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CNN Sunday Morning
Insight & Input
Aired February 23, 2003 - 09:30 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for our "Insight & Input" segment. Viewers have been sending in e-mail questions and comments on Iraq. And we are still taking your phone calls. 1-800-807-2620.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: Right, and our team of reporters is here to answer your questions. We have CNN's Martin Savidge there in Kuwait. Hi, Marty, thanks for joining us. And CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad. And our military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange, also joins us, closer to home, Oakbrook, Illinois.
Let's get to the first question, General Grange. This comes via e-mail from William in Toronto; I want to direct it to you. "Is it possible that war can begin with the weapons inspectors still in Iraq?"
DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, when the time is for war, if that happens, there'll be notices given out for inspectors to be aware. I'm sure there will be coordination done of Hans Blix and the U.N., obviously, and to give people time to get out and some means to get out. But once it starts, if some are still there, they're still there.
COLLINS: And Nic, I'd love to hear your comment on that as well. What do you see on that sort of topic, being where you are?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, the last U.N. weapons chief here, Richard Butler, said the same thing. He was contacted by US officials, who told him it was necessary to get his inspectors out. It was -- he said he watched very carefully, stayed up all night to make sure that all the inspectors got out. Certainly, the inspectors here have a number of vehicles, and they do have aircraft they use to get in and out of Iraq. So they would be expecting to get a call if that was to happen.
COLLINS: All right, Nic, I do have another one for you. There is someone who is wondering, actually, Frank from Atlanta is wondering, "What controls, censorship, or guidelines is the government of Iraq requiring from reporters in Baghdad?" Obviously a question for you.
ROBERTSON: Everywhere we go, when we go out with our cameras, we go out with government officials, so-called guides or minders. They're always present whenever we're out on the street, and certainly people that we're interviewing on the street are very fully aware of it. Now, unlike the last Gulf War, whenever we sent any videotape out of the country, Iraqi officials used to watch every second of it and pull the plug if they didn't like it. That doesn't happen this time, but certainly they watch CNN, they watch a lot of other international news broadcasts, and they're able to see what we're saying and what we're reporting, and they make judgments on what they see.
KARL: OK, we've got another e-mail, a very strongly worded e- mail here, coming from Cheryl in Pennsylvania. She writes, "It seems like only President Bush is in favor of war. Could someone please tell me, just an average American, why war is absolutely necessary, and how will my personal life profit from this war? I've seen no proof," Cheryl writes, "that war is necessary! I'm more fearful of Bin Laden and our nation's ever growing economic crisis and rising unemployment."
Tough question for any of you, but let's go to Marty in Kuwait. You're talking to a lot of the troops on the ground over there. What's their attitude about questions like this?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the troops are, obviously, they're poised to do whatever the president of the United States asks them to do. They're a voluntary force. They have trained and they have prepared. And if war is what is required of them, they're ready to do it. You're not going to get an unguarded opinion from soldiers in the field.
You will get a very candid opinion from the people of Kuwait. They're the ones who, after all, can say hey, look, we know Saddam Hussein. 12 years ago he made all sorts of promises he would not invade Iraq, and in fact he did that very thing. They know that he is a man that cannot be trusted, that his word is not good in any regard. And they have always felt that this region has a cloud of fear over it that is cast by Saddam Hussein.
So those people that live in Kuwait are the staunchest supporters of rightly going to war. They say, against Saddam Hussein, you have to get rid of him in some way, shape, or form, or this is just going to continue for years to come. And there were killings that were carried out here. That was obviously a very long occupation that went on for several months, and it took a war to free Kuwait at that time. So they have no problem saying that Saddam has to go.
COLLINS: You know, there are people who obviously have a problem with that. Well, actually, I shouldn't say have a problem with wanting Saddam to go, but clearly, there are countries who are not on board with the resolution. In fact, France and Germany are two countries that we have heard a lot about.
We have a phone call coming in from Eugene. I believe it will probably go to General Grange. Eugene, good morning. What's your question?
CALLER: My question is, with France and Germany being so opposed to the US policy in Iraq, and they don't want the Resolution 1441 enforced like it should be, why don't they introduce resolution in the U.N. to make 1441 null and void, and they can start all over from there?
KARL: General Grange?
GRANGE: Well, they just might. They may introduce several more resolutions. I believe, though that their strategy is to introduce other resolutions to drag this process out, to undermine this last resort of a means to impose our will, or the international will, on Saddam Hussein, which is war. So it would not surprise me if another resolution was put forth by France or Germany, but particularly France, to undermine the efforts that have taken place to date. It's not going to really change anything. They have a resolution 1441 that seems pretty clear, at least it does to me. And that should be enforced.
