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New Explosions Rock Baghdad

Aired March 27, 2003 - 15:15   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.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We have live pictures from Baghdad. As you can see a huge explosion in the Iraqi capital. The smoke is thick and red and this is coming in from Abu Dhabi Television. What lights there are -- there appear to be fire at the bottom. There appears to be some fire flames and then an enormous cloud of smoke rising over the Iraqi capital.
Just a few minutes ago, there were other explosions heard in central Baghdad. Before that, just within the last few hours, there have been a number of explosions shaking the central part of that city as well as the outskirts, where it is known that there are Republican Guards hold up, dug in and ready to defend the city.

U.S. coalition forces have said all along that they were going to be very carefully targeting whatever they were going to be hitting in Baghdad, and even as we look at these pictures and in the scope of one camera look, it can look like the entire city is on fire or going up in smoke. We know that is not the case.

This is one view of the city. You can see it now. We have four different live pictures for you -- live video of Baghdad. In the left-hand corner, you can't really see very much, but in the right hand two corners you get two different views of what has clearly been a significant explosion. But where it is, unless we have somebody with us right now who has a handle on what part of Baghdad that is, and then can speculate, and I believe it would be purely speculation -- we really cannot tell you what it is.

But this is what the coalition has said it would do. There will be strikes. They will continue to hit the Iraqi capital as ground troops move further north toward -- toward Baghdad from the south.

So, again, just in the last minute or so, a big explosion in Baghdad. We don't know where it is. But if we are to believe, and there is no reason why we shouldn't believe coalition military leaders that they say what they are hitting is very heavily targeted and -- General -- General Don Shepperd, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd is with me.

General, can you give us any better sense of where this is?

GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Judy, I can't tell. I'm looking through a soda straw just like you. I can't tell from this feed where it's looking within downtown Baghdad. But I can tell you this -- Central Command has said as targets begin to emerge and even if they have in -- they are in populated areas of downtown Baghdad, that the coalition military is going to hit those targets. I can't tell you what that was, but, of course, earlier we had an explosion yesterday in the market area. The early reports on that are it was not a U.S. weapon. That may prove to be erroneous. We'll have to wait and see.

But we're not -- from a military standpoint targeting civilian areas. On the other hand, as military targets are located in the civilian areas, the U.S. military is likely to strike them with precision guided munitions. I suspect that's what this is, Judy, but I don't know where it is. I can't tell by looking at this view.

WOODRUFF: Well, we do know that the Iraqis are putting military material in civilian areas. We saw a picture today, there have been other pictures of emplacements of surface-to-air missile batteries and other, what is clearly weaponry, in civilian areas right next to apartment building.

So we know that the Iraqis are doing this. We, of course, heard other stories about how they're using civilians, putting them into an area where there is likely to be a coalition strike.

Their motivation is pretty out in the open; their motivation is to increase the number of civilian casualties one way or another, just as the coalition has said we are only going to hit -- to the best of our ability, we are sticking to military targets. We are not going to harm civilians. But these movements by the Iraqis have put the coalition, General Shepperd, in a very, very difficult position.

SHEPPERD: No question about it, Judy.

We have seen anti-aircraft emplacements on top of apartment buildings. They know that you -- that the coalition does not want to hit these civilian targets. They know they play terribly around the world on television and it causes a problem.

We see the fighting going on in Basra. The closer we get to Baghdad the uglier this is going to get, Judy.

WOODRUFF: General Shepperd -- Don Shepperd joining me, retired Air Force, as we're watching these pictures I am told that Arab television is telling its viewers that these are repeat bombing targets. That whatever targets these are that have been hit -- and we can't tell you what they are, they are targets that have been hit before. We have no idea what they're basing that on, but that is what they are reporting.

Also, with us, as we watch these scenes is CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, who was in Baghdad himself reporting until just a few days ago. He is right now on the border of Iraq with Jordan. Nic, if you're with me, can you help us understand what we're watching here?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, I am looking at some of the pictures right now. I mean, clearly we know these camera positions have been in the center of the city. They've been -- some of the camera positions have been on the Ministry of Information, some of them on the Tigris Riverbank looking back towards the Ministry of Information.

If I look down now at the monitor in front of me here, I can get some sense of what's happening and where the dusts and cloud smokes are rising up from. Clearly, it's in the center of the city, but just because it's night, because we don't know the cameras are on the very locations where the impacts were, it's very, very difficult to tell exactly what was being struck. A lot of smoke and dust and debris coming up -- coming up there.

What we do know today is that Iraq's health minister, Ehud Mubarak, has been making some very large estimates, if you will, of the number of Iraqi civilians injured. He said so far there have been 4,000 Iraqi civilians injured, 350 of them, he said, killed. In Baghdad yesterday, he said some 350 Iraqi civilians injured, 36 killed in the northern city of Mosul. He said it was close to -- it was a figure of 50 injured and killed today and he said that as far as Iraqi officials were concerned, and this is a message that goes to a much broader audience than just inside Iraq, but to the Arab region in general -- he said that as far as Iraq is concerned, the coalition is actually targeting civilians.

WOODRUFF: Nic, how did these explosions these -- this result of this bombing raid look different from the others you've watched over the last few days?

ROBERTSON: Well, Judy, it's very, very difficult when you're not actually standing there in the city and you cannot see the hole of the skyline to assess the exact locations. But in size of the explosions, they look like some of the large explosions we were seeing when we were there, the explosions that we saw would erupt at the base of some of the government buildings, engulf them in smoke. The smoke would tend to move on and then perhaps within half an hour we could see flames moving through some of the buildings. Buildings would burn for a couple of hours.

But what we're -- what we were seeing -- what we're seeing now looks very much like what we were seeing a few days ago when we were in Baghdad. Some large explosions in the center of Baghdad, Judy.

WOODRUFF: So, Nic Robertson, talking to us from the Jordanian/Iraqi border as we look at these pictures of what looks to be pretty serious fire and heavy smoke off in the distance.

My colleague Wolf Blitzer is with us from Kuwait City. Wolf, it's about 11:20 something there in Baghdad, and the coalition attacks are moving ahead.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Clearly, they're bombing additional targets in Baghdad, Judy. And Reuters now reporting based on their eyewitness account from their reporter in Baghdad, that this latest bombing raid included a presidential palace....

ROBERTSON: You know what? I'm afraid I actually like this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) better.

BLITZER: ...the Al Salam (ph) Palace,.

Maybe if Nic Robertson is with us he can tell us about this palace. The palace was bombed last week shortly after the U.S. air war started.

In addition, a public communications center in the heart of the city was also hit, according to this Reuters report, along with some military positions on both the eastern and southern perimeter of Baghdad. This on a day when there were other earlier explosions in the day in Baghdad.

But as we said earlier, Judy, this is the time of night when -- when the -- when the Iraqis can brace for these kinds of U.S.-led air strikes.

If Nic Robertson is there, what can you tell us, Nic, about the Al Salam Presidential Palace?

Unfortunately, we're not being told to...

