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CNBC News Transcripts
SHOW: The News with Brian Williams (7:00 PM ET) - CNBC
January 21, 2003 Tuesday
LENGTH: 1897 words
HEADLINE: American soldiers must prepare for possible engagement with child soldiers in Iraq
ANCHORS: BRIAN WILLIAMS
BODY:
BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor:
Tonight a growing trend no one is proud of. It involves children, heavily-armed children as combatants around the globe. Tonight, what are the rules of engagement? Could it present a horrible dilemma for US Forces in Iraq?
Announcer: THE NEWS on CNBC continues. Here again is Brian Williams.
WILLIAMS: Good evening once again and welcome back. Not unlike the Hitler Youth movement about 70 years ago, there is a group in Iraq called Saddam's Lion Cubs who are doing roughly the same thing. They are children soldiers, very young, very heavily armed and just as much of a danger as an adult armed combatant. The question tonight, what dangers and dilemmas will they pose, perhaps, for US troops? Before we talk with our guests on this disturbing topic this evening, a look at a violent trend around the world. Mr. PETER SINGER (Brookings Institution): Seventy-five percent of the world's conflicts involve child soldiers.
Colonel CHARLES BORCHINI, Retired (US Army): Child soldiers are fighting on every continent with the exception of Australia and Antarctica.
Ms. JO BECKER (Human Rights Watch): The global estimate is that there are probably 300,000 children under the age of 18 that are currently fighting in armed conflicts around the world. Children have always been used in wars, but not in the numbers that we have seen fin last couple decades. And there are a couple of different reasons. One is the changes in weapons technology. There are now lightweight, easy-to-use automatic weapons that a 10-year-old can use just as easily as a 20-year-old. And at the same time, there's been a large proliferation of small arms around the world, so now in many countries guns like that are so plentiful and so cheap you can buy them for the cost of a textbook for school.
Mr. SINGER: Basically the Iraqi regime, since about 1998, has laid the ground work for the use of child soldiers. They've run a series of camps where children in the ranges of 10 to 15-year-olds receive training in the use of things like AK-47s, RPGs--you know, rocket propelled grenades--infantry tactics. The most noted is the Ashbal Saddam, which is Saddam's Lion Cubs. The numbers are probably around 30,000 for the entire nation, and in a lot of ways there's parallels to the Hitler Youth.
Col. BORCHINI: As American fighting men and women, we need to be prepared to face these kids on the battlefield and to be prepared how to deal with it. We cannot let our culture and our hearts end up getting us killed. These young children can be very lethal fighters, and we cannot underestimate their capabilities.
Mr. CHI NAKI TETSI: My name is Chi Naki Tetsi and I'm 26 years old now. Right now I live in Denmark, in Europe, and originally I'm from Uganda. When I was born, my father and my mother left each other. When I was nine years old, I decided to run away. That's when I landed in National Resistance Army.
Col. BORCHINI: In many of these countries where children are fighting as soldiers, society has broken down. What we would consider normal does not exist. Children are forced from their homes, from their families, and they somehow end up in a group.
Mr. CHI: In the bush, I saw these kids--oh, they were six, seven and above, and girls. I've never seen a kid or a girl with a gun. We were all always starving, and some of the comrades who stole food from civilian, they were tied on the tree and shot. And you couldn't say no. You had to shoot them. And I can still see those pictures in my eyes forever.
Ms. BECKER: One of the reasons why children are recruited in the first place is because they're so gullible. They believe what they're told. So we have examples from some countries where children are told that if they wear a special amulet around their neck, or if they smear a particular oil on their body, it will protect them from bullets. An adult might not believe this, but the children do. And so they rush off into battle, thinking that they're going to be protected from the bullets. And of course they're not.
Mr. CHI: They give you the AK-47 and they don't care how you hold it. You have to find out yourself. 'How am I going to put it on my shoulder?' We don't hate the people. You torture them, you do whatever because you want your boss to love you. But they never love you. You don't exist.
Ms. BECKER: The consequences for children are dramatic. For many children, especially those that are recruited at young ages, being exposed to warfare, not having contact with their family, not going to regular schools, it really stunts or distorts their psychological and their moral development.
Mr. CHI: I stayed in the army 11 years. Eleven years I have lost everything.
Col. BORCHINI: These young kids, they may be seven or eight, they may be 14, but they can be just as deadly or more deadly than an adult with a weapon.
Ms. BECKER: I'd hate to be a member of the US armed forces and encounter a 14-year-old with a AK-47. That's just a very difficult scenario to imagine, because the soldier's then in the position of either shooting to defend themselves and living with the consequences of possibly killing a child, or holding back and becoming a target themselves.
