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CNN Saturday Morning News
Reporters' Notebook
Aired October 05, 2002 - 09:36 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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up in our Reporter's Notebook segment now, a war with Iraq would not just be about bombs and guns. Of course, there would also be economic and political consequences. And, of course, you've been sending us your questions and comments on this topic all morning.
And we've got a lot.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a lot. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joins us in our discussion. He was here a little while ago, had his coffee, and is still with us. We appreciate that. Our Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, joining us from Iraq. And former NATO supreme commander, retired general Wesley Clark, also with us this morning. New York City is his dateline.
Let's get right to the e-mails. This one is for Jane first, ladies first. Dennis in Pennsylvania has this for you, Jane. "If the citizens of Iraq are so miserable, why don't they overthrow the government? Get rid of Saddam, try and get back their lives?"
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it might sound like a good idea over there, which it probably does, but it's not quite so easy. If it had been so easy, it probably would have been happened by now. Now, that's the reason, of course, that Saddam Hussein is still in power, because he has a very effective system of control that has led him to survive all these years after the Gulf War when all of his enemies haven't.
So bottom line is, the short answer, it's just not easy, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Just not easy. Let's get another e-mail. Catherine, you want to take this one?
CALLAWAY: Yes, let's take it. "We seem to be stuck on getting a resolution for war, but Iraq has agreed to inspections of everything but the presidential palaces. Why not go ahead with that but have the Air Force destroy the palaces? In that way, I think Saddam would get a strong message, if he survived." That's William from Columbia.
General, you want to take that one?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Certainly, Catherine. I think the issue is, can you bomb and also inspect at the same time? And you may remember in 1998, we did a bombing campaign against all of the suspected weapons of mass destruction sites, and when we did that, we recognized that we couldn't figure out diplomatically and politically how to get a bombing campaign and inspections, because the inspects have to be in some way cooperative.
You can't -- you just can't ask these unarmed U.N. inspectors to go in there, after you've bombed like that, if the Iraqi government doesn't invite them in.
So I think that probably it will be more diplomatic pressure to let us get into the presidential sites, and then if we don't get everything we want in the inspections, then we would have to use force.
O'BRIEN: All right, Doug Brinkley, we have one for you, Carlos in Los Angeles asks this question, "What makes Iraq different than other countries like China with weapons of mass destruction?"
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, I think the difference is the record of Iraq of genocide on its own people, particularly the Kurds in the north. We -- the -- China has also been a repressive regime, but (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so far we haven't had a China having any kind of terrorist connections to the United States.
Also, because of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein has signed a U.N. resolution which had guaranteed that U.N. inspectors would come in, and he's not allowed them to. So in that case, Iraq is breaking international law and China isn't, even though we have very great disagreements with China.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's get another question in for Jane. This is kind of a long one. I'll try to get through it quickly, Jane. "Since the USA talks about Iraq and their fear about Saddam, do you think that Saddam had plenty of time to hide and be prepared to receive the U.N. inspector? I'm sure with all of the news we received from CNN that Saddam is aware that something is going really wrong. The danger is that they receive accurate news from the USA on many different strategies." And this is from Pierre in Ontario, Canada.
And I'll just add to it, Jane, to what extent are people plugged in to the likes of CNN in Baghdad? That includes, I guess, what's going on in the presidential palaces.
ARRAF: Well, just to get to the last question first, people here are actually pretty well informed. You wouldn't think they would be, since satellite dishes are banned, open access to the Internet is banned. It is a very closed country, with information very tightly controlled.
But, of course, they can't control all the airwaves, so a lot of Iraqis wake up in the morning and tune in, for instance, to the BBC in Arabic or other radio stations as a main source of news. So they do very much know what's going on, as does President Saddam Hussein.
Now, in terms of devising a strategy, they basically have all the information that is available to everyone else. The thing about Iraq, I think, has been that the Iraqi president has chosen to take different routes with that same information, perhaps in the same way that he believes, against all evidence, that he could win the Gulf War.
There are things that the Iraqi leadership seems to believe at this point that wouldn't necessarily correlate to that information. The bottom line is, I'm not sure it makes much difference that all that information is getting in. They know that there are satellites watching their every move, that their phone conversations are probably being tapped.