ROBERTSON: It's our sat truck (ph) here. We're working on it. We're working on it.

BLITZER: Nic, are you there?

ROBERTSON: Wolf yes, I'm here. Go ahead, please.

BLITZER: All right. Nic, Reuters is saying among the targets once again, was the Al Salam presidential palace and a communications facility, a public communications center in the heart of the city. Unclear which one.

But the Al Salam presidential palace was apparently hit last week as well. What do you know about this palace?

ROBERTSON: Well, it's a palace that spreads over a large area. There are many, any buildings in it. When we were watching it I think it was in the early hours of Saturday morning. There were a number of explosions then. And even at that stage, from the vantage point I had, it didn't appear, even though there were perhaps as many as 30 or 40 different explosions in the compound -- it didn't appear all the different buildings had been hit. And some of the buildings are very, very large structures and it's very clear that the scale of munitions being used on those structures were not sufficient to collapse them -- sufficient to set them on fire, sufficient to put large holes in them, but not to demolish them.

Perhaps one of the reasons, Wolf, why these buildings have not been demolished is because there are residential areas quite close by. And when we drove by the building on the next day we could see that the windows were blown out of some of those residential areas in the houses perhaps a quarter of a mile away from this presidential complex. But if perhaps a larger explosive device had been used, then there would -- may have been the potential there for doing much greater structural damage to some of this nearby residential property and clearly that's not the aim of coalition forces. That's what they're telling us. That's exactly what they want to avoid, Wolf.

BLITZER: And this presidential palace, Nic, is right in the middle of Baghdad, in the center of the town, which presumably is a very heavily populated area?

ROBERTSON: It's an old government area in the center of Baghdad. It's on the Tigris River. It's about half a mile across the river to the nearest residential building, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the gates of the presidential compound to the nearest residential area.

However, it used to be, before President Saddam Hussein came to power, it used to be an area that the city's busses ran through, it was an area of government building. But it became a presidential complex f you like, with an outer perimeter that people weren't allowed to go inside.

So one end of that perimeter, and just at one end, there are residential areas. But perhaps around the periphery in other areas it is -- it's not -- it's not heavily built up. There's a major highway that runs along one side of it. That would give a boundary of, again, perhaps a quarter of a mile, maybe a half a mile, before you would get from the presidential palace wall to the residential area. And then at the other end of it it would be very -- very adjacent to a key bridge that goes across the Tigris River that would take traffic out -- out towards the south of the city, Wolf.

BLITZER: The communications center apparently, at least some -- one communications center was hit as well, according to this Reuters dispatch from Baghdad, their correspondent who's on the scene. Unclear which communications center. I assume there are a lot of potential communication targets.

We did hear earlier today, Nic, from the spokesman over at the Central Command in Qatar, General Vincent Brooks, who said that the U.S. military does regard Iraqi communications centers as legitimate military targets. Some of them has what he calls dual use capabilities. They can be used both for civilian purposes to have Iraqi television, for example, but also for communications with the military. So I think all of us can assume they're going to be going after more and more of the Iraqi communications capabilities in the hours and days to come -- Nic.

ROBERTSON: Certainly in the Gulf War in 1991, about four days into the war, a major communications facility was struck at that time. Now, that has been reconstructed and is now -- where that facility used to be, there's now a huge telecommunications tower in Baghdad. It's not clear from the images I'm able to see here whether or not that particular communications tower has been struck. But I do know from sources in Baghdad that at the back of Iraq's Information Ministry, where we knew there was a satellite transmitter that was associated with Iraq's satellite television channel, we do know that a smaller munition was used to take out that particular -- to take out that particular facility. Now, it's not clear, again, as I said, it's not clear from these pictures what has been targeted today. But what we do know -- what I've heard confirmed from sources in Baghdad, is that where smaller communications facilities have been targeted, it appears that coalition forces have used smaller munition to target these perhaps again trying to reduce collateral damage, Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, AP, the Associated Press is now reporting from Baghdad, Nic, that buildings close to the Information Ministry, appear to have been hit, sending a huge plume of smoke skyward. This is the Information Ministry where you spent hours and hours, days and days doing your reports from. This is an area you're quite familiar with. It doesn't say the Information Ministry itself was hit, but it says buildings close to the Information Ministry. What kind of buildings surround the Information Ministry?

ROBERTSON: Well, Wolf, on two sides of the Information Ministry, at least, or at least at the back of the Information Ministry, an area that's perhaps a quarter of a mile long, that's the beginning of a huge complex of houses, apartment houses, perhaps several hundreds of apartments clustered in that area. Then just across on the other side of the Information Ministry there's a bank, a department store. And again, on that other side, very close to the Information Ministry, again, apartment buildings.

On the immediate -- on perhaps the -- let me see, it would be the immediate west side of the ministry, there is a small Christian church, then a theater, then after that there is the complex of Iraq's television studios. And at the forward side, on the north facing side of Iraq's Ministry of Information, very close, perhaps several hundred yards away, is a large hotel, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hoel.

It isn't quite a built up area. But, of course, there's an expanse of area towards Iraq's television studios that is state-run Iraq television studios. But collocated with the television studios we have seen quite a large military barracks and military infrastructure, a number of defensive positions, and a number of what appear to be barracks housing areas for troops -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nic Robertson, we're going continue to watch these pictures. Judy, The Associated Press now saying these blasts that have just occurred within the past few minutes -- it's around 11:30 PM in Baghdad right now -- according to the AP, their eyewitness accounts, they're saying that they appear to be the strongest in days. The most powerful blasts in Baghdad.

Dramatic pictures, targets around the Information Ministry, as well as one of the presidential palaces, the Al Salam (ph) palace, which was apparently hit several days ago as well. Judy, back to you.

WOODRUFF: Right, Wolf. I was reading the same Associated Press reports, and before that the Reuters reports. We're going to show you the picture once again of what it looked like just a few minutes ago when this big explosion hit. Apparently missiles, bombs hit their target in central Baghdad. And, as you've been hearing, the wire reports about The Associated Press -- look at this picture. These are live pictures of a structure. And if Nic Robertson is still with us and can see this, I wonder if Nic, if this is close enough for you to be able to recognize what this building may be -- Nic.

ROBERTSON: Yes, Judy. Unfortunately at the moment I can't see the same pictures that you're looking at, so very difficult for me to make -- again, to make an accurate assessment. One other structure that's in front of the Ministry of Information is a large telecommunications tower, perhaps about 100 yards away, very, very close to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hotel.

That tower, to my knowledge, was at least recently reconstructed or recently renovated. It's a structure like many of the communication structures in Iraq. It's got a very broad base. It's perhaps about several hundred feet high and has large, small solid- looking UHF, that's the television range of transmission antennas on the roof. Perhaps that also has been targeted. But, again, very, very difficult for me to see the pictures at the moment, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Nic, I'm being told that this building that we are looking at now is the International Communications Center. What exactly is that? If you know.

ROBERTSON: Judy, it's not a building that I've been into, so it's not a location that I could give you a great deal of description about. I'm trying to look -- again, I can see the picture again now. I am afraid there's very little I can tell you about that picture, Judy, from what I can see at the moment.

