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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Iraq War Developments

Aired April 11, 2003 - 23:00   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, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll begin in Baghdad now. Another day of lawlessness in the city. The looters seem driven by vengeance as much as need. They have a lot to feel vengeful about. Saddam Hussein was an oppressor and a master thief as well, stealing an entire nation's wealth. The Iraqis now want it back. And some of them -- not all, but some -- are causing an enormous chaotic mess in the process.
Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. Marines patrol some of the city streets. They are greeted as liberators, especially by those who themselves are liberating anything they can get their hands on, from government buildings, to private businesses and homes.

It is an extraordinary sight. Instead of trying to stop it, the new force in town waved to the Iraqis who cheerfully trundle by with all their booty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: One of today's rich targets, the Al Rashid Hotel, long the refuge of international journalists and dignitaries visiting Baghdad during Saddam's iron-fist rule. Today, it is stripped bare. TV sets walk out the front door, hotel room minibars ripped from the walls, and even tennis rackets. Does their new owner really have a game of doubles planned?

What is going on here?

A rare answer from one of the looters. "We are Iraqis, but we have never shared in our country's resources. We watched for so many years as the government and rich men ate and slept while we went hungry."

Outside, it is the wild West, store owners taking the law into their own hands.

And at the mosques on this first Friday prayer since the liberation of Baghdad, not politics but urgent appeals to stop the looting. "Do you know what you are stealing?" asks Sheikh Mohammed. "You must defend your neighbors' homes as your own. We must all help each other."

Women rock with tears and fear about first the bomb damage, and now the threat to their lives and meager livelihoods.

The woes of a city welder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have many tools in the shop. I am afraid maybe today, maybe tomorrow, the thieves broke in the door and stole all my tools.

AMANPOUR: Another blamed Saddam Hussein for unleashing this orgy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He steal the money of the Iraqi people, the resources of the Iraqi people. He's a killer. He's a dictator.

SAWYER: The dictator may be gone, but at another mosque across town, Mohammed al-Baka (ph), the imam there, has this warning for the new powers that be. "Under cover of removing Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," he says, "the American and British have come to our country with what objective? To liberate us.? What liberation is this? What kind of freedom have they brought us?"

They may have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, but the people say that unless order is restored quickly, they are not yet enjoying freedom from fear itself.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, it was said many times that there might not be enough British and American soldiers in Iraq. It turns out there were enough to do the fighting, but now a lot of the work is guard duty, and, in a lot of places, there aren't enough guards.

CNN's Brent Sadler reports from northern Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American troops guard a production facility in the Kirkuk oil fields of northern Iraq. But while U.S. soldiers protect Iraq's oil wealth, much of the country is on a looting spree, and there aren't enough soldiers to stop it.

Like in many parts of Iraq, swarms of looters strip the old regime bare, offices ransacked, furniture piled high, with no sign of remorse.

There is no longer a leadership to herd people like cattle to do things they would rather not do, like these defeated Iraqi soldiers, no longer afraid of possible execution if they deserted their posts. They surrendered their weapons and most of their uniforms to Iraqi Kurds before being sent home, the seemingly harmless and, in many cases, bootless remnants of a northern army.

Nothing here is now the same as it was, especially for people like Saba Tahir (ph), a utility manager, attempting to get his team of engineers past the Americans to restore power in Kirkuk. They are accustomed to taking orders from the old Ba'ath Party, but now they must deal with a U.S. soldier. But Saba is politely turned away for security reasons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because there is no enough forces here in the region. They say that tomorrow, maybe, there will be enough forces here, and they will allow us to go.

SADLER: He can speak freely to me for the first time in his long career, but his evasive answers speak volumes about a fear that's left behind.

(on camera): Is there anything you would like to say about life under Saddam Hussein?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please. OK now.

SADLER: You're still afraid

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid? Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now, please.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. We don't know what happens now. We don't know.

SADLER: You're still afraid of Saddam Hussein?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody afraid. Sir, please. Thank you very much.

SADLER: Thank you, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

SADLER (voice-over): And Saddam Hussein is still at large.

(on camera): Securing the oil fields is a top priority for the U.S. military, but so too is restoring law and order in Iraq, where many sectors of society have plunged into preliminary chaos.

Brent Sadler, CNN, near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: To General David Grange.

General, that was an amazing little scene just now. You have this engineer, educated man, looking at these Americans on the ground, and still fearful that the regime will come back.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Very much fearful. And not understanding who may be listening, this paranoia, probably pushed a little bit too hard on his answers. It's just, you know -- you have -- it's very important to understand the culture in these different countries as you're operating, whether you're a correspondent or a soldier or whatever. It's a very delicate issue. But yes, it's very fearful still.

BROWN: Yes. "The Washington Post" will report tomorrow that intelligence from a Predator drone indicates that loyalists to Saddam Hussein may be abandoning their posts in Tikrit, that these pictures show no massing of troops or other defensive positions. Essentially this would mean that the last battle never happens. So if that is the case, how does the war end?

GRANGE: Yes, very interesting and a question that many people are having all over the country and the region. You know, I think in Tikrit, Aaron, what you're going to see is some loyalists still fight, a small pocket. But it's not going to be major battle. A lot of people are hitting the road, they're leaving.

And so this deck of 55 key Iraqi regime people that are still being hunted down, some are blown to pieces, mixed with rubble. Some are in other countries, I believe. Some are still hiding in Iraq itself.

So the question really is, on this first phase, the combat phase for the removal of the regime, and the regime is already nonoperational, who surrenders? Who do you get to surrender? The closest one they had was the 5th Corps commander in Mosul, who surrendered just recently. But is that the surrender for Saddam's regime?

So you almost have to select somebody, take his surrender, and get on with the next phase, even though there's a lot of mopping up to do, and then going into the restoration phrase, which we're (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- you see the coalition force almost going into it now with the rule of law issues that they now face.

BROWN: Does it matter if there's a surrender, as long as the fighting stops, as long as the troops aren't in danger, as long as some sense of order is brought back? In what sense does it matter whether there's a formal surrender or not?

GRANGE: I guess not. I guess you really don't have to have that, if you have a statement by some authority that is -- you know, their statement is received and accepted by not only the international community, but -- and the coalition forces, but also the people of Iraq. Probably not, Aaron. I think you probably just get on with it.

BROWN: Now let's just circle back to the engineer for a second, because in this case, a surrender may matter. People...

GRANGE: Well, yes. BROWN: ... people like that man -- and no doubt thousands of others, tens of thousands of others -- will probably never feel secure until they're certain in some way that the regime really is dead.

GRANGE: Right. The certainty there. Not -- and not maybe the surrender, but just the proof that they're dead, or there's no way they're going to come back into their lives. That's right. Some way that has to be -- that image, that understanding, has to be portrayed to many of these people. That's exactly right.

BROWN: General Grange, thanks a lot for your help tonight. Retired general David Grange, who has been with us from suburban Chicago.

Imagine for a moment how painful it is for more than 100 American families to hear that this war, to quote one phrase of the moment, has been a cakewalk. More than 100 families have had their hearts broken in the war. Their sons and daughters went off to Iraq and died there.

And today the fallen soldiers, the first to fall, the 507th Maintenance Company, were honored at Fort Bliss in Texas, where they're based.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has the story. Ed, good evening.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron.

