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American Morning
United Nations Says It's reconsidering Presence in Iraq
Aired September 22, 2003 - 08:08 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to Iraq. The United Nations says that it is reconsidering its presence in Iraq after its headquarters in Baghdad was attacked once again this morning. An Iraqi security guard was killed by a suicide car bomber. Four people today are in critical condition.
Peter Ford is a correspondent in Baghdad for the "Christian Science Monitor" and he joins us from the Iraqi capital this morning.
Good morning.
Nice to see you.
PETER FORD, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Let's first talk a little bit about the disparity between what we hear reported and then what Colin Powell writes, for example, in his editorial in the "Wall Street Journal." He says the Western media is not highlighting successes, only emphasizing failures, and that the picture that's being painted by the media is inaccurate.
Weigh in on that for me, please.
FORD: Well, obviously Secretary Powell is seeking out the best things that are happening and he's bound to paint as bright a picture as he possibly can of it. And I think he has a point. There are things happening. And when I compare Baghdad to the way it looked three or four months ago when I left for my last visit, it's clearly a different sort of city. It's not littered with anti-aircraft guns and burnt out tanks and months of litter, for example.
On the other hand, it is full of barricades. A few months ago, this looked like and felt like a liberated city. Today it looks and feels more like an occupied city, especially for foreigners and American troops.
But people are being paid. They're getting on with their business, although 50 percent of the population is unemployed. And ministries, some of them are getting back to work. School starts next week, for example, and the education ministry is hard at work doing everything from building school desks to rearranging the curriculum.
So things are happening. But a lot of what Secretary Powell would talk about seems to me to be a little bit virtual. You know, I mean we hear there's a central bank, we hear there's a new trade bank. But if you go there and ask who you have to talk to to open an account, nobody has an answer.
O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk a little bit about the things that contribute to a good standard of daily life -- for example, the electric generation; for example, the telephone service; for example, the media; for example, the satellite TV service. Tell me a little bit about where that stands and what the average American -- rather, excuse me, the average Iraqi is getting access to.
FORD: Well, electricity is still very patchy. It's getting better slowly, but in the big cities like Baghdad and Basra, it's still only about 12 hours a day, with a few hours on and a few hours off. Media is a much brighter scene. There are hundreds -- I mean I think about 150, 160 newspapers of one sort of another being published. People can read and write what they like, although I wouldn't believe most of what I read in them because Iraqis are prey to rumors and newspapers publish rumors.
As far as money goes, nobody's as poor as they were. People are being paid emergency payments if they don't have jobs, if their factories, for example, were looted and haven't reopened. Or they're being paid salaries. Now, these are not huge salaries by Western standards, but they're better than what most people were getting before. And there are goods in the shops. Nobody is going, having to go around trying to find food.
People are getting on with their lives one way or another. But as I say, the security situation is what bothers most people. I mean what worries them is when school opens next week, for example, whether they dare send their daughters to school for fear of kidnapping, which is on the rise in Baghdad and other big cities. Clearly, personal safety is the top priority and it's the one that I think the coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi authorities, they know that. They're just having a very hard time getting a grip on it.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about another front, the desire for democracy, I think is how Secretary Powell phrased it. And I guess I would call it the hearts and minds part of the equation.
How has the progress been on that front? Are you feeling hopeful about that?
FORD: Well, I think there's no doubt at all when you talk to Iraqis that what they want is democracy. I mean they've lived for 35 years under a dictatorship. They know what democracy might be and they want to express themselves. The differences arise when you talk about how soon that should happen, how fast the process should go. There are some leading politicians here who want to push it as fast as possible, take sovereignty over quickly and have elections as soon as they can.
The Americans, Jerry Bremer, who runs the place, is head of the CPA, is nervous about that. He's afraid that just a few big politicians might grab all the power and the rest are disorganized. And I think as long as the occupation troops, American and Allied troops, treat people well and come out of their shells and deal more openly and more -- in a more relaxed fashion with Iraqis, people will be prepared to put up with their presence for much longer than sometimes would appear the case.
But for as long as suicide bombers are out there, for as long as people are shooting at the Americans anything between 10 and 25 times a day, I think it's going to be very hard for those soldiers to come out of their shells. It's going to be hard for them to stop suspecting every Iraqi of being a potential terrorist.
But they're going to have to if they want the people's trust.
O'BRIEN: Peter Ford is a correspondent for the "Christian Science Monitor."
Peter, thanks.
