Click
photo to play
Length: 6:16
ANDERSON COOPER: We also have more breaking news
tonight, this out of Iraq, where we have now entered
the fifth year of the war. Just moments ago, we
learned that Saddam Hussein's vice president was
executed by the Iraqi government. We're just getting
details on the story.
CNN's Michael Ware is live in Baghdad with the
latest.
Michael, what can you tell us about it? How did it
go?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, Anderson.
It's 5:00 a.m. in the morning here, of course, in
Baghdad. So, there's very little details. What we
have is that the Associated Press is reporting that
another major figure from Saddam Hussein's regime,
Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam's former vice president
and a member of the Revolutionary Command Council,
has been executed for the crimes against humanity
relating to his role in the deaths of 148 people in
the town of Dujail in 1982 -- the news of the
execution coming, of course, on the fourth
anniversary of the war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WARE (voice-over): One man, American soldiers all
around him, some just yards away, exploits a blind
spot in the soldier's defenses. The video was shot by
al Qaeda and widely distributed in Iraq.
The man is planting bombs beneath a heavily armored
Bradley's belly. He slips away. Then... It's
not clear whether anyone was hurt, but the soldiers
unleash a storm of fire, with nothing to shoot at.
This is the war in Iraq, entering its fifth year.
And the man who did this from al Qaeda represents but
one of America's enemies -- the rest, Sunni
insurgents, Shia militias, and Iranian operatives
equally determined, equally stealthy. American and
Iraqi officials acknowledge as many as 20,000 Sunni
insurgents alone are still out there.
Despite some successes, coalition forces are attacked
around 100 times a day, almost twice as often as two
years ago. With America's enemies Iran and al Qaeda
emboldened, it comes to this: the Battle for Baghdad.
These Stryker vehicles are how the U.S. forces are
taking that battle into the militia- and
insurgent-controlled neighborhoods, and becoming a
signature of the American reinforcements ordered by
President Bush.
Nearly 30,000 are coming, with 10,000 already in
place. This is make-or-break time. Even the U.S.
military says so.
MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM CALDWELL, U.S. ARMY SPOKESMAN,
COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ: By the fall time frame we
would anticipate that we, in fact, will be able to
see a discernible difference.
WARE: In this new offensive, 24 outposts have already
been built across the capital, American soldiers
keeping their Iraqi counterparts in check to curb
their sectarian bloodletting.
The early signs are good. Sectarian murders have been
down by half since mid-February -- but, last week,
another spasm of killings.
CALDWELL: I would again caution everybody about
patience, about diligence. This is going to take many
months, not weeks.
WARE: Just two months ago, firefights raged on Haifa
Street in the heart of the city. Now, U.S. commanders
here concede insurgents and militias are lying low.
Instead, the battle is intensifying outside Baghdad,
such as to the north here in Diyala Province, where a
Stryker battalion has just been rushed by
Washington's new war commander, General David
Petraeus. Petraeus will soon deploy almost a combat
division, about 10,000 troops, into long-neglected
rural areas where insurgent and militia groups are
supported and supplied.
GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ: I
should point out that although the focus, the
priority, clearly is Baghdad, anyone who knows about
securing Baghdad knows that you must also secure the
Baghdad belts, in other words, the areas that
surround Baghdad.
WARE: He knows he must be quick. In this carnage,
Iraqis continue dying in the hundreds every month --
and, now, fear sown with plumes like this one from
chlorine gas bombs, three last weekend alone.
And the insurgents are improving their methods, such
as when using missiles to down helicopters. With more
than 3,200 American troops killed, the insurgency is
evolving. This al Qaeda video shows not just one
mortar, but a whole battery, teams of men trained
better than ever, a mark of America's unrelenting
war.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Michael, the U.S. is quick to point out that
violence is down. What are -- what's behind the
numbers?
WARE: Well, it's a number of factors, Anderson. And
nothing is clear at this stage.
U.S. commanders are very, very quick to caution
anyone from drawing too much from what we're seeing
as a gentle ebb in a particular kind of violence,
sectarian murders here in the capital. A lot of that
can be attributed to a number of things.
Many of the death squads or their facilitators are
literally being babysat by American forces, being
kept in their posts at night, when they would be out
killing. Also, a lot of the militia and insurgent
leaders and their apparatus have moved outside of the
city, displaced. So, we're seeing more violence in
other areas, such as Diyala, where General Petraeus
has just had to rush a new Stryker battalion to shore
up the defenses -- Anderson.
