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Interview With May Ying Welsh
Aired March 21, 2003 - 14:49 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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Briefly, to go over to Baghdad now. A journalist that's on the phone, May Ying Welsh is in Baghdad. We understand that there have been more bombings, more explosions unfolding. May, tell our viewers what you are seeing and what you are hearing right now.
MAY YING WELSH, JOURNALIST, BAGHDAD: Well, right now there is no sounds going on, but about maybe two minutes ago, I heard a huge bomb going off, perhaps across on the other side of the river. The Foreign Ministry right now, which is just a few blocks away from me, is up in smoke. I just see smoke rising from it. Really the most dramatic thing I've seen so far was when it happened to be perhaps about an hour and a half ago -- time is starting to become kind of strange when all of these bombs are going off around you. You start losing track of time.
But perhaps an hour ago, an hour and a half ago, they bombed a complex associated with the Ministry of Planning and the Council of Ministers. And I saw with my own eyes how that building just went up, and a huge shockwave came off of it. It shook the building I was in. The windows almost shattered. They trembled very much, and then they went back, and we started running down -- I was on the roof of the building -- and we started running down the stairs, and we took cover by the Tigris river. There is a little corner niche where you can be low to the ground, and we saw cruise missiles streaking across the sky. It was a really terrifying experience, I can tell you.
And also, I mean, none of these buildings are just standing there by themselves. Civilians do live around these buildings. There are residential pockets near all kinds of buildings that are targets in the city. So from the first two nights of the bombing, which were relatively light, they had 37 civilian casualties. I don't know what the civilian casualties are going to be like now.
BLITZER: May, let's talk a little bit about some of those buildings that you now see have been bombed and effectively, obviously, destroyed. You say the Foreign Ministry, one of those complex involving the Ministry of Planning, as well as the Council of Ministers. We had heard that one of Saddam Hussein's so-called presidential palaces was also hit tonight. Do you know that?
WELSH: Yes, I think that might have been one of the explosions that I saw. It might have been the Republican Palace, which is a palace that was built many, many years ago. It is not a palace that is associated necessarily with President Saddam Hussein. It's a palace that's really kind of a symbol of the Republic of Iraq. I believe it was built in 1958. So to hit that palace is kind of a symbolic act against the republic, some might say. But they are hitting all kinds of government buildings now. This is the first night, I mean, that they've really, really gone for it. I can say they're taking out the centers of power now.
BLITZER: Any other buildings, any other complexes that you recognize that have been targeted tonight?
WELSH: To be honest with you, Wolf, I'm very low to the ground right now. When I had a good view, I was in an incredibly dangerous position. So I've come down to a place where I'm safe, and from here I can see a hell of a lot less. So I can't really tell you what's blowing up around me. I can tell you that there's smoke coming out of the Foreign Ministry, which is really close by here.
BLITZER: Normally at 9:00 p.m. local time in a building like the Foreign Ministry, who would be inside a building like that under normal circumstances? You've covered the story in Baghdad for some time.
WELSH: Well, I mean, normally it would just be kind of people that are there for security reasons and cleaners and things like that, people that are kind of low level people, you would think. But you know, I don't think that the Iraqi government is stupid. I don't think that -- they know that these buildings are targets. They are not going to leave prominent leadership or even their personnel or even their resources in these buildings. They know they're targets.
So I mean, I think the chances that any of these bombings of these major ministries like the Ministry of Planning or the Council of Ministers or the Foreign Affairs Ministry, I think it's highly doubtful that they are taking out any members of the leadership or any, even personnel that normally work there.
BLITZER: What about Iraqi television? We understand, May, that within the past hour, I don't know if you were monitoring Iraqi television, there were some more images broadcast of Saddam Hussein and one of his sons. Did you have a chance to see that?
WELSH: The last time I was able to see Iraqi television, they were -- Dr. Rahim Al-Madya (ph), who is the president of the Iraqi Journalists Union was doing a television show about President Saddam Hussein, and was playing some videos of the president with children or shooting off a rifle, and on the other main channel there were some music videos with prominent Iraqi singers singing odes to Saddam Hussein.
