ever forget, I am sure a lot of other people will never forget the statue of Saddam Hussein falling in Baghdad. And then seeing the jubilation on the faces of ordinary Iraqis as they realized that the grip of fear that had them by the throat had been released.
BROWN: As for combat itself, inside Baghdad there was very little. Marines manning checkpoints seemed a bit skittish. In the suburbs, the Army forced these men to lie on the ground on suspicion of looting. They were later released.
Outside of Baghdad, American troops consolidated their hold on both Mosul and Kirkuk, a great deal of looting in both places. In Mosul, gunfire outside the bank there, men with bundles of bank notes outside the building. But in the oilfields, only a single fire among the hundreds of wells in the region. And you can see American soldiers beginning to set up what the Pentagon says will be a ring of protection around the wells.
The only major Iraqi city not under coalition control is Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral home. You could clearly see the effects of the American bombing. But on the roads into the city, there was plenty of danger. CNN's Kevin Sites and his crew were held for several hours by the Iraqi Fedayeen.
KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And they tied me up. They tied my hands behind my back and they threw us in a truck and said that they were going to take us to Tikrit to the intelligence headquarters.
BROWN: Some fierce fighting was also said to have taken place in a small outpost called Kiam (ph), near the Syrian border. No pictures, but the town has been mentioned as a possible site of an Iraqi nuclear weapons facility.
Some Iraqi towns got their first look at coalition soldiers today. But these troops are not with the regular Army or the Marines. They were part of the so-called FIF, free Iraqi forces, made up mostly of Iraqis who fled to the United States years ago to escape the regime. Now they operate under the umbrella of the coalition.
GEN. JAY GARNER (RET.), U.S.-IRAQ RECONSTRUCTIN ADMINISTRATION: This country has great vibrancy to it. And it has an educated population. It was the jewel of the Middle East at one time. It can be the jewel of the Middle East again.
BROWN: A foothold finally in the southern port city of Umm Qasr for a post-war Iraq. The man named to relieve the recovery effort, retired General Jay Garner, getting his first look at the problems ahead.
It was in the capital city itself that life seemed most uneasy. Fires continue to smolder during the day, and just after nightfall, a huge fire and an Iraqi government ministry. Not caused by combat, say the Americans, but by the looters who continue to roam unabated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is some reporting that perhaps that fire was not the subject of looters but something else, and we will continue to work on that. That's the big picture tonight. We will spend the rest of the hour or so putting the individual pieces in play, and we will start with Saddam Hussein.
Word surfaced today that we have come to connect with the war on terror. This time it involves the war in Iraq. "Chatter" is the word, as intelligence people put it. Chatter about the fate of Saddam Hussein.
The latest now on what they're hearing, or should we say overhearing, from our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, good evening.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well, U.S. officials say that the U.S. government has overheard or intercepted conversations by Iraqi officials who seem to believe that Saddam Hussein is dead. That he may have died in this latest strike against a Baghdad residential neighborhood.
But intelligence analysts warn that these officials are on the periphery and could be misinformed or even intentionally trying to mislead the United States while Saddam Hussein still plots an escape. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today says he's reviewed lots of intelligence on this subject and he's seen nothing yet to convince him Saddam Hussein is truly dead. And that's not all Secretary Rumsfeld had to say today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): With television images showing looting and lawlessness in Baghdad, the Pentagon was again on the defensive.
RUMSFELD: It's untidy and freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that's what's going to happen here.
MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says limited numbers of U.S. troops now in Baghdad are stopping looting when they can, especially to ensure hospitals and other vital civil services continue to operate. But even as more U.S. troops move into the city from the south, the Pentagon is pressing other countries to donate police forces for Iraq so the U.S. can concentrate on finishing the war and finding POWs, banned weapons, and Saddam Hussein's regime. To that end, U.S. troops are being issued a unique set of wanted posters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this deck of cards is one example of what we provide to soldiers and Marines out in the field with the faces of the individuals and what their role is.
