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Length: 6:53
LARRY KING: Good evening,
lots on the table tonight.
And we begin in Baghdad with Michael Ware, our CNN
Correspondent, Michael's on the left; and, John
Roberts, CNN Senior National Correspondent on the
right and we thank them both. It's quite early in the
morning there, getting up to do this.
Michael, the latest U.S. death toll in Iraq, October
is the deadliest month of the year. Last year,
October was also the deadliest. What can we read into
that?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the key
things, Larry, is the holy month of Ramadan, which
has fallen at this end of the year. That is
traditionally the time of the insurgents' offensive,
the Ramadan offensive. We've seen four of them now
since the war began, so that's always a period of
increased attacks and, of course, unfortunately,
increased casualties -- Larry.
KING: John, you've been embedded with troops
searching for that U.S. soldier who went missing
Monday. Anything new?
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:
There doesn't appear to be anything new, Larry. They
don't really have an idea of where he is. They do
have evidence that he was in a neighborhood called
Kerrada in the central part of Baghdad.
Yesterday, I went in with elements of the 172nd
Striker Brigade looking for this fellow. Eventually,
after searching from house to house for a time, the
whole sort of deteriorated into a diplomatic pushing
match between both sides as they tried to get into a
local television station that's owned by the largest
Shiite political block in the Iraqi government.
It was a dispute over weapons and searches and the
search for this soldier just sort of got sidelined by
that whole thing but they were back today apparently.
They circulated pictures of this fellow in the
neighborhood.
But nothing more on the circumstances surrounding his
disappearance, which according to family members was
an abduction as he had left the international zone to
go out and visit family, which you're not supposed to
do. That counts as being away without leave and
nothing more on where these emanations of
intelligence on where this person might be are.
KING: We have an e-mail question from John in
Wintersville, Ohio. The question is, "I thought the
policy was that U.S. soldiers are supposed to travel
together in twos or more to protect them from this
kind of situation. Why was this soldier alone?"
Michael, do you know?
WARE: Well, Larry, that's the great mystery here. I
mean, it's not that they don't travel in twos or
threes. Larry, they don't travel at all. No soldier
steps outside the wire, the perimeter of the base.
And, here in Baghdad, we're talking about a soldier
who is a translator attached to a provincial
reconstruction team here in the capital who was
within the international zone or the Green Zone that
houses the U.S. Embassy.
Why anyone would just walk out those gates into the
Red Zone is a mystery, although this U.S. soldier is
of Iraqi descent. Even still, there was no permission
according to the 4th Infantry Division for him to go
outside the wire -- Larry.
KING: John, you've been there quite a bit. What's the
mood? What's the morale like as it gets lesser and
lesser in the United States?
ROBERTS: It depends on whether you talk to somebody
on the record or off the record, Larry. If you talk
to them off the record, the morale is still pretty
high. They still believe in the job that they're
doing but they do see that the plan for securing
Baghdad and the rest of Iraq for that matter has got
problems.
You talk to them on the record they always say "We
believe that the mission is working." They don't want
to get in trouble with their superior officers. But
there is a real sort of, you know, sense, Larry, that
they've got a public thought about this and they've
got a private thought about it and the private
thoughts very often are not as optimistic as the
public thoughts are.
There really seems to be a sense among some of these
troops that I've talked to that the way that things
are operating now, while they're trying as hard as
they can, it's just not working. They need to rethink
the plan. And there are people here who believe that
there need to be many more U.S. forces on the ground
in able to be able to secure Baghdad because, you
know, they'll sort of give you a wink and a nod when
an Iraqi patrol drives by to say, you know, not quite
ready for prime- time, Larry, so definitely a gap
here between where security is now and where they
want it to be.
KING: Michael, we had a news conference today, U.S.
ambassador in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
What was the headline?
WARE: Well, essentially what we saw was the American
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the U.S. commander
here General George Casey outline what is America's
direction forward.
While coming out and saying that strategy needs to be
constantly assessed and needs to adapt, the
fundamental message for the ambassador was that the
mission in Iraq is more than salvageable. It can
still succeed.
He then outlined a series of specific expectations
that the U.S. administration is waiting to see the
Iraqi government, in the ambassador's words, step up
and meet. However, we have heard all of these things
before. We've heard the same kind of timetables, the
same kind of list of expectations.
These things have been set out and they haven't been
met over and over and over. There was nothing to
indicate today, Larry, why now will be any different
from what we're already experiencing.
KING: John, do you sense any kind of change? We know
"stay the course" is no longer viable. Do you sense
any kind of change in a date certain?
ROBERTS: There seems to be sort of something in the
wind here, Larry. Too many top officials have been
talking about the need to review the plan, perhaps
change it. I don't think anything is going to happen
significantly before the November 7th election. But,
keep in mind, that after November 7th, all of the
attention begins to turn toward the 2008 presidential
contest.
John McCain, the Republican frontrunner, has made no
secret of his desire to see tens of thousands more
troops here in Iraq to try to bring peace to this
nation. It could be, I mean if you want to paint sort
of a political scenario for this, Larry, it could be
that the Republicans would really love to get this
Iraq issue off the table before the 2008 election.
They don't want John McCain to own this in the way
that President Bush has been forced to own it over
these last few years. So, if they were to infuse a
number of more U.S. troops into this area, try to get
it secure, try to transition authority over to the
Iraqis in a way that they could declare victory and
then get out, that might be a scenario that could be
plausible.
The problem is, and Michael and I were talking about
this downstairs, where do you get those extra
American forces? Even if you delayed some of the
rotations out, you're still not going to have enough
to bring it up to the level that John McCain wants.
KING: Thank you both very much. Thank you for staying
up or getting up to do this. We look forward to lots
more reports and look forward to seeing you back home
soon, John. And, Michael, you stay well.
WARE: Thank you, Larry.
KING: Michael Ware and John Roberts.