off News Feb 27, 2003 www.aljazeerah.info

Al-Jazeerah, News

When the cameras were turned off after more than an hour-and-a-half, it was Saddam Hussain's turn to interview Dan Rather.

The Iraqi leader led the CBS anchor to the overstuffed leather chairs in his high-ceilinged Baghdad office and "had questions about American public opinion and President Bush," Rather recalled from the Jordanian desert. "I said, 'Mr. President, you asked me and I will try to answer you. A lot of these answers I don't think you're going to like.'

"There's always some discomfort in that kind of situation. I wasn't going to trim the answers to suit what I thought he wanted to hear. I told him American public opinion was behind President Bush." "I think he said, 'Not as much as it was.'" Rather responded that "Americans like to debate and discuss things and vent" but were still backing Bush.

Saddam's first interview with an American journalist in 13 years - a coup for the 71-year-old Rather - could hardly have come under more dramatic circumstances, with the two nations poised on the brink of war. Not since Walter Cronkite brokered Anwar Sadat's 1977 visit to Occupied Jerusalem to begin Egyptian-Israeli peace talks has a television reporter played such a high-profile role in the Middle East.

Even before the tape could be edited and translated, Rather's summary of Saddam's responses - challenging Bush to a debate and refusing to destroy prohibited missiles that UN inspectors say must be scrapped - made global headlines.

Rather was mindful of the stakes. When he arrived in Baghdad, he said, "I went to my hotel room and started preparing lists of questions and tried to memorise an outline of the questions. I had 31 or 32 questions. I put them in three different orders. I practiced them. I sat in front of the mirror and pretended he was on the other side and tried out the questions." As for how he got the interview, which was sought by a slew of other network anchors, Rather said: "I'm a reporter who got lucky. ... You work hard, work your sources, make your contacts, not get discouraged, just keep coming."

It probably helped that Rather, along with Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer, interviewed Saddam in 1990. "At least I was a known quantity to them. ... I thought in 1990 they wanted someone who had a reputation of being independent and had credibility. I came out of the 1990 interview feeling I had done what I said I would do."

After arriving in Baghdad - following a 10-hour drive from Amman - Rather and his executive producer, Jim Murphy, met with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in his office Sunday night.

Rather, who has known Aziz since the 1980s, called him "the last gatekeeper," although he says Aziz cautioned him: "There may be no interview with anyone. I don't make the decision. The president makes the decision."

Why did Saddam agree? "I simply don't know," said Rather. "Among the ingredients, in no particular order: He knows the time draws nigh for an attack. He takes President Bush very seriously in saying that time is up. Secondly, he reads the papers and knows what his standing is with the American people. He probably felt - and I'm going pretty far afield here - he had something to lose, but under the present circumstances he might have had something to gain in getting to the American people who he is, what he is, what his position is."

Although Iraq could face a military assault by the United States and Britain within weeks, the atmosphere, Rather observed, was not particularly tense.

The Iraqi leader "was to all outward appearances calm. He was unhurried. He comes across as confident. He has what military people call command presence. Some may argue this was studied; I can only report what I saw, heard and felt in that room."

Unfortunately for Rather, the interview "got off to a slow start." He had to wait for one interpreter to translate his questions and a second interpreter to provide Saddam's answers.

"It's hard - I'm not complaining about it - to build a rhythm to the interview. I was saying to myself, 'Boy, I'm in trouble here. This is not going very well.'

"After 11 or 12 minutes, the dynamic started to change. He was getting engaged and was 'there'." Saddam sometimes leaned forward or rapped his finger on a table as he described the fate of past invaders in the Middle East. "He smiled some, not a lot."

Rather was surprised when Saddam challenged Bush to a debate, a gambit that was quickly dismissed by the White House. "I wasn't sure he was serious," the anchor explained. "I said to him, 'Mr. President, are you joking about this?' He said no, war is too serious to joke about."

Pressed further, Saddam dismissed the United Nations as a forum for the debate he wants. He said he would be in Baghdad and Bush in Washington, and he suggested that Rather could moderate the televised faceoff. "I paused and said - I'm not proud of this - 'Mr President, I have enough troubles already.' He chuckled at that." The session was scheduled to last 35 to 40 minutes, but Saddam went on nearly three times as long. He then spent more than an hour in his office with Rather, Murphy and two culture ministers. When Saddam asked about American opinions of the war, Rather protested that he was just a reporter, "not a politician or academic or diplomat or soldier."

"Yes, yes," he recalled Saddam replying, "but you are also a citizen, and an experienced journalist." Even in the satellite age, CBS faced some logistical obstacles. The Iraqis, as is their practice, handled the taping. They were to make a copy for the network after dubbing the translation of Saddam's remarks.

But the Iraqis did not turn over the duplicate tape in time for planned excerpts on CBS's "Early Show" Tuesday morning. Once the videotape was provided, the satellite transmission to New York took nine hours. Then CBS had its own interpreter check the translation and, if necessary, record a new English translation for Wednesday night's broadcast. Rather and Murphy also reviewed the tape to make sure that nothing was deleted.

As he drove toward Amman Tuesday to catch a flight to Paris and the Concorde to New York, Rather said his close encounter with Saddam had done nothing to change his view that war appears near. "It's fair to say he expects an attack unless something dramatic changes," he said.

Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

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