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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
War in Iraq: Marine Killed at Baghdad Checkpoint
Aired April 12, 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of the pieces of the puzzle tonight, a lot to cover in the next hour. We are going to look at the state of play on the battlefield; also, the situation after a day of looting in Mosul. We will look at Iraq historical heritage, now at the risk from looters. We will explore the domestic-political implications of the war. All that to come.
We begin the hour however, in Baghdad, the headline of the moment, the shooting death of a Marine at a checkpoint in the city. That headline of the today featured a number of other developments as Well, including a deal to put Iraqi police back in business.
CNN's Nic Robertson has the wrap-up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In a chaotic hotel lobby, U.S. Marines meet the first Iraqi police officer answering the call to show up for work. Ahmed Zachi (ph) Abdul Razzaq, describes himself as the former director of Public Police, pledging now to work with under U.S Marine supervision.
AHMAD RAZZAQ, IRAQI POLICE OFFICER (through translator): There will police patrols that will be designated to different neighborhoods of Baghdad either tomorrow, or the day after.
ROBERTSON: With Marines still primarily engaged in running down remnants of the former regime and wholesale looting still endemic in the capital, the deal to work with their former enemy is a necessity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same thing happened in 1945 in Berlin, when the Nazi's fought them. You still had people who knew how to run things who where forced to join the party for employment, but had the sincere interest of the people at heart. So, those are the people we are looking forward to working with.
ROBERTSON: In some neighborhoods, residents have set-up their own checkpoints. And even if they do not agree with the Marines assessment of good-hearted policemen, the desperation for security is such that they will accept their old force back.
The old police weren't good, he says. But having them is better than this chaos.
Worse possibly than the chaos, the discovery of a distribution outlet for suicide bombers. Fifty ready-made vests packed with explosives, carefully wrapped like so much clean laundry. Several dozen empty hangers are no indication where those suicide vests might be.
In their effort to end the chaos, Iraqi engineers inspecting one of the capitals primary power plants, figure they can soon get Baghdad's light's back on. What they need, they say, a way to tell the employees to come back to work, a bus to get them there and security to convince them it is safe.
In the city's hospitals now crowded with civilian war wounded, the restoration of power would help overwhelmed doctors. Like the engineers, the lack of law and order is keeping many medics at home at a time when they are needed the most.
(on camera): And for all, whether doctor, policeman, or engineer, the hard, personal dilemma many will face in the coming the coming weeks, whether they can work with the Americans or not consider themselves collaborators.
Likely, the policemen returning to the streets, with U.S. Marine support will prove a litmus test for others. An early indication of how the new regime will fair.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: When Nic filed that wrap-up of the day, a short while ago; now, more now from Baghdad. CNN's Christiane Amanpour at our CNN location, there she joins us again just after seven AM in Baghdad.
Christiane, good morning.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Anderson. Well, I am sure many people will be wondering what will come out of the interrogation of General Amir al Saadi. He is the former top scientist of Saddam Hussein who surrendered today to the American authorities here in Baghdad. And he did it at his own request in the presence of a German television crew, a news crew. And he was taken by American forces in the American vehicle.
And he really did not really know, he said, exactly what his fate will be, or where he was going or for how long.
But of course, he was the principle point man for all these years and particularly, these last high profile months with the U.N. weapon inspectors. He did say that he believes still that Iraq does not have any weapons of mass destruction.
Now also today, there was just short distance from where I am standing, a firefight, a gun battle that was mostly outgoing fire from the Marines, directed, we were told, towards two people who were shooting AK-47's at them from across the river. It lasted several minutes in bursts. And it was the heavy machine guns being launched against these AK-47's and they did silence them. It is not clear whether they killed the gunmen or not. Also today, we have talked a lot about now the police perhaps getting up and running in some form or fashion.
There are many wounded in the hospitals. And the hospital's doctors, at least what one hospital told us, that they had seen many more injuries and many more casualties amongst the civilians during this war -- the three weeks of this war than the six weeks of the First Gulf war. Also saying to us that they had seen much more severe injuries this time around.
And finally, in an attempt to get the civil administration or at least some remnants of it up and running, one the exiled groups -- the Iraqi exiled groups in a few hours is planning to convene a meeting of doctors, and engineers, and teachers, and indeed, some policemen as Well, to try to figure out some kind of representative administration to at least try to get this city up and running again. Anderson...
ANDERSON: Christiane, what is the latest on this Marine, who was killed at checkpoint outside some hospital?
AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, the Marines who had been responding to calls to try give some security to these hospitals, which were being plundered, have set up some checkpoints. And today, we were told that one Marine had been killed. And it later emerged, according to Centcom that some--two people had come up to this Marine checkpoint. One of them at least, had Syrian papers, was a Syrian pulled a gun on a Marine and killed him. The Marine's shot--fired back, the guy was killed and the other one guy ran away.
That is all we know at the moment, but just to amplify a little of it. We had been told by Marine commanders here that one of their worst nightmares was, quote, "third country nationals," other Arabs, other people from Islamic countries coming here with the sole intention and desire of killing an American. So they have been very worried about this, and certainly, if the reports of today's incident pan out that is one piece of evidence that proves that their worries were founded.
COOPER: Christiane, you also mentioned in your report that these, I don't know, vigilante groups is the correct term, or neighborhood associations who are sort of setting up their own checkpoints in neighborhoods. Are they armed? And if so, how are they interacting with the Marines, with the U.S. soldiers who are there? Are the soldiers trying to disarm them, or is it sort of allowed?
AMANPOUR: Well, it depends. On some of the checkpoints, I do not see that many weapons, but certainly for instance, at the hospitals. One of the hospitals we went today, the one that basically had not been looted, and they were still able to care for people. They had provided their guards there with guns. And they were having their guns, and they were keeping the bandits away with their guns. And there was no sense that the Marines were trying to disarm them.
It is a bit of a sort of a Catch-22 situation, because obviously the Marines want to disarm as many of the gunmen as possible. But on the other hand, there's also law and order that needs to be taken care of. And some, you know shops, some hospitals, some other buildings are sort of taking the law into their own hands and trying to protect themselves in the absence of any other protective force.
COOPER: Those pictures you showed us from inside an Iraqi hospital are just horrific. Is any attempt being made to bring medical supplies to those hospitals?
AMANPOUR: Well, small attempts. But it's been very difficult because as the Red Cross, for instance, has been telling us over the last couple of days, even though they do have equipment and medicine and supplies in storage, they're afraid of moving them from one part of the city to another for fear of being looted en-route.
So, it's very sort of bare bones at the moment, things are sort of hanging by a thread. Some of the hospitals, the ones that we showed have so many patients and so many casualties and wounded, and they 're managing to hang on. But you know, today's sort of chaos is being sort of added to the 12 years of sanctions, which have already had a very, hard effect on some of the hospitals here.
So, it's not the most ideal of situations right now.
COOPER: Yes, to say the least.
Christiane Amanpour, live in Baghdad. Thanks very much.
The northern city of Mosul fell without a shot being fired except shots in celebration. Afterwards, what followed was, Well, less celebratory than larcenies. Looting broke out, government buildings up in flames, tempers ran hot. A day later, have passions cooled any?
Here's CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Child looters make off with their prize, blankets and toilet paper from a Mosul hotel. The plunder has taken off here, the population wondering who is in control.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is it? Where is it? You still can see anybody protecting the city. You can see?
WEDEMAN: Residents of this predominantly Sunni Arab city have taken matters into their own hands. Standing guard over homes and neighborhoods.
A few key squares and intersections are patrolled by Kurdish fighters and a very modest contingent of American troops. The Kurds however, are the object of deep mistrust among Mosul's Arabs. Where the Americans see a vital partner in the war against Saddam, the Arabs see an ancient foe suddenly in a position to settle old scores.
The few Americans in evidence, objects of curiosity and resentment. Since the Americans came, all they have done is drive through the streets says this man. They've done nothing to stop the looting.
For some American troops, the task at hand appears daunting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're doing as much as we can as we can get it done. Rome wasn't built in a day you know?
WEDEMAN: Destroyed in a day of anarchy however, was much of Mosul's civil structure. The new order, to the extent that one eve exists yet, is hardly celebrated.
(on camera): There's scant evidence of euphoria here. Mosul's self-styled liberators have hardly settled in and they're already being seen as unwanted occupiers.
(voice over): Mosul's Arabs are bitter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is chaos. Really, this is a very terrible situation here.
WEDEMAN: A few in Mosul still savor the novelty of unbridled anarchic freedom. The thrill of hacking away at yesterday's tyrant. But for others peering through the heat and smoke of their battered city, Saddam doesn't look so bad. Brutal though he was they said, at least he kept the peace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, as the president said himself today, "the conflict continues in Iraq and our military may still face hard fighting," his words.
Well, that fighting is not necessarily something you can plot on the map exactly. Much of what's left has to be done will play out street by street, literally soldier by soldier; not to say it will not be difficult or dangerous.