WOODRUFF: OK. Well we're all straining, not only to see, but also to get more information about what we are looking at. There clearly does seem to have been some significant hits into central Baghdad tonight by coalition aircraft.

And also with us, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd. General Shepperd, we're being told these are targets that have been hit before. What's the purpose of going back in?

SHEPPERD: Yes, Judy. Basically, as Nic has said, many of these palaces occupy many, many thousands of feet and yards. And just because you drop one bomb does not mean the entire complex is destroyed. The intelligence services will be looking at overhead photos from satellites, and they will also be looking at -- they will also be looking at intelligence intercepts of the communications and that type of thing to see if they need to go for underground bunkers. So they look for the fact that it's still occupied, to go back and restrike it, Judy.

WOODRUFF: General Shepperd, again, I'm being told that CNN is now able to confirm that the building we're looking at is the International Communications Center. It did appear to be on fire when we got a close-up look a minute ago. There do seem to be fires in that area of downtown Baghdad. It's so interesting that we're looking at this, we're watching these attacks, and then you see regular automobile traffic. We don't know if those are military vehicles or civilian vehicles, but every few seconds or so you will see a car pass on a bridge in what appears to be fairly close proximity to the spot that was hit by these missiles that came in just a short time ago, or bombs. Again, we don't know exactly what hit, whether it was a cruise missile or a bomb, we don't know.

SHEPPERD: Yes. I can offer you a couple observations on that. The civilian population, Baghdad knows where the military installations are. They're probably staying away from it. We're also looking across water at a bridge. That's probably either the Arbitage Tamuge Bridge (ph), which is on really the south bank of one branch of the Tigris there, or the Al Jadriyah Bridge (ph), which you can't tell which one.

But those are major bridges that are on a finger of land that the Tigris River winds around looking at the presidential compound area there. Now, again, the way you would strike these targets would be either from Tomahawk cruise missiles, CALCMS (ph), conventional air launch cruise missiles off B-52s, or B-2 or 117 aircraft.

The air defenses over Baghdad are still robust enough that you would not be flying non-Stealth aircraft or cruise missiles over that area. So I suspect that these are either missiles or Stealth aircraft dropping these bombs on re-strike is what it appears to be, Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right. We're listening to retired Air Force General Don Shepperd. And as we do, let's look -- these are live pictures right now. But we want to show you what it looked like a few moments ago.

I was told we were going to be looking at Al-Jazeera TV right about the time the explosions occurred, that the bombs hit. Let's just listen here for a second and watch. I'm not sure whether this is before or after, but these are Al-Jazeera pictures a short time ago.

Now, again, I think these are live pictures, not sure. Yes, these are live pictures of a scene in central Baghdad, the area around the Information Ministry. We are told this is the International Communications Center and environs. And now this is a satellite photo of the same building, the International Communications Center.

Here's a look at it from the satellite. So you can see in this enormous city, capital city of Baghdad, just how targeted this strike was. And, Wolf, as we look at this, we're just piecing this information together.

We heard General Shepperd giving us his best estimate of what it was. And we're also reading the wires, Reuters and The Associated Press, both of whom have correspondents in Baghdad right now and having to piece what we know together based on all these different reports.

BLITZER: And they're both saying, Judy, the AP, The Associated Press, and Reuters, the same thing. Powerful, powerful blasts near the Information Ministry in Baghdad, as well as this Al Salam (ph) presidential palace that was hit a few days ago. Now apparently hit once again.

General Shepperd, we heard a detailed explanation from Brigadier General Brooks earlier today, the briefer over at the Central Command at Camp Asaliyah (ph) outside of Doha, Qatar, why it's a legitimate military target to go after Iraqi television. But tell our viewers why the U.S. military thinks it is. And if it is, why is Iraqi television still broadcasting to the people of Iraq tonight?

SHEPPERD: Several things about that, Wolf. Basically, television is a method of command and control of troops. You can broadcast military information, military directions over TV. It's also, of course, propaganda from the regime.

It's a way for the regime -- the Iraqi regime -- to keep the confidence of its citizens. All of that are reasons to take it out.

Now the tough thing about television, is you can take down one site, but you can quickly operate from alternate sites. You could also operate from mobile sites. And, therefore, the Iraqi regime has had a lot of ability to think about this for many years.

We just received information that this International Communications Center is on the northeast bank of the Tigris River. And, therefore, we would very likely be looking northeast, either across the Sinac (ph) Bridge or the Al Jadriyah (ph) Bridge from downtown Baghdad. So this would be looking northeast across the Tigris River, and is the best guess of people that are relaying this information.

Again, you'll notice that the big building is still standing and that there is civilian traffic going across the bridge. And the lights are on, indicating the electrical grid has not been struck -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, as we look at these dramatic pictures, the latest bombing raids in Baghdad -- over Baghdad -- Miles O'Brien is standing by as well. Miles, what is this day eight of the people of that Iraqi capital hearing this thunderous explosion night after night? Clearly, it's going to have an impact on them as well.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Clearly, Wolf. And from the views we get here, we really can't get a real sense of it, can we? I just want to take you down and show you a sense of what we're looking at on that live picture. That camera is located on the Information Ministry building. And, as Don Shepperd pointed out, this is the Sinac (ph) Bridge, which goes right across here.

I just want to tell you where you're looking. OK. This in the foreground, Information Ministry. There's that bridge that Don Shepperd was telling you about. This is the building, that communications center that we're seeing these live pictures of.

And if we could put the telestrator in there with the satellite source, that would help out a little bit. But basically what you're doing -- I'll give you a sense of the view here. In the foreground, that dot, lower part of your screen, is the Information Ministry. And here's the view across the river, this Sinac (ph) Bridge, which you mentioned.

We'll just take a quick run across the river and across the Tigris River and give you a sense. Of course these satellite pictures kind of flatten things out. This is obviously a high-rise building that we're looking at. And it does -- you don't get a sense of that so much from this satellite imagery. But, nevertheless, that gives you an idea of where we are.

And to give you a sense of where you are in the whole city of Baghdad, let me just take you to sort of the center of town from here to the Republican palace, which is a little bit to the south of there. And then from the Republican palace, which is the mother of all palaces, if you will, let's go over to the Al Salam (ph) palace, which we told you about was another potential target.

As we know, Saddam Hussein has some 50 palaces. Has spent billions constructing these things with huge, huge networks of waterways and so forth, as you can plainly see here at the Al Salam (ph) palace, which translated means peace, ironically.

Let me bring you out wide once again on Baghdad, so you can just see where you are. If you look there, OK, this circle is Al Salam (ph). That's the Ministry of Information, there's that communications tower that we've been telling you about. And you are facing right now to the northeast. This is north in that direction -- Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, I want to bring back Nic Robertson, who has spent months and months in Baghdad, knows all these areas personally, knows them quite well. Spent hours, countless hours reporting from the Information Ministry, where apparently within shouting distance of that Information Ministry there have been additional targets now that have been destroyed, targets that have been bombed.

