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Interview With Paul Bremer
Aired August 19, 2003 - 15:33 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, since the end of the war, Iraq has witnessed guerrilla and acts of sabotage. And now in the past two weeks, two significant acts of terrorism.
A short time ago in Baghdad, CNN's Rym Brahimi asked Paul Bremer to assess the information. As you know, he's the U.S. official in charge of reconstruction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL BREMER, U.S. IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION: It certainly is a new thing we've only seen once before here, which was the car bomb about 10 days ago against the Jordanian embassy. It is a clear act of terrorism. It took innocent lives -- Iraqis, people working for the U.N. whose only goal was to help make Iraq a better place to live. It's really the ugliest face of terrorism you can imagine.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did you see -- what kind of measures can you take in the face of these new attacks. You were mentioning it very similar to the Jordanian embassy bombings, which I think were the largest explosions since the end of the war.
What -- are you going to change your tactic to match those (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
BREMER: Well, we have been aware of the threat of terrorist attacks here for some time, and we've been working with our intelligence services and with our military to try to thwart those attacks where possible.
Now we have the problem of trying to figure out who did this, as we do with the Jordanian attack. That is to see if we can find the criminals who did this and bring them to justice. Iraqi police are already working hard on the scene at the U.N. building tonight. And we will do our best to disrupt and thwart attacks in the future, to the extent the intelligence allows us to do that.
BRAHIMI: How do you see this as having an impact on the general economic situation? There was a sabotage (UNINTELLIGIBLE), now this. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that's probably discouraging (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who want to rebuild.
BREMER: Well, we believe that we must make security our first job and we have made it our first job. And on the whole, the security getting better. It's not yet good enough. The attacks on the economic infrastructure of this country are attacks on the Iraqi people. The attack on the pipeline and was a direct attack on assets owned by the Iraqis on things they need. The oil that we're losing now is going to cost them millions and millions of dollars while we repair that pipeline.
So these are people -- as Hashimi (ph) said -- these are people who do not share the vision that we have of a free Democratic Iraq with a good economy. These are people who are trying to go back in history and they won't succeed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: That was U.S. Administrator Paul Bremer speaking today to CNN's Rym Brahimi.
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 August 19, 2003 - 15:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, since the end of the war, Iraq has witnessed guerrilla and acts of sabotage. And now in the past two weeks, two significant acts of terrorism.
A short time ago in Baghdad, CNN's Rym Brahimi asked Paul Bremer to assess the information. As you know, he's the U.S. official in charge of reconstruction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL BREMER, U.S. IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION: It certainly is a new thing we've only seen once before here, which was the car bomb about 10 days ago against the Jordanian embassy. It is a clear act of terrorism. It took innocent lives -- Iraqis, people working for the U.N. whose only goal was to help make Iraq a better place to live. It's really the ugliest face of terrorism you can imagine.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did you see -- what kind of measures can you take in the face of these new attacks. You were mentioning it very similar to the Jordanian embassy bombings, which I think were the largest explosions since the end of the war.
What -- are you going to change your tactic to match those (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
BREMER: Well, we have been aware of the threat of terrorist attacks here for some time, and we've been working with our intelligence services and with our military to try to thwart those attacks where possible.
Now we have the problem of trying to figure out who did this, as we do with the Jordanian attack. That is to see if we can find the criminals who did this and bring them to justice. Iraqi police are already working hard on the scene at the U.N. building tonight. And we will do our best to disrupt and thwart attacks in the future, to the extent the intelligence allows us to do that.
BRAHIMI: How do you see this as having an impact on the general economic situation? There was a sabotage (UNINTELLIGIBLE), now this. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that's probably discouraging (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who want to rebuild.
BREMER: Well, we believe that we must make security our first job and we have made it our first job. And on the whole, the security getting better. It's not yet good enough. The attacks on the economic infrastructure of this country are attacks on the Iraqi people. The attack on the pipeline and was a direct attack on assets owned by the Iraqis on things they need. The oil that we're losing now is going to cost them millions and millions of dollars while we repair that pipeline.
So these are people -- as Hashimi (ph) said -- these are people who do not share the vision that we have of a free Democratic Iraq with a good economy. These are people who are trying to go back in history and they won't succeed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: That was U.S. Administrator Paul Bremer speaking today to CNN's Rym Brahimi.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