For more on the Pentagon's to do list from CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): U.S. troops are in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein is gone from power but Iraq remains a dangerous battlefield, the military not ready to declare victory.
BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTCOM: What I would tell you is we know that we still have work to be done by way of the objectives that were laid out at the beginning of the campaign.
STARR: That work to be done, every bit as dangerous as the last weeks of combat. There is still looting and unrest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
STARR: Additional U.S. troops are flowing in to help with security, local police may return. But U.S. troops could be patrolling for months before a new government is elected and society fully functions again without massive humanitarian assistance.
And while the Iraqi military is largely destroyed, finding out what happened to the country's now vanished leaders remains a priority; if only to reassure a still nervous Iraqi public that they are gone from power.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We still must capture, account for or otherwise deal with Saddam Hussein and his sons and the senior Iraqi leadership.
STARR: Marines may find clues in the next few days as they move north to Tikrit to confront the final remnants of the regime. It could be the final major battle.
Still on the to do list, the main reason for going to war, finding weapons of mass destruction. So far, none has turned up. And an administration that appeared certain of the evidence before the war, now has a new strategy about getting information about weapons and the so-called "death squads."
RUMSFELD: Rewards are available to those who help us prevent the disappearance of personnel, documentation and materials. Good lives and a better future are possible for those who turn themselves in and choose to cooperate with coalition forces.
STARR (on camera): And there is one more job before the war will be done. Finding the seven Americans still being held prisoners of war.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, to talk about what else is on the to do list, retired Colonel Mike Turner joins us now from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Colonel Turner, what is on the top of your to do list still?
COL. MIKE TURNER (RET), U.S. AIR FORCE: It's difficult to say Anderson. You had a military analyst on earlier who described the three-block strategy that the Marines are trained for. That's right on target I think. I would submit that there are actually four wars that are simultaneously going on here.
If we start at the most violent end of the spectrum, it would be the out and out war, probably the last battle in Tikrit, and conventional warfare. One layer down from that, we have the war -- a terrorist war, which appears to begin to manifest itself as we saw with the Syrian that attacked the Marine today. A layer down from that we have the civil unrest and the need for a police force. And a layer down from that we have humanitarian operations.
I think probably a way to approach this would be to begin to isolate areas that can fall in clearly into one of those four brackets and maintain that isolation, so that they can conduct humanitarian operations at some point in some areas while other operations are ongoing in other areas.
That would seem to me at least, to make it a manageable problem countrywide.
COOPER: Oh, one area that certainly seems isolated right now, Tikrit; do you anticipate a big battle there?
TURNER: Well, you know everyone antici -- and I think to say even the administration and the Central Command forces anticipated a number of big battles prior to the Battle of Baghdad, the Battle of Baghdad obviously being the capstone, those haven't materialized.
I think if we simply extrapolate based on what we've seen so far in the war, it's fair to suggest that it's very likely that the resistance will evaporate in Tikrit also. We hope certainly that would be the case, we'll just have to pursue that and we'll have a template -- a series of templates and all the cities leading up to Baghdad and then Baghdad itself, to isolate Tikrit and then begin very careful forays into the city and feel out the defenses in the opposition and go from there.
So, I'm sure that they will handle that just as precisely as they have handled it thus far.
COOPER: From what you've seen just on the outside, do you get the sense that the administration, the coalition forces have a good idea of what is going on on the ground in Tikrit?
TURNER: I think so. Remember, one of the hallmarks of this -- of this really revolutionary, historic military campaign that's been put together and so successfully executed is the substantial involvement of covert sources, Special Operations sources, CIA sources. We're not seeing that but you can bet that that's going on right now to a very extensive degree.
And just as they laid the groundwork for the larger operation, you can anticipate that that kind of work is going on behind the scenes -- deep behind the scenes even now in and around Tikrit.
COOPER: Do you anticipate seeing U.N. forces, U.N. peacekeeping forces on the ground in major cities like Baghdad?
TURNER: Well, working with the U.N. can be painfully frustrating. Obviously, there's a strong emotional desire as a result of what went on in the U.N. before the war broke out by the American public to not work with the U.N. I think that's a sort of visceral emotionally reaction and it feels good. But practically speaking, the U.N. is trained to do this. This is what they do and it would add, I think, a sense of legitimacy to the follow on efforts. And certainly they could help out in any number of agencies in which they have expertise in doing this kind of operation.
So, I would expect that regardless of how we feel about it that as a practical matter that the U.N. would begin to get involved in a fairly substantive way in the weeks and months ahead.
COOPER: I suppose beyond just the political implications of getting U.N. peace-keepers on the ground there; and there are certainly many political implications to that, it would in one immediate sense free up U.S. troops to fight the battles that are still out there.
TURNER: That's exactly right. Right now there's a vacuum, there's a complete vacuum. And the only manifestation of authority in what is essentially anarchy are U.S. troops. That could be good news but it can also be profoundly bad news depending on how this begins to unfold.
If the civilian -- you know, it's entirely possible also that civilian populations, assuming they have electricity and water and basic hospital necessities and food and those sorts of things, could begin to drop back into a fairly normal routine that's fairly benign.
On the other hand, if that doesn't happen and the very basic necessities of life are not forthcoming in a fairly expeditious way, the only manifestation of authority in that society right now are U.S. troops. And that could be -- that could be particularly dangerous and unpleasant.
COOPER: And the decision of whether or not to get U.N. peace- keepers in is probably as much a political decision as it is a military one at this point.
Colonel Turner, I appreciate you joining us. We'll talk to you again in a little while.
TURNER: Thanks Anderson.
COOPER: Coming up on next on NEWSNIGHT, does the military victory in Iraq equal political victory here at home? Well, not necessarily says Ron Brownstein. He's our guest coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: A lot more to talk about still tonight.
The war of course, not over, but the political implications for the president are already a matter of intense debate. A new poll by "Newsweek" shows that the president's approval rating is now at a very strong 71 percent; but nearly half did not approve the handling of the economy. And some 40 percent thought that once the war is over, repairing the economy should be a bigger priority than rebuilding Iraq.
Joining us now in Washington to talk about all things political, Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times." He's also a CNN political analyst.
Ron, thanks for being with us.
I want to talk about...
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good evening Anderson.
COOPER: I want to talk about president and the implications of the war for him in a second. But first, let's talk about the Democrats. Are they the big losers in all of this? In particular, those Democrats who wanted to be president, Kerry and Dean?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think that for the Democrats, the real, clear implication of this is that the hurdle of becoming -- of being credible as commander-in-chief is much more relevant than it has been in any election since at least 1988. There's no doubt that national security and protecting the country has an ongoing relevance to voters in the shadow of 9/11, much greater than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And so as a result, anybody who wants to be president is going to have to cross that threshold before they can get to the point of arguing about some of the domestic issues where President Bush may be more vulnerable.
COOPER: But do the Democrats get that? I mean just like week, you have Nancy Pelosi still criticizing the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. I think she said something about that statute of Saddam Hussein that we all watched the other day, could have come down for a lot less money. You know...
BROWNSTEIN: Well, the Democrats -- the Democrats are deeply divided about the war. But I think they do get one thing out of the 2002 election. In 2002, in the congressional election, by and large the Democratic strategy was to hug Bush on national security and foreign policy and try to accentuate domestic differences. That ceded too much ground they concluded afterwards.
And I think you'll see all of the leading Democrats running for president, whether or not they supported the war, and all except Dean in one way or another did basically support the war, although Kerry was sort of ambivalent. I think you'll see all of them try to make the case that whatever happened in Iraq that Bush has pursued a misguided course of driving away allies through excessive unilateral action. And also, they will argue, they didn't spend enough on domestic, homeland security.
They will try, in other words, to present an alternative case having learned, I think correctly, in 2002 that if they simply cede that ground to him, they're giving up too much to make it up on other fronts.
COOPER: Democrats you talk to will sort of cling to the fact that President Bush -- the first President Bush after the First Gulf War had high approval ratings but of course lost the election, they use that as a you know, implication of what might happen to this President Bush.
Is there any way President Bush can loose the next election given these high poll numbers?
BROWNSTEIN: Sure. Well, a couple of things. I'm sure he can loose, in fact. But I do think that this war clearly will help him. It will help him more than the Gulf War helped his father because it is tide in, as I said, to an ongoing concern about domestic security.
The First Gulf War ended and it was over. I mean it really wasn't attached to anything that went on in American life. This is seen, I think, as part of an ongoing threat of terrorism. And as a result, the competence in handling national security that President Bush has demonstrated will continue to serve him.
But whether that is enough to overcome dissatisfaction with the economy is an ongoing question. Unless circumstances change dramatically, I think the odds are high that we can get to the fall of 2004 and you'd have a clear majority of Americans viewing President Bush as a success in defending the country. But it's possible, you'll also have a majority of Americans viewing him as a failure at managing the economy.
