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Interview With Dan Senor
Aired January 14, 2004 - 13:09 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: There's said to be evidence today that Saddam Hussein was suspicious of foreign Arabs, chiefly so-called jihadists who came to his chaotic country to fight Americans. U.S. officials cite a document now that they say was found with Saddam when he was pulled out of his spider hole a month ago. It warns that resistant leaders to be -- or resistance leaders, rather, to beware of close alliances with outsiders who presumably were more interested in drawing American blood than in returning to the Ba'ath Party to power.
Does that mean Saddam was, in fact, not in cohoots with al Qaeda? Joining me now from Baghdad to talk about this and other key issues, Dan Senor. He's the senior adviser to the U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer. Nice to see you, sir.
DAN SENOR, SENIOR ADVISER TO U.S. CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: Thank you, good afternoon.
PHILLIPS: Let's get you to respond to that front page article on "The New York Times" and this document that has surfaced. Basically, going against this alleged link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
SENOR: I haven't seen any intelligence to that effect. But I do know this, Saddam Hussein has not been terribly cooperative from what we hear from the folks involved in the interrogation. But by spending time with him, by looking at the information he has, by looking at the documents that were found with him, we are getting a better sense for the structure of the insurgency and for the financing behind it.
And that has helped, in part, give us some new momentum in the hunt for the other insurgents and those organizing attacks against the coalition and the Iraqi people.
PHILLIPS: You talk about these link from documents to other factions of the Saddam regime. What else can you tell us was found in that spider hole? I mean there were thousands of documents and a lot of curiosity still surrounds many of us.
SENOR: Yes, I would prefer not to get into specifics for two reasons. One, it's something within the domain of my colleagues in the military and the CJTF7.
But also because our forces continue to exploit that intelligence, gather information. The information has been very helpful. And for operational security reasons and to maximize the value of that intelligence, it's best not to, you know, to indicate where it is leading us. PHILLIPS: Well, with regard to that intelligence, and also talking about the insurgents and the attacks on reconstruction efforts, on U.S. troop, do you feel you're making any progress? Do you see, maybe through these documents, what you found in that spider hole, some operations or missions that may be in the works that will show Americans that progress is being made?
SENOR: What -- the big value -- the enormous value that has been generated by the capture of Saddam is the new momentum in the Iraqi people who are cooperating with us at an unprecedented level. Both in terms of their intelligence they're providing us and in terms of their willingness to step forward and play a role in the security of their own country.
To give you an example, the day after Saddam Hussein was captured, we had a spike, record number actually, of Iraqis who signed up to volunteer in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. That is one of the Iraqi security services.
There's a whole new group of Iraqis between Baghdad and Tikrit, which had been one of our more problematic areas in terms of the insurgency. They're a whole group in that area that are now stepping forward and, we believe, are in play. There are other folks, sort of mid and lower level Ba'athists, who were either hopeful that Saddam Hussein would return or fearful that he would return.
Well, they can no longer be hopeful and they can no longer be fearful. And suddenly, we have a shot at them -- not so much in capturing them, because so many are stepping forward to be helpful, but in engaging them, having them provide us intelligence, have them provide us high-quality intelligence and have them play a role in the reconstruction of their own country.
PHILLIPS: My final question, Mr. Senor, I want to touch on this before we move on. The election process. The new government that will control Iraq. Just the other day, Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, a primary leader, as you know, in the country's majority Shi'ite population, criticizing what the U.S. is proposing, saying that it needs a stronger Islamic character.
Are you taking that feedback and putting it in to another proposed plan? What's your view on that?
SENOR: Well, one of the principles we agreed we agreed with the governing consul to include in the basic law, which is to enshrine a sort of interim constitution, enshrine the values of a permanent Iraqi constitution, is to recognize the Islamic character or the Islamic identity of a majority of Iraqis while at the same time respecting and protecting freedom of worship and religious rights.
Broadly speaking, though, Ambassador Bremer, the coalition has tremendous respect for Ayatollah Sistani. He represents a deep tradition in this country in Shi'a Islam. He is a tremendous leader who represents a lot of very important people in this country. So we look forward to him playing a large role in the future of his own country. And we agree on a lot of things. We agree on the importance of democracy for Iraq, we agree on the importance direct elections according to our plan that we agreed on with the Governing Council. There will be two direct elections next year, both for the constitutional convention and for a permanent government.
The only issue is if we want to get to sovereignty quickly, and we want to hand over that sovereignty to a legitimate government, we and Ayatollah Sistani believe that it must be a government that's somehow elected.
If we want to do direct elections like he want, there's a mechanical challenge in that, a technical problem in that there's no voter rolls in this country, there are no party laws, there no constituent boundaries. And to get that up and running in time for the accelerated path for sovereignty that we've established will be difficult.
So it's really a mechanical issue we need to work through.
PHILLIPS: Dan Senor, senior adviser U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer live from Baghdad, we thank you for you're time.
