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CNN Live Sunday
Jamal Al-Tikriti Surrenders to Iraqi National Congress
Aired April 20, 2003 - 16:02 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.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: It looks like the Pentagon can take another card out of its deck of most wanted Iraqis, and this catch is a big one. CNN's Jim Clancy is following this story and all the latest from Baghdad -- Jim.
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jamal Al-Tikriti is one of the surviving son-in-laws of President Saddam Hussein. He had two other son-in-laws that defected to Jordan some years back. Both were killed when they tried to return to Iraq.
Jamal Al-Tikriti taken into custody after he surrendered to Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. That's the exiled opposition group that has returned to Iraq, trying to forge a new leadership here and play its role, a role that some argue is bigger than it should be in reforming a government in Iraq.
But Jamal Al-Tikriti like so many others in the regime considered to be someone in the know. He was about number 40 on the list of the most wanted by the United States. He is in custody now.
Elsewhere, signs of progress, signs of hope that the residents of Baghdad have that Saddam Hussein is well and truly gone. They're returning to the streets today, traffic so bad at some points that civilians joined in to direct traffic.
Now, the fledgling police department is being reconstituted. Sill only has a few thousand officers on the streets. The traffic something they can't deal with in every corner of this city, but certainly the civilians doing a fairly good job of getting everybody routed in the right direction.
The police have been busy, though. That's for sure. All you have to do is make a trip to one of Baghdad's city prisons and you can see some of the looters that they have caught. All in all, there's more than about 50 of them that have been taken into custody, according to U.S. officials. They're expected to serve at least 48 hours in the jail before they'll be released. Of course, there is no justice system in place to put any of these men on trial. The youngest that we saw in the jail today was 13 years of age.
Meantime, Baghdad -- Baghdad's Christians celebrated Easter. About 3 percent to 5 percent of the Iraqi population is Christian. This was a Chaldean service, the Chaldeans speaking Aramaic, the language of Christ, in their services. They date back to the 1st century B.C. They were converts of St. Paul here in Iraq. They have a long history in the country. They prayed for peace. The sermon decidedly unpolitical. That contrasts with other sermons given from the mosques. At the same time, the Christian community in Iraq is very worried about the shape of any future state, fearful that their customs, that their religion may be persecuted if the Iraq's Shia Muslim majority takes power -- Sophia.
CHOI: All right, Jim Clancy with the latest from Baghdad, thank you so 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 April 20, 2003 - 16:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: It looks like the Pentagon can take another card out of its deck of most wanted Iraqis, and this catch is a big one. CNN's Jim Clancy is following this story and all the latest from Baghdad -- Jim.
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jamal Al-Tikriti is one of the surviving son-in-laws of President Saddam Hussein. He had two other son-in-laws that defected to Jordan some years back. Both were killed when they tried to return to Iraq.
Jamal Al-Tikriti taken into custody after he surrendered to Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. That's the exiled opposition group that has returned to Iraq, trying to forge a new leadership here and play its role, a role that some argue is bigger than it should be in reforming a government in Iraq.
But Jamal Al-Tikriti like so many others in the regime considered to be someone in the know. He was about number 40 on the list of the most wanted by the United States. He is in custody now.
Elsewhere, signs of progress, signs of hope that the residents of Baghdad have that Saddam Hussein is well and truly gone. They're returning to the streets today, traffic so bad at some points that civilians joined in to direct traffic.
Now, the fledgling police department is being reconstituted. Sill only has a few thousand officers on the streets. The traffic something they can't deal with in every corner of this city, but certainly the civilians doing a fairly good job of getting everybody routed in the right direction.
The police have been busy, though. That's for sure. All you have to do is make a trip to one of Baghdad's city prisons and you can see some of the looters that they have caught. All in all, there's more than about 50 of them that have been taken into custody, according to U.S. officials. They're expected to serve at least 48 hours in the jail before they'll be released. Of course, there is no justice system in place to put any of these men on trial. The youngest that we saw in the jail today was 13 years of age.
Meantime, Baghdad -- Baghdad's Christians celebrated Easter. About 3 percent to 5 percent of the Iraqi population is Christian. This was a Chaldean service, the Chaldeans speaking Aramaic, the language of Christ, in their services. They date back to the 1st century B.C. They were converts of St. Paul here in Iraq. They have a long history in the country. They prayed for peace. The sermon decidedly unpolitical. That contrasts with other sermons given from the mosques. At the same time, the Christian community in Iraq is very worried about the shape of any future state, fearful that their customs, that their religion may be persecuted if the Iraq's Shia Muslim majority takes power -- Sophia.
CHOI: All right, Jim Clancy with the latest from Baghdad, thank you so 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
