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American Morning

Analysis of Saddam's Fate

Aired April 29, 2003 - 09:07   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Saddam Hussein is now 66, if he is still alive. His birthday yesterday subdued in terms of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and blind devotion, but there were celebrations, small ones, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit to mark the occasion. About 200 turned out. Concern that loyalists might use the day to make some sort of terrorist statement, or perhaps send a signal that Saddam is still alive.
The man in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq says he has heard a lot of rumors about Saddam's fate, but he has seen no hard evidence.

CNN analyst Ken Pollack, author of "The Threatening Storm," Saban Center, Brookings Institution, back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Ken -- good morning to you.

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Hey, Bill. Good to see you.

HEMMER: Before we talk about Saddam Hussein, this incident in Fallujah is really going to have, as we say in the business, a lot of legs running throughout the day here. What are you to make of this shooting?

POLLACK: Well, this is a very important incident. I'd say it's much more important than anything that might be happening with Saddam or not, because this is the kind of thing where, if it continues, it could make things look really ugly in Iraq.

What we need to keep in mind is Fallujah is a mostly tribal town west of Baghdad. It's full of Sunni tribes or Sunni tribesmen, who were some of the most important supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime. So, it's not terribly unexpected that you might find lots of people there with guns looking to get rid of the United States. There may be former Saddam Fedayeen among that group, there may be other supporters of Saddam Hussein.

The fact that this riot took place in Fallujah doesn't seem all that unexpected, and we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from it about the rest of the country.

HEMMER: I want to get back to Saddam Hussein right now. The reports we're getting from David Ensor is that Tariq Aziz says Saddam Hussein was alive after the initial strikes of March 19, but did not see him after, let's say, the date of April 7, when that house was bombed in West Baghdad.

If you couple that with the comments from Tommy Franks, where he says, I have seen nothing over the last week or two that convinces me he is still alive, put these two together, is there something at work here, Ken?

POLLACK: Well, it may be that the military really does believe that Saddam was killed in that second bombing attack. But again, you know, we just don't know the answer to that.

I think the more important point is that increasingly Saddam is becoming less and less relevant to the situation in Iraq. If he is alive, he is clearly on the run, he's on the lam, and he didn't have the opportunity to do anything yesterday to let people know that he's still alive, if he is still alive. And his ability to mount any kind of comeback, which is probably what he is thinking assuming he's alive, is getting fainter and fainter.

HEMMER: What do you think about him and his two sons right now? Can these men survive separately, independent of one another, knowing how they were so co-dependent when they ruled that country?

POLLACK: It's hard to imagine that Uday, Saddam's oldest son, will be able to live long by himself. There are so many people out there who would like to kill Uday, including people around Saddam Hussein. That if he's not with his father, it just seems unlikely, it seems like he would probably meet some kind of accidental fate if he weren't with his father.

Qusay is a different story. He actually did seem to be somewhat respected by Saddam's followers.

HEMMER: Let's talk about the six of spades, the former oil minister, also an adviser for Saddam Hussein. How critical is this find?

POLLACK: Another very important one, as always. It's important to remember, Saddam surrounded himself with a group of people, and he just kept putting them from one job to another. So Ubaydi is someone who has had various different jobs in the Iraqi government, all of them very important jobs. In all of those different capacities, he will be able to tell the United States some important things.

The big interesting question is, whether even after he went over to the oil ministry he still retained considerable knowledge about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And if that's the case, might he be able to tell U.S. forces where some of the WMD is located?

HEMMER: Your answer takes me right into my next question. Do you believe these reports from Tariq Aziz that indicates, at least in the initial stages of this war, possibly the few days before the war began, that weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in Iraq?

POLLACK: It is entirely possible, Bill. It's one of those things where I think for most people it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But when you start to see the world from Saddam's perspective, there is a logic to it. After all, his strategy seemed very much to make the world believe that he didn't have anything, to make it hard for the U.S. to launch the attack, and then to mount the attack on Baghdad, which he always thought would be his final bastion, the place where he would finally bring the U.S. to its knees.

HEMMER: Ken, thanks -- Ken Pollack, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on with us.