Well, it's been almost three weeks since the soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company were caught in a fierce battle in southern Iraq in the early morning hours of March 23. And I don't think there's any clear way of explaining just how difficult the last couple of weeks have been for the families of this soldiers.

So we're not going to allow our words to get in the way when we show you how Fort Bliss honored nine of its soldiers killed in action.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All gave some, but some gave all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today we celebrate the lives of our fallen teammates in the 507th.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Time now for roll call.

GLORIA JOHNSON, MOTHER OF KIA: The most painful part of the service to me was the roll call, when they called each one of the nine soldiers who had died in action, and they were not able to answer.

DEBBIE ROSE, WIFE OF 507TH SOLDIER: I think it was a good day. I mean, this was a wonderful tribute, a great turnout. A nice service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should salute them for their personal courage. God bless our loved ones, our heroes, their families, their friends. (END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Now, those nine soldiers were very much on the forefront today, but in the back of everyone's mind here today, the other five soldiers from the 507 who are still listed as prisoners of war. And Aaron, I spoke with many people at this service today. And there's a very overwhelming sense that they don't want to go through another ceremony like today. They want to celebrate a homecoming, Aaron.

BROWN: And there's just no clue, or at least no public clue, where those five or the other two known POWs are?

LAVANDERA: There isn't at this point. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the officials at the Pentagon and military officials throughout this country and over in the Middle East as well being very tight-lipped about what has happened and what is happening until these soldiers are returned safely, and -- as they hope they will be.

BROWN: Ed, thank you. Ed Lavandera at Fort Bliss.

That's actually one of the problems of having no regime to surrender, is there's no one to explain, if they were so inclined, where the American POWs are.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Baghdad early on a Saturday morning.

Some small questions, but important ones, will be answered today. Will the looting and chaos go on? Will the Americans who occupy the city now be able to restore some sense of order in the Iraqi capital?

There are other questions on the table tonight. Here is one of them. What will it take to convince the world, particularly the Arab world, but not just the Arab world, that the United States is in Iraq to liberate, not to conquer? One would imagine the pictures of free and joyous Iraqis would have gone a long way, but they only seemed to go so far.

The mood in one Arab capital, Amman, Jordan, from CNN's Rym Brahimi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When we visited this Amman market before, there were no shortage of people wanting to talk to us about the U.S. action against Iraq.

This time, it was hard to find people willing to talk to us about the downfall of the Iraqi regime. Again and again we were told, No comment.

Finally, we met this man, a 60-year-old Palestinian who was willing to say on camera what others were not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's all over now. They have taken Iraq and occupied it. Then it will be Syria's turn. Then Lebanon. This is what that cowboy Bush wants to do.

BRAHIMI: Only a week ago, demonstrators in the streets of the Jordanian capital were waving posters of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in support of what they saw as the only Arab leader who confronted the world's superpower.

In Cairo, Lebanon, and Syria, similar protests.

Most here have followed the developments of the war closely on Arabic satellite TV. Many saw hope in the regime's defiance, the Iraqi president's will to fight and his support for pan-Arab and Islamic unity, and the Palestinian cause. His downfall after 21 days of war has raised many questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are extremely angry, extremely worried. We don't like it. It is not yet definite how the outcome of this aggression in Iraq will be. But we feel that whatever the outcome, the future of this region is in jeopardy now.

BRAHIMI (on camera): Opinions on the Arab street about President Saddam Hussein are mixed, but one sentiment remains consistent, that of disappointment.

(voice-over): Like many people in the region, 17-year-old vendor Hassan Kamel (ph) says he expected the Iraqis to put up more of a fight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I wanted Iraq to triumph against America, but this happened.

BRAHIMI: Mustafa Hanem (ph) left the West Bank in 1967. He says he doesn't believe Iraqis are happier now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When Saddam Hussein came, he disciplined everyone like a clock. Now, without him, criminals are running the show.

BRAHIMI: And with President Saddam Hussein either dead or on the run, even his place in Arab history remains uncertain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never remember Saddam Hussein. I will just remember the war.

BRAHIMI: A war many people here say they will not forget.

Rym Brahimi, CNN, Amman, Jordan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're always pleased to see Fareed Zakaria with us. He writes about global matters for "Newsweek," has a lot to say these days. He's the editor of "Newsweek International," the author of "Future of Freedom," and he joins us tonight from New York.

It's good to see you.

Let's just talk briefly about the view from Amman, and then we'll talk more about Iraq itself. Is there anything, really, that will convince the Arab world of pure, if you will, American intentions, short of the Americans just getting up and out?

FAREED ZAKARIA, EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": No. I think fundamentally what you're dealing with is a dysfunctional set of cultures. And what will convince them, I think, more than anything else is their own success.

A lot of this is because these are cultures that have failed at modernizing, and they look with suspicion and envy at ones that have done well. Of course, American foreign policy has something to do with this. Of course, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has something to do with this.

But, you know, we have foreign policy disagreements with China, with other countries. They don't have this kind of poisonous, suspicious quality. At the heart of this you have a political breakdown.

BROWN: All right, let's go to Iraq for a second. We talked a bit last night about modest expectations, that we ought not expect sort of Jeffersonian democracy to break out. You'll -- you take that a step farther, it seems, to argue we oughtn't be in a hurry for anything here.

ZAKARIA: Well, Aaron, if you -- if -- in my book, what I try to show is that if you look over the last 25 years, the only places outside the Western world that have made it to liberal democracy have been places where the transition has been very slow. And most importantly, where the rule of law and capitalism have come before full-fledged elections and democracy.

The sequencing here matters a lot, because if you don't build the institutions, the inner stuffing, if you will, of democracy, it doesn't happen.

And you're right, it takes patience. This is not, you know, macaroni and cheese, you just add water, and somehow this is going to turn into a democracy.

BROWN: But the -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- there are probably many problems with that. One problem is the view from Amman and Damascus and all those other places. You talk about a five-year timeline. And I can only imagine that in Beirut or Amman, that will just make people crazy.

ZAKARIA: Some of them are going to be crazy no matter what we do. I think that's one of the important reasons why we should internationalize the presence. It's not going to work if the United States is the sole kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the sole power deciding which Shi'a faction is going to rule Nasiriyah or Basra. It would be much better if that takes place under a kind of international auspices.

But you have to stay the course. And you have to remember that we got criticized a lot for supporting South Korea, Taiwan. Lots of people had all kinds of nasty things to say about those regimes, about us. But we stayed the course.

And ask yourself, would you rather live in democratic South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand today than all those African countries that everybody loved in the '50s and '60s because they were throwing up popular demagogues?

It seems to me it's very clear. Patience and real reform is what you need. And, you know, you can't worry too much about what mad mullahs are going to say.

BROWN: Taiwan, it seems to me, that was a -- it was pretty autocratic generation that we're talking about here. Is that an even realistic model, given the tensions in the region that already exist?

ZAKARIA: Well, it's a pretty autocratic region. I mean, there's no problem with them listening to authority. But you're right, it's a different world, and the expectations are fast, and the cycle is faster.

But -- and that's why Taiwan, it took 25 years to get democracy. All I'm saying is, before you go to full-fledged national multiparty elections, let's get in place a court system. Let's get in place an independent central bank. Let's get in place some kind of federal structure so that the Kurds and the Shi'a don't feel that they don't have regional autonomy.

Because if you do the elections first, you will just get a mad power grab, and then nobody will have any time for the rule of law, because they'll want to pack the courts with their people.