KARL: All right, we've got another one. This question coming from Bob, and we don't know where Bob is from, but we'll go ahead anyway.
COLLINS: He might not want us to know.
KARL: From an undisclosed location somewhere, he writes, "Given all the reports of underground storage sites, such as those under the manmade lakes at presidential palaces and others, I am at a loss to understand why the inspectors keep going to all the previously inspected and obvious locations - factories, universities, etc. Why won't the inspectors conduct some surprise inspections, and without Iraqi participation?"
Nic, obviously to you. I guess there have some been some surprise inspections.
ROBERTSON: There has been some surprise ones. The reason they keep going to the other sites is, they're trying to catch up, essentially, on the work that the inspectors did in the 1990s. They call it rebaselining. It's essentially taking those old U.N. files, seeing where all the equipment is, and following up there. They have made surprises.
It's been interesting to note, however, that the two times that they have visited presidential sites, Iraqi officials have condemned those visits of the presidential sites as being unnecessary. And the inspectors have -- we've seen them on television here, seen them walking through these empty palaces and apparently not finding anything there. They say it's necessary, because in the past they believe key documentation was stored at these palaces.
There is aerial surveillance, of course that goes on looking into places that Iraqi officials down on the ground here won't know that the U.N. is essentially looking into. And it's perhaps through that aerial surveillance that they may determine where some of these bunkers, if they exist, actually are.
KARL: Nic, remind us, how many presidential palaces are there in Iraq?
ROBERTSON: Dozens and dozens and dozens. I don't have an exact figure. When the U.N. was last here, there were eight presidential palaces that were the key sensitive sites that the U.N. inspectors weren't allowed into. So far, on this particular U.N. mission, only two of those palaces visited. Jonathan?
KARL: So, a lot of presidential palaces if you happen to be the dictator of Iraq.
COLLINS: Yes, that's for sure.
We have another one; I think we should check with Marty about this one. "I have heard reports that U.N. and other western personnel are leaving Iraq, and that human shields are in place." In fact, they're talking about that this morning. "Is there a new sense that war is imminent? Will the US respect human shields?" This coming to us from Peter in Rhode Island.
SAVIDGE: I can't comment on whether the US will respect human shields. That's a matter I just can't say, as far as the US military. The feeling here in Kuwait is that war is coming. The sense that it was imminent, I don't know. Sometimes it peaks, sometimes it then drops away. There was a feeling that it was going to be earlier rather than later. Now it's thinking of, well, it might be later rather than earlier. There is a sense that things are sliding schedule-wise.
Now, keep in mind, none of us have never been shown a schedule of the US military. They may be right on plan. But I think there was a feeling here that with the temperatures rising, as they do every day now, and certainly when you start getting into April, it's going to be doggone hot out here. When you have to fight in a chemical biosuit, that's going to be difficult. I presume you would only hope that you're going to fight at night. Because at that time, during the day, you're fighting effectiveness would be down to matter of minutes in a firefight, not hours.
COLLINS: General grange, obviously, this begs a comment from you about the human shields.
GRANGE: Well you know, it's against international law for people to go ahead and perform this action as a human shield. It's just something that's not supposed to be done. I think that at least, my experience, the military on targeting avoids civilian casualties at all costs. But there are going to be some targets, I would think, that may be hit anyway. And so, if I was in that role as a human shield, I don't think it's a prosperous endeavor on their part at all.
KARL: OK. We've got one last question here. This one, again, I want to direct to General Grange. An interesting one.
"If we captured Saddam Hussein during a war, what would we do with him? If he was to be tried in an international court of some kind, what would be the charge or charges? Where would he be held? What if he were tried and then acquitted?" And I guess one question we get out of that is, who would his defense lawyer be?
General Grange, a remote possibility, but if Saddam Hussein were to be captured, would he be sent right off to The Hague?
GRANGE: I think that if he was captured by US forces, it could be one of the coalition forces besides the United States. But if he was captured, he'd be held for a while, moved to a safe area, actually to protect him at that time, as he would be afforded that protection status. And then he would be turned over, I believe, to some type of international body that would then determine his fate.
I think, in the world, there are plenty of countries, to include the United States of America and Kuwait, that would press charges against Saddam for crimes against humanity. I mean, there's still 600 missing people from Kuwait. We had 21 POWs from the 1991 war that were terribly mistreated; that nothing really came of that. Let alone all the people within the different factions within Iraq itself.
So I think war crimes against humanity, for sure, would be forthcoming, and then an international court would decide his fate.
COLLINS: All right, to the three of you this morning, we certainly do appreciate it. Martin Savidge coming to us from Kuwait, Nic Robertson in Baghdad, and our military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange from Oakbrook, Illinois. Thanks, guys, we appreciate it.
