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CNN Saturday Morning News

Laura Bush to Deliver Radio Address

Aired November 17, 2001 - 08:19   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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush will not deliver the weekly presidential radio address this morning. Instead, his wife will take up that task. She'll focus on the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women. This is said to be a first.

And CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett is live from Crawford, Texas with details -- good morning to you, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Marty.

You know, so many people have said the events of September 11 have transformed the Bush presidency. Well, that transformation continues again today. Laura Bush, the first lady, at first helped the nation by consoling it in so many ways. And now she's stepping up front and center to the lead the coalition's campaign for women's rights in a new Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It's never happened before, but a first lady will deliver the president's entire national radio address. White House aides say Laura Bush will issue a stinging indictment of Taliban abuse of women, the initial blow in a massive public relations campaign by coalition nations to add women's rights to the list of grievances against the Taliban regime.

KAREN HUGHES, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT: We feel it's an important part of our war on terrorism to explain to the world the brutality and the repressive nature of these terrorists and how they seek to impose their will and destroy something as important as the human dignity of the women and children in Afghanistan.

GARRETT: A new State Department report obtained by CNN chronicles the downfall of women in Afghanistan. Before the Taliban, women comprised 70 percent of school teachers, 50 percent of government workers and university students and 40 percent of the nation's doctors. Under the Taliban, women were confined to their homes, all access to work and higher education denied.

The report, to be released Saturday, concludes, "The Taliban regime cruelly reduced women and girls to poverty, worsened their health and deprived them of their right to an education, and many times the right to practice their religion.'' At their summit in Texas, Presidents Bush and Putin said Taliban abuse of women was practically medieval, or worse.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Taliban is the most repressive, backward group of people we have seen on the face of the earth in a long period of time.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA: Overall, women in Afghanistan are basically not treated as people.

GARRETT: Cherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will join the coalition chorus this weekend. The White House will follow up with speeches from female members of the Bush cabinet and leading women in Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GARRETT: Marty, at first this campaign was designed to intensify world condemnation of the Taliban. But with that regime in now full retreat, the new focus is to put women's rights front and center as the international community begins to mold a new government in Kabul -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: Major Garrett with the president down in Crawford, Texas. Thanks for the update this morning.

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