BLITZER: Is there any indication you can tell about Saddam Hussein? We heard the defense secretary of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, suggest that the Iraqi leadership is quickly losing control over the situation in Baghdad. Any visible signs, outward signs as far as the media is concerned, the official state-run media?
WELSH: Well, the defense minister gave a press conference perhaps an hour ago. He gave a press conference. I believe he spoke about what -- I haven't had a chance to listen to the tape yet, but I believe he spoke about the American forces coming in through the west and through the south and what his information about that was. I have not seen ambulances going by, and I did see that last night. I've not seen fire trucks going by. I did see that last night. I'm not seeing a lot of running around, actually, on the part of the Iraqi government. I'm not seeing a lot of cars, and actually strangely enough, about an hour and a half ago, I heard a demonstration in the streets. There were people that came out into the streets to demonstrate against this bombing.
BLITZER: It's interesting because U.S. military planners, U.S. officials have suggested -- you heard General Myers, perhaps, if you were listening to the briefing at the Pentagon, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, say they didn't have any intention of going after the infrastructure of Baghdad, a huge city of some five million people, that's why the lights, presumably, are still on and essential services are continuing to flow. Is that what's happening, are any of the significant infrastructure, whether electricity or water or anything like that affected by this significant bombing strike that we saw on television within the past hour or two?
WELSH: No, so far as I can tell, it's all still on. And that's actually really surprised Iraqis, because, you know, they remember 1991 very well when the water was cut and the electricity was cut and phones were cut, and they were planning and expecting for that this time. People went out and bought, you know, candles and kerosene lamps and all kinds of, you know, things to prepare for that kind of situation, and it hasn't happened so far at least. We were able to make phone calls all day today locally and in and around Baghdad. I mean it's been a surprise, frankly, to the Iraqi people that that hasn't been done.
BLITZER: It's basically suggesting, at least, it would suggest to some that what the Bush administration says is they're trying to achieve. Namely, they want to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, but not fight against the Iraqi people and they want to keep as much of that infrastructure intact so that after Saddam Hussein people can get back to relatively normal lives. But I take it from your vantage point, and it's obviously very limited right now, people are beginning to go out on the streets, beginning to drive in their cars, despite this air strike that has just taken place, and many more bombs, presumably about to hit Baghdad and other targets in Iraq?
WELSH: Well, I haven't seen people going out into the streets other than this one demonstration. I mean, I've seen some cars going by. They tend to go by at a very fast pace, and they do look like civilian cars, most of them. I mean, no, I haven't seen -- I haven't seen that.
BLITZER: This has been a night that I assume everyone in Baghdad could hear those explosions, no matter where they lived, no matter how far away they were. On television they looked simply enormous. But is it fair to say that all five million people in Baghdad were affected directly by what we saw on television?
WELSH: Oh, yes, definitely. Every single person in this city heard and felt that bombing. I mean, it's quite a terrifying experience, to be honest with you. I mean, it's heart stopping when these bombs fall, because they just have a very huge impact. They send some kind of shockwave through the air, and you just feel like the ground shakes underneath you. And the sound of these missiles streaking by is quite terrifying as well, because you hear it, and it sounds like it's coming towards you, you know? It's very -- it shrieks by and you don't know where it's going to fall.
And there's -- I have no doubt that right now people are huddled in their homes and, you know, trying to calm their children down, trying to calm their wives down. I mean, right now I am sure that the people of this city are very very much huddling in their homes and hoping and praying that this bombing ends soon.
BLITZER: When these bombs started to fall tonight around 9:00 p.m. local time in Baghdad on this Friday night, what did you do, May, specifically, you and your colleagues and friends that you may be with?