At the end of the day, it's really going to take a massive campaign to get rid of him, if that is the case. And it's something that information leaks probably wouldn't have that much effect on, Miles.
CALLAWAY: And before we take a break, let's get in a phone call very quickly. General, I believe this question is for you.
Joe from Georgia, good morning.
CALLER: Yes, Catherine and Miles, you do a great job. You got a lot of friends up here in Elijay (ph).
My question for General Clark, if we were to invade Iraq, how many ground troops would it take? And how long do you think it would take to win the war, general?
CLARK: I think there are different plans that are probably on the table. I don't know if the administration has made a final decision or not. But if you're asking my military opinion, without knowing any of the plans, and I don't know any of the plans, then what I would say is, I'd like to have four to five divisions, about 100,000 combat troops on the ground. They don't all have to start at the same time, but that's how many we would need.
And they'd have to be backed up by probably another 75,000 to 100,000 troops, so maybe 200,000 troops. I think that if we get that size force, if we put the air power in there, that the Iraqi resistance is going to for the most part collapse. I think within two weeks, most of the fighting will be over. There may be some hard-core elements that try to hang on after that.
But they'll what's coming, especially if we go in with the coalition, we have members of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia, with us. The Iraqi military's going to understand that there's no point in resistance.
And as soon as they recognize that they can surrender safely and not get shot in the back by their own security forces, they'll do that.
CALLAWAY: All right, general, the very much.
Stay with us, everyone. We're going to take a break, but don't worry, if we didn't get to your question, they'll be back in just a moment to answer some more questions. And if you have another one, send it to us now. Showdowniraq@cnn.com. Tune in at noon Eastern for a weekend edition of the program "SHOWDOWN IRAQ." We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, welcome back.
We're continuing our efforts to discuss things with the general, the historian, and the foreign correspondent.
While I queue up the e-mail, why don't you introduce everybody?
CALLAWAY: All right. First we have presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joining us, along with Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf and former NATO commander retired general Wesley Clark. We have all of our bases covered.
O'BRIEN: Thank you for tap dancing for just a moment there.
All right, here's a question for Professor Brinkley. "Many experts foresee a long military occupation, a difficult transition to democracy at best, and growing Arab resistance to what seems to them an imperialistic attempt to control Iraq's oil. Are there groups or leaders who would look favorably on a continued physical presence of the U.s., and if so, why?" John Foster in Westhampton, New York, offering an excellent question for us.
BRINKLEY: That is, that is an excellent question. And I think we have to remember, what seems easy is sending 200,000 troops in and getting them out quickly, sometimes isn't so easy. Vietnam should teach us that lesson.
It's been very important, Saudi Arabia is the key right now, and we need Saudi Arabia's bases if there's going to be a war over there. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the thought of a permanent presence of the United States in Iraq, with, let's say, a base or staying there for a number of years, I think is not going to be very well received in the Middle East.
I don't think that the United States is going to be able to use Iraq as a launching pad or a place that we can simply build a government without the help of the Iraqi people. I think the goal is to get in and do the job quickly, have a regime change.
But how does one do that? And I -- it's only with the world opinion on our side, working with the United Nations, that I think we'll be able to do that. There is grave dangers.
There was an article in "The New York Times" about Grenada during the Reagan administration, or Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, and things that have occurred earlier in our hemisphere. Well, our hemisphere is a lot different than being that far away, and doing kind of not just regime change but nation building in a country like Iraq.
So we'll have to wait and see.
CALLAWAY: And speaking of that, Jane Dale has a question. "What do the Iraqi people understand of the growing momentum internationally in favor of disarming their country vis-a-vis the United Nations?"
ARRAF: The Iraqi people understand that there is a consensus that Iraq should be disarmed. But they wonder about the motives for the most part. The motives, they think, are not really disarmament, they are about killing their president.
And they are more convinced than ever of this in the past few days, with the U.S. insistence on a resolution that calls for use of force. Now one thing they're taking comfort from and their leadership takes comfort from are the efforts of countries, Security Council members like China, Russia, and France to moderate this U.S. position.
