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WOLF BLITZER: Vice President Dick Cheney telling me
earlier in the day in that exclusive interview we had
that he has faith in the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and his willingness to go after the Mahdi
Army, that's the militia loyal to the radical
anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. I talked about
that with CNN's Baghdad-based correspondent Michael
Ware. He joined us from New York.
You've been in Iraq ever since day one of this war.
You've seen this whole situation unfold on a
day-to-day basis, done some incredible work for all
of us and especially not only CNN but "TIME" magazine
where you worked earlier. What do you make of the
optimism of the vice president that Nouri al-Maliki
is going to finally get tough with the Shiite
militia?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a word, Wolf,
baseless, completely baseless. I mean, I-- in all
this time, I've yet to see any sign or any indication
that prime minister al-Maliki would do as Vice
President Cheney says he has faith that he will do.
Principally, to move against the rebel anti-American
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his massive Mahdi Army
militia, and of course its influential political bloc
that has put the prime minister in power.
In fact, I found that the tone of the vice president
almost contradicts the tone of President Bush's State
of the Union speech. I think if you recall the
address last night, President Bush, when he's talking
about relying on the Maliki government --their
so-called partner in Iraq -- he immediately went
about and chided that government and said you need to
deploy forces.
You need to confront the radicals, and he said,
President Bush said they need to remove the needless
restrictions on coalition and Iraqi forces. I believe
that was specifically a reference about the Mahdi
Army and how Prime Minister Maliki has been
protecting them to this point.
BLITZER: What would happen to the prime minister,
Nouri al-Maliki, if he did what so many Americans
would like him to do, go in there and crush the Mahdi
Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and actually arrest this
young anti-American Shiite leader?
WARE: Well, it would tear his government apart, it
would tear the country apart and quite frankly I
don't think it's possible. I think even with the vice
president's 160,000 American troops, they cannot
crush Muqtada or particularly his Mahdi Army. If you
arrest Muqtada now, this rebel cleric who has got
American blood on his hands or indeed, if you killed
him now he becomes nothing more than a martyr and his
Mahdi Army is much more than just a force.
It's a movement, and it has mobilized, the great
disenchanted impoverished Shia population. Yhat can't
be stopped. Once that genie is out of the bottle
Iranian supported as it is, it can't be put back in.
So I don't see where Vice President Cheney gets his
faith from, Wolf.
BLITZER: I raised this scenario, this nightmare
scenario with the vice president. I wondered if he
feared that all of this U.S. military equipment, this
training, building up this Shiite-led Iraqi army in
the end could turn against the United States and be
aligned with Iran and Syria. He rejected that as
unrealistic. What do you think?
WARE: Well, I think in that assessment, the vice
president is either himself being unrealistic or
isn't being quite frank enough. Now, whether these
forces would physically turn on American forces, I
agree that's highly unlikely. That's a battle that
the Iraqis would never have a chance of winning.
However, the way they turn, the way they work against
U.S. interests is much more insidious. It's much more
behind the scenes. It's much more subtle. I mean the
-- essentially, what the American troops are doing
are training forces who are essentially opposed to
American interests, or at the very least, they don't
share American interests either within Iraq, with
this government, with this so-called democracy, or in
the region, and in fact, you'll find that many of
these troops have long histories with Iranian forces,
or have since developed relationships with Iranian
special forces.
BLITZER: Michael Ware in New York for us, getting
ready to head back to the war zone. Michael, be
careful when you get over there. Thanks again.
WARE: Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: We're going to have more of the interview
with the vice president coming up this hour.
Among other things, we'll talk about Senator Hillary
Clinton, what he thinks about her and whether he
thinks she could be a good president of the United
States.
All that coming up.
In the meantime, let's check back with Jack Cafferty
for The Cafferty File -- Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You should have had
Michael Ware do the rebuttal to the State of the
Union last night.
BLITZER: Yeah.
CAFFERTY: You know, we get a lot of mail everyday, a
lot of mail from a lot of viewers. And over the last
month, while Michael Ware has been away on a much
deserved and well earned vacation, we have gotten
consistent, numerous inquiries on a daily basis --
something that doesn't happen -- I mean we've got a
great stable of correspondents, but no other
correspondent has triggered the number of inquiries
that I've read from viewers who want to know where is
he, when is he coming back, we miss him, he's
terrific, his journalism is so solid and so sound.
And, you know, just huge bouquets flowing his way,
each and every day, that come into The Cafferty File
via e-mail. And now the viewers will be happy to know
he's back and I assume -- is he going back to Iraq
now?
BLITZER: Back to Iraq, and you know, and he doesn't
just sit there. He actually goes out with U.S.
troops. He's embedded...
CAFFERTY: Oh, I know.
BLITZER: He risks his life on a daily basis to bring
us the stories of the men and women fighting this
war, which is a lot more courageous than what you and
I, Jack, do.
CAFFERTY: Well, no question about that. And it's
obvious that he does more than read dispatches
because his reportage has a texture and a subtext and
a context that's a little tough to come by and is
sorely lacking in 99 percent of the other stuff that
comes out of there, referring now to the other news
media.
Anyway, it's good to have him back and now stop
bugging me about where is Michael Ware. He's
back.