Inside the Bloodshed in Tripoli; Inside Gadhafi's Regime; Crisis in Libya
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening, everyone. Tonight in Tripoli, families are once again hiding in their homes as gunmen rule the streets and the dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, and his sons continue to oversee the killing of unarmed protesters and continue to lie about what they are doing right now. Gadhafi today telling Libyans they should be singing and dancing in the streets. Well, I want to show you what his people are really doing in the streets and what's being done to them in those streets as protests swept Tripoli today. The Gadhafi regime, which claims it would never kill its own people, is killing its own people. Again, more died today; more will likely die tomorrow. By all accounts, what we are witnessing, what we are watching, what Gadhafi and his henchmen are doing, is wholesale butchery. Take a look at what happened today. People leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in Tripoli were attacked. The call had gone out to protest after prayers, but government forces were there, waiting with weapons. Watch.</s>COOPER: The firing -- the firing goes on and on. Troops shooting not to warn or wound, we are told, but to kill. You'll hear shortly from a protester who was there in that crowd. There is also new video coming in by the hour, just now we just discovered some footage. We don't know the precise location, but we do know it was taken today, just as the person who took it was hit. We don't know what happened to the person taking those images. We have no reliable casualty figures either from that incident or many others across Tripoli. The terrible truth is we simply do not know and we do not know what happens to the people in these video clips. To the badly wounded protesters like this man here or elsewhere in this -- to this injured mercenary, this is a remarkable moment, though. You see a mercenary apparently a foreigner in camouflage, the man on top of him, apparently shielding him, covering him with his body; he and a small circle of protesters protecting this mercenary from the angry mob. Protecting a man who just moments before was apparently roaming the streets with orders to kill. "Keeping Them Honest", orders from the man who showed up today in Tripoli's Green Square with his henchmen and promised to open up his arsenals and turn Libya into a red flame.</s>MOAMMA GADHAFI, LIBYAN LEADER (through translator): We are prepared to break any aggression by the people, the armed people. And the time will come when all the ammunition warehouses will be open for the people to defend the country. I came here in order to greet you, greet your courage, and I tell you to repel them. Moammar Gadhafi is not a president, neither a king nor a head of state. Neither any high position but the people love him, because we are the glory, the dignity. Look, America, look. Look to the Libyan people. This is Moammar Gadhafi among the Libyan people, among the masses of the Libyan people.</s>COOPER: He speaks about himself in the third person. That was Gadhafi defiant. There was also Gadhafi the clown.</s>GADHAFI (through translator): Here, youth, take your liberty everywhere, in the streets. Dance, sing, live with dignity. Live with high morals. Moammar Gadhafi is one of you. Dance. Dance and sing and be happy.</s>COOPER: Dance and sing and be happy. A killer promises to open up his arsenal to crush dissent. Dance and sing and be happy, he says. He hires outsiders to turn streets into killing grounds and he tells his people to dance and sing and be happy. We hear gunfire echoing throughout the night, and we are told he -- he says that the people should dance and sing and be happy. It's not just the father spreading lies and threats. It's the son as well, today. His name is Seif, and for years he's travelled in the West in slick suits, giving speeches and shaking hands with dignitaries and well-known singers, pretending to be a man of civilization and reform. He's cast his lot with his father now, and claims everything is normal. Take a look at this new interview he did, the son did, with CNN Turk. Seif first caught by a photographer with a smile and a wink right to the camera. I got to tell you, when we first saw that, we couldn't believe it. There's blood in the streets but after years of living and feasting on millions in oil money, being protected and pampered, this man is cocky and smug as ever. We don't know what is going on in his head but his words are defiant and disastrous.</s>SEIF AL-ISLAM GADHAFI, MOAMMAR GADHAFI'S SON: We have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. Plan A, is to live and die in Libya. Plan B, is to live and die in Libya. Plan C is to live and die in Libya.</s>COOPER: He continued to blame outside -- outside terrorists for the uprisings. And most shocking of all, he said the regime would never kill its own people. He lies and he smiles and he winks. Global pressure is starting to build today. There's no doubt about that. The hope is it's the beginning of the end. The fear is what Gadhafi might do between now and then. And just in case there is anyone listening tonight who might believe the Gadhafis when they say they would never kill their own people, although I find it hard to believe anybody would believe it at this point. Tonight, another voice, more proof, a man who says he saw people die today on the streets of Tripoli after Friday prayers.