Nice to see you.
FORD: You're welcome.
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 September 22, 2003 - 08:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to Iraq. The United Nations says that it is reconsidering its presence in Iraq after its headquarters in Baghdad was attacked once again this morning. An Iraqi security guard was killed by a suicide car bomber. Four people today are in critical condition.
Peter Ford is a correspondent in Baghdad for the "Christian Science Monitor" and he joins us from the Iraqi capital this morning.
Good morning.
Nice to see you.
PETER FORD, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Let's first talk a little bit about the disparity between what we hear reported and then what Colin Powell writes, for example, in his editorial in the "Wall Street Journal." He says the Western media is not highlighting successes, only emphasizing failures, and that the picture that's being painted by the media is inaccurate.
Weigh in on that for me, please.
FORD: Well, obviously Secretary Powell is seeking out the best things that are happening and he's bound to paint as bright a picture as he possibly can of it. And I think he has a point. There are things happening. And when I compare Baghdad to the way it looked three or four months ago when I left for my last visit, it's clearly a different sort of city. It's not littered with anti-aircraft guns and burnt out tanks and months of litter, for example.
On the other hand, it is full of barricades. A few months ago, this looked like and felt like a liberated city. Today it looks and feels more like an occupied city, especially for foreigners and American troops.
But people are being paid. They're getting on with their business, although 50 percent of the population is unemployed. And ministries, some of them are getting back to work. School starts next week, for example, and the education ministry is hard at work doing everything from building school desks to rearranging the curriculum.
So things are happening. But a lot of what Secretary Powell would talk about seems to me to be a little bit virtual. You know, I mean we hear there's a central bank, we hear there's a new trade bank. But if you go there and ask who you have to talk to to open an account, nobody has an answer.
O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk a little bit about the things that contribute to a good standard of daily life -- for example, the electric generation; for example, the telephone service; for example, the media; for example, the satellite TV service. Tell me a little bit about where that stands and what the average American -- rather, excuse me, the average Iraqi is getting access to.
FORD: Well, electricity is still very patchy. It's getting better slowly, but in the big cities like Baghdad and Basra, it's still only about 12 hours a day, with a few hours on and a few hours off. Media is a much brighter scene. There are hundreds -- I mean I think about 150, 160 newspapers of one sort of another being published. People can read and write what they like, although I wouldn't believe most of what I read in them because Iraqis are prey to rumors and newspapers publish rumors.
As far as money goes, nobody's as poor as they were. People are being paid emergency payments if they don't have jobs, if their factories, for example, were looted and haven't reopened. Or they're being paid salaries. Now, these are not huge salaries by Western standards, but they're better than what most people were getting before. And there are goods in the shops. Nobody is going, having to go around trying to find food.
People are getting on with their lives one way or another. But as I say, the security situation is what bothers most people. I mean what worries them is when school opens next week, for example, whether they dare send their daughters to school for fear of kidnapping, which is on the rise in Baghdad and other big cities. Clearly, personal safety is the top priority and it's the one that I think the coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi authorities, they know that. They're just having a very hard time getting a grip on it.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about another front, the desire for democracy, I think is how Secretary Powell phrased it. And I guess I would call it the hearts and minds part of the equation.
How has the progress been on that front? Are you feeling hopeful about that?
FORD: Well, I think there's no doubt at all when you talk to Iraqis that what they want is democracy. I mean they've lived for 35 years under a dictatorship. They know what democracy might be and they want to express themselves. The differences arise when you talk about how soon that should happen, how fast the process should go. There are some leading politicians here who want to push it as fast as possible, take sovereignty over quickly and have elections as soon as they can.
The Americans, Jerry Bremer, who runs the place, is head of the CPA, is nervous about that. He's afraid that just a few big politicians might grab all the power and the rest are disorganized. And I think as long as the occupation troops, American and Allied troops, treat people well and come out of their shells and deal more openly and more -- in a more relaxed fashion with Iraqis, people will be prepared to put up with their presence for much longer than sometimes would appear the case.
But for as long as suicide bombers are out there, for as long as people are shooting at the Americans anything between 10 and 25 times a day, I think it's going to be very hard for those soldiers to come out of their shells. It's going to be hard for them to stop suspecting every Iraqi of being a potential terrorist.
But they're going to have to if they want the people's trust.
O'BRIEN: Peter Ford is a correspondent for the "Christian Science Monitor."
Peter, thanks.
Nice to see you.
FORD: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