WELSH: Well, I heard the air raid siren go off and I immediately ran and took my satellite phone and got inside this truck I'm sitting in right now, just to take cover from any shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire coming down. That's what I did. When there was a lull in the bombing, I tried to get up into a higher position to see what was going on, and that's when the huge strike happened, and that's when I realized shock and awe has definitely begun. Because the last two nights before this were light. I mean, they were nothing, really. And after I saw some of these buildings go up around me, I realized this is the beginning of what they have planned to do here.
BLITZER: Do most average Iraqis -- there are 5,000,000 people there -- do they have like basement bomb shelters that they go to or do they just sort of try to ride out what's happening in the midst of a bombing strike, like this?
WELSH: Yes, a lot of apartment buildings. For instance, the residential buildings right around me all have shelters built into their basement, so the people can descend into the shelter. And most of these buildings, actually, are dark because the people in them have left Baghdad and gone, perhaps, to outlying towns and villages or, perhaps, maybe even left the country. But there are -- I was able to speak with a woman who lives in the apartment building next to me. She told me, she's absolutely terrified. And then one of her relatives said, no, we're not afraid. And they had an argument. One of them saying we're not afraid; we're Iraqis; we're not afraid. And the other one saying, no, I am afraid; I'm terrified. They said they would go down into the shelter, tonight.
Some other buildings may not have shelters, but have shelters, free-standing shelters near them where people can go to.
But I have to say that people have a very vivid memory, here, of the 1991 bombing of the Al Amaria shelter in which over 400 women and children died -- men, women and children, most of them, women and children, died. That event is commemorated every year here in Iraq. It's not forgotten. And a lot of people have told me they're afraid to go to shelters because they're afraid the U.S. will bomb them. BLITZER: May, before I let you go, tell us, tell our viewers, now, what you're seeing, what's happening in Baghdad, right now.
WELSH: Well, light on the horizon. Antiaircraft fire. It seems to be far away, right now. It doesn't seem very close. It's when it's close that it gets scary.
BLITZER: All right, be careful over there. We'll be checking back with you, May Ying Welsh, a journalist in Baghdad, thanks very much for sharing your eyewitness account of what has happened over the past few hours in Baghdad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 21, 2003 - 14:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Briefly, to go over to Baghdad now. A journalist that's on the phone, May Ying Welsh is in Baghdad. We understand that there have been more bombings, more explosions unfolding. May, tell our viewers what you are seeing and what you are hearing right now.
MAY YING WELSH, JOURNALIST, BAGHDAD: Well, right now there is no sounds going on, but about maybe two minutes ago, I heard a huge bomb going off, perhaps across on the other side of the river. The Foreign Ministry right now, which is just a few blocks away from me, is up in smoke. I just see smoke rising from it. Really the most dramatic thing I've seen so far was when it happened to be perhaps about an hour and a half ago -- time is starting to become kind of strange when all of these bombs are going off around you. You start losing track of time.
But perhaps an hour ago, an hour and a half ago, they bombed a complex associated with the Ministry of Planning and the Council of Ministers. And I saw with my own eyes how that building just went up, and a huge shockwave came off of it. It shook the building I was in. The windows almost shattered. They trembled very much, and then they went back, and we started running down -- I was on the roof of the building -- and we started running down the stairs, and we took cover by the Tigris river. There is a little corner niche where you can be low to the ground, and we saw cruise missiles streaking across the sky. It was a really terrifying experience, I can tell you.
And also, I mean, none of these buildings are just standing there by themselves. Civilians do live around these buildings. There are residential pockets near all kinds of buildings that are targets in the city. So from the first two nights of the bombing, which were relatively light, they had 37 civilian casualties. I don't know what the civilian casualties are going to be like now.
BLITZER: May, let's talk a little bit about some of those buildings that you now see have been bombed and effectively, obviously, destroyed. You say the Foreign Ministry, one of those complex involving the Ministry of Planning, as well as the Council of Ministers. We had heard that one of Saddam Hussein's so-called presidential palaces was also hit tonight. Do you know that?