Nic, as you've had a chance to absorb these pictures over the past few minutes, do you get a better sense of what specifically may have been targeted?

ROBERTSON: Absolutely, Wolf. Having looked at the images now, I can see that International Communications building is a building that sits right at the end of the bridge over the Tigris. It's on the north side of the Tigris from the Ministry of Information. It sits right across the bridge from the Ministry of Information.

It was this building that was struck on the first night of bombing in the Gulf War in 1991. Indeed, a cruise missile went into the seventh floor of this building, punched a very neat round hole in it. That wall, of course, has subsequently been built up in (ph) that wall.

What I do know, however, is that there are a number of these communication facilities in Baghdad. And even in the Last Gulf war in 1991, where this particular building was struck, Iraq's and Baghdad's telephone circuits still continued to work. It wasn't until three days later that another telecommunications facility several miles south was struck that all the telephone circuits went down.

And what I can tell you from looking at the two different sites, these days in Baghdad and recently, is that Iraq has put a lot more money into the other telecommunications facility. Not the international communications facility we're looking at now, but the other one. They have built a very tall transmission mass (ph), a very tall building. Put a lot of money back into the infrastructure of the building next to it that was destroyed.

So it's quite possible -- it's very difficult to say, but it's quite possible that perhaps other telephone circuits may still be working in Baghdad. Certainly there are, to my knowledge, a number of these communication facilities in Baghdad. But interesting to see that this international communications facility has not been struck now until six days into the bombing. Yet on the first day of the bombing in the 1991 Gulf War, it was struck on the very first night.

And the reason I know that, Wolf, is that on that very first morning after 1991, I took a drive around Baghdad, I came over that bridge, and as I looked up at that building, I could see that neat, round hole punched in the side of the building. Now it appears that building is on fire from the base of the building -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Nic, The Associated Press is reporting that, in an earlier strike today also, there were some bombs near the Information Ministry building. That building where you used to do all your reports from for months and months at a time. And it said something very interesting in this AP story that has just moved.

It says anti-aircraft guns went off from the roof of the Information Ministry building, according to eyewitnesses. Which raises the question that the Information Ministry building itself could be a target. If they're firing anti-aircraft batteries, guns, from that information ministry, U.S. Air Force might want to knock that position out.

What is inside that information ministry? It sounds sort of innocuous as a government building. But based on all the weeks and weeks you were there, if the U.S. were to go ahead and knock out that Information Ministry, what would they be destroying?

ROBERTSON: Well, probably, Wolf, if I'm absolutely blunt and frank here, a lot less than they would have destroyed a couple weeks before the war began. In the last few weeks that we were in Baghdad, a lot of computer equipment, a lot of files, a lot of recordkeeping equipment were being taken out of that particular building. Truckloads and truckloads being shipped away in the days before the war.

Now, that building has had, to my best recollection, anti- aircraft gun facilities on its roof since 1991. Certainly, they were firing very heavily during Operation Desert Fox at the end of 1998. Certainly, we heard them and could see them firing in the early days of this particular war. And that gun facility has been on that building.

In fact, there may be two anti-aircraft gun positions. And certainly, the Pentagon has gone on the record and said that any facilities in Iraq that have anti-aircraft positions on them are legitimate targets. So perhaps that does make the ministry of information a legitimate target.

Very difficult for me to give a full assessment, of course, of what the whole building does. It's a 13-story building. It's a very large building, perhaps 50 to 60, 70 offices on each floor of that building. And we certainly never had free reign to look around and try and observe what goes on inside the building.

Certainly equipment there for Iraq's Ministry of Information to not only monitor many international broadcasts, many television receivers on that building, but also in the last few days before the war, some new communication facilities went up on that building as well. Very difficult to say exactly what they were for.

And, of course, very, very close to that building, the satellite transmitter for Iraq's satellite television station. A little bit further away, Iraq's television station. And just across the road, a very large -- what appear to be television transmitter as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, if there are anti-aircraft batteries up on the roof of that building, presumably it could be a target. It could be a target. Nic, stand by.

I want to go back to Judy. But very briefly, General Shepperd, if you were still in the U.S. Air Force active duty planning this war, and you heard that there were anti-aircraft guns atop that Information Ministry building, what would you be doing?

SHEPPERD: I would not be concerned about them, Wolf. We're not going to go against individual aircraft guns at this time. You might do it later, because not only can they be shot up, but they can be shot down with troops on the ground.

But the United States is interested more in pre-planned targets and emerging targets, on communications and headquarters. That type of thing, as opposed to individual aircraft guns, which are really innocuous at this time.

BLITZER: All right. There you have it. Judy, let's go back to you.

WOODRUFF: I just want to interject here that our Pentagon correspondent -- military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre, has told us in the last few minutes that Pentagon officials have made a point of telling him that this explosion in Baghdad was not the work of a MOAB, the so-called big bomb that's been developed in the last year or so by the United States. The mother of all bombs is the nickname for it. They just wanted to be clear about that, even though the plume of smoke looked enormous from it. Nic Robertson, if you're still there, I just have one other question before we turn away from these explosions and missile strikes in Baghdad. And that is, you know, we're hearing so much about civilian neighborhoods. How close are they, residential neighborhoods, to what we are seeing here that we've been discussing? That the presidential palace, the Al Sahab (ph), and also this International Communications Center complex?

ROBERTSON: About a quarter of a mile from the gates at the western end of that main presidential complex is a civilian area, civilian houses, shops. On a normal evening, at this sort of time, you would have expected to find people outside of the restaurants. Of course, during the wartime, very, very different.

When we drove by there a few days ago, just after the presidential area had been hit, certainly there was a lot of broken glass and debris on the windows. Clearly, those residential areas had been impacted.

The International Communications Center, that is in a much more business-oriented neighborhood. Of course, some people do live in -- adjacent around that area, but that is much more a city center location, a location that wouldn't have a high concentration of civilians normally located, particularly at this time of night.

The Information Ministry, a slightly different location, in as much as it is very close to quite a lot of residential apartments. Many apartments there for government officials within the ruling Ba'ath Party. Perhaps very -- perhaps within about a half-mile radius of two sides of the Ministry of Information. You can expect to find something in the region of several hundred residential apartments about four or five stories high, perhaps -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Nic, as I'm listening to you, I'm just looking again at an Associated Press report indicating that this area around the Information Ministry was also hit a little earlier this evening after nightfall in Baghdad. And just forgive me, I'm going to check this again.

Witnesses -- again, quoting The Associated Press -- witnesses saying that a housing complex for employees of a weapons producing facility about 12 miles south of the capital was also targeted in an attack Thursday. And that an unknown number of people were side to be killed and wounded there.

So we're getting bits and pieces. We are getting more information about what is hit, just how wide an area is being hit. But, again, getting a sense of very specific targets.

The city is not being leveled by any means. These are very specific targets. And again, these are the pictures earlier within about a half-hour ago, when we saw that big bomb or missile hit in Baghdad.