MCINTYRE: Top of deck is the ace of spades, Saddam Hussein. The U.S. still doesn't know if he was killed in a devastating air strike that leveled several buildings in a Baghdad residential area on April 7th. Saddam's two sons, Qusay and Uday, may have also been killed at the time. Since the strike, there's been no sign of the three or evidence that they are wielding any political power.
Lower in the deck is Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. His luxurious Baghdad home has been ransacked by looters, but he is nowhere to be friend.
Saddam Hussein's half brather, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan (ph), former head of internal security, was targeted in another air strike that destroyed a safehouse in a town about 55 miles west of Baghdad Thursday. Results of that still unknown.
Of the 52 cards, only the king of spades, Ali Hassan Al Majeed, the man dubbed "Chemical Ali" by the U.S., is believed to be dead as a result of an air strike on his Basra villa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: Now while these playing cards are being given to a lot of U.S. troops, most of the actual searching is done by America's unseen warriors, the Special Operations Forces, of which there are over 3,000 in Iraq now. They're not only looking for the last known location of these senior Iraqi leaders, they're also trying to seal the borders, the roads out of Baghdad, and they've also been probing Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. And there are indications tonight that resistance there may be melting away as well -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, a couple of quick ones. Is there from the Pentagon any change in plan to deal with the looting in the cities, not just in Baghdad but across the country?
MCINTYRE: Well, it's hard to tell. They claim that they planned to counter for this all along, that more troops will be flowing in, that they have got other initiatives to try to empower some of the local people. But it's hard to say that they would continue to see the pictures coming out of there and not try to make some adjustment, particularly since the hallmark of their military strategy all along has been flexibility and adjusting to what's happening on the ground.
BROWN: And I expect to know the answer here, but do they at the Pentagon or in the intelligence community have any better idea today how it came to be that the Iraqi regime just seemed to vanish three days ago?
MCINTYRE: Well, if you ask them, they say no. They say they really don't have any idea where these top 50 people are, or what's happened to them. And they insist they still don't know, for instance, what's happened to Saddam Hussein.
But what they can see -- what they do see is no evidence that any of them are whielding any power. It was interesting; one of the things that they destroyed in the last 24 hours is a small fleet of camouflage planes on the ground that they say could have been used for chemical attacks but may also have been part a plan to get some of the senior leaders out of Iraq -- those were destroyed.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.
A closer look now at Baghdad. This is what a Marine had to say about his role there, which seemed to evolve today from patrolling to policing. "We're like a dog that's been chasing a car," he said. "Now that we have caught, we are trying to figure out what to do with it."
CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now from Baghdad. Nic, good morning.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Aaron.
BROWN: What's it like there this morning?
ROBERTSN: Well, it's been a relatively quiet night. Not as many incidents of exchanges of gunfire that we heard on the last couple of nights.
The streets, although when dusk fell was still very, very rowdy, a sort of Antarctic feel, a lot of black smoke blowing in the air, looting still going on, gangs roaming around, even people out with weapons to protect the things that they'd looted on the streets. So it was still a very, very uneasy feeling. And despite the fact that there have been some calls and some of the mosques in Baghdad for people to respect their neighbors and to stop the looting, the scale of the looting by the very nature that it's continued for three days, has reached more government ministries, has essentially stopped some hospitals working, has affected many, many businesses throughout the city. Many, many shopping areas.
By the very nature it's been going on so long, it may about to run its course. But it is having a significant impact on the city. And while the Marines will do what they can, and the infantry men on the west of the city will do what they can, they're not here in significant enough numbers to really cope with the scale of what is happening in the city, Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, not from a military point of view, but just from the perspective of people living in the city, is it a more dangerous city to live in today than it was a week ago?
ROBERTSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. People are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to come into the city. Afraid to leave them because their houses may be looted, afraid that they may get caught up in some sort of situation if they come into the city.
It is certainly more dangerous in that regard, because we know that civilians weren't being targeted by the bombing that was going on a week ago. That it was government buildings and the interior ministry and Saddam Hussein's regime that were being targeted. So at the moment, no, it's more dangerous -- Aaron.
BROWN: You talked last night about Friday being the first time in a generation really that religious leaders would be able to preach without the government looking over their shoulders. Were there signs today that it changed their message?