WILLIAMS: For more on--tonight on all of the questions this raises, we are joined now by two of the experts we first met in our set-up piece. Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. She's with us tonight from New York. And Peter Singer is a fellow at Brookings. He's with us from our Washington bureau.
Good evening and welcome to you both.
Jo, we were a little vague on the--the following point in the set-up because the reasons may be vague. Is there a central motivating factor in the lives of all of these kids? Busted homes, yes, fear, yes, but is there any one thing?
Ms. BECKER: It really varies from situatio--situation to situation. For example, in northern Uganda, thousands of children have been forcibly abducted from their homes and forced to become soldiers against their will. In other situations, children may be motivated by ideology or they may be joining armed groups because they feel like they have no other alternatives. If they've been driven from their homes by war, separated from their families or orphaned, if their schools have been shut down, for many of them joining an armed group looks like their best chance for survival.
WILLIAMS: Peter, of course top of mind tonight is Iraq. What can you tell us about the--the armed children in Iraq, vis-a-vis the rest of the world? And a subset of that question, what makes us think that the Iraqi children soldiers would not give up as quickly as we're being led to believe a lot of the Iraqi regulars would give up with approaching allies in the picture?
Mr. SINGER: Well, over the last decade, the regime of Saddam Hussein has basically laid the groundwork for the use of child soldiers. This has involved everything from training camps--equivalent of summer camps for young boys to go to, learn how to use weapons--to establishing specific units of child soldiers. The Ashbal Saddam is one that takes in kids from around the ages of 10 to 15.
The difference with regular adult forces is that these children will have undergone fairly high-levels of political indoctrination, and they're a lot more malleable than adults are. So the likelihood is that they might stick around on the battlefield longer, and indeed even after it seems that the politics of the war is over, the defeat is at hand, they still might fight on. And the example of the Hitler Youth during World War II is a terrible lesson there.
WILLIAMS: Right. Some of those were better motivated than the German regulars.
And--and Jo, the--the--the real haunting sound bite from the set-up piece was the gentleman who said, "We cannot"--we Americans--"cannot let our culture and our hearts get us killed." This brings out--about such a tortuous conversation about the rules of engagement for American soldiers, many of whom have children with--with remarkably similar eyes at home, that they have left to go fight. What--what happens then?
Ms. BECKER: It's against standards of decency, it's against international law to recruit children. But once children are armed, they do become legitimate targets in--in war. So for a US soldier, they certainly are justified in protecting themselves and taking aim and killing child soldiers in a combat situation. But intellectually, even if they know that they are making the legimitate--legitimate choice, psychologically it's got to be incredibly tough to--to face a child and know that you're either putting yourself at risk or possibly killing a child.
WILLIAMS: And Peter, of course the various print accounts of the Vietnam War including conversations with veterans of your choice, they'll tell you that some US GIs were approached by children bearing gifts, turned out to be explosives. This, while sick, is about as old as conflict itself, correct?
Mr. SINGER: It's true. And that's why US forces have to adjust for the fact that there might be child soldiers in Iraq. And that includes changes of practices, such as letting children mix with our pickets, putting children through the same level of scrutiny as adults, and basically preparing for the fact that they might have to deal with child soldiers and developing rules of engagement for that.
WILLIAMS: So Jo, to distill your remarks in part, the American sense of morality--it's quite possibility that American troops may be hampered by it in this case.
Ms. BECKER: Well, I think it's to be--it's understandable...
WILLIAMS: Right.
Ms. BECKER: ...that nobody would want to be facing a child in combat and have to pull the trigger and have the life of that child resting on your conscience. But as I said, it is a legitimate action in war to--to shoot an armed combatant, and unfortunately that's a dilemma that US soldiers may face.
WILLIAMS: Peter, is there any generalization that can be made about the Arab world, per se, and children soldiers as you look at the globe today, percentage-wise and where they're being--where they're serving, where they're being forced into service, perhaps?
Mr. SINGER: Well, it's fairly much a global practice. It's not specific to the Arab world. It is increasingly likely in the Arab world simply because of the demographics. Roughly 50 percent of the Arab population right now is under the age of 18. So that make it even more important that, particularly in an invasion of Iraq--an invasion by a Western power of an Arab state--that we try and play the public affair side of this better. We have to get Arab political leaders to step forward and condemn this practice, and the way we explain these child soldier engagements have to be in the tune of putting the blame where it belongs: on the regime of Saddam Hussein who's sending out children to do his dirty work.
WILLIAMS: Peter Singer of Brookings, Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch. We're happy to air an issue that's dear to both of you, and we thank you both for coming on tonight.
Mr. SINGER: Thank you.
WILLIAMS: We are back with late word tonight on that avalanche in Canada that killed seven skiers, including a champion snowboarder. The details right after this.
