Saddam Hussein Fires Back at U.S.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's go right back to San Diego. That note that we told you about from the jury in the case, the murder of Danielle van Dam, that note is being discussed right now in court. Let's listen in to Judge Mudd.</s>JUDGE WILLIAM MUDD, SAN DIEGO CO. SUPERIOR COURT: We've been able to resolve those conflicts so the jury will be in deliberation five days a week, not four days a week as previously announced. However, the exact hours of their deliberation will not be made public, nor released to the media for some other reasons that I don't want to go into. So at any rate, they will be in deliberation five days a week. All right, we'll be in recess.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, I missed the beginning of that, but Judge William Mudd was essentially offering some housekeeping items for reporters covering this particular case, the murder case of Danielle van Dam, David Westerfield's case. I think essentially what he was doing was telling them how the jury was going to progress with its deliberations, but not offering a lot of indication as to when they might, in fact, be deliberating. We'll keep you posted and try to get you a full report on exactly what was said there. Now let's move on. There may be a gathering storm in the Persian Gulf region. Facing warnings and threats from the U.S., Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein has mustered his forces and his bravado issuing some warnings of his own. Let's go live now to CNN's Rym Brahimi in Baghdad for the latest on what's going on there; Rym, hello.</s>RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi there. Well, the president addressed his people today, a major broadcast address, a lot of defiance, a lot of the usual tough rhetoric that President Saddam Hussein is now famous for, telling people in fact that if the Americans do attack well that attack will be met by fatah and also calling the American forces, forces of evil. Let's listen to what he had to say.</s>BRAHIMI (voice over): The occasion, the Day of Days, the day Iraq's eight-year war with Iran ended 14 years ago. But as the Iraqi leadership celebrates the end of that conflict with full pomp and ceremony, it's also preparing for the possibility of facing another war, the third in the past 22 years. In his Day of Days speech, the Iraqi president directly addressed U.S. threats for the first time in prophetic tones but using much of the usual defiance.</s>HUSSEIN (through translator): One of the lessons of recent and distant history is that all empires and bureaus of the</s>BRAHIMI: That's tough talk, backed by a show of force, the second military parade in Baghdad this week, this one about 10,000 volunteers marching. Many of these volunteers, some of them members of the ruling Ba'ath Party, say they have weapons at home and are learning to use them to defend their ruler and their country to the death, displays of readiness that in recent days have gone hand-in- hand with attempts at promoting dialogue with the U.S. voiced on this occasion by the president himself.</s>HUSSEIN (through translator): If they wanted peace and security for themselves and their people, then this is not the course to take. The right course is of respect to the security and advice of others through dealing with others in peace and establishing the obligations required by way of credible dialog.</s>BRAHIMI: On this public holiday, few Iraqis show up at their local cafes to discuss politics. They're being told that even if the U.S. does attack Iraq, it won't have the backing of an international coalition like it did in 1991. Most Iraqis bear few, if any, illusions that an attack is on its way, a political game they know is not in their hands.</s>BRAHIMI (on camera): Well, despite that main instruction being given out by the ruling Ba'ath Party here, Miles, are all seeming to converge toward one goal and that's gaining international public opinion. The invitation to members of the U.S. Congress was again renewed yesterday, at the National Assembly; and also people from local associations and from unions are being asked to contact their counterparts abroad and tell them that this is not a war that Iraq wants. Miles.</s>O'BRIEN: Rym, you mentioned international public opinion. I'm curious about public opinion there in the streets of Baghdad. There's a lot of people in the United States talking about the possibility that any sort of attack might just topple the Saddam Hussein regime very quickly, that it is a house of cards and that there will be a popular uprising against him. Do you have any sense of that one way or another in your dealings day-to-day?</s>BRAHIMI: Well, Miles, that's a very, very difficult thing to establish from Baghdad because, as you know, people don't talk easily and certainly they don't talk easily publicly. What is clear though is that there is a lot of concern here in Baghdad, the main concern being that if such a regime change should happen, well it will be accompanied by a war. Now that's one of the first concerns. Now the other thing is also that people will not really tell you what they want to see happen, but even those who want to see change are worried that it will come with a war, and that's what I can tell you for now. Miles.</s>O'BRIEN: CNN's Rym Brahimi in Baghdad, thank you very much, appreciate that. In 1991, U.S. air power and armor decimated Iraqi forces spread out across the desert, but underscoring his warnings to the U.S. not to try it again, Saddam Hussein may be getting ready to fight a different battlefield; more from CNN's Patty Davis in Washington.</s>PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Pentagon dismisses Saddam Hussein's warning that any U.S. attack would fail with heavy U.S. casualties, a view echoed across the Bush administration.</s>PHILLIP REEKER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: Saddam's comments are a bluster from an internationally isolated dictator.