Russia, of course, has huge economic interest here. There are -- Iraq has the second biggest oil reserves in the world, and it does have quite a lot of influence on those major trading partners.
So basically Iraqis feel there is a counterweight to the United States at the Security Council, maybe not quite enough to make a huge difference.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go back to the e-mails. This one for General Clark, this one from somebody that goes by the moniker of CRJ. "Describe the different up imperatives for a war in Kosovo versus Iraq. What was imminent and allowed for war by executive order? What were the discussions before deciding to attack? What is the general attitude of" -- I think he means NATO, not N-A-T-A -- "toward Arab countries?"
CLARK: Well, I think the two cases are in some respects similar. It's a great question. But they're also polar opposites, because in the case of Kosovo, we tried everything we could to avoid a war. And it was only with the greatest difficulty, after three previous wars in the Balkans, that NATO recognized that you couldn't have diplomacy with Slobodan Milosevic without having it backed by the threat of force.
And then we moved very slowly, very deliberately and reluctantly, to authorize the threat of force. And finally, after all diplomatic efforts had failed, we used force.
Now, in the case of Iraq, we have had two different administrations who have worked with Iraq. They have tried to get the United Nations to implement its resolutions and enforce the disarmament of Iraq. But the way the debate has emerged, it's appeared as though to the American people, at least to many that talk to me, as though the administration jumped to the conclusion that it wanted war first and then the diplomacy has followed.
So it may appear opposite. But in fact, in both cases what we're really doing here is, we're using diplomacy backed by the credible threat of force to try to achieve an aim without having to use force as a last resort.
O'BRIEN: All right. That's unfortunately going to be have to be the last word for lack of time. Good panel. We'd like to reconstitute this group. I'm going to publicly invite you right now to join us, all three together, at some other time, because we got a lot of questions we couldn't get to. And...
CALLAWAY: And phone calls.
O'BRIEN: ... we'd like to try one more time. So Douglas Brinkley, Jane Arraf, General Wesley Clark, thank you all three for being with us on this edition of Reporter's Notebook.
CALLAWAY: We need an entire 30 minutes for that Reporter's Notebook when we have a group like that today, you know?
O'BRIEN: Well, all day long.
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 October 5, 2002 - 09:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up in our Reporter's Notebook segment now, a war with Iraq would not just be about bombs and guns. Of course, there would also be economic and political consequences. And, of course, you've been sending us your questions and comments on this topic all morning.
And we've got a lot.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We have a lot. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joins us in our discussion. He was here a little while ago, had his coffee, and is still with us. We appreciate that. Our Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, joining us from Iraq. And former NATO supreme commander, retired general Wesley Clark, also with us this morning. New York City is his dateline.
Let's get right to the e-mails. This one is for Jane first, ladies first. Dennis in Pennsylvania has this for you, Jane. "If the citizens of Iraq are so miserable, why don't they overthrow the government? Get rid of Saddam, try and get back their lives?"
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it might sound like a good idea over there, which it probably does, but it's not quite so easy. If it had been so easy, it probably would have been happened by now. Now, that's the reason, of course, that Saddam Hussein is still in power, because he has a very effective system of control that has led him to survive all these years after the Gulf War when all of his enemies haven't.
So bottom line is, the short answer, it's just not easy, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Just not easy. Let's get another e-mail. Catherine, you want to take this one?
CALLAWAY: Yes, let's take it. "We seem to be stuck on getting a resolution for war, but Iraq has agreed to inspections of everything but the presidential palaces. Why not go ahead with that but have the Air Force destroy the palaces? In that way, I think Saddam would get a strong message, if he survived." That's William from Columbia.
General, you want to take that one?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Certainly, Catherine. I think the issue is, can you bomb and also inspect at the same time? And you may remember in 1998, we did a bombing campaign against all of the suspected weapons of mass destruction sites, and when we did that, we recognized that we couldn't figure out diplomatically and politically how to get a bombing campaign and inspections, because the inspects have to be in some way cooperative.
You can't -- you just can't ask these unarmed U.N. inspectors to go in there, after you've bombed like that, if the Iraqi government doesn't invite them in.
So I think that probably it will be more diplomatic pressure to let us get into the presidential sites, and then if we don't get everything we want in the inspections, then we would have to use force.