ROBERTSON: Their message was very much focused on the issues of the day, on the issues of looting. It did not appear, we did not -- we were not aware of any religious leaders picking up a political baton, if you will, and charging at one particular direction with it. The message seemed to be very much at a human level that people should respect their neighbors and that they shouldn't keep looting.
BROWN: And is there a wave of people coming back into the city? A lot of people left the city as the Americans advanced. Are they now coming home, or whatever's left of their homes?
ROBERTSON: People are coming back. We did see them when we were driving into the city yesterday. Driving down the road, cars stacked full of family possessions, pots, pans, carpets, children, mother-in- laws, perhaps people who looked like mother-in-laws. I shouldn't prejudge that.
But certainly there were people coming back into the city with their extended families. But it's not clear how many and what percentage of the population this represents. The roads I would judge leading into the city were still relatively empty compared to normal traffic here. So I would say that a lot people are still holding back at this time -- Aaron.
BROWN: And just again, this is a city where almost literally everyone is armed?
ROBERTSON: That's what we've been told. That's the evidence -- well, the evidence is hard to see, because obviously a lot of people don't carry their weapons or show them all the time.
I was surprised today to see a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder and another man stuffing a pistol in his pocket when he thought he was about to be confronted by somebody who wanted to take away his wheelbarrow of goods that he just looted. So there are weapons. And a lot of people in the city do have them.
But again, it's very difficult to judge. It's sort of common folklore, if you will, that a lot of people here are armed. Perhaps some of them just have hunting rifles for hunting birds. But the evidence today is that people -- in the past, they wouldn't have been able to take those weapons out on the streets; they certainly are now.
BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson who is in Baghdad. A Wild West in Baghdad.
We move up north to Mosul, where the fighting never happened but the looting certainly did. Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was Iraq's central bank, the Mosul branch. After Friday morning, there seemed to be more cash outside than in.
After hours, a stream of Iraqis helped themselves. Even smoke pouring from a fire set inside the building and shots fired by local guards didn't deter them for long. Some said they'd been robbed all these years by Saddam Hussein, and they kept coming back.
"We're tired, we're hungry," said this man. "For 23 years we've had oil and we've got nothing from it, only missiles." There was nobody to stop the looting. Kurdish officials say only a small number of U.S. and Kurdish troops entered the city hours after the looting began. And several hours after the commander of 15,000 Iraqi soldiers from Mosul surrendered Friday to the U.S. military.
With no army, no police, no government, across the city people rampaged. Some of the worst destruction was in the most hated of government buildings: Ba'ath Party headquarters and secret police buildings.
"For almost 24 years, we've been destroyed by Saddam Hussein," said Ahmed (ph). "We want someone to bring democracy, freedom of speech. We don't want someone who, if we say, this is electricity, says no, this is not electricity. Saddam Hussein blindfolded us."
With the end of the Iraqi leaders' iron grip went the obedience to law and order. Much of the looting was simply because people said they wanted those things. Mosul's biggest and best hotels (UNINTELLIGIBLE) before the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi government operated afterward. Looted from basement to rooftop with no one to stop them.
And across the river, a building that most people didn't even dare mention in public, President Saddam Hussein's Mosul palace. With the withdrawal of Iraqi forces to protect it, ordinary Iraqis simply walked through the gates and ran riots.
(on camera): Until today, most Iraqis would never even have dreamed of being able to come to this palace, let alone walk away with pieces of it.
(voice-over): Woodwork, marbled, bathroom fixtures, the very doors that for so long they had been denied entry through, ripped off their hinges. Later in the day, others came just to look. Many condemned the looting and the man they said spent money on palaces instead of his people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no food. There's no clothes. There's no good schools. There's no everything here.
We are damaged. Damaged people. They -- he left us damaged.
ARRAF: For many, damaging just one of Saddam Hussein's palaces was a small price to pay in revenge. Jane Arraf, CNN, Mosul, northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Retired General David Grange is with us tonight. He is in Oak Brook, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
General, there is an interesting dilemma for the Americans and the coalition. Obviously, the rioting or the looting can't be allowed to go on. On the other hand, clamped down too hard and you create a whole set of different problems.
GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a balance; that's exactly right. And what you will see I think is that, first of all, these pent-up emotions of people being denied and not being allowed to do some of the things that many of us take for granted.
And they've gone crazy. It's just a swelling of resentment and action, and focused mainly on some type of government buildings or something that represents the previous government, and sometimes not. Sometimes just people taken advantage of the chaos and the fear and the absence of a government, of a rule of law.
But what will happen is it will slowly transition back. It will transition back to some rule of law enforced by U.S. military and enforced by some of the -- for instance, in the north, the Kurdish military forces.
You will get some emergent leaders that will get together with the coalition, they'll make some plans and they'll start getting these things organized. They'll do things, Aaron, like giving rewards for every AK-47 that's turned in. And eventually, as these weapons come in for some kind of money, whatever it may be -- it won't be Iraqi money up front, but it will be something else -- and these things will finally start to get resolved.
But it's a natural transition period. Though it's terrible to look at, I believe it will phase out eventually here.
BROWN: Does it end on its own inertia, or does it end because the Americans and the British put an end to it?
GRANGE: The coalition forces will obviously assist in putting an end to it. But the Iraqi people almost have to get involved. '
If you noticed on some of the other footage you were showing when some of the Iraqi free army members were walking through some of the streets, and the attitude of the Iraqi people to them is very powerful. And so some of those groups need to be at the coalition forces throughout Iraq. And then some of these again, these natural leaders, or these leaders that will be vetted somehow -- I mean, you can't get any (ph) criminal back in there -- will help talk to the people, the clerics and those, and they'll start to have a sense of calm to the situation. And it will improve.
BROWN: David, thank you. General Grange. He'll be with us -- General Grange will -- for the next couple of hours tonight.
Not to make light of anything to do with war -- we wouldn't want to do that -- but it does seem to us that one little slice of it would make a good sitcom. A government sent some guy overseas as his official representative, and then while the guy's out of the country working, the government up and disappears. So where does that leave the representative?
For more on the real-life version of that scenario, we are joined by CNN's United Nations correspondent, Richard Roth. Richard, good evening.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron Mohammed Aldouri, Iraq's ambassador in name only, is now leaving the country tonight, headed to Paris, en route to Damascus, Syria.
He leaves behind a staff of 10. He says he's practically retiring. This university professor, who spent a lot more time in academia than diplomacy, is very concerned about his family. But he had some interesting final thoughts upon his departure here at the home of the Iraqi ambassador.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Hi, Richard. Good evening. How are you?
ROTH: How are you?
ALDOURI: Thank you very, very much.
ROTH: I understand you have a statement. Would you like to...
ALDOURI: Well, really I have -- I don't have a statement. I want to just say thank you very much, Richard. And thanks for the CNN and thanks for all of your colleagues.
I was really happy. Thank you for your awareness. Thank you for all that you did with me.
Sometimes I was very tough. I am sorry for that, I regret. So please accept my apologies. I will see you I hope in a peaceful time with a good friendship between Iraq and the United States.
ROTH: Are you happy to go back to the region? Are you happy to at least be going back?
ALDOURI: I am going to the region -- you know, I have no information from my family, from the beginning of the war. The events. So I hope that I can -- I am seeking any kind of information.
I will go in the region to ask somebody to -- if there is something -- any kind of information about my family. This is my -- this is the most important reason why I am leaving the United States. Hopefully I can return back to the United States with another -- better time, better conditions, and better friendship between Iraqi people and the people of the United States.
Thank you very much. I would like it thank also the people of New York and the people of the United States. They are very decent people.
I hope that our future will be better for the interests of the United States and Iraq. So I am very hopeful and very confident for the future. I hope that the United States Army will leave Iraq soon and we will have free election for a free government for a free future for Iraq and the people for Iraq.
This is my message to you, to the people of the United States. I hope that I will be again here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it emotionally -- is it hard to have taken Mr. Hussein's portrait down?