</s>DAVIS: Planning for a possible U.S. military invasion continues at the Pentagon. Iraqi opposition leaders in Washington to meet with senior Pentagon and State Department officials on ousting Saddam Hussein say, unlike the Gulf War, the Iraqi leader is preparing to fight U.S. troops not in the desert but on the streets of Baghdad.</s>SHARIF AL DIN AL-HUSSEIN, IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS: He is positioning himself so that there would be no significant battles in the field. He is preparing for street fighting and to take on any allied troops inside Iraq.</s>DAVIS: Pentagon officials say urban combat carries the highest risk of U.S. troop casualties and could result in significant civilian deaths as well. The military, a senior Pentagon official said, is familiar with the difficulties of urban warfare and there are ways to get around it. Military analysts aren't so sure.</s>MICHAEL O'HANLON, BOOKINGS INSTITUTION: It's going to involve Iraqis hiding behind civilian populations, ambushing us from the basements and roofs of various buildings, trying to use shoulder- launched weaponry against our helicopters, and making life difficult. We will win but we could lose a thousand or more people if things go badly.</s>DAVIS (on camera): The U.S. is weighing the risks as it forges ahead with war planning. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice meet next week with President Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch to discuss how best to deal with Saddam Hussein. Patty Davis, CNN, the Pentagon.</s>O'BRIEN: The last time around, dozens of nations joined the U.S. in battling Iraq. Saudi Arabia played a strategically vital role but shows no desire to get involved in any new conflict. Can the U.S. work around that? Joining me is CNN/Headline News military analyst Jack Liles. As a Navy officer, he flew many sorties over Iraq during the Gulf War. Good to have you with us, Jack.</s>JACK LILES, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hi, Miles.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, let's talk about how crucial Saudi Arabia was to the first Persian Gulf War.</s>LILES: Well, it obviously was very crucial. It was centrally our base of operations from which a large percentage of the combat missions originated, from which the command and control function out of Riyadh was hosted, all the support aircraft, tankers, AWACs, reconnaissance aircraft of all types, of different types of intelligence aircraft all originated, and largely it was where Desert Shield took place, if you remember. The preceding nine months prior to our attack, or six months prior to the attack, this is where we staged our operations, where a lot of the logistics originated, where we got prepared to go into Iraq in the winter time.</s>O'BRIEN: Now let's talk about some of the alternatives if, in fact, the U.S. was on the road toward some sort of attack on Iraq. First of all aircraft carriers, something you're very familiar with, prior to the Gulf War the thought of having multiple aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf really was not part of military doctrine. It is now, isn't it, and you might have as many as four aircraft carriers in the Gulf?</s>LILES: That's right. During the Gulf War, we actually operated as many as four at a time in the Persian Gulf, an area before the Gulf War that was deemed to be just too small to operate a carrier. The threats from surrounding countries, particularly Iran, Iraq, were seen as too great to put a carrier in that small a body of water with that short of warning time. We sort of threw the book out as Desert Shield and Desert Storm evolved, and learned how to place carriers and operate four different aircraft carriers from the Persian Gulf body of water, as well as the Red Sea, another small body of water where we operated carriers as well, flying missions across Saudi Arabia into Iraq. So, we learned a lot about how to operate in small bodies of water.</s>O'BRIEN: It's still nice to have operations on</s>LILES: They really have, and as we've seen, they've built up a base there in Qatar with extensive command and control capability with a huge runway, with facilities to operate a large number of the aircraft that perhaps may transfer to this Qatar area as opposed to the Saudi bases where they've been operating out of for quite a while. So it gives us another option within close range to provide extensive operations, logistics support, et cetera, for that whole area.</s>O'BRIEN: Let's look at a commercially available satellite image of the runway there, one of the runways that might be used there. It is being expanded as we speak, so this could be a replacement for the Prince Sultan air base that we were just talking about in Saudi Arabia. I got to say I'm sure a lot of people are very curious about the Kuwaitis, given what happened in the first Gulf War and the fat that the Kuwaitis were the target of, well the people that were saved after all.</s>LILES: Right.</s>O'BRIEN: Are they offering a lot of help to the U.S.?</s>LILES: It seems so but in recent months we've also seen signs of some dissent within the Kuwaiti population, some pro more fundamentalist type Arab opinion being expressed there, some dissent over American presence following the Gulf War. Obviously, however, this is a country that is very grateful and should be very grateful to the work that was done during the Gulf War to liberate that country and to free its economies and markets and people up again. So, I think more or less we're probably expecting support from Kuwait during this time and we'll be able to use certain resources, airspace, et cetera, in any operation in that area.</s>O'BRIEN: Jack Liles, former Navy lieutenant commander, expert on military matters, we appreciate it. We're going to take a break. We'll be back with more in just a moment.