POLLACK: Good to see you.

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 29, 2003 - 09:07   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Saddam Hussein is now 66, if he is still alive. His birthday yesterday subdued in terms of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and blind devotion, but there were celebrations, small ones, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit to mark the occasion. About 200 turned out. Concern that loyalists might use the day to make some sort of terrorist statement, or perhaps send a signal that Saddam is still alive.
The man in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq says he has heard a lot of rumors about Saddam's fate, but he has seen no hard evidence.

CNN analyst Ken Pollack, author of "The Threatening Storm," Saban Center, Brookings Institution, back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Ken -- good morning to you.

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Hey, Bill. Good to see you.

HEMMER: Before we talk about Saddam Hussein, this incident in Fallujah is really going to have, as we say in the business, a lot of legs running throughout the day here. What are you to make of this shooting?

POLLACK: Well, this is a very important incident. I'd say it's much more important than anything that might be happening with Saddam or not, because this is the kind of thing where, if it continues, it could make things look really ugly in Iraq.

What we need to keep in mind is Fallujah is a mostly tribal town west of Baghdad. It's full of Sunni tribes or Sunni tribesmen, who were some of the most important supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime. So, it's not terribly unexpected that you might find lots of people there with guns looking to get rid of the United States. There may be former Saddam Fedayeen among that group, there may be other supporters of Saddam Hussein.

The fact that this riot took place in Fallujah doesn't seem all that unexpected, and we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from it about the rest of the country.

HEMMER: I want to get back to Saddam Hussein right now. The reports we're getting from David Ensor is that Tariq Aziz says Saddam Hussein was alive after the initial strikes of March 19, but did not see him after, let's say, the date of April 7, when that house was bombed in West Baghdad.

If you couple that with the comments from Tommy Franks, where he says, I have seen nothing over the last week or two that convinces me he is still alive, put these two together, is there something at work here, Ken?

POLLACK: Well, it may be that the military really does believe that Saddam was killed in that second bombing attack. But again, you know, we just don't know the answer to that.

I think the more important point is that increasingly Saddam is becoming less and less relevant to the situation in Iraq. If he is alive, he is clearly on the run, he's on the lam, and he didn't have the opportunity to do anything yesterday to let people know that he's still alive, if he is still alive. And his ability to mount any kind of comeback, which is probably what he is thinking assuming he's alive, is getting fainter and fainter.

HEMMER: What do you think about him and his two sons right now? Can these men survive separately, independent of one another, knowing how they were so co-dependent when they ruled that country?

POLLACK: It's hard to imagine that Uday, Saddam's oldest son, will be able to live long by himself. There are so many people out there who would like to kill Uday, including people around Saddam Hussein. That if he's not with his father, it just seems unlikely, it seems like he would probably meet some kind of accidental fate if he weren't with his father.

Qusay is a different story. He actually did seem to be somewhat respected by Saddam's followers.

HEMMER: Let's talk about the six of spades, the former oil minister, also an adviser for Saddam Hussein. How critical is this find?

POLLACK: Another very important one, as always. It's important to remember, Saddam surrounded himself with a group of people, and he just kept putting them from one job to another. So Ubaydi is someone who has had various different jobs in the Iraqi government, all of them very important jobs. In all of those different capacities, he will be able to tell the United States some important things.

The big interesting question is, whether even after he went over to the oil ministry he still retained considerable knowledge about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And if that's the case, might he be able to tell U.S. forces where some of the WMD is located?

HEMMER: Your answer takes me right into my next question. Do you believe these reports from Tariq Aziz that indicates, at least in the initial stages of this war, possibly the few days before the war began, that weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in Iraq?

POLLACK: It is entirely possible, Bill. It's one of those things where I think for most people it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But when you start to see the world from Saddam's perspective, there is a logic to it. After all, his strategy seemed very much to make the world believe that he didn't have anything, to make it hard for the U.S. to launch the attack, and then to mount the attack on Baghdad, which he always thought would be his final bastion, the place where he would finally bring the U.S. to its knees.

HEMMER: Ken, thanks -- Ken Pollack, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on with us.

POLLACK: Good to see you.

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