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American Morning

The Scene in Baghdad

Aired April 14, 2003 - 08:03   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: For the latest now from Baghdad, we go straight to Jim Clancy. He joins us from the Iraqi capital right now.
Good morning, Jim.

JIM CLANCY, CNNI CORRESPONDENT: And good afternoon from Baghdad, Paula, where you can see some thick black smoke on the horizon of Baghdad, just past the 14th of Ramadan Mosque behind me. That is smoke, I am told by some of our local sources here, that is a government building that handed out housing permits. It inspected materials, things like that. Not anything sinister or anything political, but certainly just another target for looters who hauled away everything that wasn't nailed down in the way of office furniture and then torched the building. No firefighters. It's going to burn out of control for sometime. We've seen a repeat -- this is a repeat, really, of what we've been seeing now for days.

At the same time, on the streets, as you noted, there have been protests. One noisy one said "Long live the Baath Party." It has to be understood here that the Baath Party, which was the political machine of President Saddam Hussein, largely was responsible for handing out government jobs and other posts that assured the well- being and the future of a lot people in the city. Some people want to save it. That is, former Baath Party. All of the others who were locked out of the regime, who didn't profit from it, want to see the Baath Party banned from any kind of a political role. They want to see it completely done away with. So there weren't a lot of protesters out there in favor of that and no protesters, we should say, in favor of President Saddam Hussein's return. No one in the capital is saying that, Paula.

ZAHN: I guess that shouldn't come as any great surprise. Jim Clancy, thanks so much for the update. We'll be seeing you a little bit later on this morning.

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 14, 2003 - 08:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For the latest now from Baghdad, we go straight to Jim Clancy. He joins us from the Iraqi capital right now.
Good morning, Jim.

JIM CLANCY, CNNI CORRESPONDENT: And good afternoon from Baghdad, Paula, where you can see some thick black smoke on the horizon of Baghdad, just past the 14th of Ramadan Mosque behind me. That is smoke, I am told by some of our local sources here, that is a government building that handed out housing permits. It inspected materials, things like that. Not anything sinister or anything political, but certainly just another target for looters who hauled away everything that wasn't nailed down in the way of office furniture and then torched the building. No firefighters. It's going to burn out of control for sometime. We've seen a repeat -- this is a repeat, really, of what we've been seeing now for days.

At the same time, on the streets, as you noted, there have been protests. One noisy one said "Long live the Baath Party." It has to be understood here that the Baath Party, which was the political machine of President Saddam Hussein, largely was responsible for handing out government jobs and other posts that assured the well- being and the future of a lot people in the city. Some people want to save it. That is, former Baath Party. All of the others who were locked out of the regime, who didn't profit from it, want to see the Baath Party banned from any kind of a political role. They want to see it completely done away with. So there weren't a lot of protesters out there in favor of that and no protesters, we should say, in favor of President Saddam Hussein's return. No one in the capital is saying that, Paula.

ZAHN: I guess that shouldn't come as any great surprise. Jim Clancy, thanks so much for the update. We'll be seeing you a little bit later on this morning.

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