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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Interview With Michael Marx, Team Leader, DART
Aired March 25, 2003 - 12:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Once again, U.S. military leaders are telling us that the military plan is on track in spite of this brutal weather that soldiers are confronting along the way to potentially on the way to Baghdad.
Let's go back to Wolf now. Wolf, I don't know if you were able to hear the vice president of Iraq very clearly. Did you hear the same thing I did, where he actually said that Iraqi troops will be stronger in the south than as you go north, and the expectation was the closer you got to Baghdad, you'd have more of the Republican Guard and special Republican Guard troops in place.?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: He did say that Paula, Taha Yassin- Ramadan, the Vice President of Iraq, but I think everything that he says, Iraqi officials in Baghdad are saying, we have to accept, we have to discount a big chunk of that, a lot of that designed for domestic public opinion.
They're engaged in their own propaganda war. They're trying to rally their troops in the south elsewhere in Iraq; they're expecting the big battle, of course, to be around Baghdad, that battle could be starting very, very soon. There are other huge problems facing the U.S. and its British coalition partners.
One of them, of course, the humanitarian issue. These concerns are enormous. The largest disaster assistance response team ever put together by the United States is now here in Kuwait.
Joining me Michael Marx, the team leader from the USAID the U.S. Government Agency for International Development. Michael, thanks very much for joining us. Do you have any people already in Iraq that you're trying to help that the program has already started, or are you waiting for the military dust to settle?
MICHAEL MARX, TEAM LEADER, DART: What we're doing is waiting for the security situation to get to the point where we can put civilians into start doing assessments of humanitarian response. But we've also worked with the civil affairs officers and soldiers in order to have a common assessment reporting mechanism and also a way to look at the situation in the same way throughout the humanitarian community.
BLITZER: We're already hearing reports and the U.N. secretary- general spoke about the problems in Basra, the second largest city in Iraq -- 200,000 people. They're having serious problems with food and water and other essentials. MARX: Absolutely, and I think we're going to see pockets of need throughout Iraq, and what we're going to do is make sure that we try to get the resources as quickly as possible to those people using the mechanisms that are in place, whether it's through the military or whether that's through aid agencies or the international organizations who are on the ground.
BLITZER: Is the equipment in place, the trucks, everything else you need, and the supplies? Are they here in Kuwait ready to move up north?
MARX: Absolutely, we've been preparing for several months now to make sure that the funding was in place, that coordination with the non-governmental organizations was in place that the international humanitarian community was prepared to move.
We have commodities here in Kuwait as well as throughout the region and we can bring them in through existing warehouses overseas, as well.
BLITZER: How much in terms of money have you provided for the equipment and the supplies that you will need to do the job, not only in southern Iraq, but throughout the country, the west north, the central and every place else? This is a country the size of California.
MARX: Absolutely.
And already, we have provided funding in both commodities and preparations for non-governmental organizations over $100 million. That's just in those programs and commodities outside of food. With food, it goes to well over 400 million.
BLITZER: Do you expect the international community to pick up some of the price tag, the U.N. the Europeans, the Japanese, and others, the Arab world, if you will, to go ahead and help with this effort, is it going to be largely a U.S. effort?
MARX: From the humanitarian standpoint, it is and it will have to be an international humanitarian response.
BLITZER So you are expecting a lot of support. Have you worked out arrangements with other countries already?
MARX: We've been coordinating with donor nations and coordinating with the non-governmental organizations and the international organizations for months to make sure all of those pieces were in place.
BLITZER: Iraq is an affluent country largely because of its oil. Those have largely been protected, most of the oil fields are in the south. Eventually the Iraqis will get on their own, but how long do you anticipate that you, the aid program and other relief workers will be needed to help the Iraqis through this period?
MARX: It's really hard to give you a timetable on that because we are a humanitarian response. We go in quickly and meet the needs. My mandate is to save lives and reduce suffering so we go in and meet the needs of the population.
BLITZER: It could be weeks, could be months, could be years.
MARX: Certainly.
BLITZER: Did anybody tell you how long you're going to be staying here in Kuwait?
MARX: The mission of my team is to meet those needs so we'll be here as long as it takes.
BLITZER: How many people do you have here as far as your team is concerned.
MARX: I've got over 40 people here. Also field teams throughout the region. So when it's time to move in, when the security situation is at an acceptable level for civilian humanitarian workers to move in, we'll move those teams in to provide commodities and provide funding and get the response moving.
BLITZER: Michael Marx, thanks very much for joining us.
Paula, this is going to be a huge, huge humanitarian mission trying to make sure that the people not only in the southern part of Iraq, but throughout the country manage to get through this other deal without too much of a disruption and what.
Of course, the neighboring countries all fear are floods of refugees pouring into Kuwait or Jordan or Turkey or Syria. This is a serious problem that the U.S. government is going to have to deal with.
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