NR: "As far as they were
concerned, the Americans were going."
Monday, June 29, 2009
Length: 1:56
LARGE (22.3 MB)
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SMALL (2.4 MB)
TJ Holmes gets his turn at bat with the "Are
they ready" question.
DON LEMON:
To Iraq. Very close by. Our Michael Ware is standing
by, joining us live from Baghdad.
Michael, hello to you again.
Tomorrow is the day. It's deadline day for U.S.
troops to be pulling out of those cities. The
question is, are the Iraqi forces ready to step up?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, a couple of
things. First, T.J., it's actually less than a day.
We're at about four and a half hours away. And there
is celebrations aplenty here in Baghdad, the capital.
And there's been other celebrations around the
country.
In fact, I just came from a public park not from the
bureau here and there were hundreds, perhaps
thousands of people dancing and singing and
celebrating. And just simply marking the fact that as
far as they were concerned, the Americans were going,
at least out of their city, Baghdad.
Now, to the point you turned to, security. There was
another car bombing today. Nine police officers
killed in the northern city of Mosul, two more
wounded, bringing the death total over the last eight
or nine days to something like 220.
The answer to your question specifically, are the
Iraqi security forces ready? It's a very simple
answer, T.J. No. No, they are not. And that's why
you're still going to have 130,000 American troops
here, albeit largely restricted to their bases
outside of the city, limited to operations in the
desert and in the Green Zone around Baghdad. And they
need to underwrite the Iraqi security forces and
provide the heavy firepower that the Iraqis lack.
Nonetheless, the Iraqis are insistent as of midnight
tonight, just a few hours away, this is their war.
T.J.
HOLMES: All right. Our Michael Ware keeping an eye on
things there for us. And like you said, just a few
hours away from deadline day in Baghdad, in Iraq.
Thank you so much, Michael. We'll talk to you again
soon.