And then you're left with the question of which one of those factors will weigh more in voters' calculations. If it was 1992, we'd be saying it was the economy stupid, it's not that simply. National security is more important now than it was then. But again, whether it will outweigh dissatisfaction with the economy unless things pick up, that's why even the White House, I think is anticipating a close election when we have these two contrary factors balancing out.
COOPER: You're saying it's not that simple, simply because of 9/11 and the memory of that?
BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. I mean I think that there's no question that national security will have more ongoing relevance in this election than in 1992, where it was the economy stupid.
Now you have these two very, large factors. You have this ongoing fear of terrorism in which most Americans think President Bush has performed well. And you have the possibility, Anderson, that he'd be the first president since World War II to have net negative job creation during a full president term. He's down over two million jobs since he took office. Unless things pick up he could, as I say, have net negative jobs. Even his father with a relatively weak economy had two and half million jobs created under his presidency.
So that is going to put downward pressure on his support, at the same time the sense that he has handled this extraordinary threat well, enlarges his base.
COOPER: I was interested to hear Karl Rove taking on the media earlier this week in a speech sort of criticizing them for following polls too closely. This from a guy who certainly is no stranger to polling. BROWNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. And I think you know, you mentioned the "Newsweek" poll before, it's kind of interesting. Seventy-one percent is a very healthy number. If George Bush's number in the fall of 2004 and his approval rating is 71 percent, he'll win in a walk. But it is worth noting that these numbers are not nearly as high as the heights his father reached during the Gulf War in 1991.
And the reason is that the country is more polarized about this presidency. Like Bill Clinton, George Bush has driven away voters on the other side. He has extraordinary approval ratings among Republicans, higher on a sustained basis than Ronald Regan. But his disapproval rating among Democrats is very high even during wartime. And I suspect that very quickly after the war, as a result of the domestic issues returning to more focus, he will look at a majority disapproval among Democrats and significant disapproval even among Independents who consider themselves moderate to liberal.
So, you have a very polarized country and like the split verdict on his performance, positive on the foreign policy side and not so positive on the domestic side. Both of those points toward a competitive election in 2004.
COOPER: Interesting. Ron Brownstein, appreciate you joining us tonight. Thanks very much.
BROWNSTEIN: All right. Thank you.
COOPER: Well, as our coverage of the war in Iraq continues, the damage being done to Iraq's irreplaceable past. That and more after a break in the day's latest news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
COOPER: Well, no doubt about it. The most precious thing lost in the war in Iraq is of course, the loss of life, but there is also something else that has been destroyed in this week's chaos. Something that captures the spirit, the creativity, and the certainly, the history of the Iraqi people and their ancient land, precious works of art and antiquity.
Here is CNN's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The museum was home to a priceless treasury of some of the world's most ancient art and artifacts. Was home. After two days of looting, the great halls have been pillaged of everything except the heaviest stone works and columns. Display cases that held examples of ancient Babylonian artistry are empty; on the floors, the broken shards of a Syrian and Sumerian pottery that had survived intact for thousands of years until this week.
Museum curators and guards said they were powerless to stop the crowds of looters who carried away treasures in carts and wheel barrels.
This is the property of this nation. The treasure of 7,000 years of civilization, said this museum employee. What does this country think it is doing?
It will be difficult to determine the full listing of what has been stolen from the museum's collection. Museum offices and records were also trashed. According to the museum's deputy director, looters took at least 170,000 ancient artifacts worth billions of dollars.
Many were items like these seen in a recent traveling exhibit of treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur: majestic ball release, elegant carvings, exquisite jewelry, works in semi-precious stones and works wrought in gold. Also among the museum's holdings, thousands of inscribed clay tablets, including those containing Hammurabi's Code, one of the earliest codes of law.
The Iraq Museum in Baghdad only re-opened six months ago. It was closed at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991. There were reports that museum officials recently removed antiquities from their display cases and placed them in storage vaults, but museum workers said looters had smashed the vaults, or had been led into them, and had cleared the vaults too.
Archaeologists worldwide were stunned by the destruction. John Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art saw scenes of the devastated museum for the first time when he was doing a live interview with CNN.
JOHN RUSSELL, NATIONAL MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART: It maybe that some of the most unique or rare objects never went back on display. Oh, my gosh! I am looking at pictures of things I can't believe here.
NISSEN: International dismay of the looting quickly gave way to anger. Before the war, concerned art historians and archaeologists met with officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, and were promised that the museum would be protected by the U.S. military. It was not. And in a matter of hours, the priceless remnants of thousands of years of human civilization disappeared.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We will talk a little more about the loss of art and history with John Russell, who you just heard in Beth Nissen's piece. He of course, an archaeologist, an art historian at the Massachusetts College of Arts in Boston. He is in Watertown, Massachusetts tonight.
Dr. Russell, thanks for being with us.
RUSSELL: Thanks very much.
COOPER: How significant if you can categorize, how significant the loss is this to the world of art? RUSSELL: I -- there aren't categories to describe it. I am afraid I am still in shock and I cannot believe the images still that I am seeing. I have been trying to think over the day of what this can compare with, and the loss of an entire civilization, all the major monuments, plus all the other objects, maybe the burning of the Library of Alexandria. There simply hasn't been a loss of this magnitude in history that I can think of.
COOPER: Is it just this one museum that you are talking about -- I mean was the collection that extensive?
RUSSELL: the collection was 8,000 -- 9,0000 years of our human history. It is the history of the Iraqi people, but it is also the rise of civilization. That is an original archive that documented civilization up until, one might argue, that disappear today.
COOPER: The sad irony, of course to all of this is that we had heard these reports that the U.S. military in preparations for this war had consulted perhaps more than ever before with archaeologists about what sites to protect.
RUSSELL: Not only that but I received messages on Wednesday that troops were on their way to protect the museum in response to very urgent requests stimulated by the looting. I don't know what happened.
COOPER: Do you have any sense of -- I mean there were indications perhaps that some of the items were taken to vaults. And now we are hearing from museum workers, and Beth Nissen's report that some of those vaults were looted themselves. Do you -- is there any hope that some of the stuff is still there hidden away somewhere?
RUSSELL: I think I'm grasping for some hope of that sort. We heard that some extremely valuable objects recently discovered were in the vaults of the Bank of Baghdad. But then we heard yesterday that that had been looted also. So I don't know -- it will take a while to determine what if anything survived.
COOPER: Talk a little more about what preparation the U.S. military did at least try to make in talking to archaeologists before this war began in the planning for war?
RUSSELL: The planning seemed to be extensive and commendable. The Defense Department solicited information on the locations of cultural sites, archaeological sites. They knew the locations of some 5,000 archaeological sites, museums, standing buildings, and were continually reminded and seemed responsive to the importance of this collection. Not only for our history, but for winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
What must they think? What are they going to think with the complete destruction of their history thanks to this neglect? What is the tourism industry going to do without the crown jewel of Baghdad for people to visit?
COOPER: All right. Well, Dr. John Russell, appreciate you joining us. Obviously there is a lot of loss in Iraq. Human life most notably, but it is one of the many losses that this museum looted apparently in the last several days. Dr. Russell, thanks for talking about it. Appreciate it.
RUSSELL: Thank you.
COOPER: Still ahead in our continuing coverage of the war in Iraq, turning on the power, and turning off the fear. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, of course a key goal for U.S. forces trying to restore order is something simple and yet indispensable, they want to turn the lights back on in Baghdad. It is of course, not a simple or easy task when most of the workers of the power plant are scared to come back to work.
That story from CNN's Jim Clancy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we don't want you to go back out there if it's dangerous. If it's dangerous...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can go. All right.
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A secret mission, hardly, but if U.S. Marines working with Iraqi civilians can pull it off, it could transform the chaotic streets of the capitol.
Whether the problem is looters, curfew violations, clean water, sewage treatment, communications or hospital care, the answer it seems is the one thing Baghdad doesn't have, electricity.
CAPT. EZRA CARBINS, CIVIL AFFAIRS OFFICE, USMC: To turn on the power also sends a broader message of basically, power and stability is they can return to the norm as far as, you know, actually the people are -- they can now establish control of their city -- their city of Baghdad -- of their country of Iraq.
CLANCY: Saturday, the South Baghdad Power Station was silent. It's huge steam turbans still. Darkened control rooms that would normally be aglow with red and green lights testified to the total black out facing the capital city.
(on camera): The station log on this deck shows the last time power was generated here was on April 5, about a week ago. That is when all of these gauges went to zero and the lights in Baghdad went out.
How long it is going to take to get the power flowing from here back into Baghdad depends on how soon they can bring the workers from the city back to their jobs at this power station. Khalid Abdul Jabar did return. An electrical engineer, he says it would only take eight hours and 30 workers to bring this power plant back on line. As he showed us around, he noted most of the other employees were probably staying home waiting for word it was safe.
