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President Bush, Danish Prime Minister Speak to Reporters; Mideast Unrest; State of Insurgency

Aired June 09, 2006 - 11:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And there you have it, the president wrapping up a news conference with the Danish prime minister, Anders Rasmussen.
Let me deal with some of the -- some of the lesser notes of the press conference...

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: OK.

HARRIS: ... and then we'll get to the meet of the matter.

NGUYEN: There's a lot that they talked about.

HARRIS: Yes, there really is.

The first time in two years that a foreign leader has visited Camp David. And Prime Minister Rasmussen briefing the president on his visit to Iraq and his conversations with the new Iraqi prime minister. The men talked about -- in the bilateral conversation between the president and the prime minister, they talked about a diplomatic solution to Iran, the genocide in Darfur. Guantanamo Bay was raised as an issue for the prime minister. He talked about the treatment of detainees there.

And then we got to the meat of the matter, the president responding to the death of Zarqawi in Iraq.

NGUYEN: Well, and a question that was asked, unlike when Saddam was captured, when the death of Zarqawi was made available to the public, why wasn't the president, I guess, overjoyed or expressed excitement about that? And what the president basically said was, yes, I'm proud of our troops, but this is just one man.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: And this is not going to end the war. And this man has a lot of blood on his hands, talking about Zarqawi. And that while it is a sign of progress, it is not the solution to all the problems.

So, in talking about that solution, a lot of people think the solution is when this will end, when the war's going to end, and when the U.S. troops are going to come home. That's what a lot of people have on their minds.

And in answering that, the president said, "Yes, I would like to get the troops home, but we have to establish victory." And in establishing victory, he says there are three things: for Iraq to sustain itself, to govern itself, and to defend itself. And so in order to help Iraq do this, they are meeting, they being the president and his advisers...

HARRIS: Monday and Tuesday.

NGUYEN: ... Monday and Tuesday. And they're going to talk about Iraq's new government and review the Iraqi strategy that the new prime minister there in Iraq has put forward.

HARRIS: So what we'll do is, we will talk about this in greater detail with our team of correspondents. Kathleen Koch at Camp David with the president and the prime minister. We'll bring in Barbara Starr from the Pentagon, John Vause in Baghdad.

But right now we have a developing story in Gaza City.

Let's get to Fredricka Whitfield, who is following that story for us.

Hi, Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Tony and Betty.

In Gaza City, as well in other parts of Israel, reports of violence.

Our Fionnuala Sweeney is in Jerusalem tackling all of those subjects today -- Fionnuala.

FIONNUALA SWEENEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, there's been a heightened amount of military activity in and around the northern Gaza Strip, southern Israeli area, over the last 24 hours. But there has been increasing activity over the last two or three hours.

We understand that there has been shelling from an Israeli navy ship towards a coastal area in northern Gaza. We understand at least 20 people have been injured, and that there are some fatalities.

This is essentially a known no man's land area which, of course, has been vacated since Israel carried out its disengagement from Gaza last August. But it's an area that's been used by militants to fire Kassam rockets into southern Israeli.

Also within the last two hours, we're hearing there was a car explosion with a missile strike. Three Palestinians were killed. The Israeli military saying they were about to launch a Kassam rocket into southern Israel, and they took retaliatory action. And we're also hearing as well that at least one other car has exploded within the last hour, but we don't have any more details on casualties.

This follows the killing, I should say, of a very senior official in the a Hamas-led government. The security chief was killed in an Israeli missile strike overnight. His funeral took place earlier Friday, and it caused a huge outcry among Palestinians. Gaza is a very angry place at the moment, calling for revenge as these military actions continue -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And Fionnuala, in Gaza, this considered a retaliatory strike. And the target was supposed to be, what, a place of the militants, or a place where they were housing some of their artillery? And how is it that it ended up landing on the beach where there were a number of people, including children?

SWEENEY: Well, it may not have landed quite on the beach, Fredricka. We do know that it's landed in a coastal area near the beach. And so it's essentially a no man's land from which these rockets have been launched.

Now, these Kassam rockets have caused a lot of problems for Israel. They were sort of a bit of an embarrassment initially because they would be fired rather amateurishly and just land in no man's land in southern Israel. But increasingly, they've been landing in the southern Israeli town of Sadrots (ph), and one near the defense minister's home. Another landing in a school just a week or so ago, but children were not present in the classroom at the time.

And so this has become -- these Kassam rockets have become something of a strategic problem for Israel, and they're determined that they're going to strike them, their policies, strike those who are launching these Kassam rockets much as they struck Hamas militants about two years ago, which led to an informal truce that Hamas has been carrying out with Israel. But certainly the tension on the streets in Gaza has been extremely high between Fatah, who used to be in the government, and now Hamas supporters who are in the government.