</s>COOPER: What happened when you left -- what happened after mosque today?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were in groups walking down the streets. The military came and they -- and they tried to shoot at people. And they -- they weren't -- they weren't shooting to scare people off, they were shooting to kill. They killed people in front of my eyes, children, old men.</s>COOPER: You saw people dying?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I saw -- I've seen people dying.</s>COOPER: Who was doing the shooting?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Military, military people. They call them revolutionary committees.</s>COOPER: Were they Special Forces --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>COOPER: Yes, it wasn't Special Forces it was revolutionary committees?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. It was revolutionary committees. They had AK-47s and they were shooting at people and people were armless. We thought -- we thought of throwing rocks at them. We had six rocks -- people had knives and they were shooting with machine guns.</s>COOPER: What was it like for you to see this?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was very, very -- I -- I couldn't -- I couldn't believe this. People were running off all the -- in every direction. We want the -- we want the United Nations and the United States to -- to get to the -- to have a no-fly zone over Libya. That's what we want to do. We don't want any military intervention in Libya. We want -- we don't want them in our country. We can do this on our own. I know that the United -- the United States doesn't give a damn about us. I know that the United States, all they care about is the oil, oil prices going up. And I know that all they care is about the oil. I just want them to help these people. They are dying every day. And they are armless. They don't have weapons.</s>COOPER: And you feel a no-fly zone would help you on the ground?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, no-fly zone, because he would not be able to use -- to use planes. He would not be able to shoot us from the skies. Because he can -- he can -- he can destroy the whole city in just minutes with -- with airplanes. Pilots have landed in Malta. They have -- they have asked pilots to strike the city, but they refuse, because they couldn't strike their own people. So they landed their planes in Malta. So he's -- so he's running out of options. People are trying, people -- more people are joining the revolution every day, military officers, generals in the army are supporting the people. He's losing -- he's losing his best supporters. It's only a matter of time.</s>COOPER: Thank you for talking to us. I know it's a great risk. We'll continue to talk with you in the days ahead. Thank you.</s>COOPER: I want to bring in Ben Wedeman now in Libya, foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty and Professor Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies as well as the Hoover Institution. Ben, we've seen these remarkable crowds today in Benghazi where you are, rallying in support of people in Tripoli because because as we've heard from the people in Tripoli it is another story all together. Are -- are people in Benghazi in close contact with people in Tripoli? And can they do anything to influence events on the ground there?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Very close contact. Well, they're in very close contact. In fact, people are constantly handing me phones of their relatives in Tripoli to talk to them, to gather information. So the cell phones work. So you can actually get in contact with Tripoli very easily. They're doing what they can here. In fact, we're hearing that there is a move to put together some sort of force that might be able to go help -- help the people of Tripoli in fighting back against the regime. But the problem is that whereas the regime in Tripoli has airplanes, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers and helicopters, there's very little in the way of heavy machinery, heavy weaponry that could be used against those forces here. It's mostly RPGs, AK-47s, some surface-to-air missiles but not the kind of weaponry they would need to really bring down the regime. And also, it's a very long way. It's more than a thousand kilometers between Benghazi and Tripoli.</s>COOPER: That was going to be my next question. So if it's a thousand kilometers and some forces moving toward Tripoli, I'm assuming the Gadhafi regime would have an advance notice of that and have -- have an opportunity to -- to attack anyone on that road.</s>WEDEMAN: Yes. And let's not forget that right smack dab in the middle of that is the city of Sirt on the Mediterranean coast, which is Gadhafi-controlled territory. We have seen that gradually the cities along the coast have fallen to the anti-Gadhafi forces, but there is a long stretch of very thinly populated territory that divides Eastern from western Libya.</s>COOPER: Jill, tonight President Obama signed an executive order on sanctions which targets the Gadhafi government while protecting the assets that belong to the people of Libya. That's a quote. How is that supposed to work?