How will that word spread? With Iraqi television ablaze, and the Ministry of Information still in the hands of looters, it will take a coordinated effort to get the message out on the streets.
Returning electrical power to Baghdad will send a message all its own. Iraqis are taking control of their own lives without the regime Saddam Hussein and in spite of the presence of a foreign army.
One Iraqi, on a mission to restore that power says 12 years of punishing sanctions have taught him and others to fend for themselves.
WISAM AL ALI, IRAQI RAILWAY CO.: We do it from the 1990 until now. We do many things with nothings. We do it with our hands. We do it. So, I think that all the Iraqi people shake their hands together to resend their life as before, or better than before.
CLANCY: Clearly, it was not U.S. bombs that caused the power outage in Baghdad, but what did cause it is not clear at all. Electricity is going to be restored in a matter of days. Whatever message that sends, residents of the capital are waiting to hear it.
Jim Clancy, CNN Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, someday soon we hope, the time will come when people in Baghdad can walk by a parade ground, or a building for that matter and not feel a chill at what went on there. As much as Afghans can play soccer in the stadium were the Taliban's once held executions. It is certainly something to hope for, but given the terror some of these places once witnessed, it is a far off hope for now.
Here is CNN's Richard Blystone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD BLYSTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It would be a pity to let the roses go to waste, for with any luck this place won't be restored.
(on camera): This was the headquarters of perhaps the regimes most important institution, the Mukabarat, literally, the Informers, the secret police.
A few people are here for some light looting; others just to have a look. This man says he is used to be afraid just to drive past here. A guide appears and shows us the scars of his personal experience of the Mukabarat. He brings us documents. Another illustration of the banality of evil this one says the Mukabarat needs more and better cars.
At a military camp, hundreds have gathered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother about 13 years underground and don't see him.
BLYSTONE: These people believe there is a complex of underground cells here, thousands of them five stories deep. They tear up floors and find nothing. They rifle documents. A mother searches for word of her son. They lead U.S. Special Forces here and there. They think there are prisoners alive down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know how to get under the ground to them.
BLYSTONE: They want bulldozers to come and dig the whole place up now. They think they have heard voices from below, but it looks more and more like the reflection of their own mind-sets molded by totalitarianism, where you can believe anything or nothing.
It is down here. No that is a pump house. Here are cells, but above ground clean and empty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is always important to show the people that you are there to help them. Take a little time to listen to them.
BLYSTONE: The soldiers hear there are tunnels leading all the way from the river. But the sad fact is these people don't know this place. They are still in the grip of Saddam Hussein's deadliest weapon, fear.
Richard Blystone, CNN Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Richard Blystone in that report mentioned that some of the documents he found in Mukabarat were documents showing the banality of evil.
Not all the documents quite so benign. Rob Collier of the "San Francisco Chronicle" has discovered something far more alarming. We are going to talk to him coming up in the next hour. We have a lot more ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman has a certain way of putting things we think about American responsibilities in Iraq. He writes, "you break it, you bought it." Well, the coalition did, and now finds itself setting out to first re-establish public safety, then rebuild the infrastructure, and ultimately put a new government in place. A lot head of it. Does the past offer any lessons to draw from?
Well, Professor Chappell Lawson is a political scientist at MIT, now at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and he joins us, Professor Chappell, thanks for being with us.
A lot to talk about right now; besides just restoring security in Baghdad, and getting humanitarian aid in, what comes next? What needs to be done to build this regime?
PROF. CHAPPELL LAWSON, FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, presumably we do not want to replace one dictatorship with another dictatorship or with anarchy. So, the goal is to rebuild not just the government, but a democratic government and that is a tall order.
COOPER: Yes, how do you go about doing that?
LAWSON: Well, it is a very difficult task. I think it is important to have maybe tempered expectations. It is sort of impossible to imagine Iraq becoming a fully functioning democracy on a U.S. or the European model in the next decade. Much less the beacon for the Arab world politically, but that does not mean we should not try. And I think it is possible to develop some democratic institutions that will last after we depart.
COOPER: Well, as you well know, time is sort of a major factor here. You know, daily already we are hearing Iraqis complaining about the situation in Baghdad, in other cities. While all this takes time to build -- democracy takes time to build as we have seen in other countries, you are also fighting a time factor here. How do you reconcile the two?
LAWSON: Well, this is a very difficult attention, and obviously the first step is to restore some kind of law, and order and assure that there is some kind of political leadership capable of exercising authority. But then after that it is important to make sure that that leadership is somehow accountable to the population.
That there is a legislature in place that can make laws and keep the executive branch in check that is representative of the population. That there is a judiciary, which can guarantee citizens are protected from abuses by their government that can enforce property rights. That there is a bureaucracy that functions without pervasive corruption, that military officers accountable to civilian authority. And that there is some kind of independent judiciary in which can monitor government officials.
COOPER: Well, let us look at track records. How do we -- how did the U.S. do in Afghanistan in your opinion?
LAWSON: Afghanistan is sort of a question mark so far, it maybe too early to tell. But it does not look so good, so far. It does not look like a model for re-building Iraq yet. History is, I'd say, littered with instances of failed attempts at regime change, or at least successful attempts at regime change that did not result in democratization.
COOPER: Well, certainly I guess, Haiti would be an example of that. Where has it worked in your opinion?
LAWSON: I think the cases that most people think about, when they think about a successful democratization as a result of some kind of U.S. intervention, are post Europe and Japan. So Italy, Austria, Germany, and Japan...
COOPER: But again that took a lot of time.
LAWSON: That is the difficulty, is that building a new regime, especially a democratic regime is a matter of years, or even decades. And it is humbling to think that our first major attempt at regime change at the United States is specifically the reconstruction of a U.S. south after the Civil War was more or less a failure despite a tremendous investment of time and money.
At the end of the day there was tremendous progress during the period of reconstruction.
But after northern troops withdraw, many of the gains evaporated, and the south became a one party state. African Americans systematically disenfranchised, and we really had to wait another hundred years or so until the civil rights movement for full democratization.
COOPER: That is sobering words. A hundred years. A long time, especially given the climate right now in Iraq and the entire region.
Professor Lawson, I appreciate you joining us. I think I called you Professor Chappell earlier. As someone who has two last names as well, I apologize.
LAWSON: It happens a lot.
COOPER: It happens to me as well. I apologize for taking part. Professor Chappell Lawson, thanks for being with us.
Coming up next, the newest tourist attraction in Mosul, a place where average Iraqis never dared to go before this week at least.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, as we all know by now, Saddam Hussein once had scores of presidential palaces all across the country. None of which of course, ordinary Iraqis could hope to visit. They could only fear those places.
Well, today residents of Mosul got a chance to visit one of those palaces. The fear was gone and they came to look, to gawk, to show their kids. Oh, and to loot as well.
CNN'S Jane Arraf takes us there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For the longest time, no one was allowed to actually even see the outside of the palace.
(on camera): Now you can actually see things have changed, and people are not just coming in take a look, they are coming in to take whatever they can get their hands on.
This was just a few hours ago a beautiful wooden banister all that has been carted out by people. But if you take a look up, you can still see the stained glass that they have not been able to get to. Obviously, there is not much left of electrical system. That is all gone, I'm sure that was good for something in somebody's home.
Here we seem to have an elevator. This is a three-story palace so it needed these elevators. Smashed but possibly still -- I am not sure what that was, but something breaking obviously.
This is the view that hardly anyone would have seen up until today. And it is actually facing the hotel. The best hotel in Mosul as a matter of fact just behind -- my goodness! That's smoke.
The hotel itself has been absolutely looted to the floorboard this morning. There is almost nothing left there either. But here you can see the palace and it is really quite well, maintained even now. It has this beautiful garden. These outlying buildings and for the first time really, ordinary Iraqi people allowed to go in the gardens and stand here and marvel at the architecture and the money that was put into this palace.
(on camera): This is probably one of the most interesting rooms. It might have been used as a small salon; it is fairly small by palace standards. But it has this amazing ceiling; you can see that incredible wooden woodwork that actually looks like a billowing fabric. It has some green silk behind it, and in the middle there a typical Iraqi carpet; mostly from the south those patterns.
As you can see, virtually the only things that have remained here are out on the ceilings because people have not been able to get to them.
But people are incredibly happy. I do not know whether it is the looting, being able to see the palace for the first time. But many people have told me this is a great day for Iraqis.
And on this ground floor, one of two in door swimming pools. This one still actually filled with water, though put to a use that the original builders of this palace never imagined.
Jane Arraf, CNN reporting from the Al-Ruwakh (ph) Palace in Mosul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Remarkable.
CNN's continuing coverage of the war in Iraq is going to continue after a break for the latest news and headlines. In our next hour, Iraqis taking matters into their own hands to stop looters, and to try to reconstruct a new government. Also a CNN exclusive, a first reporter in Tikrit, that coming up. We will be back in a moment.