O'BRIEN: All right, Doug Brinkley, we have one for you, Carlos in Los Angeles asks this question, "What makes Iraq different than other countries like China with weapons of mass destruction?"
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, I think the difference is the record of Iraq of genocide on its own people, particularly the Kurds in the north. We -- the -- China has also been a repressive regime, but (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so far we haven't had a China having any kind of terrorist connections to the United States.
Also, because of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein has signed a U.N. resolution which had guaranteed that U.N. inspectors would come in, and he's not allowed them to. So in that case, Iraq is breaking international law and China isn't, even though we have very great disagreements with China.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's get another question in for Jane. This is kind of a long one. I'll try to get through it quickly, Jane. "Since the USA talks about Iraq and their fear about Saddam, do you think that Saddam had plenty of time to hide and be prepared to receive the U.N. inspector? I'm sure with all of the news we received from CNN that Saddam is aware that something is going really wrong. The danger is that they receive accurate news from the USA on many different strategies." And this is from Pierre in Ontario, Canada.
And I'll just add to it, Jane, to what extent are people plugged in to the likes of CNN in Baghdad? That includes, I guess, what's going on in the presidential palaces.
ARRAF: Well, just to get to the last question first, people here are actually pretty well informed. You wouldn't think they would be, since satellite dishes are banned, open access to the Internet is banned. It is a very closed country, with information very tightly controlled.
But, of course, they can't control all the airwaves, so a lot of Iraqis wake up in the morning and tune in, for instance, to the BBC in Arabic or other radio stations as a main source of news. So they do very much know what's going on, as does President Saddam Hussein.
Now, in terms of devising a strategy, they basically have all the information that is available to everyone else. The thing about Iraq, I think, has been that the Iraqi president has chosen to take different routes with that same information, perhaps in the same way that he believes, against all evidence, that he could win the Gulf War.
There are things that the Iraqi leadership seems to believe at this point that wouldn't necessarily correlate to that information. The bottom line is, I'm not sure it makes much difference that all that information is getting in. They know that there are satellites watching their every move, that their phone conversations are probably being tapped.
At the end of the day, it's really going to take a massive campaign to get rid of him, if that is the case. And it's something that information leaks probably wouldn't have that much effect on, Miles.
CALLAWAY: And before we take a break, let's get in a phone call very quickly. General, I believe this question is for you.
Joe from Georgia, good morning.
CALLER: Yes, Catherine and Miles, you do a great job. You got a lot of friends up here in Elijay (ph).
My question for General Clark, if we were to invade Iraq, how many ground troops would it take? And how long do you think it would take to win the war, general?
CLARK: I think there are different plans that are probably on the table. I don't know if the administration has made a final decision or not. But if you're asking my military opinion, without knowing any of the plans, and I don't know any of the plans, then what I would say is, I'd like to have four to five divisions, about 100,000 combat troops on the ground. They don't all have to start at the same time, but that's how many we would need.
And they'd have to be backed up by probably another 75,000 to 100,000 troops, so maybe 200,000 troops. I think that if we get that size force, if we put the air power in there, that the Iraqi resistance is going to for the most part collapse. I think within two weeks, most of the fighting will be over. There may be some hard-core elements that try to hang on after that.
But they'll what's coming, especially if we go in with the coalition, we have members of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia, with us. The Iraqi military's going to understand that there's no point in resistance.
And as soon as they recognize that they can surrender safely and not get shot in the back by their own security forces, they'll do that.
CALLAWAY: All right, general, the very much.
Stay with us, everyone. We're going to take a break, but don't worry, if we didn't get to your question, they'll be back in just a moment to answer some more questions. And if you have another one, send it to us now. Showdowniraq@cnn.com. Tune in at noon Eastern for a weekend edition of the program "SHOWDOWN IRAQ." We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, welcome back.
We're continuing our efforts to discuss things with the general, the historian, and the foreign correspondent.
While I queue up the e-mail, why don't you introduce everybody?
CALLAWAY: All right. First we have presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joining us, along with Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf and former NATO commander retired general Wesley Clark. We have all of our bases covered.
O'BRIEN: Thank you for tap dancing for just a moment there.
