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American Morning
U.S. Forces in Iraq on the Attack
Aired November 14, 2003 - 08:05 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: U.S. forces in Iraq are on the attack, targeting sites used by insurgents to launch missiles. And U.S. forces are rounding up suspects today as the crack down known as Operation Iron Hammer goes into a third day. And as the military activity increases, the U.S. commander for Iraq is getting closer to the action. CENTCOM is moving hundreds of General John Abizaid's support staff from Tampa, Florida to regional headquarters in Qatar.
David Ensor is following the story for us live from the Pentagon -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Well, as you say, the same sense of urgency that we've seen at the White House this week with Jerry Paul Bremer, the top civilian, visiting Washington, talking about various mid course corrections on the political side. That same sense of urgency is also certainly here in the military side. And as you mentioned, General Abizaid is moving a couple of hundred or so of his headquarters staff from Florida back to Doha, Qatar.
Now, officials here say the primary purpose of those additional staff in the region will be the organize the circulation of the forces. Hundreds of thousands of forces over the next couple of years are going to be rotating through Iraq, a big rotation coming up soon. So that extra couple of hundred headquarters staff will be organizing the next hundred thousand or so forces to move in.
Abizaid obviously is concerned and is spending a lot of time in the region because of all of the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, the increase in that. Although he did stress that he doesn't think the force that the U.S. is up against is all that large.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, CENTRAL COMMAND: In all, I would say that the force of people actively armed and operating against us does not exceed 5,000. Now, people will say well, that's a very small number. But when you understand that they're organized in cellular structure, that they have a brutal and determined cadre, that they know how to operate covertly, they have access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: Abizaid called them a "despicable bunch of thugs who will be defeated" -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: David Ensor at the Pentagon for us this morning.
Thanks.
Well, how are Iraqis reacting to the administration's plan for a quicker transfer of power?
Hassan Fattah is the editor of "Iraq Today," an English language weekly in Iraq.
He's live for us from Baghdad this morning.
Nice to see you, Hassan.
Thanks for joining us.
HASSAN FATTAH, EDITOR, "IRAQ TODAY": Thank you so much.
Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
What do you think has to be done to speed up this transfer to Iraqi authority effectively?
FATTAH: Well, quite simply, the more stake you give Iraqis, the more you're going to get out of this whole process. I've been saying this for months and months and months, that the more voice and the more say that the Iraqis have in this whole process, the more security you'll get, the more organization you'll get and the more you'll be able to get this -- get U.S. troops home, in essence.
What America's role, really, it seems like, and you continuously hear from a lot of Iraqis, is they need somebody to give oversight, someone to oversee things when corruption starts to take over certain ministries or certain areas of the economy or certain parts of the country. You need the U.S. to step in and help with that sort of thing.
O'BRIEN: Let me play for you a little bit of what General Abizaid said yesterday.
Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABIZAID: These people don't yet understand the direction that they need to move in terms of building their own government and it will take some time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: These people -- he's talking about Iraqis -- and it sounds like he's saying not ready yet.
Do you agree with that? What do you make of that whole statement?
FATTAH: What's interesting is that most Iraqis will tell you that they are not ready for democracy as people know it, for the open vote. And that's because you have all of this fighting that's going on. You have all of the divisions within the country, whether it's between different sects, between different tribes, between different ethnicities within the country itself. There's a lot left to be worked out.
That doesn't mean that the Iraqis can't rule themselves, though. And that's the problem that I think a lot of people don't understand. The goal is to move gradually towards further democratization. The goal is to give a light at the end of the tunnel to Iraqis and show them where things are going.
And I think, actually, the real answer is the constitution. And I think the doubling up efforts to work on the constitution and really making that happen quickly...
O'BRIEN: I understand...
FATTAH: ... though I don't think it...
O'BRIEN: I'm sorry for interrupting you, Hassan...
FATTAH: Go ahead. I'm sorry.
O'BRIEN: But I was going to ask you that. And, in fact, let's talk a little bit about this constitution. The deadline now, December 15.
Do you think that's a realistic deadline, as much as you think that the constitution is key to sort of the next step?
FATTAH: Well, I mean, look, I think you can't write a constitution in the matter of months and any constitution that's written in a matter of months you've got to be wary of because probably you haven't put a lot of thought into it. So I think actually people should -- the Governing Council and the Iraqi leadership, we have begun to see different leaders show up over the past several months who are able to exercise their voices and exercise their influence.
Outside of the Governing Council especially, we should allow those people to start getting involved in the whole process and allow them to start talking and debating the most fundamental issues that Iraqis need to be talking about. I think that's what's missing. That's what's not happening right now. We've allowed the Governing Council to come in and is sitting there essentially doing some of the job. In some ways, they say that the they're overburdened by so many of the different issues, which is very true.
I think some of the members of the Governing Council, being politicians, are, perhaps, pursuing their own interests.
But I think that fundamentally you've got to bring in as many of this nascent leadership into the fold. And the way you do that is by starting a debate about the constitution, which has yet to begin.
O'BRIEN: Hassan Fattah is the editor of "Iraq Today."
Hassan, as always, nice to see you.
Thanks for joining us.
Appreciate it.