ALDOURI: This is something else. He is not now. He is no more in the government. So we are looking for the future.
The future is the best. The peace we want. This is what we are looking for, and we have to work together to have this peaceful relationship between Iraq and the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to return perhaps in a similar capacity one day?
ALDOURI: Well, it's not important. But I hope that I will come back within a better atmosphere, better conditions and, as I told you, with a better friendly relationship between Iraq and the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And do you have a message to the people who are still fighting? To those people in your country with the weapons and guns? What should they do?
ALDOURI: Well, I hope that peace will prevail very, very soon. We need peace. We don't need war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.
ROTH: Ambassador, thank you very much.
ALDOURI: Thank you. Richard, good luck. Good luck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
ALDOURI: All the best.
ROTH: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: You saw with Ambassador Aldouri a sense of relief now that he is departing. That it seems for him the war here is over.
He had been under tremendous pressure, certainly in the last few months, before the outbreak of the war, and even in last three weeks, as he was pursued heavily by the media and people questioned just what was going on back home. But he soon lost touch with Iraq and the government, or what was the government.
And now he is at Kennedy Airport waiting for a flight that will take him to Europe and then on to Damascus, Syria. He was liked by many of his diplomatic colleagues here on Ambassadorial Row. They said he was a decent man, but he was just representing a bad cause -- Aaron.
BROWN: Richard, thank you. Richard Roth at the U.N. Or at least in the streets of New York. It looks like a wet New York tonight.
We'll take a break. When we come back, the road ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Decades ago, a political scientist coined a phrase, "the crisis of rising expectations," he called it. It's the instability that stems from hopeless people getting a taste of hope and an appetite for more. The chaos when the lid comes off the pot.
This is the challenge facing the Americans in Iraq today, and for months to come at least. Joining us to talk about it tonight, Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." Robin is in Washington tonight. Nice to see you.
We talk a lot about American expectations here. Expectations in other Arab countries. But the Iraqis have expectations, too.
ROBIN WRIGHT, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Enormous expectations, more than anyone else. Twenty-four years of Saddam's rule is over and there are reprisals that are playing out on a lot of levels.
We're seeing it visibly now in the looting of facilities. There is the real danger that this kind of instability could then end up expanding into areas of political reprisals. People taking out their anger, frustration on other people. The old rivalries that were once a hallmark of Iraqi politics re-emerging.
So this, you know, it's going to take an enormous amount of intervention by the United States at a lot of different levels, politically as well as militarily, to make sure that Iraq holds together and the sense of law and order is restored for its -- the physical future as well as the political future.
BROWN: Actually, there were signs yesterday, some troubling signs of political reprisals in place. A governor selected in Basra met some problems from other tribes. And in Najaf, what appeared to be an assassination.
WRIGHT: Yes, and the assassination really was very serious for Iraq. This is a man who had good relations with -- had been based in London. He had good relations both with the United States and the British. And was seen to a certain degree as a man who was their ally. He came back and called for cooperation.
The fact that he was murdered so brutally could send a kind of chill across those who are considering emerging as allies of the United States and Britain as they try to find new leaders to replace Saddam Hussein. And they will need them in a lot of different levels. So this is not a good omen.
BROWN: Someone has to select the leaders, and that creates part of the problem. That you're unfairly giving one group, one tribe, one religious sect, one something or another an unfair advantage to whatever the future becomes.
WRIGHT: That's right. And the initial responsibility will be given to the U.S. military. The young colonels and majors who have operated in the field. And they're going to try to identify people who have been helpful to the United States.
The upside of that is that there are some of these people emerging. There's going to be a meeting next Tuesday, the first of several to try to begin the process of forming an interim Iraqi authority. The danger is that these people will be seen as American -- not just American allies, but American puppets. And that makes them vulnerable and therefore the system vulnerable.
BROWN: In the meantime, you have got literally chaos going on. Order, restoring order brings -- or at least can bring resentment of its own. It's just a very complicated cocktail that's out there.
WRIGHT: Enormously complicated.