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Aired March 27, 2003 - 15:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We have live pictures from Baghdad. As you can see a huge explosion in the Iraqi capital. The smoke is thick and red and this is coming in from Abu Dhabi Television. What lights there are -- there appear to be fire at the bottom. There appears to be some fire flames and then an enormous cloud of smoke rising over the Iraqi capital.
Just a few minutes ago, there were other explosions heard in central Baghdad. Before that, just within the last few hours, there have been a number of explosions shaking the central part of that city as well as the outskirts, where it is known that there are Republican Guards hold up, dug in and ready to defend the city.

U.S. coalition forces have said all along that they were going to be very carefully targeting whatever they were going to be hitting in Baghdad, and even as we look at these pictures and in the scope of one camera look, it can look like the entire city is on fire or going up in smoke. We know that is not the case.

This is one view of the city. You can see it now. We have four different live pictures for you -- live video of Baghdad. In the left-hand corner, you can't really see very much, but in the right hand two corners you get two different views of what has clearly been a significant explosion. But where it is, unless we have somebody with us right now who has a handle on what part of Baghdad that is, and then can speculate, and I believe it would be purely speculation -- we really cannot tell you what it is.

But this is what the coalition has said it would do. There will be strikes. They will continue to hit the Iraqi capital as ground troops move further north toward -- toward Baghdad from the south.

So, again, just in the last minute or so, a big explosion in Baghdad. We don't know where it is. But if we are to believe, and there is no reason why we shouldn't believe coalition military leaders that they say what they are hitting is very heavily targeted and -- General -- General Don Shepperd, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd is with me.

General, can you give us any better sense of where this is?

GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Judy, I can't tell. I'm looking through a soda straw just like you. I can't tell from this feed where it's looking within downtown Baghdad. But I can tell you this -- Central Command has said as targets begin to emerge and even if they have in -- they are in populated areas of downtown Baghdad, that the coalition military is going to hit those targets. I can't tell you what that was, but, of course, earlier we had an explosion yesterday in the market area. The early reports on that are it was not a U.S. weapon. That may prove to be erroneous. We'll have to wait and see.

But we're not -- from a military standpoint targeting civilian areas. On the other hand, as military targets are located in the civilian areas, the U.S. military is likely to strike them with precision guided munitions. I suspect that's what this is, Judy, but I don't know where it is. I can't tell by looking at this view.

WOODRUFF: Well, we do know that the Iraqis are putting military material in civilian areas. We saw a picture today, there have been other pictures of emplacements of surface-to-air missile batteries and other, what is clearly weaponry, in civilian areas right next to apartment building.

So we know that the Iraqis are doing this. We, of course, heard other stories about how they're using civilians, putting them into an area where there is likely to be a coalition strike.

Their motivation is pretty out in the open; their motivation is to increase the number of civilian casualties one way or another, just as the coalition has said we are only going to hit -- to the best of our ability, we are sticking to military targets. We are not going to harm civilians. But these movements by the Iraqis have put the coalition, General Shepperd, in a very, very difficult position.

SHEPPERD: No question about it, Judy.

We have seen anti-aircraft emplacements on top of apartment buildings. They know that you -- that the coalition does not want to hit these civilian targets. They know they play terribly around the world on television and it causes a problem.

We see the fighting going on in Basra. The closer we get to Baghdad the uglier this is going to get, Judy.

WOODRUFF: General Shepperd -- Don Shepperd joining me, retired Air Force, as we're watching these pictures I am told that Arab television is telling its viewers that these are repeat bombing targets. That whatever targets these are that have been hit -- and we can't tell you what they are, they are targets that have been hit before. We have no idea what they're basing that on, but that is what they are reporting.

Also, with us, as we watch these scenes is CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, who was in Baghdad himself reporting until just a few days ago. He is right now on the border of Iraq with Jordan. Nic, if you're with me, can you help us understand what we're watching here?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, I am looking at some of the pictures right now. I mean, clearly we know these camera positions have been in the center of the city. They've been -- some of the camera positions have been on the Ministry of Information, some of them on the Tigris Riverbank looking back towards the Ministry of Information.

If I look down now at the monitor in front of me here, I can get some sense of what's happening and where the dusts and cloud smokes are rising up from. Clearly, it's in the center of the city, but just because it's night, because we don't know the cameras are on the very locations where the impacts were, it's very, very difficult to tell exactly what was being struck. A lot of smoke and dust and debris coming up -- coming up there.

What we do know today is that Iraq's health minister, Ehud Mubarak, has been making some very large estimates, if you will, of the number of Iraqi civilians injured. He said so far there have been 4,000 Iraqi civilians injured, 350 of them, he said, killed. In Baghdad yesterday, he said some 350 Iraqi civilians injured, 36 killed in the northern city of Mosul. He said it was close to -- it was a figure of 50 injured and killed today and he said that as far as Iraqi officials were concerned, and this is a message that goes to a much broader audience than just inside Iraq, but to the Arab region in general -- he said that as far as Iraq is concerned, the coalition is actually targeting civilians.

WOODRUFF: Nic, how did these explosions these -- this result of this bombing raid look different from the others you've watched over the last few days?

ROBERTSON: Well, Judy, it's very, very difficult when you're not actually standing there in the city and you cannot see the hole of the skyline to assess the exact locations. But in size of the explosions, they look like some of the large explosions we were seeing when we were there, the explosions that we saw would erupt at the base of some of the government buildings, engulf them in smoke. The smoke would tend to move on and then perhaps within half an hour we could see flames moving through some of the buildings. Buildings would burn for a couple of hours.

But what we're -- what we were seeing -- what we're seeing now looks very much like what we were seeing a few days ago when we were in Baghdad. Some large explosions in the center of Baghdad, Judy.

WOODRUFF: So, Nic Robertson, talking to us from the Jordanian/Iraqi border as we look at these pictures of what looks to be pretty serious fire and heavy smoke off in the distance.

My colleague Wolf Blitzer is with us from Kuwait City. Wolf, it's about 11:20 something there in Baghdad, and the coalition attacks are moving ahead.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Clearly, they're bombing additional targets in Baghdad, Judy. And Reuters now reporting based on their eyewitness account from their reporter in Baghdad, that this latest bombing raid included a presidential palace....

ROBERTSON: You know what? I'm afraid I actually like this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) better.

BLITZER: ...the Al Salam (ph) Palace,.

Maybe if Nic Robertson is with us he can tell us about this palace. The palace was bombed last week shortly after the U.S. air war started.

In addition, a public communications center in the heart of the city was also hit, according to this Reuters report, along with some military positions on both the eastern and southern perimeter of Baghdad. This on a day when there were other earlier explosions in the day in Baghdad.

But as we said earlier, Judy, this is the time of night when -- when the -- when the Iraqis can brace for these kinds of U.S.-led air strikes.

If Nic Robertson is there, what can you tell us, Nic, about the Al Salam Presidential Palace?

Unfortunately, we're not being told to...

ROBERTSON: It's our sat truck (ph) here. We're working on it. We're working on it.