WELSH: Yes, I think that might have been one of the explosions that I saw. It might have been the Republican Palace, which is a palace that was built many, many years ago. It is not a palace that is associated necessarily with President Saddam Hussein. It's a palace that's really kind of a symbol of the Republic of Iraq. I believe it was built in 1958. So to hit that palace is kind of a symbolic act against the republic, some might say. But they are hitting all kinds of government buildings now. This is the first night, I mean, that they've really, really gone for it. I can say they're taking out the centers of power now.
BLITZER: Any other buildings, any other complexes that you recognize that have been targeted tonight?
WELSH: To be honest with you, Wolf, I'm very low to the ground right now. When I had a good view, I was in an incredibly dangerous position. So I've come down to a place where I'm safe, and from here I can see a hell of a lot less. So I can't really tell you what's blowing up around me. I can tell you that there's smoke coming out of the Foreign Ministry, which is really close by here.
BLITZER: Normally at 9:00 p.m. local time in a building like the Foreign Ministry, who would be inside a building like that under normal circumstances? You've covered the story in Baghdad for some time.
WELSH: Well, I mean, normally it would just be kind of people that are there for security reasons and cleaners and things like that, people that are kind of low level people, you would think. But you know, I don't think that the Iraqi government is stupid. I don't think that -- they know that these buildings are targets. They are not going to leave prominent leadership or even their personnel or even their resources in these buildings. They know they're targets.
So I mean, I think the chances that any of these bombings of these major ministries like the Ministry of Planning or the Council of Ministers or the Foreign Affairs Ministry, I think it's highly doubtful that they are taking out any members of the leadership or any, even personnel that normally work there.
BLITZER: What about Iraqi television? We understand, May, that within the past hour, I don't know if you were monitoring Iraqi television, there were some more images broadcast of Saddam Hussein and one of his sons. Did you have a chance to see that?
WELSH: The last time I was able to see Iraqi television, they were -- Dr. Rahim Al-Madya (ph), who is the president of the Iraqi Journalists Union was doing a television show about President Saddam Hussein, and was playing some videos of the president with children or shooting off a rifle, and on the other main channel there were some music videos with prominent Iraqi singers singing odes to Saddam Hussein.
BLITZER: Is there any indication you can tell about Saddam Hussein? We heard the defense secretary of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, suggest that the Iraqi leadership is quickly losing control over the situation in Baghdad. Any visible signs, outward signs as far as the media is concerned, the official state-run media?
WELSH: Well, the defense minister gave a press conference perhaps an hour ago. He gave a press conference. I believe he spoke about what -- I haven't had a chance to listen to the tape yet, but I believe he spoke about the American forces coming in through the west and through the south and what his information about that was. I have not seen ambulances going by, and I did see that last night. I've not seen fire trucks going by. I did see that last night. I'm not seeing a lot of running around, actually, on the part of the Iraqi government. I'm not seeing a lot of cars, and actually strangely enough, about an hour and a half ago, I heard a demonstration in the streets. There were people that came out into the streets to demonstrate against this bombing.
BLITZER: It's interesting because U.S. military planners, U.S. officials have suggested -- you heard General Myers, perhaps, if you were listening to the briefing at the Pentagon, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, say they didn't have any intention of going after the infrastructure of Baghdad, a huge city of some five million people, that's why the lights, presumably, are still on and essential services are continuing to flow. Is that what's happening, are any of the significant infrastructure, whether electricity or water or anything like that affected by this significant bombing strike that we saw on television within the past hour or two?
WELSH: No, so far as I can tell, it's all still on. And that's actually really surprised Iraqis, because, you know, they remember 1991 very well when the water was cut and the electricity was cut and phones were cut, and they were planning and expecting for that this time. People went out and bought, you know, candles and kerosene lamps and all kinds of, you know, things to prepare for that kind of situation, and it hasn't happened so far at least. We were able to make phone calls all day today locally and in and around Baghdad. I mean it's been a surprise, frankly, to the Iraqi people that that hasn't been done.