CNBC News Transcripts
SHOW: The News with Brian Williams (7:00 PM ET) - CNBC
January 21, 2003 Tuesday
LENGTH: 1897 words
HEADLINE: American soldiers must prepare for possible engagement with child soldiers in Iraq
ANCHORS: BRIAN WILLIAMS
BODY:
BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor:
Tonight a growing trend no one is proud of. It involves children, heavily-armed children as combatants around the globe. Tonight, what are the rules of engagement? Could it present a horrible dilemma for US Forces in Iraq?
Announcer: THE NEWS on CNBC continues. Here again is Brian Williams.
WILLIAMS: Good evening once again and welcome back. Not unlike the Hitler Youth movement about 70 years ago, there is a group in Iraq called Saddam's Lion Cubs who are doing roughly the same thing. They are children soldiers, very young, very heavily armed and just as much of a danger as an adult armed combatant. The question tonight, what dangers and dilemmas will they pose, perhaps, for US troops? Before we talk with our guests on this disturbing topic this evening, a look at a violent trend around the world. Mr. PETER SINGER (Brookings Institution): Seventy-five percent of the world's conflicts involve child soldiers.
Colonel CHARLES BORCHINI, Retired (US Army): Child soldiers are fighting on every continent with the exception of Australia and Antarctica.
Ms. JO BECKER (Human Rights Watch): The global estimate is that there are probably 300,000 children under the age of 18 that are currently fighting in armed conflicts around the world. Children have always been used in wars, but not in the numbers that we have seen fin last couple decades. And there are a couple of different reasons. One is the changes in weapons technology. There are now lightweight, easy-to-use automatic weapons that a 10-year-old can use just as easily as a 20-year-old. And at the same time, there's been a large proliferation of small arms around the world, so now in many countries guns like that are so plentiful and so cheap you can buy them for the cost of a textbook for school.
Mr. SINGER: Basically the Iraqi regime, since about 1998, has laid the ground work for the use of child soldiers. They've run a series of camps where children in the ranges of 10 to 15-year-olds receive training in the use of things like AK-47s, RPGs--you know, rocket propelled grenades--infantry tactics. The most noted is the Ashbal Saddam, which is Saddam's Lion Cubs. The numbers are probably around 30,000 for the entire nation, and in a lot of ways there's parallels to the Hitler Youth.
Col. BORCHINI: As American fighting men and women, we need to be prepared to face these kids on the battlefield and to be prepared how to deal with it. We cannot let our culture and our hearts end up getting us killed. These young children can be very lethal fighters, and we cannot underestimate their capabilities.
Mr. CHI NAKI TETSI: My name is Chi Naki Tetsi and I'm 26 years old now. Right now I live in Denmark, in Europe, and originally I'm from Uganda. When I was born, my father and my mother left each other. When I was nine years old, I decided to run away. That's when I landed in National Resistance Army.
Col. BORCHINI: In many of these countries where children are fighting as soldiers, society has broken down. What we would consider normal does not exist. Children are forced from their homes, from their families, and they somehow end up in a group.
Mr. CHI: In the bush, I saw these kids--oh, they were six, seven and above, and girls. I've never seen a kid or a girl with a gun. We were all always starving, and some of the comrades who stole food from civilian, they were tied on the tree and shot. And you couldn't say no. You had to shoot them. And I can still see those pictures in my eyes forever.
Ms. BECKER: One of the reasons why children are recruited in the first place is because they're so gullible. They believe what they're told. So we have examples from some countries where children are told that if they wear a special amulet around their neck, or if they smear a particular oil on their body, it will protect them from bullets. An adult might not believe this, but the children do. And so they rush off into battle, thinking that they're going to be protected from the bullets. And of course they're not.
Mr. CHI: They give you the AK-47 and they don't care how you hold it. You have to find out yourself. 'How am I going to put it on my shoulder?' We don't hate the people. You torture them, you do whatever because you want your boss to love you. But they never love you. You don't exist.
Ms. BECKER: The consequences for children are dramatic. For many children, especially those that are recruited at young ages, being exposed to warfare, not having contact with their family, not going to regular schools, it really stunts or distorts their psychological and their moral development.
Mr. CHI: I stayed in the army 11 years. Eleven years I have lost everything.
Col. BORCHINI: These young kids, they may be seven or eight, they may be 14, but they can be just as deadly or more deadly than an adult with a weapon.
Ms. BECKER: I'd hate to be a member of the US armed forces and encounter a 14-year-old with a AK-47. That's just a very difficult scenario to imagine, because the soldier's then in the position of either shooting to defend themselves and living with the consequences of possibly killing a child, or holding back and becoming a target themselves.