This is what happened in Yugoslavia. The elections preceded all the other reforms, and as a result, you just had a wild orgy of nationalism.

BROWN: Gives a sense of the complexity that lies ahead.

Thanks for joining us. Nice to see you again. Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Thank you, Aaron.

There were heartbreaking scenes played out today at what was once literally the center of terror in Baghdad. American forces rolled into the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence.

CNN's Jason Bellini went with them today, joins us now with the story. Jason, good to see you.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Aaron. Well, you heard earlier from Christiane about the state of lawlessness here and the looting that's been going on. We met some people today who are taking advantage of this state of anarchy, this virtual state of anarchy, to try to find answers to questions they only asked at their peril just a few days ago, questions about loved ones who are missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI (voice-over): All afternoon, it went like this. Someone announces he's heard a voice, a call for help, this one coming from down in the well at what was the Iraqi intelligence headquarters.

The mob rushes over to hear it for themselves. So loud, so excited, so unsilenceable the crowd that no one can really tell if there's anyone down there.

Someone spots a hole in the ground, and throngs begin digging furiously.

(on camera): Do you know for sure that there are people down there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. Maybe thousands.

BELLINI: That's your son? And is he here, you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, here, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

(CROSSTALK)

BELLINI (voice-over): The consensus of the crowd, a vast subterranean prison exists here, still holding countless Iraqis abducted over decades by Saddam Hussein's secret police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anyone talk anything about Saddam Hussein, anything, they get him and his brothers, his sisters, his father, his mother, and get it in the jail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then here there's another hole...

BELLINI: Lieutenant Colonel Sanderson of the U.S. Army indulges what he suspects is but an urban legend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will make us feel better about it, because, you know, we may have people over here also, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), you know, from the first Gulf War. And we just want to make sure we've covered every avenue. We've had infantry patrols all over this place looking around, making sure that we can -- just make sure we have a strong gut check before we leave here that we have not in any way, shape, or form, overlooked anything.

We're going to put a shaped charge in that will blow down to find out if there's another level below the building.

BELLINI: The charge reveals only dirt. One man shows photographs he claims he found inside the building before the U.S. Army arrived. He holds up keys and announces he knows where to find the doors that they unlock.

The Army allows a small group of men to form a search party. Wading into a flooded basement, the men look over walls and behind doors, but ultimately find no locks to even try the keys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody says they know where the prison is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no prison.

(voice-over): More and more people come forward trying to convince the U.S. soldiers to continue their search.

(on camera): That is your brother?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BELLINI (voice-over): One man holds up a document he says he discovered here, the arrest record of his brother from 10 years prior.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people desperately want to find lost loved ones. I mean, it's a big deal now.

BELLINI (on camera): They might be hearing ghosts, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, well, I won't say that. But, you know, they're -- these people are glad to have their freedom back, and they're looking for all those people who lost their freedom.

BELLINI (voice-over): In their searching, we sense a sad unwillingness to recognize the obvious. The echoes they hear are really their own voices, and the darkness they peer into, a vast existential nothingness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI: Aaron, at the end of the day, not a single prisoner found, dead or alive.

I'm sure that in coming weeks, we're going to be talking about rebuilding Iraq quite a bit. But for many people here, my sense is that before they want to talk about rebuilding, there are a lot of questions relating to people who they loved who have -- they have no idea what happened to. They want to know answers to those questions before they can move on, Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. Jason Bellini in Baghdad.

In this half hour, there have been two remarkable scenes of the repressive nature of that regime, the engineer in the north of the country, standing literally in the shadow of American servicemen, still fearful that Saddam would come back, and the desperation in those people we just saw.

We'll take a break, update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The regime of Saddam Hussein has collapsed in all but a few places in Iraq and yesterday CNN's Kevin Sites happened upon one of those few places, an outpost where Iraqi forces were apparently still holding on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And as we moved up on a final checkpoint, some men beckoned us to come a little bit closer. We looked at them. They didn't look like Peshmerga. And they stopped us. And we -- we told them that we were journalists. And they basically made us get out of the car and they told us we were American spies, started to get very angry with us, started to point their Kalashinikovs at us. We said we're journalists. We're not here to do you any harm. We simply want to see what's going on in Tikrit.

And at that point they started to get very violent. They pointed their gun at me and said, This one is certainly an American, pointed his AK-47 and shot a round at my feet.

At that point, they made us get down on the ground on our knees. Now, the team I'm talking about is Bill Skinner (ph), my photographer, Richard Mitchellson, who is one of the security people that have been helping us here AKE and a translator, Tofik (ph). He is a Kurdish national. And I have to say, without Tofik, we probably wouldn't be alive today.

Tofik talked to these gentlemen, Wolf, the whole time that they were holding us captive -- you know, tried to calm them down, say that we're not here to do any harm. But, you know, they felt that certainly we were American spies. They kicked Bill Skinner in the head. They kicked Mitch in the head and in the ribs. And they tied me up. They tied my hands behind my back and threw us in a truck and said that they were going to take us to Tikrit, to the intelligence headquarters.

And, basically, at that point, our -- our translator, Tofik, said if they take you to the headquarters of the intelligence service, you're certainly going to die. You'll be executed.

Now one of the -- the men that was in the truck with us was a villager. And he said since we captured these men in the village, we should take them to the village elders and talk to them first. And that was probably the saving grace, Wolf.

They took us to the village -- village elders and we talked to them. And Tofik was very fast on his feet. He said, If you kill these men there could be great retribution for you. There could be -- the town could be bombarded. There could be great trouble for you. And he basically went on the offensive and scared them a bit. And basically they started to back off at that point. But they held us for another two hours there, questioned us.

And the people of the village, I have to say, Wolf, were very kind to us. They didn't want any trouble. The Fedayeen were the people that were the most aggressive. And it just gives an indication that the area south of Kirkuk, going towards Tikrit, is still very much in the control of Saddam Hussein supporters. They're still very much in control there. They still believe in his government and they're willing to make a last stand. So it was a scary day today. We got out with the clothes on our back. They took all of our gear. We -- our camera gear, our videophones, everything we needed to do our job, they took. They put a bullet through the engine block of our truck.

And so we were able to limp back with one vehicle and our lives. But we're lucky to have that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: CNN correspondent Kevin Sites. We'll take a break. When we come back, war crimes and war crime trials.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(AUDIO GAP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... important than Iraqi victims.

FEISAL AMIN AL-ISTRABADI, IRAQI FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: The first who have been aggrieved by Saddam's rule are the people of Iraq and in fact they ought in my judgment to have that first opportunity of holding their leadership responsible.

ARENA: The U.S. does support setting up an Iraqi Tribunal to deal with crimes and human rights abuses against the Iraqi people. Al-Istrabadi has been part of a U.S. working group on creating an Iraqi legal framework for nearly a year and is open to going back to Iraq to help with the transition but like many dissidents, Al- Istrabadi has not spent any time in Iraq in decades. Several U.S. allies and some human rights groups say the only way to go is to have an international body oversee the entire process.

RICHARD DICKER, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: If the United States retains control as occupying power of a process like this it will lack legitimacy. It will be seen as the United States imposing its will on those accused of what are horrific crimes.

ARENA: Even some members of Congress are pushing for international involvement.

