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Military Strike on Palestine Hotel in Baghdad Followed Rules of Engagement

Aired April 08, 2003 - 14:17   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Talking with retired three-star General Claudia Kennedy of the U.S. Army. Her specialty, intelligence. So this is a fascinating time to have her and kind of borrow her brain through all of this.
First of all, I do -- before we get into sot of the intel aspects of this, which are fascinating as this progresses because as it becomes less of a military operation in some sense, it becomes more of an intel and political.

Why don't you just talk about that for a second, how it moves into a different realm, intelligence and politics and giving a perception to the Iraqi people seem to be key right now.

LT. GEN. CLAUDIA KENNEDY (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's right. This is a military operation right now, primarily led by military decision makers and forces. It will become more of a political and cultural operation as the military part of it becomes very clear that the coalition forces have defeated this particular regime. So then the political and the cultural comes to the forward, followed by, and hopefully, coincidental with economic development.

O'BRIEN: It's interesting. A lot of people tuning in today might say did I miss the end of this war? It sort of suddenly has become a very dynamic, different situation.

Let's talk for a moment about the journalists. I know I'm skipping out over the place. But I'm interested in this, a thought that you brought out. We're talking about some incidents that occurred, the information Ministry and at the Palestine hotel depicted here on the map table, with those explosions.

I want to zoom you in, looking at some of the satellite imagery on that part of the world. First of all we're going to go down, this is a big wide shot of Baghdad. There's the international airport, there's the center of town, that's where we're going to head to once I zoom this thing in.

I'm going to take you first of all to the Republican palace. Which, you know, let's not -- I don't know if we stated it enough, I mean, you've got U.S. troops there. That's like having an enemy force at the White House. That's a significant moment. That is sending a signal right there to the Iraqi people, isn't it?

KENNEDY: It surely is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Now, form the Republican palace, let's move over to the Palestine Hotel which is where the Information Ministry had set up shop and where a lot of journalists were operating. And according to the Pentagon where there was some fire coming from military -- that's the Palestine Hotel. That's where Nic Robertson was, Rym Brahimi before they had to leave town.

It's interesting, I'm sure journalists, if you ask them, would not want to be called human shields. But in a sense, they could be viewed that way, right?

KENNEDY: They could be viewed that way if we were to change our policy and say the mere presence of a journalist means that target is off limits. Then they could be very manipulated by any enemy force, not just in this war but future wars.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a look at video of some of these attacks. Now what we're talking about tank grounds. This is the hotel here. And apparently the coalition forces, U.S. forces primarily, of course, in Baghdad, felt as if they were under threat. And the rules of engagement are pretty broad in that case. If you're fired upon, you don't have to clear anything with a higher authority. That's the way it should be, right?

KENNEDY: That's right, because you need to have that speed of reaction.

O'BRIEN: All right. Unfortunately, of course, this become more difficult thing. And let's move over to the Information Ministry where it gets even a little more interesting because the Arab network -- and I'll take you on a satellite ride across there.

This is the Palestine Hotel and we're going to go across the river, right by the Sinak (ph) bridge there to the information ministry. This is where we were set up camp with cameras prior to things getting really heated there.

And of course, this is the place where in the '91 Gulf War where all of the journalists were stationed right up there on the roof there of the Information Ministry. Al-Jazeera was still operating out of here even though it was widely reported by the Pentagon that this would be a desirable target because the Information Ministry, because of its role.

Does Al-Jazeera -- do they have any sort of leverage on their argument that somehow the U.S. has targeted that Arabic network?

KENNEDY: Well if we say we didn't target them, we did not. The thing about Al-Jazeera is to the extent that it acts as an arm of the Iraqi government, to that extent it is vulnerable.

And information, control of information to the Iraqi people is very important and that's what Saddam has done all along. His own leaders have -- presumably, controlled information to him, trying to make it more positive than it's actually was, this recent situation. And they've also tried to tell the Iraqi people that the U.S. forces and the coalition forces have not done the job that we know we've done.

O'BRIEN: So once again, from your perception, a justifiable target Information Ministry.

KENNEDY: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: General Claudia Kennedy, thank you very much for your insights. We appreciate it.

