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Tikrit Falls with little Resistance

Aired April 14, 2003 - 14:46   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: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Iraq. I want to immediately go to a reporter for the Cox newspapers, Larry Kaplow. He's in Baghdad right now. But he was in Tikrit not that long ago.
Larry, first of all, when were you in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown, and what did you see there?

LARRY KAPLOW, REPORTER COX NEWSPAPERS: Well, I was in Tikrit until about three hours ago. And the first thing we saw was -- we headed to the main presidential palace, the Omar al Farouk Palace, (ph). And It was being looted by many Tikrities, many of them from other towns taking everything they could take, furniture, books, chandeliers, ceiling fans. And then we talked to people out on the streets, the few who were out. It's still just coming to life. What we also saw were a lot of Marines. The Marines had gotten there several hours before us and said they found no resistance and basically popped open the gate and went into the palace.

BLITZER: Larry, were the Marines attempting to stop the looting or did they just sort of passively let it continue?

KAPLOW: They passively let it continue and almost facilitated it. They would -- sort of helped people get out the gates when they were trying to get people out. A couple of times they wanted to get people out of the palace and Marines would come in and tell them to move along or hurry up. Usually they weren't speaking Arabic and the Marines couldn't quite get their message across so they sort of corralled people out when they could. I don't think they cared about looting at the presidential palaces. I think to the extent they cared about looting would be at public or private homes and stores and offices -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Larry, when you were in Tikrit, a lot of people had braced for a last stand by Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard.

What did you hear there?

What happened to the Iraqi Army, the regular army as well as the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard?

Everybody seemed to have just disappeared.

KAPLOW: Well, what people in Tikrit told us was that the army left more than a week ago. And then these other militias, the Fedayeen and the various Mujahedeen from other Arab countries had left a couple of days after the army. Now, the explanation could be that on the way up we saw scores of destroyed vehicles and destroyed buildings that had obviously been hit in very persistent air strikes. When the Marines showed up today they told us there was very little -- there was no resistance.

BLITZER: Did you see extensive casualties, bodies alongside of roads?

Because we know that the U.S. had targeted all sorts of locations in and around Tikrit for days and days and days, weeks and weeks and weeks leading up to this event, namely, the crumbling of the Iraqi military. No resistance, no last stand to speak of.

KAPLOW: I saw no -- no bodies, no casualties. But that could also be because we were focused on getting to the city, and we were staying on the roads. Some of the damage was in buildings, on compounds, over walls at the roadside and a lot of it was just destroyed tanks and destroyed artillery. But I didn't see any bodies.

BLITZER: Finally, Larry, before I let you go, in the brief period you were in Tikrit, the Tikriti clan -- these are the people who benefited the most from Saddam Hussein. He himself was a Tikriti, and he gave them a lot of the rewards of the Ba'ath party and his regime. Did you get any sense while you were there if these people in Tikrit welcomed the United States and the coalition forces or were sort of resentful or even hateful of the U.S.?

KAPLOW: There was -- it was very fascinated actually. The ones who were often the streets are the ones that say they hated the regime all along and point to their little block houses and say I'm not rich, I didn't get rich off of Saddam Hussein. I was across the street from his palace and I wanted to kill him for the past 20 years. There are of course others who have vanished and others who stay inside. Tikrities know throughout Iraq they were despised as were people who perceived benefited from the regime and seem very eager to dispel that stereotype.

BLITZER: And was there a moment when a group went to one of the statues of Saddam Hussein and ripped it off and ran it through the city stepping on it or pounding on it with their shoes?

Was there that kind of moment that you eye witnessed in Tikrit?

KAPLOW: We didn't see that kind of moment. And it may have been -- you know at some of these other cities, the U.S. forces have sort of initiated that as a symbolic way of entering the city. They did not do that there. And there were people who -- even people who said they despised Saddam Hussein, who said they do not want Americans there. And many people told us the same thing you hear everywhere, that the Americans are only here for their oil. And in fact, there was a very small American flag that some of the troops had put on top of the main gate leading into the palace. I didn't even notice it. Other people pointed it out to me, Iraqis, and said, "we don't want that flag there." BLITZER: All right, Larry Kaplow, "Cox Newspapers." He is in Baghdad now. He was just in Tikrit, giving us eye witness accounts of what he saw and heard.