FATTAH: Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure.
Bye-bye.
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 November 14, 2003 - 08:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. forces in Iraq are on the attack, targeting sites used by insurgents to launch missiles. And U.S. forces are rounding up suspects today as the crack down known as Operation Iron Hammer goes into a third day. And as the military activity increases, the U.S. commander for Iraq is getting closer to the action. CENTCOM is moving hundreds of General John Abizaid's support staff from Tampa, Florida to regional headquarters in Qatar.
David Ensor is following the story for us live from the Pentagon -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Well, as you say, the same sense of urgency that we've seen at the White House this week with Jerry Paul Bremer, the top civilian, visiting Washington, talking about various mid course corrections on the political side. That same sense of urgency is also certainly here in the military side. And as you mentioned, General Abizaid is moving a couple of hundred or so of his headquarters staff from Florida back to Doha, Qatar.
Now, officials here say the primary purpose of those additional staff in the region will be the organize the circulation of the forces. Hundreds of thousands of forces over the next couple of years are going to be rotating through Iraq, a big rotation coming up soon. So that extra couple of hundred headquarters staff will be organizing the next hundred thousand or so forces to move in.
Abizaid obviously is concerned and is spending a lot of time in the region because of all of the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, the increase in that. Although he did stress that he doesn't think the force that the U.S. is up against is all that large.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, CENTRAL COMMAND: In all, I would say that the force of people actively armed and operating against us does not exceed 5,000. Now, people will say well, that's a very small number. But when you understand that they're organized in cellular structure, that they have a brutal and determined cadre, that they know how to operate covertly, they have access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: Abizaid called them a "despicable bunch of thugs who will be defeated" -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: David Ensor at the Pentagon for us this morning.
Thanks.
Well, how are Iraqis reacting to the administration's plan for a quicker transfer of power?
Hassan Fattah is the editor of "Iraq Today," an English language weekly in Iraq.
He's live for us from Baghdad this morning.
Nice to see you, Hassan.
Thanks for joining us.
HASSAN FATTAH, EDITOR, "IRAQ TODAY": Thank you so much.
Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
What do you think has to be done to speed up this transfer to Iraqi authority effectively?
FATTAH: Well, quite simply, the more stake you give Iraqis, the more you're going to get out of this whole process. I've been saying this for months and months and months, that the more voice and the more say that the Iraqis have in this whole process, the more security you'll get, the more organization you'll get and the more you'll be able to get this -- get U.S. troops home, in essence.
What America's role, really, it seems like, and you continuously hear from a lot of Iraqis, is they need somebody to give oversight, someone to oversee things when corruption starts to take over certain ministries or certain areas of the economy or certain parts of the country. You need the U.S. to step in and help with that sort of thing.
O'BRIEN: Let me play for you a little bit of what General Abizaid said yesterday.
Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABIZAID: These people don't yet understand the direction that they need to move in terms of building their own government and it will take some time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: These people -- he's talking about Iraqis -- and it sounds like he's saying not ready yet.
Do you agree with that? What do you make of that whole statement?
FATTAH: What's interesting is that most Iraqis will tell you that they are not ready for democracy as people know it, for the open vote. And that's because you have all of this fighting that's going on. You have all of the divisions within the country, whether it's between different sects, between different tribes, between different ethnicities within the country itself. There's a lot left to be worked out.
That doesn't mean that the Iraqis can't rule themselves, though. And that's the problem that I think a lot of people don't understand. The goal is to move gradually towards further democratization. The goal is to give a light at the end of the tunnel to Iraqis and show them where things are going.
And I think, actually, the real answer is the constitution. And I think the doubling up efforts to work on the constitution and really making that happen quickly...
O'BRIEN: I understand...
FATTAH: ... though I don't think it...
O'BRIEN: I'm sorry for interrupting you, Hassan...
FATTAH: Go ahead. I'm sorry.
O'BRIEN: But I was going to ask you that. And, in fact, let's talk a little bit about this constitution. The deadline now, December 15.
Do you think that's a realistic deadline, as much as you think that the constitution is key to sort of the next step?
FATTAH: Well, I mean, look, I think you can't write a constitution in the matter of months and any constitution that's written in a matter of months you've got to be wary of because probably you haven't put a lot of thought into it. So I think actually people should -- the Governing Council and the Iraqi leadership, we have begun to see different leaders show up over the past several months who are able to exercise their voices and exercise their influence.
Outside of the Governing Council especially, we should allow those people to start getting involved in the whole process and allow them to start talking and debating the most fundamental issues that Iraqis need to be talking about. I think that's what's missing. That's what's not happening right now. We've allowed the Governing Council to come in and is sitting there essentially doing some of the job. In some ways, they say that the they're overburdened by so many of the different issues, which is very true.
I think some of the members of the Governing Council, being politicians, are, perhaps, pursuing their own interests.
But I think that fundamentally you've got to bring in as many of this nascent leadership into the fold. And the way you do that is by starting a debate about the constitution, which has yet to begin.
O'BRIEN: Hassan Fattah is the editor of "Iraq Today."
Hassan, as always, nice to see you.
Thanks for joining us.
Appreciate it.
FATTAH: Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure.
Bye-bye.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