BLITZER: Nic, are you there?

ROBERTSON: Wolf yes, I'm here. Go ahead, please.

BLITZER: All right. Nic, Reuters is saying among the targets once again, was the Al Salam presidential palace and a communications facility, a public communications center in the heart of the city. Unclear which one.

But the Al Salam presidential palace was apparently hit last week as well. What do you know about this palace?

ROBERTSON: Well, it's a palace that spreads over a large area. There are many, any buildings in it. When we were watching it I think it was in the early hours of Saturday morning. There were a number of explosions then. And even at that stage, from the vantage point I had, it didn't appear, even though there were perhaps as many as 30 or 40 different explosions in the compound -- it didn't appear all the different buildings had been hit. And some of the buildings are very, very large structures and it's very clear that the scale of munitions being used on those structures were not sufficient to collapse them -- sufficient to set them on fire, sufficient to put large holes in them, but not to demolish them.

Perhaps one of the reasons, Wolf, why these buildings have not been demolished is because there are residential areas quite close by. And when we drove by the building on the next day we could see that the windows were blown out of some of those residential areas in the houses perhaps a quarter of a mile away from this presidential complex. But if perhaps a larger explosive device had been used, then there would -- may have been the potential there for doing much greater structural damage to some of this nearby residential property and clearly that's not the aim of coalition forces. That's what they're telling us. That's exactly what they want to avoid, Wolf.

BLITZER: And this presidential palace, Nic, is right in the middle of Baghdad, in the center of the town, which presumably is a very heavily populated area?

ROBERTSON: It's an old government area in the center of Baghdad. It's on the Tigris River. It's about half a mile across the river to the nearest residential building, perhaps a quarter of a mile from the gates of the presidential compound to the nearest residential area.

However, it used to be, before President Saddam Hussein came to power, it used to be an area that the city's busses ran through, it was an area of government building. But it became a presidential complex f you like, with an outer perimeter that people weren't allowed to go inside.

So one end of that perimeter, and just at one end, there are residential areas. But perhaps around the periphery in other areas it is -- it's not -- it's not heavily built up. There's a major highway that runs along one side of it. That would give a boundary of, again, perhaps a quarter of a mile, maybe a half a mile, before you would get from the presidential palace wall to the residential area. And then at the other end of it it would be very -- very adjacent to a key bridge that goes across the Tigris River that would take traffic out -- out towards the south of the city, Wolf.

BLITZER: The communications center apparently, at least some -- one communications center was hit as well, according to this Reuters dispatch from Baghdad, their correspondent who's on the scene. Unclear which communications center. I assume there are a lot of potential communication targets.

We did hear earlier today, Nic, from the spokesman over at the Central Command in Qatar, General Vincent Brooks, who said that the U.S. military does regard Iraqi communications centers as legitimate military targets. Some of them has what he calls dual use capabilities. They can be used both for civilian purposes to have Iraqi television, for example, but also for communications with the military. So I think all of us can assume they're going to be going after more and more of the Iraqi communications capabilities in the hours and days to come -- Nic.

ROBERTSON: Certainly in the Gulf War in 1991, about four days into the war, a major communications facility was struck at that time. Now, that has been reconstructed and is now -- where that facility used to be, there's now a huge telecommunications tower in Baghdad. It's not clear from the images I'm able to see here whether or not that particular communications tower has been struck. But I do know from sources in Baghdad that at the back of Iraq's Information Ministry, where we knew there was a satellite transmitter that was associated with Iraq's satellite television channel, we do know that a smaller munition was used to take out that particular -- to take out that particular facility. Now, it's not clear, again, as I said, it's not clear from these pictures what has been targeted today. But what we do know -- what I've heard confirmed from sources in Baghdad, is that where smaller communications facilities have been targeted, it appears that coalition forces have used smaller munition to target these perhaps again trying to reduce collateral damage, Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, AP, the Associated Press is now reporting from Baghdad, Nic, that buildings close to the Information Ministry, appear to have been hit, sending a huge plume of smoke skyward. This is the Information Ministry where you spent hours and hours, days and days doing your reports from. This is an area you're quite familiar with. It doesn't say the Information Ministry itself was hit, but it says buildings close to the Information Ministry. What kind of buildings surround the Information Ministry?

ROBERTSON: Well, Wolf, on two sides of the Information Ministry, at least, or at least at the back of the Information Ministry, an area that's perhaps a quarter of a mile long, that's the beginning of a huge complex of houses, apartment houses, perhaps several hundreds of apartments clustered in that area. Then just across on the other side of the Information Ministry there's a bank, a department store. And again, on that other side, very close to the Information Ministry, again, apartment buildings.

On the immediate -- on perhaps the -- let me see, it would be the immediate west side of the ministry, there is a small Christian church, then a theater, then after that there is the complex of Iraq's television studios. And at the forward side, on the north facing side of Iraq's Ministry of Information, very close, perhaps several hundred yards away, is a large hotel, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hoel.

It isn't quite a built up area. But, of course, there's an expanse of area towards Iraq's television studios that is state-run Iraq television studios. But collocated with the television studios we have seen quite a large military barracks and military infrastructure, a number of defensive positions, and a number of what appear to be barracks housing areas for troops -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nic Robertson, we're going continue to watch these pictures. Judy, The Associated Press now saying these blasts that have just occurred within the past few minutes -- it's around 11:30 PM in Baghdad right now -- according to the AP, their eyewitness accounts, they're saying that they appear to be the strongest in days. The most powerful blasts in Baghdad.

Dramatic pictures, targets around the Information Ministry, as well as one of the presidential palaces, the Al Salam (ph) palace, which was apparently hit several days ago as well. Judy, back to you.

WOODRUFF: Right, Wolf. I was reading the same Associated Press reports, and before that the Reuters reports. We're going to show you the picture once again of what it looked like just a few minutes ago when this big explosion hit. Apparently missiles, bombs hit their target in central Baghdad. And, as you've been hearing, the wire reports about The Associated Press -- look at this picture. These are live pictures of a structure. And if Nic Robertson is still with us and can see this, I wonder if Nic, if this is close enough for you to be able to recognize what this building may be -- Nic.

ROBERTSON: Yes, Judy. Unfortunately at the moment I can't see the same pictures that you're looking at, so very difficult for me to make -- again, to make an accurate assessment. One other structure that's in front of the Ministry of Information is a large telecommunications tower, perhaps about 100 yards away, very, very close to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hotel.

That tower, to my knowledge, was at least recently reconstructed or recently renovated. It's a structure like many of the communication structures in Iraq. It's got a very broad base. It's perhaps about several hundred feet high and has large, small solid- looking UHF, that's the television range of transmission antennas on the roof. Perhaps that also has been targeted. But, again, very, very difficult for me to see the pictures at the moment, Judy.

WOODRUFF: Nic, I'm being told that this building that we are looking at now is the International Communications Center. What exactly is that? If you know.

ROBERTSON: Judy, it's not a building that I've been into, so it's not a location that I could give you a great deal of description about. I'm trying to look -- again, I can see the picture again now. I am afraid there's very little I can tell you about that picture, Judy, from what I can see at the moment.