While experts disagree on how to proceed, they are united in their belief that Iraq's current legal system is a sham and say the task ahead is daunting. AL-ISTRABADI: These are things we will basically in my opinion have to start from ground zero and work our way up. It is going to take in fact a generation in my opinion before the educational system can catch up and produce a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of competent lawyers and judges.

ARENA (on camera): And there is one more point on which all agree, whatever happens has to happen quickly before Iraqis start exacting their own justice by carrying out personal acts of vengeance.

Kelli Arena, CNN Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Take a break here and when we come back we'll talk about rebuilding a country from the ground up. As you look at Baghdad on a Saturday morning, there coming up on eight o'clock in the morning in Baghdad. We take a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a story of one child, a little girl who lost her mom and more than that in this war. She is now in a hospital in Basra. Her story comes from CNN's John Vause but we warn you first, the pictures are not easy to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fight that Basra took less than two weeks but the war will last a lifetime for this little girl. Zanab (ph), just 10 years old, has lost her right leg. There are compound fractures in the left. Her mother is dead. So too her three brothers, her home was destroyed. Her younger sister and father, Hamid, survived. He says they were hit by a coalition air strike.

HAMID ABB-LAI (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see the planes. They throw (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on our hometown.

VAUSE: Hamid says 17 people all relatives were killed in that house. He says he watched his wife die. Zanab (ph) tells me there is now pain where the doctors amputated.

DR. NAFFIES JASSIM: We are still deeply sad about the future of this child and the future of many other children. You see just one. We have many. They will live in a bad situation as a handicapped child.

VAUSE: Other children like 9-year-old Saleme (ph). He was hit by liberation fire. The men of his village fired their AK-47 into the air to celebrate the end of the war but one bullet found Saleme's (ph) right arm.

Will there be permanent damage?

DR. M.M. MUNDHI, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON: Probably because he has got probably damage to the radial nerve. There is a big segment lost and he may have a deformity like (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

VAUSE: A tour through Dr. Mundhi's wards at Basra General Hospital is as sad as it is grim.

His prognosis?

MUNDHI: His prognosis we don't know but he is state of sestemia (ph). Probably he's going to may have a very bad complications.

VAUSE: Complications because the doctor says he does not have the right drugs or the equipment to treat this man, not because the war he says but because of 12 years of sanctions but this man's burns, he points out, were the result of coalition bombing.

The hospital is short on everything from water to electricity, which runs for just a few hours a day. It's the best their old generator can do. Normally they could admit 700 patients. Right now there are just 80. The rest are treated and sent home but worst of all they say are the looters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want us to get out and to steal something.

VAUSE: Anything?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We are present here just to protect the hospital.

VAUSE: Of the 1,200 people employed here, about 100 have turned up for work over the last few days. Most are too scared and the administrator told me no one has been paid for months. The hospital corridors have now become makeshift shelters for those whose homes were destroyed. Everyone here thought the end of Saddam would be a time of celebration. Instead, there is uncertainty and disappointment mixed with a growing anger because there has been little sign of that much promised humanitarian aide.

John Vause, CNN Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joining us now with more on the challenge ahead, Elizabeth Stanley-Mitchell. She is a fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard and a professor at Georgetown University. She served in Bosnia and other places too as an Army Intelligence Officer and she joins us from Chicago tonight.

Bosnia -- in what sense is Bosnia and the Balkans similar to Iraq and what sense different?

ELIZABETH STANLEY-MITCHELL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well Aaron, it's similar in that we, the international community in this case the United States, are ready to go in and try and help rebuild a country, deal with war crimes, create a new government that can function. It's different because in Bosnia, there was a clear sense of a moment of surrender and I know you and General Grange were talking about this earlier. Without that clear moment of surrender, it's not immediately apparent how the transition moves on, who should be responsible for handling war crimes, tribunals, who should be responsible for establishing the new order and beginning to move towards creating a new interim government and reconstruction processes.

BROWN: In the Balkans, was there, at the end of the war, a currency? For example, could you still go buy a loaf of bread with some currency or another?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: The currency that we were using on the ground was actually the German Deutsche mark. It was the hard currency that everyone in Bosnia was using and it took a while before a currency could be established but again, it required the international community to help create and legitimize this new currency. This is just another one of a host of reasons why it would make a lot of sense to have the U.N. have a very large role in this process of transitioning forward.

BROWN: As you listened to the administration lay out its plan, do you see the international community having this kind of role or at this moment is this a role the Americans want to take for themselves?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: My impression that the Bush administration is relatively clear that it sees this kind of role for itself and perhaps the Brits as well and they've been pretty clear that they see the U.N. performing either a vital role but a much more subordinate role in providing humanitarian aid and helping to get services up and running in re-establishing infrastructure, some of those kinds of things, less of a role in establishing the new interim authority, in establishing currency, in prosecuting war criminals.

BROWN: It seemed to me one of the arguments the administration makes is that a single entity is more efficient in some respects than a complicated coalition or the United Nations or NATO or what have you. Do you at least agree with that part?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: I definitely do. There's a cost benefit trade off here. There is an efficiency argument for having one power doing it. There's a lot less work involved with having to coordinate with other coalition partners or with the wider international community but the trade off here between the efficiency and the ultimate effectiveness is that having a wider role for the United Nations and other international countries helps to legitimize the process both for the Iraqi people, for other countries in the region and for the world in general.

BROWN: Professor, thank you.

STANLEY-MITCHELL: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: It's very helpful. Thank you. It's very helpful tonight. Elizabeth Stanley-Mitchell whose experience was in the Balkans as a peacekeeper, former Army Intelligence Officer.

We'll take a break and then the still photos of the day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We try as often as we can to bring you the work of still photographers who are applying their trade in Iraq these days. Tonight Patrick Baz from the French news agency AFP, looking at what he's done this week. It's clear he has two of the things you need to be a photojournalist, a great eye and a nose for where the news is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK BAZ, AFP NEWS AGENCY: I am Lebanese born. I grew up in war zones. I got used to war. I don't know it's like. It's my life. I was the only one during this conflict who had pictures of Republican Guards and believe me, it's true luck because I was driving northwest of Baghdad and I bumped into these guys deploying around the capital, recognized them because of their uniform which is resembling the Marines' uniform. It's very close to the U.S. Marines' uniform.

I didn't feel fear in their eyes. I didn't feel any, you know, unconscious. They were totally -- they were going to depths without realizing what the firepower was in front of them. There was an American tanks that technical problems and had to stop during an attack in south of Baghdad. They really believed that they stopped the tank.

This is the famous telecom center. I was taking pictures and the reporter who was with me wanted to go in and I said no and while we were arguing to go in and go in, there was another missile that hit the building. I was more scared by what happened in Palestine Hotel than what happened to me at this telecommunications center because the telecommunications center I knew I was going to war, you know.

Why a U.S. tank hitting the Palestine Hotel for me was like the Americans were bringing war into my sanctuary, my daily life, my room, my bedroom. So we bumped into the column of Marines coming to Firdo Square. Firdo means paradise in Arabic. It's one of the words for paradise and I can tell you it's one of the very few neighborhoods where they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I'm very surprised to see today the same people who were shouting with our (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with our blood we will sacrifice for you Saddam throwing sweets and flowers at American soldiers. When you come back from places like this, life for you has much more value than it has before.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Patrick Baz. We'll take a break, update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

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







Aired April 11, 2003 - 23:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll begin in Baghdad now. Another day of lawlessness in the city. The looters seem driven by vengeance as much as need. They have a lot to feel vengeful about. Saddam Hussein was an oppressor and a master thief as well, stealing an entire nation's wealth. The Iraqis now want it back. And some of them -- not all, but some -- are causing an enormous chaotic mess in the process.
Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. Marines patrol some of the city streets. They are greeted as liberators, especially by those who themselves are liberating anything they can get their hands on, from government buildings, to private businesses and homes.