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Aired April 12, 2003 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of the pieces of the puzzle tonight, a lot to cover in the next hour. We are going to look at the state of play on the battlefield; also, the situation after a day of looting in Mosul. We will look at Iraq historical heritage, now at the risk from looters. We will explore the domestic-political implications of the war. All that to come.
We begin the hour however, in Baghdad, the headline of the moment, the shooting death of a Marine at a checkpoint in the city. That headline of the today featured a number of other developments as Well, including a deal to put Iraqi police back in business.
CNN's Nic Robertson has the wrap-up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In a chaotic hotel lobby, U.S. Marines meet the first Iraqi police officer answering the call to show up for work. Ahmed Zachi (ph) Abdul Razzaq, describes himself as the former director of Public Police, pledging now to work with under U.S Marine supervision.
AHMAD RAZZAQ, IRAQI POLICE OFFICER (through translator): There will police patrols that will be designated to different neighborhoods of Baghdad either tomorrow, or the day after.
ROBERTSON: With Marines still primarily engaged in running down remnants of the former regime and wholesale looting still endemic in the capital, the deal to work with their former enemy is a necessity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same thing happened in 1945 in Berlin, when the Nazi's fought them. You still had people who knew how to run things who where forced to join the party for employment, but had the sincere interest of the people at heart. So, those are the people we are looking forward to working with.
ROBERTSON: In some neighborhoods, residents have set-up their own checkpoints. And even if they do not agree with the Marines assessment of good-hearted policemen, the desperation for security is such that they will accept their old force back.
The old police weren't good, he says. But having them is better than this chaos.
Worse possibly than the chaos, the discovery of a distribution outlet for suicide bombers. Fifty ready-made vests packed with explosives, carefully wrapped like so much clean laundry. Several dozen empty hangers are no indication where those suicide vests might be.
In their effort to end the chaos, Iraqi engineers inspecting one of the capitals primary power plants, figure they can soon get Baghdad's light's back on. What they need, they say, a way to tell the employees to come back to work, a bus to get them there and security to convince them it is safe.
In the city's hospitals now crowded with civilian war wounded, the restoration of power would help overwhelmed doctors. Like the engineers, the lack of law and order is keeping many medics at home at a time when they are needed the most.
(on camera): And for all, whether doctor, policeman, or engineer, the hard, personal dilemma many will face in the coming the coming weeks, whether they can work with the Americans or not consider themselves collaborators.
Likely, the policemen returning to the streets, with U.S. Marine support will prove a litmus test for others. An early indication of how the new regime will fair.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: When Nic filed that wrap-up of the day, a short while ago; now, more now from Baghdad. CNN's Christiane Amanpour at our CNN location, there she joins us again just after seven AM in Baghdad.
Christiane, good morning.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Anderson. Well, I am sure many people will be wondering what will come out of the interrogation of General Amir al Saadi. He is the former top scientist of Saddam Hussein who surrendered today to the American authorities here in Baghdad. And he did it at his own request in the presence of a German television crew, a news crew. And he was taken by American forces in the American vehicle.
And he really did not really know, he said, exactly what his fate will be, or where he was going or for how long.
But of course, he was the principle point man for all these years and particularly, these last high profile months with the U.N. weapon inspectors. He did say that he believes still that Iraq does not have any weapons of mass destruction.
Now also today, there was just short distance from where I am standing, a firefight, a gun battle that was mostly outgoing fire from the Marines, directed, we were told, towards two people who were shooting AK-47's at them from across the river. It lasted several minutes in bursts. And it was the heavy machine guns being launched against these AK-47's and they did silence them. It is not clear whether they killed the gunmen or not. Also today, we have talked a lot about now the police perhaps getting up and running in some form or fashion.
There are many wounded in the hospitals. And the hospital's doctors, at least what one hospital told us, that they had seen many more injuries and many more casualties amongst the civilians during this war -- the three weeks of this war than the six weeks of the First Gulf war. Also saying to us that they had seen much more severe injuries this time around.
And finally, in an attempt to get the civil administration or at least some remnants of it up and running, one the exiled groups -- the Iraqi exiled groups in a few hours is planning to convene a meeting of doctors, and engineers, and teachers, and indeed, some policemen as Well, to try to figure out some kind of representative administration to at least try to get this city up and running again. Anderson...
ANDERSON: Christiane, what is the latest on this Marine, who was killed at checkpoint outside some hospital?
AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, the Marines who had been responding to calls to try give some security to these hospitals, which were being plundered, have set up some checkpoints. And today, we were told that one Marine had been killed. And it later emerged, according to Centcom that some--two people had come up to this Marine checkpoint. One of them at least, had Syrian papers, was a Syrian pulled a gun on a Marine and killed him. The Marine's shot--fired back, the guy was killed and the other one guy ran away.
That is all we know at the moment, but just to amplify a little of it. We had been told by Marine commanders here that one of their worst nightmares was, quote, "third country nationals," other Arabs, other people from Islamic countries coming here with the sole intention and desire of killing an American. So they have been very worried about this, and certainly, if the reports of today's incident pan out that is one piece of evidence that proves that their worries were founded.
COOPER: Christiane, you also mentioned in your report that these, I don't know, vigilante groups is the correct term, or neighborhood associations who are sort of setting up their own checkpoints in neighborhoods. Are they armed? And if so, how are they interacting with the Marines, with the U.S. soldiers who are there? Are the soldiers trying to disarm them, or is it sort of allowed?
AMANPOUR: Well, it depends. On some of the checkpoints, I do not see that many weapons, but certainly for instance, at the hospitals. One of the hospitals we went today, the one that basically had not been looted, and they were still able to care for people. They had provided their guards there with guns. And they were having their guns, and they were keeping the bandits away with their guns. And there was no sense that the Marines were trying to disarm them.
It is a bit of a sort of a Catch-22 situation, because obviously the Marines want to disarm as many of the gunmen as possible. But on the other hand, there's also law and order that needs to be taken care of. And some, you know shops, some hospitals, some other buildings are sort of taking the law into their own hands and trying to protect themselves in the absence of any other protective force.
COOPER: Those pictures you showed us from inside an Iraqi hospital are just horrific. Is any attempt being made to bring medical supplies to those hospitals?
AMANPOUR: Well, small attempts. But it's been very difficult because as the Red Cross, for instance, has been telling us over the last couple of days, even though they do have equipment and medicine and supplies in storage, they're afraid of moving them from one part of the city to another for fear of being looted en-route.
So, it's very sort of bare bones at the moment, things are sort of hanging by a thread. Some of the hospitals, the ones that we showed have so many patients and so many casualties and wounded, and they 're managing to hang on. But you know, today's sort of chaos is being sort of added to the 12 years of sanctions, which have already had a very, hard effect on some of the hospitals here.
So, it's not the most ideal of situations right now.
COOPER: Yes, to say the least.
Christiane Amanpour, live in Baghdad. Thanks very much.
The northern city of Mosul fell without a shot being fired except shots in celebration. Afterwards, what followed was, Well, less celebratory than larcenies. Looting broke out, government buildings up in flames, tempers ran hot. A day later, have passions cooled any?
Here's CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Child looters make off with their prize, blankets and toilet paper from a Mosul hotel. The plunder has taken off here, the population wondering who is in control.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is it? Where is it? You still can see anybody protecting the city. You can see?
WEDEMAN: Residents of this predominantly Sunni Arab city have taken matters into their own hands. Standing guard over homes and neighborhoods.
A few key squares and intersections are patrolled by Kurdish fighters and a very modest contingent of American troops. The Kurds however, are the object of deep mistrust among Mosul's Arabs. Where the Americans see a vital partner in the war against Saddam, the Arabs see an ancient foe suddenly in a position to settle old scores.
The few Americans in evidence, objects of curiosity and resentment. Since the Americans came, all they have done is drive through the streets says this man. They've done nothing to stop the looting.
For some American troops, the task at hand appears daunting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're doing as much as we can as we can get it done. Rome wasn't built in a day you know?
WEDEMAN: Destroyed in a day of anarchy however, was much of Mosul's civil structure. The new order, to the extent that one eve exists yet, is hardly celebrated.
(on camera): There's scant evidence of euphoria here. Mosul's self-styled liberators have hardly settled in and they're already being seen as unwanted occupiers.
(voice over): Mosul's Arabs are bitter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is chaos. Really, this is a very terrible situation here.
WEDEMAN: A few in Mosul still savor the novelty of unbridled anarchic freedom. The thrill of hacking away at yesterday's tyrant. But for others peering through the heat and smoke of their battered city, Saddam doesn't look so bad. Brutal though he was they said, at least he kept the peace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, as the president said himself today, "the conflict continues in Iraq and our military may still face hard fighting," his words.
Well, that fighting is not necessarily something you can plot on the map exactly. Much of what's left has to be done will play out street by street, literally soldier by soldier; not to say it will not be difficult or dangerous.
