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American Morning
Has CIA Penetrated Saddam Hussein's Inner Circle?
Aired March 24, 2003 - 07:55 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Has the CIA penetrated Saddam Hussein's inner circle? Information from a senior Iraqi official reportedly gave up the Iraqi leader's whereabouts, prompting President Bush to launch the decapitation strike last week.
This remarkable behind-the-scenes story is detailed in the current issue of "Newsweek." Evan Thomas is one of the writers. He joins us now from Washington.
Welcome back, Evan -- good to see you.
EVAN THOMAS, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Paula.
ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what your story details, how the CIA and Special Forces were working behind the scenes to topple Saddam Hussein. How did that work?
THOMAS: Well, they had been on the ground in Baghdad for a long time. The Delta Force was in there tapping Iraqi telephones, underground cables.
But the big breakthrough came when we -- the CIA managed to recruit a top Iraqi official who was close to Saddam, and he knew a crucial thing, which is where Saddam Hussein would be sleeping last Wednesday night. As you know, Saddam moves around a lot, doesn't sleep in one place. So that knowledge was terrifically important.
And he was able to provide it to the CIA. At 3:00 in the afternoon the director of the CIA, Tenet, got it, went to the Pentagon and then to the White House, and they were able to mount that strike, which hit a bunker that contained Saddam and probably a couple of his sons. Whether it killed them is less certain.
ZAHN: Is it true that at that point of time the administration actually thought they could end the war before it started if this worked?
THOMAS: Well, yes. I mean, this is what they call a "decapitation strike," and they could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if they had wiped out Saddam and his top leadership. They were already talking to Iraqi army generals, top Republican Guard officials, people close to Saddam, and that they hoped would be the tipping point enough to make the rest of them thrown down their arms and essentially give up.
ZAHN: So, Evan, what is it we know about this informant and what his motivation was for turning on Saddam? THOMAS: What our sources told us was that he faced what they called the "balance of fear," meaning that the risk that he would get caught by Saddam balanced against the certainty that American forces were going to come in and kill Saddam and everybody around him. And he reached a tipping point that they hoped -- that the Americans hoped a lot of top Iraqi officials reach soon, which is this knowledge that they're going to be dead unless they play ball with the Americans.
ZAHN: What do you know about who was injured or killed? Senator Lugar went on television yesterday suggesting that intelligence now indicates that Saddam was carried away on a stretcher.
THOMAS: There were reports to that effect. What we heard from the administration folks on Saturday was that they thought that Saddam had been injured. But I don't think anybody really knows for sure. I don't think that that is certain intelligence.
ZAHN: And finally, you write about how the CIA collected the online addresses and private phone numbers of Saddam's top generals. How did they do that?
THOMAS: Well, it's just amazing. They were calling, Saddam's generals would be sitting, their phone would ring, and it would be one of our guys saying that your war is over, the end is near, surrender. And most of them hung up, but some of them engaged through cut-outs typically, through former Iraqi generals. But this whole active communication, they got cell phone numbers and they got e-mail addresses. I don't know how they got them. I think it's good hackers can do almost anything, but they did get them.
ZAHN: It's really surreal reading this stuff, a fascinating story. Thanks for sharing some of it with us this morning.
THOMAS: Thanks, Paula.
ZAHN: Evan Thomas of "Newsweek" magazine, assistant managing editor.
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 March 24, 2003 - 07:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Has the CIA penetrated Saddam Hussein's inner circle? Information from a senior Iraqi official reportedly gave up the Iraqi leader's whereabouts, prompting President Bush to launch the decapitation strike last week.
This remarkable behind-the-scenes story is detailed in the current issue of "Newsweek." Evan Thomas is one of the writers. He joins us now from Washington.
Welcome back, Evan -- good to see you.
EVAN THOMAS, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Paula.
ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what your story details, how the CIA and Special Forces were working behind the scenes to topple Saddam Hussein. How did that work?
THOMAS: Well, they had been on the ground in Baghdad for a long time. The Delta Force was in there tapping Iraqi telephones, underground cables.
But the big breakthrough came when we -- the CIA managed to recruit a top Iraqi official who was close to Saddam, and he knew a crucial thing, which is where Saddam Hussein would be sleeping last Wednesday night. As you know, Saddam moves around a lot, doesn't sleep in one place. So that knowledge was terrifically important.
And he was able to provide it to the CIA. At 3:00 in the afternoon the director of the CIA, Tenet, got it, went to the Pentagon and then to the White House, and they were able to mount that strike, which hit a bunker that contained Saddam and probably a couple of his sons. Whether it killed them is less certain.
ZAHN: Is it true that at that point of time the administration actually thought they could end the war before it started if this worked?
THOMAS: Well, yes. I mean, this is what they call a "decapitation strike," and they could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if they had wiped out Saddam and his top leadership. They were already talking to Iraqi army generals, top Republican Guard officials, people close to Saddam, and that they hoped would be the tipping point enough to make the rest of them thrown down their arms and essentially give up.
ZAHN: So, Evan, what is it we know about this informant and what his motivation was for turning on Saddam? THOMAS: What our sources told us was that he faced what they called the "balance of fear," meaning that the risk that he would get caught by Saddam balanced against the certainty that American forces were going to come in and kill Saddam and everybody around him. And he reached a tipping point that they hoped -- that the Americans hoped a lot of top Iraqi officials reach soon, which is this knowledge that they're going to be dead unless they play ball with the Americans.
ZAHN: What do you know about who was injured or killed? Senator Lugar went on television yesterday suggesting that intelligence now indicates that Saddam was carried away on a stretcher.
THOMAS: There were reports to that effect. What we heard from the administration folks on Saturday was that they thought that Saddam had been injured. But I don't think anybody really knows for sure. I don't think that that is certain intelligence.
ZAHN: And finally, you write about how the CIA collected the online addresses and private phone numbers of Saddam's top generals. How did they do that?
THOMAS: Well, it's just amazing. They were calling, Saddam's generals would be sitting, their phone would ring, and it would be one of our guys saying that your war is over, the end is near, surrender. And most of them hung up, but some of them engaged through cut-outs typically, through former Iraqi generals. But this whole active communication, they got cell phone numbers and they got e-mail addresses. I don't know how they got them. I think it's good hackers can do almost anything, but they did get them.
ZAHN: It's really surreal reading this stuff, a fascinating story. Thanks for sharing some of it with us this morning.
THOMAS: Thanks, Paula.
ZAHN: Evan Thomas of "Newsweek" magazine, assistant managing editor.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