WOODRUFF: OK. Well we're all straining, not only to see, but also to get more information about what we are looking at. There clearly does seem to have been some significant hits into central Baghdad tonight by coalition aircraft.

And also with us, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd. General Shepperd, we're being told these are targets that have been hit before. What's the purpose of going back in?

SHEPPERD: Yes, Judy. Basically, as Nic has said, many of these palaces occupy many, many thousands of feet and yards. And just because you drop one bomb does not mean the entire complex is destroyed. The intelligence services will be looking at overhead photos from satellites, and they will also be looking at -- they will also be looking at intelligence intercepts of the communications and that type of thing to see if they need to go for underground bunkers. So they look for the fact that it's still occupied, to go back and restrike it, Judy.

WOODRUFF: General Shepperd, again, I'm being told that CNN is now able to confirm that the building we're looking at is the International Communications Center. It did appear to be on fire when we got a close-up look a minute ago. There do seem to be fires in that area of downtown Baghdad. It's so interesting that we're looking at this, we're watching these attacks, and then you see regular automobile traffic. We don't know if those are military vehicles or civilian vehicles, but every few seconds or so you will see a car pass on a bridge in what appears to be fairly close proximity to the spot that was hit by these missiles that came in just a short time ago, or bombs. Again, we don't know exactly what hit, whether it was a cruise missile or a bomb, we don't know.

SHEPPERD: Yes. I can offer you a couple observations on that. The civilian population, Baghdad knows where the military installations are. They're probably staying away from it. We're also looking across water at a bridge. That's probably either the Arbitage Tamuge Bridge (ph), which is on really the south bank of one branch of the Tigris there, or the Al Jadriyah Bridge (ph), which you can't tell which one.

But those are major bridges that are on a finger of land that the Tigris River winds around looking at the presidential compound area there. Now, again, the way you would strike these targets would be either from Tomahawk cruise missiles, CALCMS (ph), conventional air launch cruise missiles off B-52s, or B-2 or 117 aircraft.

The air defenses over Baghdad are still robust enough that you would not be flying non-Stealth aircraft or cruise missiles over that area. So I suspect that these are either missiles or Stealth aircraft dropping these bombs on re-strike is what it appears to be, Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right. We're listening to retired Air Force General Don Shepperd. And as we do, let's look -- these are live pictures right now. But we want to show you what it looked like a few moments ago.

I was told we were going to be looking at Al-Jazeera TV right about the time the explosions occurred, that the bombs hit. Let's just listen here for a second and watch. I'm not sure whether this is before or after, but these are Al-Jazeera pictures a short time ago.

Now, again, I think these are live pictures, not sure. Yes, these are live pictures of a scene in central Baghdad, the area around the Information Ministry. We are told this is the International Communications Center and environs. And now this is a satellite photo of the same building, the International Communications Center.

Here's a look at it from the satellite. So you can see in this enormous city, capital city of Baghdad, just how targeted this strike was. And, Wolf, as we look at this, we're just piecing this information together.

We heard General Shepperd giving us his best estimate of what it was. And we're also reading the wires, Reuters and The Associated Press, both of whom have correspondents in Baghdad right now and having to piece what we know together based on all these different reports.

BLITZER: And they're both saying, Judy, the AP, The Associated Press, and Reuters, the same thing. Powerful, powerful blasts near the Information Ministry in Baghdad, as well as this Al Salam (ph) presidential palace that was hit a few days ago. Now apparently hit once again.

General Shepperd, we heard a detailed explanation from Brigadier General Brooks earlier today, the briefer over at the Central Command at Camp Asaliyah (ph) outside of Doha, Qatar, why it's a legitimate military target to go after Iraqi television. But tell our viewers why the U.S. military thinks it is. And if it is, why is Iraqi television still broadcasting to the people of Iraq tonight?

SHEPPERD: Several things about that, Wolf. Basically, television is a method of command and control of troops. You can broadcast military information, military directions over TV. It's also, of course, propaganda from the regime.

It's a way for the regime -- the Iraqi regime -- to keep the confidence of its citizens. All of that are reasons to take it out.

Now the tough thing about television, is you can take down one site, but you can quickly operate from alternate sites. You could also operate from mobile sites. And, therefore, the Iraqi regime has had a lot of ability to think about this for many years.

We just received information that this International Communications Center is on the northeast bank of the Tigris River. And, therefore, we would very likely be looking northeast, either across the Sinac (ph) Bridge or the Al Jadriyah (ph) Bridge from downtown Baghdad. So this would be looking northeast across the Tigris River, and is the best guess of people that are relaying this information.

Again, you'll notice that the big building is still standing and that there is civilian traffic going across the bridge. And the lights are on, indicating the electrical grid has not been struck -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, as we look at these dramatic pictures, the latest bombing raids in Baghdad -- over Baghdad -- Miles O'Brien is standing by as well. Miles, what is this day eight of the people of that Iraqi capital hearing this thunderous explosion night after night? Clearly, it's going to have an impact on them as well.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Clearly, Wolf. And from the views we get here, we really can't get a real sense of it, can we? I just want to take you down and show you a sense of what we're looking at on that live picture. That camera is located on the Information Ministry building. And, as Don Shepperd pointed out, this is the Sinac (ph) Bridge, which goes right across here.

I just want to tell you where you're looking. OK. This in the foreground, Information Ministry. There's that bridge that Don Shepperd was telling you about. This is the building, that communications center that we're seeing these live pictures of.

And if we could put the telestrator in there with the satellite source, that would help out a little bit. But basically what you're doing -- I'll give you a sense of the view here. In the foreground, that dot, lower part of your screen, is the Information Ministry. And here's the view across the river, this Sinac (ph) Bridge, which you mentioned.

We'll just take a quick run across the river and across the Tigris River and give you a sense. Of course these satellite pictures kind of flatten things out. This is obviously a high-rise building that we're looking at. And it does -- you don't get a sense of that so much from this satellite imagery. But, nevertheless, that gives you an idea of where we are.

And to give you a sense of where you are in the whole city of Baghdad, let me just take you to sort of the center of town from here to the Republican palace, which is a little bit to the south of there. And then from the Republican palace, which is the mother of all palaces, if you will, let's go over to the Al Salam (ph) palace, which we told you about was another potential target.

As we know, Saddam Hussein has some 50 palaces. Has spent billions constructing these things with huge, huge networks of waterways and so forth, as you can plainly see here at the Al Salam (ph) palace, which translated means peace, ironically.

Let me bring you out wide once again on Baghdad, so you can just see where you are. If you look there, OK, this circle is Al Salam (ph). That's the Ministry of Information, there's that communications tower that we've been telling you about. And you are facing right now to the northeast. This is north in that direction -- Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, I want to bring back Nic Robertson, who has spent months and months in Baghdad, knows all these areas personally, knows them quite well. Spent hours, countless hours reporting from the Information Ministry, where apparently within shouting distance of that Information Ministry there have been additional targets now that have been destroyed, targets that have been bombed.

