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CNN Saturday Morning News
Hussein's Last Known Speech to Iraqis Broadcast
Aired May 03, 2003 - 07:28 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We go now to Iraq. A videotape has emerged showing what's purported to be Saddam Hussein's last known speech to his nation.
For the latest from Baghdad, we turn to CNN's Rym Brahimi -- Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Anderson, indeed, his last-known speech, but it wasn't broadcast at the time. It appears, according to the Associated Press, to have been taped on the 9th of April. Now, that's about the time that Baghdad was falling.
The tape shows a very weary, tired President Saddam Hussein delivering a speech similar in many ways to the kind of speeches that he was delivering throughout the war, talking about victory, saying that the people of Iraq should fight the enemy, should give this battle all they could, and that they would be victorious with the help of God.
But a very, very tired voice that the president had delivering this speech, and it was clearly a speech that wasn't aired. The question would be, when was it intended to air? And why would they have chosen to release it, or how did it come upon the hands of the AP now?
Well, in the middle of this power vacuum that the regime of Saddam Hussein has left, the people in Iraq are craving for some sort of normalcy, and that was highlighted this morning very clearly, just in the hotel where we are, Anderson, the Palestinian Hotel.
Now, slowly the Army, the U.S. Army that's been guarding the hotel, basically have been removing barbed wire from around some of the entrances. And in no time huge crowds formed at the entrance of the Palestinian Hotel with people literally pleading to be let in, crowds of Iraqis, just basically wanting some sort of assistance, people asking for jobs, people asking for help. At one point, a woman was crying that her husband had been killed, that there were no missing, there were no (UNINTELLIGIBLE), there was no assistance and that she did not know what to do and that she needed help.
This is just symptomatic. This is something that we saw here, because this is a hotel where the international media are and the people are hoping that somebody here can help, but it's just very symptomatic and just very revealing of what the situation is in the rest of the city -- Anderson.
COOPER: Dramatic pictures. Rym Brahimi, thanks very much. 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 May 3, 2003 - 07:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We go now to Iraq. A videotape has emerged showing what's purported to be Saddam Hussein's last known speech to his nation.
For the latest from Baghdad, we turn to CNN's Rym Brahimi -- Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Anderson, indeed, his last-known speech, but it wasn't broadcast at the time. It appears, according to the Associated Press, to have been taped on the 9th of April. Now, that's about the time that Baghdad was falling.
The tape shows a very weary, tired President Saddam Hussein delivering a speech similar in many ways to the kind of speeches that he was delivering throughout the war, talking about victory, saying that the people of Iraq should fight the enemy, should give this battle all they could, and that they would be victorious with the help of God.
But a very, very tired voice that the president had delivering this speech, and it was clearly a speech that wasn't aired. The question would be, when was it intended to air? And why would they have chosen to release it, or how did it come upon the hands of the AP now?
Well, in the middle of this power vacuum that the regime of Saddam Hussein has left, the people in Iraq are craving for some sort of normalcy, and that was highlighted this morning very clearly, just in the hotel where we are, Anderson, the Palestinian Hotel.
Now, slowly the Army, the U.S. Army that's been guarding the hotel, basically have been removing barbed wire from around some of the entrances. And in no time huge crowds formed at the entrance of the Palestinian Hotel with people literally pleading to be let in, crowds of Iraqis, just basically wanting some sort of assistance, people asking for jobs, people asking for help. At one point, a woman was crying that her husband had been killed, that there were no missing, there were no (UNINTELLIGIBLE), there was no assistance and that she did not know what to do and that she needed help.
This is just symptomatic. This is something that we saw here, because this is a hotel where the international media are and the people are hoping that somebody here can help, but it's just very symptomatic and just very revealing of what the situation is in the rest of the city -- Anderson.
COOPER: Dramatic pictures. Rym Brahimi, thanks very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