BLITZER: It's basically suggesting, at least, it would suggest to some that what the Bush administration says is they're trying to achieve. Namely, they want to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, but not fight against the Iraqi people and they want to keep as much of that infrastructure intact so that after Saddam Hussein people can get back to relatively normal lives. But I take it from your vantage point, and it's obviously very limited right now, people are beginning to go out on the streets, beginning to drive in their cars, despite this air strike that has just taken place, and many more bombs, presumably about to hit Baghdad and other targets in Iraq?
WELSH: Well, I haven't seen people going out into the streets other than this one demonstration. I mean, I've seen some cars going by. They tend to go by at a very fast pace, and they do look like civilian cars, most of them. I mean, no, I haven't seen -- I haven't seen that.
BLITZER: This has been a night that I assume everyone in Baghdad could hear those explosions, no matter where they lived, no matter how far away they were. On television they looked simply enormous. But is it fair to say that all five million people in Baghdad were affected directly by what we saw on television?
WELSH: Oh, yes, definitely. Every single person in this city heard and felt that bombing. I mean, it's quite a terrifying experience, to be honest with you. I mean, it's heart stopping when these bombs fall, because they just have a very huge impact. They send some kind of shockwave through the air, and you just feel like the ground shakes underneath you. And the sound of these missiles streaking by is quite terrifying as well, because you hear it, and it sounds like it's coming towards you, you know? It's very -- it shrieks by and you don't know where it's going to fall.
And there's -- I have no doubt that right now people are huddled in their homes and, you know, trying to calm their children down, trying to calm their wives down. I mean, right now I am sure that the people of this city are very very much huddling in their homes and hoping and praying that this bombing ends soon.
BLITZER: When these bombs started to fall tonight around 9:00 p.m. local time in Baghdad on this Friday night, what did you do, May, specifically, you and your colleagues and friends that you may be with?
WELSH: Well, I heard the air raid siren go off and I immediately ran and took my satellite phone and got inside this truck I'm sitting in right now, just to take cover from any shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire coming down. That's what I did. When there was a lull in the bombing, I tried to get up into a higher position to see what was going on, and that's when the huge strike happened, and that's when I realized shock and awe has definitely begun. Because the last two nights before this were light. I mean, they were nothing, really. And after I saw some of these buildings go up around me, I realized this is the beginning of what they have planned to do here.
BLITZER: Do most average Iraqis -- there are 5,000,000 people there -- do they have like basement bomb shelters that they go to or do they just sort of try to ride out what's happening in the midst of a bombing strike, like this?
WELSH: Yes, a lot of apartment buildings. For instance, the residential buildings right around me all have shelters built into their basement, so the people can descend into the shelter. And most of these buildings, actually, are dark because the people in them have left Baghdad and gone, perhaps, to outlying towns and villages or, perhaps, maybe even left the country. But there are -- I was able to speak with a woman who lives in the apartment building next to me. She told me, she's absolutely terrified. And then one of her relatives said, no, we're not afraid. And they had an argument. One of them saying we're not afraid; we're Iraqis; we're not afraid. And the other one saying, no, I am afraid; I'm terrified. They said they would go down into the shelter, tonight.
Some other buildings may not have shelters, but have shelters, free-standing shelters near them where people can go to.
But I have to say that people have a very vivid memory, here, of the 1991 bombing of the Al Amaria shelter in which over 400 women and children died -- men, women and children, most of them, women and children, died. That event is commemorated every year here in Iraq. It's not forgotten. And a lot of people have told me they're afraid to go to shelters because they're afraid the U.S. will bomb them. BLITZER: May, before I let you go, tell us, tell our viewers, now, what you're seeing, what's happening in Baghdad, right now.
WELSH: Well, light on the horizon. Antiaircraft fire. It seems to be far away, right now. It doesn't seem very close. It's when it's close that it gets scary.
BLITZER: All right, be careful over there. We'll be checking back with you, May Ying Welsh, a journalist in Baghdad, thanks very much for sharing your eyewitness account of what has happened over the past few hours in Baghdad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