Nic, as you've had a chance to absorb these pictures over the past few minutes, do you get a better sense of what specifically may have been targeted?

ROBERTSON: Absolutely, Wolf. Having looked at the images now, I can see that International Communications building is a building that sits right at the end of the bridge over the Tigris. It's on the north side of the Tigris from the Ministry of Information. It sits right across the bridge from the Ministry of Information.

It was this building that was struck on the first night of bombing in the Gulf War in 1991. Indeed, a cruise missile went into the seventh floor of this building, punched a very neat round hole in it. That wall, of course, has subsequently been built up in (ph) that wall.

What I do know, however, is that there are a number of these communication facilities in Baghdad. And even in the Last Gulf war in 1991, where this particular building was struck, Iraq's and Baghdad's telephone circuits still continued to work. It wasn't until three days later that another telecommunications facility several miles south was struck that all the telephone circuits went down.

And what I can tell you from looking at the two different sites, these days in Baghdad and recently, is that Iraq has put a lot more money into the other telecommunications facility. Not the international communications facility we're looking at now, but the other one. They have built a very tall transmission mass (ph), a very tall building. Put a lot of money back into the infrastructure of the building next to it that was destroyed.

So it's quite possible -- it's very difficult to say, but it's quite possible that perhaps other telephone circuits may still be working in Baghdad. Certainly there are, to my knowledge, a number of these communication facilities in Baghdad. But interesting to see that this international communications facility has not been struck now until six days into the bombing. Yet on the first day of the bombing in the 1991 Gulf War, it was struck on the very first night.

And the reason I know that, Wolf, is that on that very first morning after 1991, I took a drive around Baghdad, I came over that bridge, and as I looked up at that building, I could see that neat, round hole punched in the side of the building. Now it appears that building is on fire from the base of the building -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Nic, The Associated Press is reporting that, in an earlier strike today also, there were some bombs near the Information Ministry building. That building where you used to do all your reports from for months and months at a time. And it said something very interesting in this AP story that has just moved.

It says anti-aircraft guns went off from the roof of the Information Ministry building, according to eyewitnesses. Which raises the question that the Information Ministry building itself could be a target. If they're firing anti-aircraft batteries, guns, from that information ministry, U.S. Air Force might want to knock that position out.

What is inside that information ministry? It sounds sort of innocuous as a government building. But based on all the weeks and weeks you were there, if the U.S. were to go ahead and knock out that Information Ministry, what would they be destroying?

ROBERTSON: Well, probably, Wolf, if I'm absolutely blunt and frank here, a lot less than they would have destroyed a couple weeks before the war began. In the last few weeks that we were in Baghdad, a lot of computer equipment, a lot of files, a lot of recordkeeping equipment were being taken out of that particular building. Truckloads and truckloads being shipped away in the days before the war.

Now, that building has had, to my best recollection, anti- aircraft gun facilities on its roof since 1991. Certainly, they were firing very heavily during Operation Desert Fox at the end of 1998. Certainly, we heard them and could see them firing in the early days of this particular war. And that gun facility has been on that building.

In fact, there may be two anti-aircraft gun positions. And certainly, the Pentagon has gone on the record and said that any facilities in Iraq that have anti-aircraft positions on them are legitimate targets. So perhaps that does make the ministry of information a legitimate target.

Very difficult for me to give a full assessment, of course, of what the whole building does. It's a 13-story building. It's a very large building, perhaps 50 to 60, 70 offices on each floor of that building. And we certainly never had free reign to look around and try and observe what goes on inside the building.

Certainly equipment there for Iraq's Ministry of Information to not only monitor many international broadcasts, many television receivers on that building, but also in the last few days before the war, some new communication facilities went up on that building as well. Very difficult to say exactly what they were for.

And, of course, very, very close to that building, the satellite transmitter for Iraq's satellite television station. A little bit further away, Iraq's television station. And just across the road, a very large -- what appear to be television transmitter as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, if there are anti-aircraft batteries up on the roof of that building, presumably it could be a target. It could be a target. Nic, stand by.

I want to go back to Judy. But very briefly, General Shepperd, if you were still in the U.S. Air Force active duty planning this war, and you heard that there were anti-aircraft guns atop that Information Ministry building, what would you be doing?

SHEPPERD: I would not be concerned about them, Wolf. We're not going to go against individual aircraft guns at this time. You might do it later, because not only can they be shot up, but they can be shot down with troops on the ground.

But the United States is interested more in pre-planned targets and emerging targets, on communications and headquarters. That type of thing, as opposed to individual aircraft guns, which are really innocuous at this time.

BLITZER: All right. There you have it. Judy, let's go back to you.

WOODRUFF: I just want to interject here that our Pentagon correspondent -- military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre, has told us in the last few minutes that Pentagon officials have made a point of telling him that this explosion in Baghdad was not the work of a MOAB, the so-called big bomb that's been developed in the last year or so by the United States. The mother of all bombs is the nickname for it. They just wanted to be clear about that, even though the plume of smoke looked enormous from it. Nic Robertson, if you're still there, I just have one other question before we turn away from these explosions and missile strikes in Baghdad. And that is, you know, we're hearing so much about civilian neighborhoods. How close are they, residential neighborhoods, to what we are seeing here that we've been discussing? That the presidential palace, the Al Sahab (ph), and also this International Communications Center complex?

ROBERTSON: About a quarter of a mile from the gates at the western end of that main presidential complex is a civilian area, civilian houses, shops. On a normal evening, at this sort of time, you would have expected to find people outside of the restaurants. Of course, during the wartime, very, very different.

When we drove by there a few days ago, just after the presidential area had been hit, certainly there was a lot of broken glass and debris on the windows. Clearly, those residential areas had been impacted.

The International Communications Center, that is in a much more business-oriented neighborhood. Of course, some people do live in -- adjacent around that area, but that is much more a city center location, a location that wouldn't have a high concentration of civilians normally located, particularly at this time of night.

The Information Ministry, a slightly different location, in as much as it is very close to quite a lot of residential apartments. Many apartments there for government officials within the ruling Ba'ath Party. Perhaps very -- perhaps within about a half-mile radius of two sides of the Ministry of Information. You can expect to find something in the region of several hundred residential apartments about four or five stories high, perhaps -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Nic, as I'm listening to you, I'm just looking again at an Associated Press report indicating that this area around the Information Ministry was also hit a little earlier this evening after nightfall in Baghdad. And just forgive me, I'm going to check this again.

Witnesses -- again, quoting The Associated Press -- witnesses saying that a housing complex for employees of a weapons producing facility about 12 miles south of the capital was also targeted in an attack Thursday. And that an unknown number of people were side to be killed and wounded there.

So we're getting bits and pieces. We are getting more information about what is hit, just how wide an area is being hit. But, again, getting a sense of very specific targets.

The city is not being leveled by any means. These are very specific targets. And again, these are the pictures earlier within about a half-hour ago, when we saw that big bomb or missile hit in Baghdad.

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