And now you have this extra added dimension which has never really gone away, of course. The Israeli-Palestinian making Gaza an extremely tense place this Friday -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Fionnuala Sweeney, thanks so much for that update out of Jerusalem --Betty and Tony.

HARRIS: OK. Very good, Fred. Thank you.

NGUYEN: And we want to get back to the president's press conference there, and talking with our roundtable of correspondents.

First up to bat, Kathleen Koch. She's at the White House.

Kathleen, President Bush talked about this meeting on Monday and Tuesday. Give us a little more insight as to what's going to be discussed.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as the president said, what they're going to be doing is, he'll meeting with his team, you know, the defense secretary, Condi Rice, all sorts of -- the big players in his administration. And they will be video-conferencing with the leaders in Iraq, talking about what Iraq's needs are, what Iraq's plan is for the future, and how the United States can help. And they really want to try to move the ball forward ahead of what they have already done. Now, taking a look at the press conference that we just saw between the president and the prime minister of Denmark, some very interesting remarks. And perhaps some of the most telling is that, besides Iraq and besides the very high-profile death of Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, was the fact that the -- that the prime minister zeroed in on some of these human rights violations, both those that have already been prosecuted in Abu Ghraib prison, and then those alleged at Haditha, Hamdaniya. And very interesting for an ally to stand there and bring these subjects up for the president to acknowledge, yes, they've discussed them.

And Prime Minister Rasmussen saying, if we're there to promote freedom and democracy and human rights, then we've got to uphold those values, otherwise it sets our cause back so very far. And the president did agree, talking about Abu Ghraib prison, saying that what happened there was a disgusting event. And with these other incidents, saying that those involved will be brought to justice.

Back to you.

NGUYEN: Kathleen Koch at the White House.

Thank you for that, Kathleen.

Well, there is new information this morning about the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. U.S. forces dropped a pair of 500-pound bombs on his hideout Wednesday. Now the military says al- Zarqawi initially survived that massive attack.

Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr asked about it during this morning's briefing from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, MULTINATIONAL FORCE, IRAQ: Zarqawi, in fact, did survive the airstrike. The report specifically states that nobody else did survive, though, from what they know.

The first people on the scene were the Iraqi police. They had found him and put him into some kind of gurney stretcher kind of thing, and then American coalition forces arrived immediately thereafter on site.

They immediately went to the person in the stretcher, were able to start identifying him by some distinguishing marks on his body. They had some kind of visual facial recognition. According to the person on the ground, Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher. They -- everybody re-secured him back on to the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds that he had received from this airstrike.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: To clarify then, you can confirm that U.S. troops themselves saw and can confirm to you that Zarqawi was alive? That is confirmed by U.S. troops on the ground? And his attempt to turn away, would you describe that as an attempt even in the state he was in to escape at that point? Why did you -- was he strong enough for anyone to have to re-secure him?

CALDWELL: Again, I'm reading the report. I did not talk specifically to any uniformed person. But according to the report, we did in fact see him alive, there was some kind of movement he had on the stretcher. And he died shortly thereafter. But yes, it was confirmed by other than the Iraqi police that he was alive initially.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Barbara Starr joins us now live.

Boy, I have two questions. I don't know which -- let me try this.

Barbara, I want to go back to the press conference with the president for just a moment. Did the president suggest that Special Forces may have been involved in this operation?

STARR: Absolutely, Tony. As we were listening to that press conference by President Bush, there was a very revealing detail that the president perhaps inadvertently offered that people who don't regularly cover the Pentagon might have skipped.

The president said he made a phone call to General Stanley McCrystal to congratulate him on the operation of killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Let's tell you who General McCrystal is.

There are very few photographs of him, because right now General McCrystal is the commander of an organization that is publicly called the Joint Special Operations Command, but, in fact, General McCrystal leads some of the most secret covert Special Operations Forces in the United States military.

That's a picture of General McCrystal when he served here in the Pentagon a couple years ago. But by telling us that he phoned General McCrystal to congratulate him on this operation, the president is telling the world that some of the United States most elite Special Forces that General McCrystal commands were involved in this operation to kill Zarqawi.

HARRIS: Wow. That's very good. Very good.

And Barbara, about the operation, Zarqawi is alive after the bombs drop.

NGUYEN: Right, initially. Right.

HARRIS: For a while there, initially. And then there's this moment where he turns -- and we're not sure whether he was attempting to escape or what he was doing. There seems to be the suggestion out there that perhaps, that perhaps -- and I just want to stress that -- an autopsy is being performed to prove this conclusively -- that perhaps he may have been shot. That's out there, isn't it?