For more on the Pentagon's to do list from CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): U.S. troops are in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein is gone from power but Iraq remains a dangerous battlefield, the military not ready to declare victory.
BRIG. GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTCOM: What I would tell you is we know that we still have work to be done by way of the objectives that were laid out at the beginning of the campaign.
STARR: That work to be done, every bit as dangerous as the last weeks of combat. There is still looting and unrest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home Yankee!
STARR: Additional U.S. troops are flowing in to help with security, local police may return. But U.S. troops could be patrolling for months before a new government is elected and society fully functions again without massive humanitarian assistance.
And while the Iraqi military is largely destroyed, finding out what happened to the country's now vanished leaders remains a priority; if only to reassure a still nervous Iraqi public that they are gone from power.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We still must capture, account for or otherwise deal with Saddam Hussein and his sons and the senior Iraqi leadership.
STARR: Marines may find clues in the next few days as they move north to Tikrit to confront the final remnants of the regime. It could be the final major battle.
Still on the to do list, the main reason for going to war, finding weapons of mass destruction. So far, none has turned up. And an administration that appeared certain of the evidence before the war, now has a new strategy about getting information about weapons and the so-called "death squads."
RUMSFELD: Rewards are available to those who help us prevent the disappearance of personnel, documentation and materials. Good lives and a better future are possible for those who turn themselves in and choose to cooperate with coalition forces.
STARR (on camera): And there is one more job before the war will be done. Finding the seven Americans still being held prisoners of war.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, to talk about what else is on the to do list, retired Colonel Mike Turner joins us now from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Colonel Turner, what is on the top of your to do list still?
COL. MIKE TURNER (RET), U.S. AIR FORCE: It's difficult to say Anderson. You had a military analyst on earlier who described the three-block strategy that the Marines are trained for. That's right on target I think. I would submit that there are actually four wars that are simultaneously going on here.
If we start at the most violent end of the spectrum, it would be the out and out war, probably the last battle in Tikrit, and conventional warfare. One layer down from that, we have the war -- a terrorist war, which appears to begin to manifest itself as we saw with the Syrian that attacked the Marine today. A layer down from that we have the civil unrest and the need for a police force. And a layer down from that we have humanitarian operations.
I think probably a way to approach this would be to begin to isolate areas that can fall in clearly into one of those four brackets and maintain that isolation, so that they can conduct humanitarian operations at some point in some areas while other operations are ongoing in other areas.
That would seem to me at least, to make it a manageable problem countrywide.
COOPER: Oh, one area that certainly seems isolated right now, Tikrit; do you anticipate a big battle there?
TURNER: Well, you know everyone antici -- and I think to say even the administration and the Central Command forces anticipated a number of big battles prior to the Battle of Baghdad, the Battle of Baghdad obviously being the capstone, those haven't materialized.
I think if we simply extrapolate based on what we've seen so far in the war, it's fair to suggest that it's very likely that the resistance will evaporate in Tikrit also. We hope certainly that would be the case, we'll just have to pursue that and we'll have a template -- a series of templates and all the cities leading up to Baghdad and then Baghdad itself, to isolate Tikrit and then begin very careful forays into the city and feel out the defenses in the opposition and go from there.
So, I'm sure that they will handle that just as precisely as they have handled it thus far.
COOPER: From what you've seen just on the outside, do you get the sense that the administration, the coalition forces have a good idea of what is going on on the ground in Tikrit?
TURNER: I think so. Remember, one of the hallmarks of this -- of this really revolutionary, historic military campaign that's been put together and so successfully executed is the substantial involvement of covert sources, Special Operations sources, CIA sources. We're not seeing that but you can bet that that's going on right now to a very extensive degree.
And just as they laid the groundwork for the larger operation, you can anticipate that that kind of work is going on behind the scenes -- deep behind the scenes even now in and around Tikrit.
COOPER: Do you anticipate seeing U.N. forces, U.N. peacekeeping forces on the ground in major cities like Baghdad?
TURNER: Well, working with the U.N. can be painfully frustrating. Obviously, there's a strong emotional desire as a result of what went on in the U.N. before the war broke out by the American public to not work with the U.N. I think that's a sort of visceral emotionally reaction and it feels good. But practically speaking, the U.N. is trained to do this. This is what they do and it would add, I think, a sense of legitimacy to the follow on efforts. And certainly they could help out in any number of agencies in which they have expertise in doing this kind of operation.
So, I would expect that regardless of how we feel about it that as a practical matter that the U.N. would begin to get involved in a fairly substantive way in the weeks and months ahead.
COOPER: I suppose beyond just the political implications of getting U.N. peace-keepers on the ground there; and there are certainly many political implications to that, it would in one immediate sense free up U.S. troops to fight the battles that are still out there.
TURNER: That's exactly right. Right now there's a vacuum, there's a complete vacuum. And the only manifestation of authority in what is essentially anarchy are U.S. troops. That could be good news but it can also be profoundly bad news depending on how this begins to unfold.
If the civilian -- you know, it's entirely possible also that civilian populations, assuming they have electricity and water and basic hospital necessities and food and those sorts of things, could begin to drop back into a fairly normal routine that's fairly benign.
On the other hand, if that doesn't happen and the very basic necessities of life are not forthcoming in a fairly expeditious way, the only manifestation of authority in that society right now are U.S. troops. And that could be -- that could be particularly dangerous and unpleasant.
COOPER: And the decision of whether or not to get U.N. peace- keepers in is probably as much a political decision as it is a military one at this point.
Colonel Turner, I appreciate you joining us. We'll talk to you again in a little while.
TURNER: Thanks Anderson.
COOPER: Coming up on next on NEWSNIGHT, does the military victory in Iraq equal political victory here at home? Well, not necessarily says Ron Brownstein. He's our guest coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: A lot more to talk about still tonight.
The war of course, not over, but the political implications for the president are already a matter of intense debate. A new poll by "Newsweek" shows that the president's approval rating is now at a very strong 71 percent; but nearly half did not approve the handling of the economy. And some 40 percent thought that once the war is over, repairing the economy should be a bigger priority than rebuilding Iraq.
Joining us now in Washington to talk about all things political, Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times." He's also a CNN political analyst.
Ron, thanks for being with us.
I want to talk about...
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good evening Anderson.
COOPER: I want to talk about president and the implications of the war for him in a second. But first, let's talk about the Democrats. Are they the big losers in all of this? In particular, those Democrats who wanted to be president, Kerry and Dean?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think that for the Democrats, the real, clear implication of this is that the hurdle of becoming -- of being credible as commander-in-chief is much more relevant than it has been in any election since at least 1988. There's no doubt that national security and protecting the country has an ongoing relevance to voters in the shadow of 9/11, much greater than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And so as a result, anybody who wants to be president is going to have to cross that threshold before they can get to the point of arguing about some of the domestic issues where President Bush may be more vulnerable.
COOPER: But do the Democrats get that? I mean just like week, you have Nancy Pelosi still criticizing the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. I think she said something about that statute of Saddam Hussein that we all watched the other day, could have come down for a lot less money. You know...
BROWNSTEIN: Well, the Democrats -- the Democrats are deeply divided about the war. But I think they do get one thing out of the 2002 election. In 2002, in the congressional election, by and large the Democratic strategy was to hug Bush on national security and foreign policy and try to accentuate domestic differences. That ceded too much ground they concluded afterwards.
And I think you'll see all of the leading Democrats running for president, whether or not they supported the war, and all except Dean in one way or another did basically support the war, although Kerry was sort of ambivalent. I think you'll see all of them try to make the case that whatever happened in Iraq that Bush has pursued a misguided course of driving away allies through excessive unilateral action. And also, they will argue, they didn't spend enough on domestic, homeland security.
They will try, in other words, to present an alternative case having learned, I think correctly, in 2002 that if they simply cede that ground to him, they're giving up too much to make it up on other fronts.
COOPER: Democrats you talk to will sort of cling to the fact that President Bush -- the first President Bush after the First Gulf War had high approval ratings but of course lost the election, they use that as a you know, implication of what might happen to this President Bush.
Is there any way President Bush can loose the next election given these high poll numbers?
BROWNSTEIN: Sure. Well, a couple of things. I'm sure he can loose, in fact. But I do think that this war clearly will help him. It will help him more than the Gulf War helped his father because it is tide in, as I said, to an ongoing concern about domestic security.
The First Gulf War ended and it was over. I mean it really wasn't attached to anything that went on in American life. This is seen, I think, as part of an ongoing threat of terrorism. And as a result, the competence in handling national security that President Bush has demonstrated will continue to serve him.
But whether that is enough to overcome dissatisfaction with the economy is an ongoing question. Unless circumstances change dramatically, I think the odds are high that we can get to the fall of 2004 and you'd have a clear majority of Americans viewing President Bush as a success in defending the country. But it's possible, you'll also have a majority of Americans viewing him as a failure at managing the economy.