</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: You know, we just got a briefing a few moments ago from treasury official Stuart Levey. And essentially any of the assets that are held first by the regime and the regime includes, and they specifically were named here, Moammar Gadhafi and four of his children, any assets that are held in U.S. financial institutions or U.S.-controlled financial institutions anywhere in the world are frozen. So, again, it has to do with the regime and then also the government; assets by the Central Bank and that Sovereign Wealth Fund, that's where all the oil money goes, that is all frozen. It's held in those institutions and then it will be eventually returned, they say, to the Libyan people. We asked how much money is there? And they didn't say specifically, but they said it is substantial sums by any account.</s>COOPER: Fouad, the sanctions make any difference whatsoever to what's happened in Tripoli?</s>FOUAD AJAMI, PROFESSOR, JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES & HOOVER INSTITUTION: No, we've seen this movie before about the sanctions. I mean, we must remember, that Gadhafi endured a generation, 15 years or so of sanctions. We also have another case of sanctions, which our viewers will remember very well, which is Saddam Hussein, who endured sanctions from 1991 to 2003, when President George W. Bush decapitated his regime. The sanctions never worked. Anyone with money, anyone with a huge amount of money as Gadhafi does, can break these sanctions; can bust them with -- with great ease. And one thing we know about the sanctions, to pass sanctions and if you bring the sanctions particularly if you come to the Security Council and do a round of sanctions in the Security Council, well, there you need the Russians and the Chinese. And the only kinds of resolutions and provisions that would pass in the United Nations are -- are really mild. These sanctions really don't -- this is not what this conflict now is about. It's a fight between -- it's a tale of two cities, if you will. Tripoli is fighting for its life, Benghazi is a relatively free city. And this fight between the new Libya, living on hope now, and the old Libya, living on terror, is a fight to the finish and the sanctions really don't apply to it.</s>COOPER: And you know, I was sitting there watching Gadhafi's son, Seif, who I guess is the most presentable of all the thuggish sons and the most sort of westernized and the most polished, and -- and who does try to represent himself and has for years tried to represent to the world as the new Libya. But -- but he is as thuggish in the end, Fouad, as -- as the representatives of the old regime.</s>AJAMI: Well, I think these -- these people, the House of Gadhafi, they've crossed the Rubicon. It's over for them. They now live in a different world. There are no more meetings for them in New York with the Glitterati (ph). They can't come to universities and -- and -- and be wined and dined. This is -- this is over. They are now fighting for their dominion and the only primitive way they know. And if you allow me, in many ways I think of this fight -- I've been thinking about this in the last few days. There was -- this is a kind of -- this is almost the Spanish civil war in the '30s. This is the Spanish civil war with Gadhafi playing the role of Franco, and a free country, a liberal country, a humane country facing the guns of a very brutal regime, willing to kill its own people to survive.</s>COOPER: And -- and do you think he is able to hold on for a long time or do you think -- are we talking days?</s>AJAMI: Well, you know, I don't know. I -- I think this is -- this is a question that one really can't -- can't answer with any confidence. You can see that all the -- the assets of the regime are collapsing around him. You can see his diplomats quitting on him. And we don't know what he will decide. I think sometimes we romanticize these guys, like Saddam, like Gadhafi. We take them at their word. When they say I fight to the finish, I will die on the soil of my own country. We all remember that amazing scene when our forces flushed out Saddam from his spider hole and he came out without firing a shot. And he came out saying I'm Saddam Hussein, I'm the President of Iraq and I'm willing to negotiate. The same may be true of Gadhafi and his -- and his children. These are not people bred to fight and die. You never fight and die if you have massive accounts and bank accounts overseas. You go back -- you go and unite with the -- with the funds and the wealth you -- you -- you plundered.</s>COOPER: All right, we're going to have more with Ben and Jill and Fouad in a moment. A quick reminder, the live chat is up and running right now at AC360.com. Up next: Horror stories from Americans who finally got out of Libya. Remember, they were stuck on that ferry. A nightmarish wait, day and night on that ferry in Tripoli harbor, guns crackling all around them. You'll hear directly from them. And later, inside Gadhafi's mind as close as we can get: rare perspective from a man who was by his side for years, worked as a translator for Gadhafi. I talked to him about what that was like and how he says he was constantly living in fear. We'll also talk to a former CIA officer with sources in the intelligence community in Libya and he'll tell us what he is hearing from them.