Larry, thanks very much.

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







Aired April 14, 2003 - 14:46   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Iraq. I want to immediately go to a reporter for the Cox newspapers, Larry Kaplow. He's in Baghdad right now. But he was in Tikrit not that long ago.
Larry, first of all, when were you in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown, and what did you see there?

LARRY KAPLOW, REPORTER COX NEWSPAPERS: Well, I was in Tikrit until about three hours ago. And the first thing we saw was -- we headed to the main presidential palace, the Omar al Farouk Palace, (ph). And It was being looted by many Tikrities, many of them from other towns taking everything they could take, furniture, books, chandeliers, ceiling fans. And then we talked to people out on the streets, the few who were out. It's still just coming to life. What we also saw were a lot of Marines. The Marines had gotten there several hours before us and said they found no resistance and basically popped open the gate and went into the palace.

BLITZER: Larry, were the Marines attempting to stop the looting or did they just sort of passively let it continue?

KAPLOW: They passively let it continue and almost facilitated it. They would -- sort of helped people get out the gates when they were trying to get people out. A couple of times they wanted to get people out of the palace and Marines would come in and tell them to move along or hurry up. Usually they weren't speaking Arabic and the Marines couldn't quite get their message across so they sort of corralled people out when they could. I don't think they cared about looting at the presidential palaces. I think to the extent they cared about looting would be at public or private homes and stores and offices -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Larry, when you were in Tikrit, a lot of people had braced for a last stand by Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard.

What did you hear there?

What happened to the Iraqi Army, the regular army as well as the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard?

Everybody seemed to have just disappeared.

KAPLOW: Well, what people in Tikrit told us was that the army left more than a week ago. And then these other militias, the Fedayeen and the various Mujahedeen from other Arab countries had left a couple of days after the army. Now, the explanation could be that on the way up we saw scores of destroyed vehicles and destroyed buildings that had obviously been hit in very persistent air strikes. When the Marines showed up today they told us there was very little -- there was no resistance.

BLITZER: Did you see extensive casualties, bodies alongside of roads?

Because we know that the U.S. had targeted all sorts of locations in and around Tikrit for days and days and days, weeks and weeks and weeks leading up to this event, namely, the crumbling of the Iraqi military. No resistance, no last stand to speak of.

KAPLOW: I saw no -- no bodies, no casualties. But that could also be because we were focused on getting to the city, and we were staying on the roads. Some of the damage was in buildings, on compounds, over walls at the roadside and a lot of it was just destroyed tanks and destroyed artillery. But I didn't see any bodies.

BLITZER: Finally, Larry, before I let you go, in the brief period you were in Tikrit, the Tikriti clan -- these are the people who benefited the most from Saddam Hussein. He himself was a Tikriti, and he gave them a lot of the rewards of the Ba'ath party and his regime. Did you get any sense while you were there if these people in Tikrit welcomed the United States and the coalition forces or were sort of resentful or even hateful of the U.S.?

KAPLOW: There was -- it was very fascinated actually. The ones who were often the streets are the ones that say they hated the regime all along and point to their little block houses and say I'm not rich, I didn't get rich off of Saddam Hussein. I was across the street from his palace and I wanted to kill him for the past 20 years. There are of course others who have vanished and others who stay inside. Tikrities know throughout Iraq they were despised as were people who perceived benefited from the regime and seem very eager to dispel that stereotype.

BLITZER: And was there a moment when a group went to one of the statues of Saddam Hussein and ripped it off and ran it through the city stepping on it or pounding on it with their shoes?

Was there that kind of moment that you eye witnessed in Tikrit?

KAPLOW: We didn't see that kind of moment. And it may have been -- you know at some of these other cities, the U.S. forces have sort of initiated that as a symbolic way of entering the city. They did not do that there. And there were people who -- even people who said they despised Saddam Hussein, who said they do not want Americans there. And many people told us the same thing you hear everywhere, that the Americans are only here for their oil. And in fact, there was a very small American flag that some of the troops had put on top of the main gate leading into the palace. I didn't even notice it. Other people pointed it out to me, Iraqis, and said, "we don't want that flag there." BLITZER: All right, Larry Kaplow, "Cox Newspapers." He is in Baghdad now. He was just in Tikrit, giving us eye witness accounts of what he saw and heard.

Larry, thanks very much.

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