And then you're left with the question of which one of those factors will weigh more in voters' calculations. If it was 1992, we'd be saying it was the economy stupid, it's not that simply. National security is more important now than it was then. But again, whether it will outweigh dissatisfaction with the economy unless things pick up, that's why even the White House, I think is anticipating a close election when we have these two contrary factors balancing out.
COOPER: You're saying it's not that simple, simply because of 9/11 and the memory of that?
BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. I mean I think that there's no question that national security will have more ongoing relevance in this election than in 1992, where it was the economy stupid.
Now you have these two very, large factors. You have this ongoing fear of terrorism in which most Americans think President Bush has performed well. And you have the possibility, Anderson, that he'd be the first president since World War II to have net negative job creation during a full president term. He's down over two million jobs since he took office. Unless things pick up he could, as I say, have net negative jobs. Even his father with a relatively weak economy had two and half million jobs created under his presidency.
So that is going to put downward pressure on his support, at the same time the sense that he has handled this extraordinary threat well, enlarges his base.
COOPER: I was interested to hear Karl Rove taking on the media earlier this week in a speech sort of criticizing them for following polls too closely. This from a guy who certainly is no stranger to polling. BROWNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. And I think you know, you mentioned the "Newsweek" poll before, it's kind of interesting. Seventy-one percent is a very healthy number. If George Bush's number in the fall of 2004 and his approval rating is 71 percent, he'll win in a walk. But it is worth noting that these numbers are not nearly as high as the heights his father reached during the Gulf War in 1991.
And the reason is that the country is more polarized about this presidency. Like Bill Clinton, George Bush has driven away voters on the other side. He has extraordinary approval ratings among Republicans, higher on a sustained basis than Ronald Regan. But his disapproval rating among Democrats is very high even during wartime. And I suspect that very quickly after the war, as a result of the domestic issues returning to more focus, he will look at a majority disapproval among Democrats and significant disapproval even among Independents who consider themselves moderate to liberal.
So, you have a very polarized country and like the split verdict on his performance, positive on the foreign policy side and not so positive on the domestic side. Both of those points toward a competitive election in 2004.
COOPER: Interesting. Ron Brownstein, appreciate you joining us tonight. Thanks very much.
BROWNSTEIN: All right. Thank you.
COOPER: Well, as our coverage of the war in Iraq continues, the damage being done to Iraq's irreplaceable past. That and more after a break in the day's latest news.
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(NEWSBREAK)
COOPER: Well, no doubt about it. The most precious thing lost in the war in Iraq is of course, the loss of life, but there is also something else that has been destroyed in this week's chaos. Something that captures the spirit, the creativity, and the certainly, the history of the Iraqi people and their ancient land, precious works of art and antiquity.
Here is CNN's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The museum was home to a priceless treasury of some of the world's most ancient art and artifacts. Was home. After two days of looting, the great halls have been pillaged of everything except the heaviest stone works and columns. Display cases that held examples of ancient Babylonian artistry are empty; on the floors, the broken shards of a Syrian and Sumerian pottery that had survived intact for thousands of years until this week.
Museum curators and guards said they were powerless to stop the crowds of looters who carried away treasures in carts and wheel barrels.
This is the property of this nation. The treasure of 7,000 years of civilization, said this museum employee. What does this country think it is doing?
It will be difficult to determine the full listing of what has been stolen from the museum's collection. Museum offices and records were also trashed. According to the museum's deputy director, looters took at least 170,000 ancient artifacts worth billions of dollars.
Many were items like these seen in a recent traveling exhibit of treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur: majestic ball release, elegant carvings, exquisite jewelry, works in semi-precious stones and works wrought in gold. Also among the museum's holdings, thousands of inscribed clay tablets, including those containing Hammurabi's Code, one of the earliest codes of law.
The Iraq Museum in Baghdad only re-opened six months ago. It was closed at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991. There were reports that museum officials recently removed antiquities from their display cases and placed them in storage vaults, but museum workers said looters had smashed the vaults, or had been led into them, and had cleared the vaults too.
Archaeologists worldwide were stunned by the destruction. John Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art saw scenes of the devastated museum for the first time when he was doing a live interview with CNN.
JOHN RUSSELL, NATIONAL MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF ART: It maybe that some of the most unique or rare objects never went back on display. Oh, my gosh! I am looking at pictures of things I can't believe here.
NISSEN: International dismay of the looting quickly gave way to anger. Before the war, concerned art historians and archaeologists met with officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, and were promised that the museum would be protected by the U.S. military. It was not. And in a matter of hours, the priceless remnants of thousands of years of human civilization disappeared.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: We will talk a little more about the loss of art and history with John Russell, who you just heard in Beth Nissen's piece. He of course, an archaeologist, an art historian at the Massachusetts College of Arts in Boston. He is in Watertown, Massachusetts tonight.
Dr. Russell, thanks for being with us.
RUSSELL: Thanks very much.
COOPER: How significant if you can categorize, how significant the loss is this to the world of art? RUSSELL: I -- there aren't categories to describe it. I am afraid I am still in shock and I cannot believe the images still that I am seeing. I have been trying to think over the day of what this can compare with, and the loss of an entire civilization, all the major monuments, plus all the other objects, maybe the burning of the Library of Alexandria. There simply hasn't been a loss of this magnitude in history that I can think of.
COOPER: Is it just this one museum that you are talking about -- I mean was the collection that extensive?
RUSSELL: the collection was 8,000 -- 9,0000 years of our human history. It is the history of the Iraqi people, but it is also the rise of civilization. That is an original archive that documented civilization up until, one might argue, that disappear today.
COOPER: The sad irony, of course to all of this is that we had heard these reports that the U.S. military in preparations for this war had consulted perhaps more than ever before with archaeologists about what sites to protect.
RUSSELL: Not only that but I received messages on Wednesday that troops were on their way to protect the museum in response to very urgent requests stimulated by the looting. I don't know what happened.
COOPER: Do you have any sense of -- I mean there were indications perhaps that some of the items were taken to vaults. And now we are hearing from museum workers, and Beth Nissen's report that some of those vaults were looted themselves. Do you -- is there any hope that some of the stuff is still there hidden away somewhere?
RUSSELL: I think I'm grasping for some hope of that sort. We heard that some extremely valuable objects recently discovered were in the vaults of the Bank of Baghdad. But then we heard yesterday that that had been looted also. So I don't know -- it will take a while to determine what if anything survived.
COOPER: Talk a little more about what preparation the U.S. military did at least try to make in talking to archaeologists before this war began in the planning for war?
RUSSELL: The planning seemed to be extensive and commendable. The Defense Department solicited information on the locations of cultural sites, archaeological sites. They knew the locations of some 5,000 archaeological sites, museums, standing buildings, and were continually reminded and seemed responsive to the importance of this collection. Not only for our history, but for winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
What must they think? What are they going to think with the complete destruction of their history thanks to this neglect? What is the tourism industry going to do without the crown jewel of Baghdad for people to visit?
COOPER: All right. Well, Dr. John Russell, appreciate you joining us. Obviously there is a lot of loss in Iraq. Human life most notably, but it is one of the many losses that this museum looted apparently in the last several days. Dr. Russell, thanks for talking about it. Appreciate it.
RUSSELL: Thank you.
COOPER: Still ahead in our continuing coverage of the war in Iraq, turning on the power, and turning off the fear. We will be right back.
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COOPER: Well, of course a key goal for U.S. forces trying to restore order is something simple and yet indispensable, they want to turn the lights back on in Baghdad. It is of course, not a simple or easy task when most of the workers of the power plant are scared to come back to work.
That story from CNN's Jim Clancy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we don't want you to go back out there if it's dangerous. If it's dangerous...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can go. All right.
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A secret mission, hardly, but if U.S. Marines working with Iraqi civilians can pull it off, it could transform the chaotic streets of the capitol.
Whether the problem is looters, curfew violations, clean water, sewage treatment, communications or hospital care, the answer it seems is the one thing Baghdad doesn't have, electricity.
CAPT. EZRA CARBINS, CIVIL AFFAIRS OFFICE, USMC: To turn on the power also sends a broader message of basically, power and stability is they can return to the norm as far as, you know, actually the people are -- they can now establish control of their city -- their city of Baghdad -- of their country of Iraq.
CLANCY: Saturday, the South Baghdad Power Station was silent. It's huge steam turbans still. Darkened control rooms that would normally be aglow with red and green lights testified to the total black out facing the capital city.
(on camera): The station log on this deck shows the last time power was generated here was on April 5, about a week ago. That is when all of these gauges went to zero and the lights in Baghdad went out.
How long it is going to take to get the power flowing from here back into Baghdad depends on how soon they can bring the workers from the city back to their jobs at this power station. Khalid Abdul Jabar did return. An electrical engineer, he says it would only take eight hours and 30 workers to bring this power plant back on line. As he showed us around, he noted most of the other employees were probably staying home waiting for word it was safe.