SENOR: Thank you 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 January 14, 2004 - 13:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: There's said to be evidence today that Saddam Hussein was suspicious of foreign Arabs, chiefly so-called jihadists who came to his chaotic country to fight Americans. U.S. officials cite a document now that they say was found with Saddam when he was pulled out of his spider hole a month ago. It warns that resistant leaders to be -- or resistance leaders, rather, to beware of close alliances with outsiders who presumably were more interested in drawing American blood than in returning to the Ba'ath Party to power.
Does that mean Saddam was, in fact, not in cohoots with al Qaeda? Joining me now from Baghdad to talk about this and other key issues, Dan Senor. He's the senior adviser to the U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer. Nice to see you, sir.
DAN SENOR, SENIOR ADVISER TO U.S. CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: Thank you, good afternoon.
PHILLIPS: Let's get you to respond to that front page article on "The New York Times" and this document that has surfaced. Basically, going against this alleged link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
SENOR: I haven't seen any intelligence to that effect. But I do know this, Saddam Hussein has not been terribly cooperative from what we hear from the folks involved in the interrogation. But by spending time with him, by looking at the information he has, by looking at the documents that were found with him, we are getting a better sense for the structure of the insurgency and for the financing behind it.
And that has helped, in part, give us some new momentum in the hunt for the other insurgents and those organizing attacks against the coalition and the Iraqi people.
PHILLIPS: You talk about these link from documents to other factions of the Saddam regime. What else can you tell us was found in that spider hole? I mean there were thousands of documents and a lot of curiosity still surrounds many of us.
SENOR: Yes, I would prefer not to get into specifics for two reasons. One, it's something within the domain of my colleagues in the military and the CJTF7.
But also because our forces continue to exploit that intelligence, gather information. The information has been very helpful. And for operational security reasons and to maximize the value of that intelligence, it's best not to, you know, to indicate where it is leading us. PHILLIPS: Well, with regard to that intelligence, and also talking about the insurgents and the attacks on reconstruction efforts, on U.S. troop, do you feel you're making any progress? Do you see, maybe through these documents, what you found in that spider hole, some operations or missions that may be in the works that will show Americans that progress is being made?
SENOR: What -- the big value -- the enormous value that has been generated by the capture of Saddam is the new momentum in the Iraqi people who are cooperating with us at an unprecedented level. Both in terms of their intelligence they're providing us and in terms of their willingness to step forward and play a role in the security of their own country.
To give you an example, the day after Saddam Hussein was captured, we had a spike, record number actually, of Iraqis who signed up to volunteer in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. That is one of the Iraqi security services.
There's a whole new group of Iraqis between Baghdad and Tikrit, which had been one of our more problematic areas in terms of the insurgency. They're a whole group in that area that are now stepping forward and, we believe, are in play. There are other folks, sort of mid and lower level Ba'athists, who were either hopeful that Saddam Hussein would return or fearful that he would return.
Well, they can no longer be hopeful and they can no longer be fearful. And suddenly, we have a shot at them -- not so much in capturing them, because so many are stepping forward to be helpful, but in engaging them, having them provide us intelligence, have them provide us high-quality intelligence and have them play a role in the reconstruction of their own country.
PHILLIPS: My final question, Mr. Senor, I want to touch on this before we move on. The election process. The new government that will control Iraq. Just the other day, Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, a primary leader, as you know, in the country's majority Shi'ite population, criticizing what the U.S. is proposing, saying that it needs a stronger Islamic character.
Are you taking that feedback and putting it in to another proposed plan? What's your view on that?
SENOR: Well, one of the principles we agreed we agreed with the governing consul to include in the basic law, which is to enshrine a sort of interim constitution, enshrine the values of a permanent Iraqi constitution, is to recognize the Islamic character or the Islamic identity of a majority of Iraqis while at the same time respecting and protecting freedom of worship and religious rights.
Broadly speaking, though, Ambassador Bremer, the coalition has tremendous respect for Ayatollah Sistani. He represents a deep tradition in this country in Shi'a Islam. He is a tremendous leader who represents a lot of very important people in this country. So we look forward to him playing a large role in the future of his own country. And we agree on a lot of things. We agree on the importance of democracy for Iraq, we agree on the importance direct elections according to our plan that we agreed on with the Governing Council. There will be two direct elections next year, both for the constitutional convention and for a permanent government.
The only issue is if we want to get to sovereignty quickly, and we want to hand over that sovereignty to a legitimate government, we and Ayatollah Sistani believe that it must be a government that's somehow elected.
If we want to do direct elections like he want, there's a mechanical challenge in that, a technical problem in that there's no voter rolls in this country, there are no party laws, there no constituent boundaries. And to get that up and running in time for the accelerated path for sovereignty that we've established will be difficult.
So it's really a mechanical issue we need to work through.
PHILLIPS: Dan Senor, senior adviser U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer live from Baghdad, we thank you for you're time.
SENOR: Thank you 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