All right, here's a question for Professor Brinkley. "Many experts foresee a long military occupation, a difficult transition to democracy at best, and growing Arab resistance to what seems to them an imperialistic attempt to control Iraq's oil. Are there groups or leaders who would look favorably on a continued physical presence of the U.s., and if so, why?" John Foster in Westhampton, New York, offering an excellent question for us.
BRINKLEY: That is, that is an excellent question. And I think we have to remember, what seems easy is sending 200,000 troops in and getting them out quickly, sometimes isn't so easy. Vietnam should teach us that lesson.
It's been very important, Saudi Arabia is the key right now, and we need Saudi Arabia's bases if there's going to be a war over there. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the thought of a permanent presence of the United States in Iraq, with, let's say, a base or staying there for a number of years, I think is not going to be very well received in the Middle East.
I don't think that the United States is going to be able to use Iraq as a launching pad or a place that we can simply build a government without the help of the Iraqi people. I think the goal is to get in and do the job quickly, have a regime change.
But how does one do that? And I -- it's only with the world opinion on our side, working with the United Nations, that I think we'll be able to do that. There is grave dangers.
There was an article in "The New York Times" about Grenada during the Reagan administration, or Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, and things that have occurred earlier in our hemisphere. Well, our hemisphere is a lot different than being that far away, and doing kind of not just regime change but nation building in a country like Iraq.
So we'll have to wait and see.
CALLAWAY: And speaking of that, Jane Dale has a question. "What do the Iraqi people understand of the growing momentum internationally in favor of disarming their country vis-a-vis the United Nations?"
ARRAF: The Iraqi people understand that there is a consensus that Iraq should be disarmed. But they wonder about the motives for the most part. The motives, they think, are not really disarmament, they are about killing their president.
And they are more convinced than ever of this in the past few days, with the U.S. insistence on a resolution that calls for use of force. Now one thing they're taking comfort from and their leadership takes comfort from are the efforts of countries, Security Council members like China, Russia, and France to moderate this U.S. position.
Russia, of course, has huge economic interest here. There are -- Iraq has the second biggest oil reserves in the world, and it does have quite a lot of influence on those major trading partners.
So basically Iraqis feel there is a counterweight to the United States at the Security Council, maybe not quite enough to make a huge difference.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go back to the e-mails. This one for General Clark, this one from somebody that goes by the moniker of CRJ. "Describe the different up imperatives for a war in Kosovo versus Iraq. What was imminent and allowed for war by executive order? What were the discussions before deciding to attack? What is the general attitude of" -- I think he means NATO, not N-A-T-A -- "toward Arab countries?"
CLARK: Well, I think the two cases are in some respects similar. It's a great question. But they're also polar opposites, because in the case of Kosovo, we tried everything we could to avoid a war. And it was only with the greatest difficulty, after three previous wars in the Balkans, that NATO recognized that you couldn't have diplomacy with Slobodan Milosevic without having it backed by the threat of force.
And then we moved very slowly, very deliberately and reluctantly, to authorize the threat of force. And finally, after all diplomatic efforts had failed, we used force.
Now, in the case of Iraq, we have had two different administrations who have worked with Iraq. They have tried to get the United Nations to implement its resolutions and enforce the disarmament of Iraq. But the way the debate has emerged, it's appeared as though to the American people, at least to many that talk to me, as though the administration jumped to the conclusion that it wanted war first and then the diplomacy has followed.
So it may appear opposite. But in fact, in both cases what we're really doing here is, we're using diplomacy backed by the credible threat of force to try to achieve an aim without having to use force as a last resort.
O'BRIEN: All right. That's unfortunately going to be have to be the last word for lack of time. Good panel. We'd like to reconstitute this group. I'm going to publicly invite you right now to join us, all three together, at some other time, because we got a lot of questions we couldn't get to. And...
CALLAWAY: And phone calls.
O'BRIEN: ... we'd like to try one more time. So Douglas Brinkley, Jane Arraf, General Wesley Clark, thank you all three for being with us on this edition of Reporter's Notebook.
CALLAWAY: We need an entire 30 minutes for that Reporter's Notebook when we have a group like that today, you know?
O'BRIEN: Well, all day long.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