And there's -- I have a little bit of concern, frankly, that the United States didn't see this coming. There had been problems a couple of weeks ago in the early stages of military intervention, that there had been looting in some of areas where the United States had managed to force Saddam's troops back or out of the area.
And now it's going to take weeks before the United States can put in place an alternative police. They can't rely completely on the old regime's forces. They don't have the kind of military police to do it themselves. And they're actually contracting out to bring some people in to help train a new police force. But this could take weeks and potentially even months to do in a way that could ensure that there is a sense of law and order restored.
BROWN: Robin, good talk to you again -- Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent of "The Los Angeles Times," in Washington tonight.
We will take a break and update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: CNN's Ryan Chilcote has spent the last three weeks embedded with 101st Airborne as it fought its way toward Baghdad. Today, he is still with them as they begin a new role: local cops.
Ryan joins us this morning now. It's morning in Baghdad.
Good to see you.
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the 101st Airborne 2nd and 3rd Brigades, a good two-thirds of this very large division have moved into southern Baghdad.
They are the first light infantry unit to really move into the capital. What we have seen up until now has primarily been armor, tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. What they will be able to do as light infantry is to go through this city and try and restore some order with, as the military puts it, boots on the ground, troops at checkpoints, troops clearing buildings. So, this could really be a new chapter in the fighting and, maybe a little bit later, in the policing of this city.
Now, as the troops rolled in, we saw a lot of destroyed vehicles. First, on the American side, we saw two American tanks destroyed on Highway 8 rolling into the city. We saw a Humvee jeep destroyed. And we saw a refueling truck destroyed, along with a very large number of Iraqi cars and military vehicles.
The 101st also got a situational report from the 3rd Infantry Division unit that had been here previously. They described a very harrowing scene, saying they are getting attacked daily, that U.S. forces here are getting attacked daily. They also said they're looking for a U.S. soldier who was killed four days ago, still looking for his remains, asked the 101st to keep their eyes and ears open, should they -- when they're out talking to the public, to look for that soldier's remains, so a very harrowing scene here, lots of fighting, obviously, over the preceding days -- no fighting, however, yesterday for the 101st.
What they did find -- and I know people are finding this throughout Baghdad -- is a lot of looting. As we came in, we saw a lot of people, believe it or not, with clothing and tires. And I was later told that that is because there is a textile and tire factory in this area. That is what the run appears to be on in southern Baghdad.
Also, we went to a meat and poultry factory, the 101st hitting it, thinking that they might find some Iraqi fighters there. There, too, they found looters instead. I had a chance to go inside. The place was completely picked dry. I was told that it had been -- they had been looting the place for four days. It's tough to imagine how much longer, based on what I saw there, this looting can go on. It seems like everything has been really cleared out -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ryan, stay with us for a second.
General Grange, you know the 101st pretty well. Do they have any training, any real training in being police officers?
RET. BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, they have real training in urban fighting. They have real training on controlling people, whether they're the enemy or suspected enemy or civilians.
All military units actually get training in this domain. Very difficult, very hard to sort out, dangerous, obviously, because you don't know who to trust. You always have to cover each other. You always have to cover the suspect at the time. But putting in the 101st into these areas within neighborhoods in Baghdad will help quite a bit, because the 101st brings more infantry, more dismounted soldiers.
The mechanized unit, though more powerful in weaponry, has fewer foot soldiers. So, in this type of business, you need a lot of foot soldiers. So, the 101st will make a difference.
BROWN: And, Ryan, you talked about this unit that was still saying it was being attacked daily. What kind of attacks are these? Is this like a sniper or is it something more complicated?
CHILCOTE: Yes, they described rocket-propelled grenade attacks primarily. They also said that there have been attempted suicide attacks on their unit.
They basically said that this place comes alive at night, that the attacks are primarily at night. They also said that yesterday -- that would be Thursday -- they got a tip from some locals that some Syrian and Palestinian fighters were holed up in a nearby mosque. They said they went there and detained as many as 40 Palestinian and Syrian Fedayeen-type, paramilitary-type fighters inside a mosque in this part of Baghdad.