STARR: Well, it is out there. You know, General Caldwell perhaps was not very happy today that he had to come out and revise his remarks from yesterday, because the information that General Caldwell clearly was given by officials in the chain of command yesterday was that Zarqawi died instantly.

Today, General Caldwell compelled to come out and correct himself and say that Zarqawi was alive, at least for a few minutes, that the Iraqis saw him alive, put him on a gurney. The U.S. arrived within minutes, tried to render medical assistance. Zarqawi, in this state that he was in, mumbles, tries to turn away.

Was he trying to escape in the very last seconds of his life? That has raised the question in those minutes, did something happen, did he really die from the wounds, the injuries suffered from being on the receiving end of two 500-pound bombs? And the question that -- you know, General Caldwell saying today, to the best of his knowledge now...

HARRIS: Yes.

STARR: ... that is how Zarqawi died, from the bomb blast. But no one can actually explain just yet how it is that Zarqawi's face remains so intact.

General Caldwell saying they simply wiped the blood and debris off his face, that those pictures were not digitally altered in any way, that there was no plastic surgery-type operations performed on Zarqawi's face. It's a subject of interest to a lot of people, how your face...

HARRIS: Yes.

STARR: ... remains so intact after being on the receiving end of two 500-pound bombs.

One explanation could be that Zarqawi might not -- might have been outside at the time the bombs dropped, outside the house, didn't get the direct hit. But at this point, Tony, nobody really knows for sure.

HARRIS: Yes. And I don't want to be too gruesome about this, but is the body intact? The rest of the body intact, to the best of our knowledge?

STARR: Well, to the best of our knowledge, the way it has been described to us -- and you can discern this a bit from some of the photos -- there are -- there is grievous injury, if you will, to the back of his head, to his chest, and his neck.

HARRIS: OK.

STARR: What no one can tell us, or they're not telling us, is how they made that fingerprint match that they're talking about. Did they -- you know, what body part in what shape did they find to match those fingerprints?

HARRIS: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: And the only reason I'm asking is there are still...

NGUYEN: Because people want to know, yes.

HARRIS: Yes.

NGUYEN: A lot of questions surfacing.

HARRIS: There's still a lot to learn.

NGUYEN: And the DNA testing is being done, too, right now.

Barbara Starr, thank you for that.

We want to go now to CNN's John Vause, who joins us from Baghdad.

And John, the question now, is what happens next? Who's going to replace Zarqawi. A man by the name of al-Masri, that name is popping up.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abu al-Masri, according to U.S. military spokesmen here, al-Masri was born in Egypt, he was one of Zarqawi's lieutenants. He trained in Afghanistan. An expert in making IEDs, the improvised explosive devices that have caused the coalition forces here so much trouble.

Information to the U.S. military suggests that al-Masri came here in 2002 or 2003, set up an al Qaeda cell somewhere in Baghdad. So here is the name being thrown out there at the moment.

Whether or not he does take charge is not known, but the U.S. military does expect that the position of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the self-proclaimed leader, as Zarqawi was, that position will be filled. And the question then is, will the Al Qaeda in Iraq operation continue on with the same tactics that Zarqawi had used for the past two years, those brutal tactics, beheadings, kidnappings, targeting innocent Iraqi civilians?

A lot of assessments on behalf of the U.S. military suggest that those tactics had cost Zarqawi a lot of support amongst Iraqis and also within al Qaeda itself. It may have, in fact, led to his downfall when he was finally found in that safe house north of Baquba on Wednesday night, and killed in that airstrike -- Betty.

NGUYEN: So are you suggesting that maybe someone higher up in al Qaeda may have tipped off to where Zarqawi was?

VAUSE: Well, the information which we've been getting from the U.S. military and also from the Iraqi government, that's been out there for quite some time, is that they gathered intelligence from within Zarqawi's own network. And whether that was somebody who was active within that operation or someone who'd been arrested as a high- ranking al Qaeda in Iraq, had been arrested by Jordanian officials on May 22nd and had been interrogated by Jordanian authorities and given information as well, whether or not that is one in the same person, no one is saying at this end, because they don't want to tip their hand that there may be, essentially, a squealer inside Zarqawi's operation.

But there was somebody within al Qaeda in Iraq who gave crucial information as to the whereabouts of Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, and they traced the spiritual adviser, and that led them to Zarqawi, so yes, someone inside his own organization essentially gave him up.

NGUYEN: All very interesting as we connect the dots.

John Vause in Baghdad, thank you.

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