WILLIAMS: For more on--tonight on all of the questions this raises, we are joined now by two of the experts we first met in our set-up piece. Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. She's with us tonight from New York. And Peter Singer is a fellow at Brookings. He's with us from our Washington bureau.
Good evening and welcome to you both.
Jo, we were a little vague on the--the following point in the set-up because the reasons may be vague. Is there a central motivating factor in the lives of all of these kids? Busted homes, yes, fear, yes, but is there any one thing?
Ms. BECKER: It really varies from situatio--situation to situation. For example, in northern Uganda, thousands of children have been forcibly abducted from their homes and forced to become soldiers against their will. In other situations, children may be motivated by ideology or they may be joining armed groups because they feel like they have no other alternatives. If they've been driven from their homes by war, separated from their families or orphaned, if their schools have been shut down, for many of them joining an armed group looks like their best chance for survival.
WILLIAMS: Peter, of course top of mind tonight is Iraq. What can you tell us about the--the armed children in Iraq, vis-a-vis the rest of the world? And a subset of that question, what makes us think that the Iraqi children soldiers would not give up as quickly as we're being led to believe a lot of the Iraqi regulars would give up with approaching allies in the picture?
Mr. SINGER: Well, over the last decade, the regime of Saddam Hussein has basically laid the groundwork for the use of child soldiers. This has involved everything from training camps--equivalent of summer camps for young boys to go to, learn how to use weapons--to establishing specific units of child soldiers. The Ashbal Saddam is one that takes in kids from around the ages of 10 to 15.
The difference with regular adult forces is that these children will have undergone fairly high-levels of political indoctrination, and they're a lot more malleable than adults are. So the likelihood is that they might stick around on the battlefield longer, and indeed even after it seems that the politics of the war is over, the defeat is at hand, they still might fight on. And the example of the Hitler Youth during World War II is a terrible lesson there.
WILLIAMS: Right. Some of those were better motivated than the German regulars.
And--and Jo, the--the--the real haunting sound bite from the set-up piece was the gentleman who said, "We cannot"--we Americans--"cannot let our culture and our hearts get us killed." This brings out--about such a tortuous conversation about the rules of engagement for American soldiers, many of whom have children with--with remarkably similar eyes at home, that they have left to go fight. What--what happens then?
Ms. BECKER: It's against standards of decency, it's against international law to recruit children. But once children are armed, they do become legitimate targets in--in war. So for a US soldier, they certainly are justified in protecting themselves and taking aim and killing child soldiers in a combat situation. But intellectually, even if they know that they are making the legimitate--legitimate choice, psychologically it's got to be incredibly tough to--to face a child and know that you're either putting yourself at risk or possibly killing a child.
WILLIAMS: And Peter, of course the various print accounts of the Vietnam War including conversations with veterans of your choice, they'll tell you that some US GIs were approached by children bearing gifts, turned out to be explosives. This, while sick, is about as old as conflict itself, correct?
Mr. SINGER: It's true. And that's why US forces have to adjust for the fact that there might be child soldiers in Iraq. And that includes changes of practices, such as letting children mix with our pickets, putting children through the same level of scrutiny as adults, and basically preparing for the fact that they might have to deal with child soldiers and developing rules of engagement for that.
WILLIAMS: So Jo, to distill your remarks in part, the American sense of morality--it's quite possibility that American troops may be hampered by it in this case.
Ms. BECKER: Well, I think it's to be--it's understandable...
WILLIAMS: Right.
Ms. BECKER: ...that nobody would want to be facing a child in combat and have to pull the trigger and have the life of that child resting on your conscience. But as I said, it is a legitimate action in war to--to shoot an armed combatant, and unfortunately that's a dilemma that US soldiers may face.
WILLIAMS: Peter, is there any generalization that can be made about the Arab world, per se, and children soldiers as you look at the globe today, percentage-wise and where they're being--where they're serving, where they're being forced into service, perhaps?
Mr. SINGER: Well, it's fairly much a global practice. It's not specific to the Arab world. It is increasingly likely in the Arab world simply because of the demographics. Roughly 50 percent of the Arab population right now is under the age of 18. So that make it even more important that, particularly in an invasion of Iraq--an invasion by a Western power of an Arab state--that we try and play the public affair side of this better. We have to get Arab political leaders to step forward and condemn this practice, and the way we explain these child soldier engagements have to be in the tune of putting the blame where it belongs: on the regime of Saddam Hussein who's sending out children to do his dirty work.
WILLIAMS: Peter Singer of Brookings, Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch. We're happy to air an issue that's dear to both of you, and we thank you both for coming on tonight.
Mr. SINGER: Thank you.
WILLIAMS: We are back with late word tonight on that avalanche in Canada that killed seven skiers, including a champion snowboarder. The details right after this.