So they are facing irregular forces. There is no question about that. And they are facing sporadic fighting. It's not as if they are fighting an organized unit of the Iraqi military -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ryan, thank you -- Ryan Chilcote with the 101st.
We will take a break. Our coverage continues in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: The first phase of this is almost complete. Our soldiers have done a spectacular job.
I don't think there's any American in the country today that does not understand that we are now moving into a new phase, a complicated, difficult phase. And that is putting that country back together and trying to help the Iraqi people establish a new government and future for themselves. There is uncertainty there, yes.
BROWN: Are you comfortable with the way the administration is going about this, that it will be the Pentagon, essentially, that runs the show from here on out?
HAGEL: Well, I'm not sure that the Pentagon's going to run the show from here on out.
Certainly, General Garner's initial task force will start, I believe, this weekend putting together meetings with the various representatives of the Iraqi people, which is appropriate. The State Department will have a very significant role here. I am hoping that we will see the United Nations involved here very soon, as other allies need to be in very soon, because the legitimacy of what comes next in the eyes of the world, but, in particular, the eyes of the Iraqi people, is critical to the success of the future in Iraq.
BROWN: The president talked the other day about a vital role for the United Nations, but it does seem that that vital role is pretty much going to be limited, at least initially, to humanitarian assistance, as opposed to political reconstruction.
HAGEL: Aaron, obviously, the first task that we have ahead of us, as we clean up the military pieces here -- and that's not yet complete, as you know -- is establish order.
There is great chaos right now. Essentially, there's anarchy in many parts of Iraq. So the military is going to be required to help establish that order, as we move into these next phases. But I think the United Nations' role will go well beyond just humanitarian, for example, the financial role. Right now, there are over $60 billion of debt repayment claims on Iraq. There are over $200 billion in reparation claims against Iraq.
The World Bank, IMF, other multilateral institutions are not going to be in there to help sort this out until there is a multilateral organization like the U.N. that can sit everybody down and try and work it out. So this role for the U.N. will go much beyond just humanitarian. Obviously, the U.N. role can't be to run Iraq. That was never the intention, but it'll be wider and deeper than just humanitarian.
BROWN: There's been a fair amount of criticism today and yesterday, particularly in Arab media, but in other places, too, about the chaos that exists in Baghdad and the rest of country, that the Americans should have been prepared for that, that the Americans should have had plans in place to deal with that. Is that criticism fair or not, in your view?
HAGEL: Aaron, this is an imperfect business, as you know. Whatever is possible to go wrong will go wrong.
You've got a nation of 25 million people the size of California. It is a disparate nation. It is a tribal, religious ethnic makeup. So I think the reaction you're seeing here, especially after the people of Iraq have been pinned down by this ruthless Saddam Hussein regime for 25 years, you're going to see some of that come out. I mean, the anger and all the reaction somewhat predictable.
I don't know that the United States could have not only anticipated all of it, but actually controlled it. Now we've got to get control of it. We don't have any -- we don't have any options. We cannot let this go on and on. And that's going to be a difficult part of establishing order.
BROWN: It's an awfully complicated task.
Senator, it's always good to have a bit of your time. Thank you, again. And have a good weekend.
HAGEL: Thank you, Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
We'll take a break.
When we come back: The living room war, what's next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: A wise man today wonders what happens when the storyline in Iraq stops being so camera-friendly. Will we lose interest when pictures of meetings replace pictures of war?
The wise man who wondered this is CNN's Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): This is what this medium conveys with unparalleled power: the sheer emotional impact of a moment.
JOHN IRVINE, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): This is one of those extraordinary moments, something I never really thought I would see on the streets of the Iraqi capital.
GREENFIELD: Sometimes with a force so potent that it is absorbed the instant it is seen. We have known this for four decades now, since the image of an unthinkable killing froze us before our sets. It is what we remember of a war gone bad, a presidential resignation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, go with throttle up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GREENFIELD: A disaster in space, the end of the Cold War, an attack on America. But now, barring a sudden surprise or the public display of Saddam Hussein, the time for those compelling images may already be passing. Some of the journalists are already heading home.
