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Latest from Baghdad

Aired April 24, 2003 - 13:13   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: Let's turn our attention now to Baghdad, where we find CNN's Jim Clancy.
Jim, I don't know if you have much to add on the Speicher story. But I do know it is a busy day in Baghdad as Jay Garner, the general in charge there, attempts to hold a town meeting, an attempt to get utilities underway. And then there's these videotapes of Saddam Hussein which we've been watching here. I don't suppose that's causing much of a stir there, since no one has TV yet. But I'm curious what people are saying that have seen them.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, they do cause a stir, because I can tell you that Iraqis are fascinated by the way that Saddam Hussein and his family lived. They're fascinated with everything about them, whether it's a car that belonged to Uday or whether it's the president at his birthday party. And that's one of the videos CNN obtained. It's a video that shows a much younger and thinner President Saddam Hussein, back in 1987, on his 50th birthday. You can hear children chanting in the background of the video.

You can't really call it a home movie, Miles, because it apparently was shot by professional video cameramen. And it just shows him at that birthday party. And of course Iraqis have seen the public display for his birthday. It was a national holiday. But this private view of him, they're not used to seeing, especially when you get down to things like he's kissing his wife goodbye. She's leaving -- this is his first wife, Sajeeta (ph). She was leaving on a trip to Cairo. This was in the late 1980s, we believe. And in the video, you see the president kiss her goodbye, something that Iraqis wouldn't normally see, and this was the kind of thing that wasn't shown on television.

However there were some of these videos that were made, private videos, maybe we can call them, that did make it on to Iraqi television. This one showing their son, Uday Hussein. This video, taken some time after 1986, and it was broadcast on Iraqi National Television. It shows Uday with two pet lions, or two lion cubs. And he's feeding them. You see him leaning on a cane. Now in 1986, he was the subject of an assassination attempt. He was shot 17 times. He nearly died from the loss of blood, according to one of the physicians who attended him, an orthopedic surgeon who repaired the bones in one of his legs. He still walks with a pronounced limp. He's undergone all kinds of surgeries and rehabilitation for that, but still long-term effects.

And the video was probably put out on television, specifically to prove he was getting around. There was all kinds of rumors he had been paralyzed, he was never going to walk again, and that he was going to die. But, in fact, his physician told me, one of them told me, that he did make what you could call a full recovery -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jim, these tapes, while fascinating in their own, I guess, kind of sick or twisted way, because of the subject matter and who we're seeing and what we know about their past wrongdoings, did they really add anything to the case against the Hussein regime?

CLANCY: They don't add anything in the legal sense against President Saddam Hussein, but what they do add, for Iraqis -- and what's important for them -- is that they look at this lifestyle, they see their own suffering, they see the hardships of not being able to afford bread, and they see that all of this time, President Saddam Hussein was not affected in any way, shape or form, by sanctions. Just another sense, if you will, evidence, if you will, that they were betrayed by a regime that was cruel to them, and yet lived in its own style of luxury.

O'BRIEN: I'm sure it's something they knew intuitively, but seeing it has got to be difficult. Jim Clancy, in Baghdad, thanks as always

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 24, 2003 - 13:13   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn our attention now to Baghdad, where we find CNN's Jim Clancy.
Jim, I don't know if you have much to add on the Speicher story. But I do know it is a busy day in Baghdad as Jay Garner, the general in charge there, attempts to hold a town meeting, an attempt to get utilities underway. And then there's these videotapes of Saddam Hussein which we've been watching here. I don't suppose that's causing much of a stir there, since no one has TV yet. But I'm curious what people are saying that have seen them.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, they do cause a stir, because I can tell you that Iraqis are fascinated by the way that Saddam Hussein and his family lived. They're fascinated with everything about them, whether it's a car that belonged to Uday or whether it's the president at his birthday party. And that's one of the videos CNN obtained. It's a video that shows a much younger and thinner President Saddam Hussein, back in 1987, on his 50th birthday. You can hear children chanting in the background of the video.

You can't really call it a home movie, Miles, because it apparently was shot by professional video cameramen. And it just shows him at that birthday party. And of course Iraqis have seen the public display for his birthday. It was a national holiday. But this private view of him, they're not used to seeing, especially when you get down to things like he's kissing his wife goodbye. She's leaving -- this is his first wife, Sajeeta (ph). She was leaving on a trip to Cairo. This was in the late 1980s, we believe. And in the video, you see the president kiss her goodbye, something that Iraqis wouldn't normally see, and this was the kind of thing that wasn't shown on television.

However there were some of these videos that were made, private videos, maybe we can call them, that did make it on to Iraqi television. This one showing their son, Uday Hussein. This video, taken some time after 1986, and it was broadcast on Iraqi National Television. It shows Uday with two pet lions, or two lion cubs. And he's feeding them. You see him leaning on a cane. Now in 1986, he was the subject of an assassination attempt. He was shot 17 times. He nearly died from the loss of blood, according to one of the physicians who attended him, an orthopedic surgeon who repaired the bones in one of his legs. He still walks with a pronounced limp. He's undergone all kinds of surgeries and rehabilitation for that, but still long-term effects.

And the video was probably put out on television, specifically to prove he was getting around. There was all kinds of rumors he had been paralyzed, he was never going to walk again, and that he was going to die. But, in fact, his physician told me, one of them told me, that he did make what you could call a full recovery -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jim, these tapes, while fascinating in their own, I guess, kind of sick or twisted way, because of the subject matter and who we're seeing and what we know about their past wrongdoings, did they really add anything to the case against the Hussein regime?

CLANCY: They don't add anything in the legal sense against President Saddam Hussein, but what they do add, for Iraqis -- and what's important for them -- is that they look at this lifestyle, they see their own suffering, they see the hardships of not being able to afford bread, and they see that all of this time, President Saddam Hussein was not affected in any way, shape or form, by sanctions. Just another sense, if you will, evidence, if you will, that they were betrayed by a regime that was cruel to them, and yet lived in its own style of luxury.

O'BRIEN: I'm sure it's something they knew intuitively, but seeing it has got to be difficult. Jim Clancy, in Baghdad, thanks as always

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