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 February 23, 2003 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for our "Insight & Input" segment. Viewers have been sending in e-mail questions and comments on Iraq. And we are still taking your phone calls. 1-800-807-2620.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: Right, and our team of reporters is here to answer your questions. We have CNN's Martin Savidge there in Kuwait. Hi, Marty, thanks for joining us. And CNN's Nic Robertson in Baghdad. And our military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange, also joins us, closer to home, Oakbrook, Illinois.
Let's get to the first question, General Grange. This comes via e-mail from William in Toronto; I want to direct it to you. "Is it possible that war can begin with the weapons inspectors still in Iraq?"
DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, when the time is for war, if that happens, there'll be notices given out for inspectors to be aware. I'm sure there will be coordination done of Hans Blix and the U.N., obviously, and to give people time to get out and some means to get out. But once it starts, if some are still there, they're still there.
COLLINS: And Nic, I'd love to hear your comment on that as well. What do you see on that sort of topic, being where you are?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, the last U.N. weapons chief here, Richard Butler, said the same thing. He was contacted by US officials, who told him it was necessary to get his inspectors out. It was -- he said he watched very carefully, stayed up all night to make sure that all the inspectors got out. Certainly, the inspectors here have a number of vehicles, and they do have aircraft they use to get in and out of Iraq. So they would be expecting to get a call if that was to happen.
COLLINS: All right, Nic, I do have another one for you. There is someone who is wondering, actually, Frank from Atlanta is wondering, "What controls, censorship, or guidelines is the government of Iraq requiring from reporters in Baghdad?" Obviously a question for you.
ROBERTSON: Everywhere we go, when we go out with our cameras, we go out with government officials, so-called guides or minders. They're always present whenever we're out on the street, and certainly people that we're interviewing on the street are very fully aware of it. Now, unlike the last Gulf War, whenever we sent any videotape out of the country, Iraqi officials used to watch every second of it and pull the plug if they didn't like it. That doesn't happen this time, but certainly they watch CNN, they watch a lot of other international news broadcasts, and they're able to see what we're saying and what we're reporting, and they make judgments on what they see.
KARL: OK, we've got another e-mail, a very strongly worded e- mail here, coming from Cheryl in Pennsylvania. She writes, "It seems like only President Bush is in favor of war. Could someone please tell me, just an average American, why war is absolutely necessary, and how will my personal life profit from this war? I've seen no proof," Cheryl writes, "that war is necessary! I'm more fearful of Bin Laden and our nation's ever growing economic crisis and rising unemployment."
Tough question for any of you, but let's go to Marty in Kuwait. You're talking to a lot of the troops on the ground over there. What's their attitude about questions like this?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the troops are, obviously, they're poised to do whatever the president of the United States asks them to do. They're a voluntary force. They have trained and they have prepared. And if war is what is required of them, they're ready to do it. You're not going to get an unguarded opinion from soldiers in the field.
You will get a very candid opinion from the people of Kuwait. They're the ones who, after all, can say hey, look, we know Saddam Hussein. 12 years ago he made all sorts of promises he would not invade Iraq, and in fact he did that very thing. They know that he is a man that cannot be trusted, that his word is not good in any regard. And they have always felt that this region has a cloud of fear over it that is cast by Saddam Hussein.
So those people that live in Kuwait are the staunchest supporters of rightly going to war. They say, against Saddam Hussein, you have to get rid of him in some way, shape, or form, or this is just going to continue for years to come. And there were killings that were carried out here. That was obviously a very long occupation that went on for several months, and it took a war to free Kuwait at that time. So they have no problem saying that Saddam has to go.
COLLINS: You know, there are people who obviously have a problem with that. Well, actually, I shouldn't say have a problem with wanting Saddam to go, but clearly, there are countries who are not on board with the resolution. In fact, France and Germany are two countries that we have heard a lot about.
We have a phone call coming in from Eugene. I believe it will probably go to General Grange. Eugene, good morning. What's your question?
CALLER: My question is, with France and Germany being so opposed to the US policy in Iraq, and they don't want the Resolution 1441 enforced like it should be, why don't they introduce resolution in the U.N. to make 1441 null and void, and they can start all over from there?
KARL: General Grange?
GRANGE: Well, they just might. They may introduce several more resolutions. I believe, though that their strategy is to introduce other resolutions to drag this process out, to undermine this last resort of a means to impose our will, or the international will, on Saddam Hussein, which is war. So it would not surprise me if another resolution was put forth by France or Germany, but particularly France, to undermine the efforts that have taken place to date. It's not going to really change anything. They have a resolution 1441 that seems pretty clear, at least it does to me. And that should be enforced.