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




Rules of Engagement>


Aired April 8, 2003 - 14:17   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Talking with retired three-star General Claudia Kennedy of the U.S. Army. Her specialty, intelligence. So this is a fascinating time to have her and kind of borrow her brain through all of this.
First of all, I do -- before we get into sot of the intel aspects of this, which are fascinating as this progresses because as it becomes less of a military operation in some sense, it becomes more of an intel and political.

Why don't you just talk about that for a second, how it moves into a different realm, intelligence and politics and giving a perception to the Iraqi people seem to be key right now.

LT. GEN. CLAUDIA KENNEDY (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's right. This is a military operation right now, primarily led by military decision makers and forces. It will become more of a political and cultural operation as the military part of it becomes very clear that the coalition forces have defeated this particular regime. So then the political and the cultural comes to the forward, followed by, and hopefully, coincidental with economic development.

O'BRIEN: It's interesting. A lot of people tuning in today might say did I miss the end of this war? It sort of suddenly has become a very dynamic, different situation.

Let's talk for a moment about the journalists. I know I'm skipping out over the place. But I'm interested in this, a thought that you brought out. We're talking about some incidents that occurred, the information Ministry and at the Palestine hotel depicted here on the map table, with those explosions.

I want to zoom you in, looking at some of the satellite imagery on that part of the world. First of all we're going to go down, this is a big wide shot of Baghdad. There's the international airport, there's the center of town, that's where we're going to head to once I zoom this thing in.

I'm going to take you first of all to the Republican palace. Which, you know, let's not -- I don't know if we stated it enough, I mean, you've got U.S. troops there. That's like having an enemy force at the White House. That's a significant moment. That is sending a signal right there to the Iraqi people, isn't it?

KENNEDY: It surely is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Now, form the Republican palace, let's move over to the Palestine Hotel which is where the Information Ministry had set up shop and where a lot of journalists were operating. And according to the Pentagon where there was some fire coming from military -- that's the Palestine Hotel. That's where Nic Robertson was, Rym Brahimi before they had to leave town.

It's interesting, I'm sure journalists, if you ask them, would not want to be called human shields. But in a sense, they could be viewed that way, right?

KENNEDY: They could be viewed that way if we were to change our policy and say the mere presence of a journalist means that target is off limits. Then they could be very manipulated by any enemy force, not just in this war but future wars.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a look at video of some of these attacks. Now what we're talking about tank grounds. This is the hotel here. And apparently the coalition forces, U.S. forces primarily, of course, in Baghdad, felt as if they were under threat. And the rules of engagement are pretty broad in that case. If you're fired upon, you don't have to clear anything with a higher authority. That's the way it should be, right?

KENNEDY: That's right, because you need to have that speed of reaction.

O'BRIEN: All right. Unfortunately, of course, this become more difficult thing. And let's move over to the Information Ministry where it gets even a little more interesting because the Arab network -- and I'll take you on a satellite ride across there.

This is the Palestine Hotel and we're going to go across the river, right by the Sinak (ph) bridge there to the information ministry. This is where we were set up camp with cameras prior to things getting really heated there.

And of course, this is the place where in the '91 Gulf War where all of the journalists were stationed right up there on the roof there of the Information Ministry. Al-Jazeera was still operating out of here even though it was widely reported by the Pentagon that this would be a desirable target because the Information Ministry, because of its role.

Does Al-Jazeera -- do they have any sort of leverage on their argument that somehow the U.S. has targeted that Arabic network?

KENNEDY: Well if we say we didn't target them, we did not. The thing about Al-Jazeera is to the extent that it acts as an arm of the Iraqi government, to that extent it is vulnerable.

And information, control of information to the Iraqi people is very important and that's what Saddam has done all along. His own leaders have -- presumably, controlled information to him, trying to make it more positive than it's actually was, this recent situation. And they've also tried to tell the Iraqi people that the U.S. forces and the coalition forces have not done the job that we know we've done.

O'BRIEN: So once again, from your perception, a justifiable target Information Ministry.

KENNEDY: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: General Claudia Kennedy, thank you very much for your insights. We appreciate it.

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




Rules of Engagement>