It is an extraordinary sight. Instead of trying to stop it, the new force in town waved to the Iraqis who cheerfully trundle by with all their booty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: One of today's rich targets, the Al Rashid Hotel, long the refuge of international journalists and dignitaries visiting Baghdad during Saddam's iron-fist rule. Today, it is stripped bare. TV sets walk out the front door, hotel room minibars ripped from the walls, and even tennis rackets. Does their new owner really have a game of doubles planned?

What is going on here?

A rare answer from one of the looters. "We are Iraqis, but we have never shared in our country's resources. We watched for so many years as the government and rich men ate and slept while we went hungry."

Outside, it is the wild West, store owners taking the law into their own hands.

And at the mosques on this first Friday prayer since the liberation of Baghdad, not politics but urgent appeals to stop the looting. "Do you know what you are stealing?" asks Sheikh Mohammed. "You must defend your neighbors' homes as your own. We must all help each other."

Women rock with tears and fear about first the bomb damage, and now the threat to their lives and meager livelihoods.

The woes of a city welder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have many tools in the shop. I am afraid maybe today, maybe tomorrow, the thieves broke in the door and stole all my tools.

AMANPOUR: Another blamed Saddam Hussein for unleashing this orgy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He steal the money of the Iraqi people, the resources of the Iraqi people. He's a killer. He's a dictator.

SAWYER: The dictator may be gone, but at another mosque across town, Mohammed al-Baka (ph), the imam there, has this warning for the new powers that be. "Under cover of removing Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction," he says, "the American and British have come to our country with what objective? To liberate us.? What liberation is this? What kind of freedom have they brought us?"

They may have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, but the people say that unless order is restored quickly, they are not yet enjoying freedom from fear itself.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, it was said many times that there might not be enough British and American soldiers in Iraq. It turns out there were enough to do the fighting, but now a lot of the work is guard duty, and, in a lot of places, there aren't enough guards.

CNN's Brent Sadler reports from northern Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American troops guard a production facility in the Kirkuk oil fields of northern Iraq. But while U.S. soldiers protect Iraq's oil wealth, much of the country is on a looting spree, and there aren't enough soldiers to stop it.

Like in many parts of Iraq, swarms of looters strip the old regime bare, offices ransacked, furniture piled high, with no sign of remorse.

There is no longer a leadership to herd people like cattle to do things they would rather not do, like these defeated Iraqi soldiers, no longer afraid of possible execution if they deserted their posts. They surrendered their weapons and most of their uniforms to Iraqi Kurds before being sent home, the seemingly harmless and, in many cases, bootless remnants of a northern army.

Nothing here is now the same as it was, especially for people like Saba Tahir (ph), a utility manager, attempting to get his team of engineers past the Americans to restore power in Kirkuk. They are accustomed to taking orders from the old Ba'ath Party, but now they must deal with a U.S. soldier. But Saba is politely turned away for security reasons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because there is no enough forces here in the region. They say that tomorrow, maybe, there will be enough forces here, and they will allow us to go.

SADLER: He can speak freely to me for the first time in his long career, but his evasive answers speak volumes about a fear that's left behind.

(on camera): Is there anything you would like to say about life under Saddam Hussein?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please. OK now.

SADLER: You're still afraid

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid? Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK now, please.

SADLER: Why are you still afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. We don't know what happens now. We don't know.

SADLER: You're still afraid of Saddam Hussein?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody afraid. Sir, please. Thank you very much.

SADLER: Thank you, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

SADLER (voice-over): And Saddam Hussein is still at large.

(on camera): Securing the oil fields is a top priority for the U.S. military, but so too is restoring law and order in Iraq, where many sectors of society have plunged into preliminary chaos.

Brent Sadler, CNN, near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: To General David Grange.

General, that was an amazing little scene just now. You have this engineer, educated man, looking at these Americans on the ground, and still fearful that the regime will come back.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Very much fearful. And not understanding who may be listening, this paranoia, probably pushed a little bit too hard on his answers. It's just, you know -- you have -- it's very important to understand the culture in these different countries as you're operating, whether you're a correspondent or a soldier or whatever. It's a very delicate issue. But yes, it's very fearful still.

BROWN: Yes. "The Washington Post" will report tomorrow that intelligence from a Predator drone indicates that loyalists to Saddam Hussein may be abandoning their posts in Tikrit, that these pictures show no massing of troops or other defensive positions. Essentially this would mean that the last battle never happens. So if that is the case, how does the war end?

GRANGE: Yes, very interesting and a question that many people are having all over the country and the region. You know, I think in Tikrit, Aaron, what you're going to see is some loyalists still fight, a small pocket. But it's not going to be major battle. A lot of people are hitting the road, they're leaving.

And so this deck of 55 key Iraqi regime people that are still being hunted down, some are blown to pieces, mixed with rubble. Some are in other countries, I believe. Some are still hiding in Iraq itself.

So the question really is, on this first phase, the combat phase for the removal of the regime, and the regime is already nonoperational, who surrenders? Who do you get to surrender? The closest one they had was the 5th Corps commander in Mosul, who surrendered just recently. But is that the surrender for Saddam's regime?

So you almost have to select somebody, take his surrender, and get on with the next phase, even though there's a lot of mopping up to do, and then going into the restoration phrase, which we're (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- you see the coalition force almost going into it now with the rule of law issues that they now face.

BROWN: Does it matter if there's a surrender, as long as the fighting stops, as long as the troops aren't in danger, as long as some sense of order is brought back? In what sense does it matter whether there's a formal surrender or not?

GRANGE: I guess not. I guess you really don't have to have that, if you have a statement by some authority that is -- you know, their statement is received and accepted by not only the international community, but -- and the coalition forces, but also the people of Iraq. Probably not, Aaron. I think you probably just get on with it.

BROWN: Now let's just circle back to the engineer for a second, because in this case, a surrender may matter. People...

GRANGE: Well, yes. BROWN: ... people like that man -- and no doubt thousands of others, tens of thousands of others -- will probably never feel secure until they're certain in some way that the regime really is dead.

GRANGE: Right. The certainty there. Not -- and not maybe the surrender, but just the proof that they're dead, or there's no way they're going to come back into their lives. That's right. Some way that has to be -- that image, that understanding, has to be portrayed to many of these people. That's exactly right.

BROWN: General Grange, thanks a lot for your help tonight. Retired general David Grange, who has been with us from suburban Chicago.

Imagine for a moment how painful it is for more than 100 American families to hear that this war, to quote one phrase of the moment, has been a cakewalk. More than 100 families have had their hearts broken in the war. Their sons and daughters went off to Iraq and died there.

And today the fallen soldiers, the first to fall, the 507th Maintenance Company, were honored at Fort Bliss in Texas, where they're based.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has the story. Ed, good evening.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron.

Well, it's been almost three weeks since the soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company were caught in a fierce battle in southern Iraq in the early morning hours of March 23. And I don't think there's any clear way of explaining just how difficult the last couple of weeks have been for the families of this soldiers.