KARL: All right, we've got another one. This question coming from Bob, and we don't know where Bob is from, but we'll go ahead anyway.
COLLINS: He might not want us to know.
KARL: From an undisclosed location somewhere, he writes, "Given all the reports of underground storage sites, such as those under the manmade lakes at presidential palaces and others, I am at a loss to understand why the inspectors keep going to all the previously inspected and obvious locations - factories, universities, etc. Why won't the inspectors conduct some surprise inspections, and without Iraqi participation?"
Nic, obviously to you. I guess there have some been some surprise inspections.
ROBERTSON: There has been some surprise ones. The reason they keep going to the other sites is, they're trying to catch up, essentially, on the work that the inspectors did in the 1990s. They call it rebaselining. It's essentially taking those old U.N. files, seeing where all the equipment is, and following up there. They have made surprises.
It's been interesting to note, however, that the two times that they have visited presidential sites, Iraqi officials have condemned those visits of the presidential sites as being unnecessary. And the inspectors have -- we've seen them on television here, seen them walking through these empty palaces and apparently not finding anything there. They say it's necessary, because in the past they believe key documentation was stored at these palaces.
There is aerial surveillance, of course that goes on looking into places that Iraqi officials down on the ground here won't know that the U.N. is essentially looking into. And it's perhaps through that aerial surveillance that they may determine where some of these bunkers, if they exist, actually are.
KARL: Nic, remind us, how many presidential palaces are there in Iraq?
ROBERTSON: Dozens and dozens and dozens. I don't have an exact figure. When the U.N. was last here, there were eight presidential palaces that were the key sensitive sites that the U.N. inspectors weren't allowed into. So far, on this particular U.N. mission, only two of those palaces visited. Jonathan?
KARL: So, a lot of presidential palaces if you happen to be the dictator of Iraq.
COLLINS: Yes, that's for sure.
We have another one; I think we should check with Marty about this one. "I have heard reports that U.N. and other western personnel are leaving Iraq, and that human shields are in place." In fact, they're talking about that this morning. "Is there a new sense that war is imminent? Will the US respect human shields?" This coming to us from Peter in Rhode Island.
SAVIDGE: I can't comment on whether the US will respect human shields. That's a matter I just can't say, as far as the US military. The feeling here in Kuwait is that war is coming. The sense that it was imminent, I don't know. Sometimes it peaks, sometimes it then drops away. There was a feeling that it was going to be earlier rather than later. Now it's thinking of, well, it might be later rather than earlier. There is a sense that things are sliding schedule-wise.
Now, keep in mind, none of us have never been shown a schedule of the US military. They may be right on plan. But I think there was a feeling here that with the temperatures rising, as they do every day now, and certainly when you start getting into April, it's going to be doggone hot out here. When you have to fight in a chemical biosuit, that's going to be difficult. I presume you would only hope that you're going to fight at night. Because at that time, during the day, you're fighting effectiveness would be down to matter of minutes in a firefight, not hours.
COLLINS: General grange, obviously, this begs a comment from you about the human shields.
GRANGE: Well you know, it's against international law for people to go ahead and perform this action as a human shield. It's just something that's not supposed to be done. I think that at least, my experience, the military on targeting avoids civilian casualties at all costs. But there are going to be some targets, I would think, that may be hit anyway. And so, if I was in that role as a human shield, I don't think it's a prosperous endeavor on their part at all.
KARL: OK. We've got one last question here. This one, again, I want to direct to General Grange. An interesting one.
"If we captured Saddam Hussein during a war, what would we do with him? If he was to be tried in an international court of some kind, what would be the charge or charges? Where would he be held? What if he were tried and then acquitted?" And I guess one question we get out of that is, who would his defense lawyer be?
General Grange, a remote possibility, but if Saddam Hussein were to be captured, would he be sent right off to The Hague?
GRANGE: I think that if he was captured by US forces, it could be one of the coalition forces besides the United States. But if he was captured, he'd be held for a while, moved to a safe area, actually to protect him at that time, as he would be afforded that protection status. And then he would be turned over, I believe, to some type of international body that would then determine his fate.
I think, in the world, there are plenty of countries, to include the United States of America and Kuwait, that would press charges against Saddam for crimes against humanity. I mean, there's still 600 missing people from Kuwait. We had 21 POWs from the 1991 war that were terribly mistreated; that nothing really came of that. Let alone all the people within the different factions within Iraq itself.
So I think war crimes against humanity, for sure, would be forthcoming, and then an international court would decide his fate.
COLLINS: All right, to the three of you this morning, we certainly do appreciate it. Martin Savidge coming to us from Kuwait, Nic Robertson in Baghdad, and our military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange from Oakbrook, Illinois. Thanks, guys, we appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