COOPER: Michael Ware reporting from Baghdad on this
terrible milestone today, the fourth anniversary of
the war, the fifth year of the war beginning.
Michael, thank you.
Click photo to play
Length: 5:11
ANDERSON COOPER: And
that's how the war began four years ago, with what
was called Shock and Awe. Remember that? Tonight, the
shock and awe has given way to second guessing and
serious questions.
Two journalists who know the war from inside out are
CNN's Michael Ware and "New York Times" chief
military correspondent, Michael Gordon. Both joined
me earlier to talk about a troubled mission.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Michael Ware, over the weekend, Prime
Minister al-Maliki said that the sectarian threat is
all but over and that al Qaeda is now the main enemy,
the main threat in Iraq. Is that true?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's
certainly not how his American counterparts -- either
the civilian administrators in the embassy, the
diplomats nor the U.S. military commanders here on
the ground -- see it. They still say that they're
facing a sectarian conflict, a civil war, Anderson.
COOPER: Michael Gordon, some attacks are down.
Certainly, sectarian attacks are down. What is going
on? Are the militias simply lying low?
MICHAEL GORDON, CHIEF MILITARY CORRESPONDENT, "NEW
YORK TIMES": Well, Anderson, there has been a shift,
I would say, in the threat, in that some of the
Shiite militias have gone to ground. Some have left
Baghdad, but by no means all.
But to a certain extent they're lying low. They may
be trying to outwait the Americans. That's what's
happening in terms of some of the Shiite militias.
But Al Qaeda of Iraq, the Sunni-based insurgent
group, has really picked up the pace. And they've
been launching an increased number of car bomb
attacks. And so at least in the short term, al Qaeda
of Iraq and the Sunni-based insurgency has become a
bigger threat than the Shiite militias and a more
proximate cause of the violence in Baghdad right now.
COOPER: And Michael Ware, we've heard that from
General Petraeus, who said, look, a military solution
is not possible by itself, that there have to be
other things going forward.
Are there other things going forward, political,
economic, social? Are there improvements in those
areas? Is the Iraqi government able to capitalize on
this drop in violence, whatever the cause of it may
be?
WARE: Well, we've certainly been looking to,
Anderson, but we've been hearing this from U.S.
commanders almost since Saddam's statue fell in April
2003, that this was going to require a broad-based
solution, that it won't be won on the battlefield
alone. That it's going to require political efforts,
reconciliation, economic upswing. Over and over,
we've heard this.
Now they're looking for Maliki to capitalize on the
relative calm that is in the capital as a civil war
is taking a breath. But at the end of the day, none
of the fundamental building blocks of real power in
this country are being addressed, either as a result
of the surge or any of the political endeavors.
Political power is still carved up by the Shia
militias, many of whom, western intelligence claims,
are backed by Iran. None of that is effected. And the
infrastructure of the Sunni insurgency and the Shia
militias that was in Baghdad, though pressured, is
still intact.
We've seen it simply shift outside of the city. Look
at Diyala province. That's where a lot of the fight
moved. Violence has become so bad that the new war
commander, General Petraeus, had to rush a battalion
of Strykers to shore up the defenses, Anderson.
COOPER: And finally, Michael Gordon, the time line
that U.S. military commanders like Petraeus are
talking about seems at odds with the time line that
we're hearing from politicians in the United States.
At some point those two time lines have to come
together. How does that happen?
GORDON: Well, right now, Anderson, there is a
disconnect, really, between the realities in Iraq and
the political situation in Washington. In the
Congress now, you have people debating all sorts of
resolutions that would begin the withdrawal of troops
and people arguing that the surge has failed.
In fact, the surge is just in the early stages of
getting under way. And Lieutenant General Ray
Odierno, who is really the No. 2 commander in Iraq,
he has submitted a -- his own personal recommendation
to General Petraeus, which is that the surge be
extended through February 20008. What General
Petraeus has said, that it should go well beyond the
summer.
So I think there's a sense in the theater in Iraq
that this is really an ambitious undertaking. If it
begins to work, it's going to take some efforts to
sustain. I think it's a more sober realization of the
task ahead.
And you have to contrast that with what we have in
Washington, which is really a lot of impatience with
the situation in Iraq and not a lot of, well, not a
lot of patience to see things through. And there is a
contradiction between the two, which has yet to be
resolved, and that's really going to be the political
drama for the rest of this year.
COOPER: Michael Gordon, Michael Ware, appreciate you
guys' perspective. Thank you.