So we're not going to allow our words to get in the way when we show you how Fort Bliss honored nine of its soldiers killed in action.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All gave some, but some gave all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today we celebrate the lives of our fallen teammates in the 507th.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Time now for roll call.

GLORIA JOHNSON, MOTHER OF KIA: The most painful part of the service to me was the roll call, when they called each one of the nine soldiers who had died in action, and they were not able to answer.

DEBBIE ROSE, WIFE OF 507TH SOLDIER: I think it was a good day. I mean, this was a wonderful tribute, a great turnout. A nice service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should salute them for their personal courage. God bless our loved ones, our heroes, their families, their friends. (END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Now, those nine soldiers were very much on the forefront today, but in the back of everyone's mind here today, the other five soldiers from the 507 who are still listed as prisoners of war. And Aaron, I spoke with many people at this service today. And there's a very overwhelming sense that they don't want to go through another ceremony like today. They want to celebrate a homecoming, Aaron.

BROWN: And there's just no clue, or at least no public clue, where those five or the other two known POWs are?

LAVANDERA: There isn't at this point. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the officials at the Pentagon and military officials throughout this country and over in the Middle East as well being very tight-lipped about what has happened and what is happening until these soldiers are returned safely, and -- as they hope they will be.

BROWN: Ed, thank you. Ed Lavandera at Fort Bliss.

That's actually one of the problems of having no regime to surrender, is there's no one to explain, if they were so inclined, where the American POWs are.

We'll take a break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Baghdad early on a Saturday morning.

Some small questions, but important ones, will be answered today. Will the looting and chaos go on? Will the Americans who occupy the city now be able to restore some sense of order in the Iraqi capital?

There are other questions on the table tonight. Here is one of them. What will it take to convince the world, particularly the Arab world, but not just the Arab world, that the United States is in Iraq to liberate, not to conquer? One would imagine the pictures of free and joyous Iraqis would have gone a long way, but they only seemed to go so far.

The mood in one Arab capital, Amman, Jordan, from CNN's Rym Brahimi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When we visited this Amman market before, there were no shortage of people wanting to talk to us about the U.S. action against Iraq.

This time, it was hard to find people willing to talk to us about the downfall of the Iraqi regime. Again and again we were told, No comment.

Finally, we met this man, a 60-year-old Palestinian who was willing to say on camera what others were not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's all over now. They have taken Iraq and occupied it. Then it will be Syria's turn. Then Lebanon. This is what that cowboy Bush wants to do.

BRAHIMI: Only a week ago, demonstrators in the streets of the Jordanian capital were waving posters of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in support of what they saw as the only Arab leader who confronted the world's superpower.

In Cairo, Lebanon, and Syria, similar protests.

Most here have followed the developments of the war closely on Arabic satellite TV. Many saw hope in the regime's defiance, the Iraqi president's will to fight and his support for pan-Arab and Islamic unity, and the Palestinian cause. His downfall after 21 days of war has raised many questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are extremely angry, extremely worried. We don't like it. It is not yet definite how the outcome of this aggression in Iraq will be. But we feel that whatever the outcome, the future of this region is in jeopardy now.

BRAHIMI (on camera): Opinions on the Arab street about President Saddam Hussein are mixed, but one sentiment remains consistent, that of disappointment.

(voice-over): Like many people in the region, 17-year-old vendor Hassan Kamel (ph) says he expected the Iraqis to put up more of a fight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I wanted Iraq to triumph against America, but this happened.

BRAHIMI: Mustafa Hanem (ph) left the West Bank in 1967. He says he doesn't believe Iraqis are happier now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When Saddam Hussein came, he disciplined everyone like a clock. Now, without him, criminals are running the show.

BRAHIMI: And with President Saddam Hussein either dead or on the run, even his place in Arab history remains uncertain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never remember Saddam Hussein. I will just remember the war.

BRAHIMI: A war many people here say they will not forget.

Rym Brahimi, CNN, Amman, Jordan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're always pleased to see Fareed Zakaria with us. He writes about global matters for "Newsweek," has a lot to say these days. He's the editor of "Newsweek International," the author of "Future of Freedom," and he joins us tonight from New York.

It's good to see you.

Let's just talk briefly about the view from Amman, and then we'll talk more about Iraq itself. Is there anything, really, that will convince the Arab world of pure, if you will, American intentions, short of the Americans just getting up and out?

FAREED ZAKARIA, EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": No. I think fundamentally what you're dealing with is a dysfunctional set of cultures. And what will convince them, I think, more than anything else is their own success.

A lot of this is because these are cultures that have failed at modernizing, and they look with suspicion and envy at ones that have done well. Of course, American foreign policy has something to do with this. Of course, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has something to do with this.

But, you know, we have foreign policy disagreements with China, with other countries. They don't have this kind of poisonous, suspicious quality. At the heart of this you have a political breakdown.

BROWN: All right, let's go to Iraq for a second. We talked a bit last night about modest expectations, that we ought not expect sort of Jeffersonian democracy to break out. You'll -- you take that a step farther, it seems, to argue we oughtn't be in a hurry for anything here.

ZAKARIA: Well, Aaron, if you -- if -- in my book, what I try to show is that if you look over the last 25 years, the only places outside the Western world that have made it to liberal democracy have been places where the transition has been very slow. And most importantly, where the rule of law and capitalism have come before full-fledged elections and democracy.

The sequencing here matters a lot, because if you don't build the institutions, the inner stuffing, if you will, of democracy, it doesn't happen.

And you're right, it takes patience. This is not, you know, macaroni and cheese, you just add water, and somehow this is going to turn into a democracy.

BROWN: But the -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- there are probably many problems with that. One problem is the view from Amman and Damascus and all those other places. You talk about a five-year timeline. And I can only imagine that in Beirut or Amman, that will just make people crazy.

ZAKARIA: Some of them are going to be crazy no matter what we do. I think that's one of the important reasons why we should internationalize the presence. It's not going to work if the United States is the sole kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the sole power deciding which Shi'a faction is going to rule Nasiriyah or Basra. It would be much better if that takes place under a kind of international auspices.

But you have to stay the course. And you have to remember that we got criticized a lot for supporting South Korea, Taiwan. Lots of people had all kinds of nasty things to say about those regimes, about us. But we stayed the course.

And ask yourself, would you rather live in democratic South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand today than all those African countries that everybody loved in the '50s and '60s because they were throwing up popular demagogues?

It seems to me it's very clear. Patience and real reform is what you need. And, you know, you can't worry too much about what mad mullahs are going to say.

BROWN: Taiwan, it seems to me, that was a -- it was pretty autocratic generation that we're talking about here. Is that an even realistic model, given the tensions in the region that already exist?

ZAKARIA: Well, it's a pretty autocratic region. I mean, there's no problem with them listening to authority. But you're right, it's a different world, and the expectations are fast, and the cycle is faster.

But -- and that's why Taiwan, it took 25 years to get democracy. All I'm saying is, before you go to full-fledged national multiparty elections, let's get in place a court system. Let's get in place an independent central bank. Let's get in place some kind of federal structure so that the Kurds and the Shi'a don't feel that they don't have regional autonomy.

Because if you do the elections first, you will just get a mad power grab, and then nobody will have any time for the rule of law, because they'll want to pack the courts with their people.