Now what everyone has called the real fight begins: to bring order out of chaos, to rebuild what has been destroyed, to set Iraq on a course towards stability, maybe even liberty.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GREENFIELD: And these stories cannot be told with riveting images, because they evolve over weeks and months. And how many reporters will be embedded in those stories? How many lights will shine brightly on those stories, which may, in the end, be more consequential than all these images we have seen so far? -- Aaron.
BROWN: Can I add a line to that? How many viewers will want to sit and watch those stories?
GREENFIELD: I think this is a dilemma that television has lived with, as I said in that piece, all of its life.
When explosions happen, when that statue falls, when iconic moments occur, we understand it instantly. And this medium has always been better -- it's in the nature of it -- at delivering that visceral kind of information than analytic information. The story of reconstructing a country, of who governs, of whether the water is turned on, it doesn't have that kind of potency. And yet, as everybody has been saying, here and everywhere else, that, in the end, is really going to determine whether this is a success or not. And it is a challenge. I was thinking of Afghanistan. We all remember the pictures of the women coming out to dance and celebrate. Are we covering Afghanistan now? Not so much.
BROWN: And just to add one more thought to this, briefly, public interests drives political interest and political commitment to what is an expensive process.
GREENFIELD: Exactly. And sometimes the most important things happen way beyond the attention of either politicians or the public or the media, as we learned after Gulf War I. That culminated in 9/11. These are stories we have to pay attention to. It's very, very difficult to make that balance.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you -- Jeff Greenfield in New York tonight.
We will take a break.
When we come back: a week in history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We'd all like to think that life is like a movie, with a clear-cut beginning, a middle, and an end -- a happy ending, of course. In the movie version of this war, the climax would have been the statue falling down and we'd all be enjoying the happy ending right about now. But life isn't like the movies, and war even less so.
Some thoughts on the week from CNN's Michael Schulder (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As this week developed, scenes of battlefield bravery and blood, scenes of Marines carrying wounded Iraqi soldiers to safety with the same sense of urgency that they show one of their own, scenes of victory and celebrations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Bush.
SCHULDER: Of Iraqis pounding the image of Saddam Hussein with the soles of their shoes, an Arab symbol for dirt. Those scenes gave way to something more murky. Call it the fog after the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back, back!
SCHULDER: On night patrol in Baghdad, an Iraqi car gets too close to a U.S. Marine convoy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up!
SCHULDER: The Marines think they're being attacked. They think they must shoot to save their lives. When the shooting is over, the three people in the Iraqi car are dead. All three are civilians.
In the towns and cities that the U.S. and British now occupy, there are flowers and kisses, then more kisses. And are there efforts to make a connection.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Americans make us happy and the freedom.
SCHULDER: Efforts to find common ground. An Iraqi struggles with the few words of English he knows to tell the Americans that he has family in the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My brother Detroit, mother Detroit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detroit.
SCHULDER: As this week developed, the impression that American and British troops made on the Iraqi people depended on the circumstances of their encounters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open the door! Get your hands up and come outside. Come outside. Everybody in the house needs to come outside.
SCHULDER: As some Marines carried out the potentially dangerous task of house-to-house searches, it left a deep impression. Perhaps if the Americans had been able to communicate in Arabic, it would have lessened the fear. Speaking Arabic certainly seemed to help a Lebanese-American sergeant on this house-to-house search. After the search, the sergeant and his men were invited in for lunch.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Now we want to give you the chance to rebuild your country.
SCHULDER: As this week developed, there were promises from leaders abroad that life will get better.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the future of your country will soon belong to you.
SCHULDER: And there were difficult questions from the Iraqis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll try and help you where we can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When? When?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as we can. As soon as we can.
SCHULDER: This week, the fog of war gave way to the fog after the war. In order to declare success, the fog will have to lift.
Michael Schulder, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We'll take a break, update the day's headlines, then back to Baghdad.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Iraqi Officials Who Believe Saddam Hussein is Dead; Looting in Baghdad, Mosul Continues for Third Day; Mohammed Aldouri Departs>