How will that word spread? With Iraqi television ablaze, and the Ministry of Information still in the hands of looters, it will take a coordinated effort to get the message out on the streets.
Returning electrical power to Baghdad will send a message all its own. Iraqis are taking control of their own lives without the regime Saddam Hussein and in spite of the presence of a foreign army.
One Iraqi, on a mission to restore that power says 12 years of punishing sanctions have taught him and others to fend for themselves.
WISAM AL ALI, IRAQI RAILWAY CO.: We do it from the 1990 until now. We do many things with nothings. We do it with our hands. We do it. So, I think that all the Iraqi people shake their hands together to resend their life as before, or better than before.
CLANCY: Clearly, it was not U.S. bombs that caused the power outage in Baghdad, but what did cause it is not clear at all. Electricity is going to be restored in a matter of days. Whatever message that sends, residents of the capital are waiting to hear it.
Jim Clancy, CNN Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, someday soon we hope, the time will come when people in Baghdad can walk by a parade ground, or a building for that matter and not feel a chill at what went on there. As much as Afghans can play soccer in the stadium were the Taliban's once held executions. It is certainly something to hope for, but given the terror some of these places once witnessed, it is a far off hope for now.
Here is CNN's Richard Blystone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD BLYSTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It would be a pity to let the roses go to waste, for with any luck this place won't be restored.
(on camera): This was the headquarters of perhaps the regimes most important institution, the Mukabarat, literally, the Informers, the secret police.
A few people are here for some light looting; others just to have a look. This man says he is used to be afraid just to drive past here. A guide appears and shows us the scars of his personal experience of the Mukabarat. He brings us documents. Another illustration of the banality of evil this one says the Mukabarat needs more and better cars.
At a military camp, hundreds have gathered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His brother about 13 years underground and don't see him.
BLYSTONE: These people believe there is a complex of underground cells here, thousands of them five stories deep. They tear up floors and find nothing. They rifle documents. A mother searches for word of her son. They lead U.S. Special Forces here and there. They think there are prisoners alive down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know how to get under the ground to them.
BLYSTONE: They want bulldozers to come and dig the whole place up now. They think they have heard voices from below, but it looks more and more like the reflection of their own mind-sets molded by totalitarianism, where you can believe anything or nothing.
It is down here. No that is a pump house. Here are cells, but above ground clean and empty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is always important to show the people that you are there to help them. Take a little time to listen to them.
BLYSTONE: The soldiers hear there are tunnels leading all the way from the river. But the sad fact is these people don't know this place. They are still in the grip of Saddam Hussein's deadliest weapon, fear.
Richard Blystone, CNN Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Richard Blystone in that report mentioned that some of the documents he found in Mukabarat were documents showing the banality of evil.
Not all the documents quite so benign. Rob Collier of the "San Francisco Chronicle" has discovered something far more alarming. We are going to talk to him coming up in the next hour. We have a lot more ahead. Stay with us.
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COOPER: Well, "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman has a certain way of putting things we think about American responsibilities in Iraq. He writes, "you break it, you bought it." Well, the coalition did, and now finds itself setting out to first re-establish public safety, then rebuild the infrastructure, and ultimately put a new government in place. A lot head of it. Does the past offer any lessons to draw from?
Well, Professor Chappell Lawson is a political scientist at MIT, now at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and he joins us, Professor Chappell, thanks for being with us.
A lot to talk about right now; besides just restoring security in Baghdad, and getting humanitarian aid in, what comes next? What needs to be done to build this regime?
PROF. CHAPPELL LAWSON, FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, presumably we do not want to replace one dictatorship with another dictatorship or with anarchy. So, the goal is to rebuild not just the government, but a democratic government and that is a tall order.
COOPER: Yes, how do you go about doing that?
LAWSON: Well, it is a very difficult task. I think it is important to have maybe tempered expectations. It is sort of impossible to imagine Iraq becoming a fully functioning democracy on a U.S. or the European model in the next decade. Much less the beacon for the Arab world politically, but that does not mean we should not try. And I think it is possible to develop some democratic institutions that will last after we depart.
COOPER: Well, as you well know, time is sort of a major factor here. You know, daily already we are hearing Iraqis complaining about the situation in Baghdad, in other cities. While all this takes time to build -- democracy takes time to build as we have seen in other countries, you are also fighting a time factor here. How do you reconcile the two?
LAWSON: Well, this is a very difficult attention, and obviously the first step is to restore some kind of law, and order and assure that there is some kind of political leadership capable of exercising authority. But then after that it is important to make sure that that leadership is somehow accountable to the population.
That there is a legislature in place that can make laws and keep the executive branch in check that is representative of the population. That there is a judiciary, which can guarantee citizens are protected from abuses by their government that can enforce property rights. That there is a bureaucracy that functions without pervasive corruption, that military officers accountable to civilian authority. And that there is some kind of independent judiciary in which can monitor government officials.
COOPER: Well, let us look at track records. How do we -- how did the U.S. do in Afghanistan in your opinion?
LAWSON: Afghanistan is sort of a question mark so far, it maybe too early to tell. But it does not look so good, so far. It does not look like a model for re-building Iraq yet. History is, I'd say, littered with instances of failed attempts at regime change, or at least successful attempts at regime change that did not result in democratization.
COOPER: Well, certainly I guess, Haiti would be an example of that. Where has it worked in your opinion?
LAWSON: I think the cases that most people think about, when they think about a successful democratization as a result of some kind of U.S. intervention, are post Europe and Japan. So Italy, Austria, Germany, and Japan...
COOPER: But again that took a lot of time.
LAWSON: That is the difficulty, is that building a new regime, especially a democratic regime is a matter of years, or even decades. And it is humbling to think that our first major attempt at regime change at the United States is specifically the reconstruction of a U.S. south after the Civil War was more or less a failure despite a tremendous investment of time and money.
At the end of the day there was tremendous progress during the period of reconstruction.
But after northern troops withdraw, many of the gains evaporated, and the south became a one party state. African Americans systematically disenfranchised, and we really had to wait another hundred years or so until the civil rights movement for full democratization.
COOPER: That is sobering words. A hundred years. A long time, especially given the climate right now in Iraq and the entire region.
Professor Lawson, I appreciate you joining us. I think I called you Professor Chappell earlier. As someone who has two last names as well, I apologize.
LAWSON: It happens a lot.
COOPER: It happens to me as well. I apologize for taking part. Professor Chappell Lawson, thanks for being with us.
Coming up next, the newest tourist attraction in Mosul, a place where average Iraqis never dared to go before this week at least.
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COOPER: Well, as we all know by now, Saddam Hussein once had scores of presidential palaces all across the country. None of which of course, ordinary Iraqis could hope to visit. They could only fear those places.
Well, today residents of Mosul got a chance to visit one of those palaces. The fear was gone and they came to look, to gawk, to show their kids. Oh, and to loot as well.
CNN'S Jane Arraf takes us there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For the longest time, no one was allowed to actually even see the outside of the palace.
(on camera): Now you can actually see things have changed, and people are not just coming in take a look, they are coming in to take whatever they can get their hands on.
This was just a few hours ago a beautiful wooden banister all that has been carted out by people. But if you take a look up, you can still see the stained glass that they have not been able to get to. Obviously, there is not much left of electrical system. That is all gone, I'm sure that was good for something in somebody's home.
Here we seem to have an elevator. This is a three-story palace so it needed these elevators. Smashed but possibly still -- I am not sure what that was, but something breaking obviously.
This is the view that hardly anyone would have seen up until today. And it is actually facing the hotel. The best hotel in Mosul as a matter of fact just behind -- my goodness! That's smoke.
The hotel itself has been absolutely looted to the floorboard this morning. There is almost nothing left there either. But here you can see the palace and it is really quite well, maintained even now. It has this beautiful garden. These outlying buildings and for the first time really, ordinary Iraqi people allowed to go in the gardens and stand here and marvel at the architecture and the money that was put into this palace.
(on camera): This is probably one of the most interesting rooms. It might have been used as a small salon; it is fairly small by palace standards. But it has this amazing ceiling; you can see that incredible wooden woodwork that actually looks like a billowing fabric. It has some green silk behind it, and in the middle there a typical Iraqi carpet; mostly from the south those patterns.
As you can see, virtually the only things that have remained here are out on the ceilings because people have not been able to get to them.
But people are incredibly happy. I do not know whether it is the looting, being able to see the palace for the first time. But many people have told me this is a great day for Iraqis.
And on this ground floor, one of two in door swimming pools. This one still actually filled with water, though put to a use that the original builders of this palace never imagined.
Jane Arraf, CNN reporting from the Al-Ruwakh (ph) Palace in Mosul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Remarkable.
CNN's continuing coverage of the war in Iraq is going to continue after a break for the latest news and headlines. In our next hour, Iraqis taking matters into their own hands to stop looters, and to try to reconstruct a new government. Also a CNN exclusive, a first reporter in Tikrit, that coming up. We will be back in a moment.
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