This is what happened in Yugoslavia. The elections preceded all the other reforms, and as a result, you just had a wild orgy of nationalism.

BROWN: Gives a sense of the complexity that lies ahead.

Thanks for joining us. Nice to see you again. Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Thank you, Aaron.

There were heartbreaking scenes played out today at what was once literally the center of terror in Baghdad. American forces rolled into the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence.

CNN's Jason Bellini went with them today, joins us now with the story. Jason, good to see you.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Aaron. Well, you heard earlier from Christiane about the state of lawlessness here and the looting that's been going on. We met some people today who are taking advantage of this state of anarchy, this virtual state of anarchy, to try to find answers to questions they only asked at their peril just a few days ago, questions about loved ones who are missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI (voice-over): All afternoon, it went like this. Someone announces he's heard a voice, a call for help, this one coming from down in the well at what was the Iraqi intelligence headquarters.

The mob rushes over to hear it for themselves. So loud, so excited, so unsilenceable the crowd that no one can really tell if there's anyone down there.

Someone spots a hole in the ground, and throngs begin digging furiously.

(on camera): Do you know for sure that there are people down there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. Maybe thousands.

BELLINI: That's your son? And is he here, you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, here, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

(CROSSTALK)

BELLINI (voice-over): The consensus of the crowd, a vast subterranean prison exists here, still holding countless Iraqis abducted over decades by Saddam Hussein's secret police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anyone talk anything about Saddam Hussein, anything, they get him and his brothers, his sisters, his father, his mother, and get it in the jail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then here there's another hole...

BELLINI: Lieutenant Colonel Sanderson of the U.S. Army indulges what he suspects is but an urban legend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will make us feel better about it, because, you know, we may have people over here also, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), you know, from the first Gulf War. And we just want to make sure we've covered every avenue. We've had infantry patrols all over this place looking around, making sure that we can -- just make sure we have a strong gut check before we leave here that we have not in any way, shape, or form, overlooked anything.

We're going to put a shaped charge in that will blow down to find out if there's another level below the building.

BELLINI: The charge reveals only dirt. One man shows photographs he claims he found inside the building before the U.S. Army arrived. He holds up keys and announces he knows where to find the doors that they unlock.

The Army allows a small group of men to form a search party. Wading into a flooded basement, the men look over walls and behind doors, but ultimately find no locks to even try the keys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody says they know where the prison is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no prison.

(voice-over): More and more people come forward trying to convince the U.S. soldiers to continue their search.

(on camera): That is your brother?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BELLINI (voice-over): One man holds up a document he says he discovered here, the arrest record of his brother from 10 years prior.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people desperately want to find lost loved ones. I mean, it's a big deal now.

BELLINI (on camera): They might be hearing ghosts, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, well, I won't say that. But, you know, they're -- these people are glad to have their freedom back, and they're looking for all those people who lost their freedom.

BELLINI (voice-over): In their searching, we sense a sad unwillingness to recognize the obvious. The echoes they hear are really their own voices, and the darkness they peer into, a vast existential nothingness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BELLINI: Aaron, at the end of the day, not a single prisoner found, dead or alive.

I'm sure that in coming weeks, we're going to be talking about rebuilding Iraq quite a bit. But for many people here, my sense is that before they want to talk about rebuilding, there are a lot of questions relating to people who they loved who have -- they have no idea what happened to. They want to know answers to those questions before they can move on, Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. Jason Bellini in Baghdad.

In this half hour, there have been two remarkable scenes of the repressive nature of that regime, the engineer in the north of the country, standing literally in the shadow of American servicemen, still fearful that Saddam would come back, and the desperation in those people we just saw.

We'll take a break, update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The regime of Saddam Hussein has collapsed in all but a few places in Iraq and yesterday CNN's Kevin Sites happened upon one of those few places, an outpost where Iraqi forces were apparently still holding on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN SITES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And as we moved up on a final checkpoint, some men beckoned us to come a little bit closer. We looked at them. They didn't look like Peshmerga. And they stopped us. And we -- we told them that we were journalists. And they basically made us get out of the car and they told us we were American spies, started to get very angry with us, started to point their Kalashinikovs at us. We said we're journalists. We're not here to do you any harm. We simply want to see what's going on in Tikrit.

And at that point they started to get very violent. They pointed their gun at me and said, This one is certainly an American, pointed his AK-47 and shot a round at my feet.

At that point, they made us get down on the ground on our knees. Now, the team I'm talking about is Bill Skinner (ph), my photographer, Richard Mitchellson, who is one of the security people that have been helping us here AKE and a translator, Tofik (ph). He is a Kurdish national. And I have to say, without Tofik, we probably wouldn't be alive today.

Tofik talked to these gentlemen, Wolf, the whole time that they were holding us captive -- you know, tried to calm them down, say that we're not here to do any harm. But, you know, they felt that certainly we were American spies. They kicked Bill Skinner in the head. They kicked Mitch in the head and in the ribs. And they tied me up. They tied my hands behind my back and threw us in a truck and said that they were going to take us to Tikrit, to the intelligence headquarters.

And, basically, at that point, our -- our translator, Tofik, said if they take you to the headquarters of the intelligence service, you're certainly going to die. You'll be executed.

Now one of the -- the men that was in the truck with us was a villager. And he said since we captured these men in the village, we should take them to the village elders and talk to them first. And that was probably the saving grace, Wolf.

They took us to the village -- village elders and we talked to them. And Tofik was very fast on his feet. He said, If you kill these men there could be great retribution for you. There could be -- the town could be bombarded. There could be great trouble for you. And he basically went on the offensive and scared them a bit. And basically they started to back off at that point. But they held us for another two hours there, questioned us.

And the people of the village, I have to say, Wolf, were very kind to us. They didn't want any trouble. The Fedayeen were the people that were the most aggressive. And it just gives an indication that the area south of Kirkuk, going towards Tikrit, is still very much in the control of Saddam Hussein supporters. They're still very much in control there. They still believe in his government and they're willing to make a last stand. So it was a scary day today. We got out with the clothes on our back. They took all of our gear. We -- our camera gear, our videophones, everything we needed to do our job, they took. They put a bullet through the engine block of our truck.

And so we were able to limp back with one vehicle and our lives. But we're lucky to have that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: CNN correspondent Kevin Sites. We'll take a break. When we come back, war crimes and war crime trials.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(AUDIO GAP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... important than Iraqi victims.

FEISAL AMIN AL-ISTRABADI, IRAQI FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: The first who have been aggrieved by Saddam's rule are the people of Iraq and in fact they ought in my judgment to have that first opportunity of holding their leadership responsible.

ARENA: The U.S. does support setting up an Iraqi Tribunal to deal with crimes and human rights abuses against the Iraqi people. Al-Istrabadi has been part of a U.S. working group on creating an Iraqi legal framework for nearly a year and is open to going back to Iraq to help with the transition but like many dissidents, Al- Istrabadi has not spent any time in Iraq in decades. Several U.S. allies and some human rights groups say the only way to go is to have an international body oversee the entire process.

RICHARD DICKER, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: If the United States retains control as occupying power of a process like this it will lack legitimacy. It will be seen as the United States imposing its will on those accused of what are horrific crimes.

ARENA: Even some members of Congress are pushing for international involvement.

While experts disagree on how to proceed, they are united in their belief that Iraq's current legal system is a sham and say the task ahead is daunting. AL-ISTRABADI: These are things we will basically in my opinion have to start from ground zero and work our way up. It is going to take in fact a generation in my opinion before the educational system can catch up and produce a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of competent lawyers and judges.

ARENA (on camera): And there is one more point on which all agree, whatever happens has to happen quickly before Iraqis start exacting their own justice by carrying out personal acts of vengeance.

Kelli Arena, CNN Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Take a break here and when we come back we'll talk about rebuilding a country from the ground up. As you look at Baghdad on a Saturday morning, there coming up on eight o'clock in the morning in Baghdad. We take a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a story of one child, a little girl who lost her mom and more than that in this war. She is now in a hospital in Basra. Her story comes from CNN's John Vause but we warn you first, the pictures are not easy to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fight that Basra took less than two weeks but the war will last a lifetime for this little girl. Zanab (ph), just 10 years old, has lost her right leg. There are compound fractures in the left. Her mother is dead. So too her three brothers, her home was destroyed. Her younger sister and father, Hamid, survived. He says they were hit by a coalition air strike.

HAMID ABB-LAI (through translator): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I see the planes. They throw (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on our hometown.

VAUSE: Hamid says 17 people all relatives were killed in that house. He says he watched his wife die. Zanab (ph) tells me there is now pain where the doctors amputated.

DR. NAFFIES JASSIM: We are still deeply sad about the future of this child and the future of many other children. You see just one. We have many. They will live in a bad situation as a handicapped child.

VAUSE: Other children like 9-year-old Saleme (ph). He was hit by liberation fire. The men of his village fired their AK-47 into the air to celebrate the end of the war but one bullet found Saleme's (ph) right arm.

Will there be permanent damage?

DR. M.M. MUNDHI, ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON: Probably because he has got probably damage to the radial nerve. There is a big segment lost and he may have a deformity like (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

VAUSE: A tour through Dr. Mundhi's wards at Basra General Hospital is as sad as it is grim.

His prognosis?

MUNDHI: His prognosis we don't know but he is state of sestemia (ph). Probably he's going to may have a very bad complications.

VAUSE: Complications because the doctor says he does not have the right drugs or the equipment to treat this man, not because the war he says but because of 12 years of sanctions but this man's burns, he points out, were the result of coalition bombing.

The hospital is short on everything from water to electricity, which runs for just a few hours a day. It's the best their old generator can do. Normally they could admit 700 patients. Right now there are just 80. The rest are treated and sent home but worst of all they say are the looters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want us to get out and to steal something.

VAUSE: Anything?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We are present here just to protect the hospital.

VAUSE: Of the 1,200 people employed here, about 100 have turned up for work over the last few days. Most are too scared and the administrator told me no one has been paid for months. The hospital corridors have now become makeshift shelters for those whose homes were destroyed. Everyone here thought the end of Saddam would be a time of celebration. Instead, there is uncertainty and disappointment mixed with a growing anger because there has been little sign of that much promised humanitarian aide.

John Vause, CNN Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joining us now with more on the challenge ahead, Elizabeth Stanley-Mitchell. She is a fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard and a professor at Georgetown University. She served in Bosnia and other places too as an Army Intelligence Officer and she joins us from Chicago tonight.

Bosnia -- in what sense is Bosnia and the Balkans similar to Iraq and what sense different?

ELIZABETH STANLEY-MITCHELL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well Aaron, it's similar in that we, the international community in this case the United States, are ready to go in and try and help rebuild a country, deal with war crimes, create a new government that can function. It's different because in Bosnia, there was a clear sense of a moment of surrender and I know you and General Grange were talking about this earlier. Without that clear moment of surrender, it's not immediately apparent how the transition moves on, who should be responsible for handling war crimes, tribunals, who should be responsible for establishing the new order and beginning to move towards creating a new interim government and reconstruction processes.

BROWN: In the Balkans, was there, at the end of the war, a currency? For example, could you still go buy a loaf of bread with some currency or another?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: The currency that we were using on the ground was actually the German Deutsche mark. It was the hard currency that everyone in Bosnia was using and it took a while before a currency could be established but again, it required the international community to help create and legitimize this new currency. This is just another one of a host of reasons why it would make a lot of sense to have the U.N. have a very large role in this process of transitioning forward.

BROWN: As you listened to the administration lay out its plan, do you see the international community having this kind of role or at this moment is this a role the Americans want to take for themselves?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: My impression that the Bush administration is relatively clear that it sees this kind of role for itself and perhaps the Brits as well and they've been pretty clear that they see the U.N. performing either a vital role but a much more subordinate role in providing humanitarian aid and helping to get services up and running in re-establishing infrastructure, some of those kinds of things, less of a role in establishing the new interim authority, in establishing currency, in prosecuting war criminals.

BROWN: It seemed to me one of the arguments the administration makes is that a single entity is more efficient in some respects than a complicated coalition or the United Nations or NATO or what have you. Do you at least agree with that part?

STANLEY-MITCHELL: I definitely do. There's a cost benefit trade off here. There is an efficiency argument for having one power doing it. There's a lot less work involved with having to coordinate with other coalition partners or with the wider international community but the trade off here between the efficiency and the ultimate effectiveness is that having a wider role for the United Nations and other international countries helps to legitimize the process both for the Iraqi people, for other countries in the region and for the world in general.

BROWN: Professor, thank you.

STANLEY-MITCHELL: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: It's very helpful. Thank you. It's very helpful tonight. Elizabeth Stanley-Mitchell whose experience was in the Balkans as a peacekeeper, former Army Intelligence Officer.

We'll take a break and then the still photos of the day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We try as often as we can to bring you the work of still photographers who are applying their trade in Iraq these days. Tonight Patrick Baz from the French news agency AFP, looking at what he's done this week. It's clear he has two of the things you need to be a photojournalist, a great eye and a nose for where the news is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK BAZ, AFP NEWS AGENCY: I am Lebanese born. I grew up in war zones. I got used to war. I don't know it's like. It's my life. I was the only one during this conflict who had pictures of Republican Guards and believe me, it's true luck because I was driving northwest of Baghdad and I bumped into these guys deploying around the capital, recognized them because of their uniform which is resembling the Marines' uniform. It's very close to the U.S. Marines' uniform.

I didn't feel fear in their eyes. I didn't feel any, you know, unconscious. They were totally -- they were going to depths without realizing what the firepower was in front of them. There was an American tanks that technical problems and had to stop during an attack in south of Baghdad. They really believed that they stopped the tank.

This is the famous telecom center. I was taking pictures and the reporter who was with me wanted to go in and I said no and while we were arguing to go in and go in, there was another missile that hit the building. I was more scared by what happened in Palestine Hotel than what happened to me at this telecommunications center because the telecommunications center I knew I was going to war, you know.

Why a U.S. tank hitting the Palestine Hotel for me was like the Americans were bringing war into my sanctuary, my daily life, my room, my bedroom. So we bumped into the column of Marines coming to Firdo Square. Firdo means paradise in Arabic. It's one of the words for paradise and I can tell you it's one of the very few neighborhoods where they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I'm very surprised to see today the same people who were shouting with our (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with our blood we will sacrifice for you Saddam throwing sweets and flowers at American soldiers. When you come back from places like this, life for you has much more value than it has before.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Patrick Baz. We'll take a break, update the day's headlines. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

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