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December 15, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Capture of Saddam Hussein
· Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza
In-Studio Guests:
Arizona Congressman John Shaddegg

>> Michael Grant: Tonight on "Horizon," the continuing reverberations of the capture of Saddam Hussein. We'll talk with Arizona Congressman John Shaddegg. And the legacy of long-time Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, a look back and a look forward. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. President Bush says the U.S. will work with Iraq's new leaders to ensure Saddam Hussein is judged. Hussein was found hiding out in a hole in the ground, a raid by American forces Saturday resulted in the capture of the former Iraqi leader outside Tikrit. No shots were fired as Saddam Hussein was found in a ventilated "spider hole" about seven feet underground. U.S. officials say Hussein denies Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or any ties to Al Qaida. Arizona Congressman Ed Pastor made this statement today. "I congratulate the men and women stationed in Iraq and particularly military intelligence for the successful capture of Saddam Hussein. Hopefully the capture will lessen the internal resistance to the American occupation of Iraq and will result in the quick return home of our troops. I hope the administration will take this opportunity to reach out to the international community to quickly bring a stable democracy to the Iraqi people." Joining us to talk about how these events affect the present and the future of Iraq is Arizona Congressman John Shaddegg. Congressman, good to see you again.

>> John Shaddegg: Great to be here.

>> Michael Grant: Happy holidays to you.

>> John Shaddegg: Thank you. Same to you.

>> Michael Grant: Remarkable series of events.

>> John Shaddegg: Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

>> Michael Grant: What was just your initial reaction to the news? You got it fairly early?

>> John Shaddegg: I did. I was called about 5:30 in the morning and it was disbelief, hard to believe this is really true this time, and then to not just we got him, but we got him alive, without firing a shot. That, I think, most people are shocked by. I was shocked by it. In many ways very, very pleased. I think getting him alive is a huge step that helps very much. I think many in the Arab world if in fact he had been killed might have believed it was not him and it would have been hard to prove or convince them. Now I think that can accrue over a period of time. Obviously in the course of a trial and ought of things that have happened, the photographs that have come out, the way he was captured, to see him totally disheveled and even disoriented, demonstrates that he's not who many in the Arab world thought he was. So I think it was just a tremendous development for the people of Iraq and for our armed forces and for our nation.

>> Michael Grant: Speaking of which, last time you were on the program you had just returned from Iraq and one of the people you met during that trip was the commanding general, was it not, of the 4th infantry?

>> John Shaddegg: That's exactly right. We got out of Baghdad and got up to Tikrit, spent time in the palace from which the general held his press conference yesterday and we were briefed by him as the commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division, met with his kind of leading staff and actually the day we were there they were going on a raid of this type and got to see where his headquarters is and get to meet him. He was a very impressive guy and I'm kind of happy he was one of the guys very deeply involved in the capture of Saddam.

>> Michael Grant: What's your read on what means short-term, long term on the level of attacks on the American forces in Iraq? I've heard varying views on how it may impact it?

>> John Shaddegg: Nobody knows. And it remains to be seen. But my gut reaction tells me that the people who are attacking us in Iraq today and are attacking our soldiers and trying to kill us and who are attacking anybody that cooperates with us and trying to disrupt that society, because it's important for them to disrupt that society, because if people get back to work and have a stable society to live in, they'll side with us. So they're trying to disrupt the whole society in addition to trying to kill us and get us out. Those people, I think are fighting against the so-called occupation, not so much fighting for Saddam as against the occupation by the infidel, by the Americans. I think their motivation if anything might increase in the short run and so I would say that the number of attacks may go up in the short run and may stay up for a while. But there's a flip side of that equation, Michael, that I think people aren't focusing on and that's the degree of cooperation, and when I was there, it was clear that the Iraqi people were still scared of Saddam, he was still this figure that they knew was out there, that had not been caught, and that so far as they knew he wasn't dead, and he might come back. Remember, we told them once before that he was gone forever, and he, in fact, wasn't, and when he came back, he murdered and killed and tortured as he had in the past. So I think on the cooperation side, on the side of coming forward and telling us, well, here's an improvised explosive device, here is a guy leading a unit against you, here's a cache of weapons, here's a plan that somebody has to kill Americans or blow up this site or that site, thigh cooperation will go up rather dramatically because people who were afraid that he might come back and would then punish them for their cooperation now don't have that fear.

>> Michael Grant: Some indication that some of the documents and other intelligence -- he apparently had a briefcase with him that already that has yielded some information about some cells and --

>> John Shaddegg: And led, I guess, already to the capture of two individuals from what I've read.

>> Michael Grant: How should he be tried?

>> John Shaddegg: Well, I think that's a critically important issue. I think he should be tried in Iraq by the Iraqi people. I think it should be careful and methodical. I should think it should meet international standards, I think it should be done overtime to the extent that we have to first get an Iraqi government up and running, and that they then have to establish the rules that would govern the trial. I think that should all occur in a very cautious, very methodical process that leads to a trial, and I think the trial should go through all of his crimes, and quite frankly I think it should bring out who aided and abetted his administration, the degree to which the French were supplying him weapons, the degree to which the Germans or Russians or anybody else was involved in that ought to come out for the world and the Iraqi people to see so that we know exactly who this guy is and what he was about.

>> Michael Grant: Of course, as we were discussing previously, one chapter of that will be American support for Saddam Hussein.

>> John Shaddegg: An early chapter will be American support for Saddam Hussein and I think that ought to be part of the trial as well and get it throughout and see who this guy is. I think the later chapters about his repression of his people and the involvement of the French and maybe the Russians and the Germans will be particularly interesting and I think they would be good to see and I would like to see that take its course and I think actually the conduct of that trial will send a signal to the world that this is a mature government that is in place, and the to the Iraqi people that this government is, in fact, a fair and just government that, as the president said, can dispense justice, which has the president pointed out, Saddam denied to his people all the time he was in power.

>> Michael Grant: Is it a mature government, though? I mean, to what extent can the United States trust the government, the procedures, the structures over there to dispense this kind of justice?

>> John Shaddegg: I don't think we can now. I think that's what we're trying to do and it's one of the reasons why I'm concerned that we cannot rush this process along. We are, in fact, trying to stand up a government and create institutions, and I think that's going to take time and that's why I would say he can't be tried before a period of months, can't be tried before this government is in place, and that is going to in fact take time. What we have to do first is get that society back on its feet. We have to stop the violence and we have to help people get employed there. Right now we have a problem, Michael, the official statistics say only 50% in that country are unemployed. The numbers I hear from people just back from Iraq in the last few weeks say 70 to 80% of the people in the country are unemployed. We can expect them to reject the tear terrorists that want to take over there country until they understand by going with the United States and helping establish a government they will have a job and a society. I think it's critically important we move quickly to stop the violence and to stand up a civil society and put people to work.

>> Michael Grant: When you came back from Iraq in August, you strongly felt that more American troops should be dispatched there. Do you think this development argues for that position?

>> John Shaddegg: Well, I don't know if this development argues for more troops because our troops did a wonderful job and they deserve a tremendous amount of credit, but I think if the president announced fairly soon he was going to increase troop strength using special forces and marines by 15 or 20,000 in the very near future to send a very clear message that not only did we get Saddam but make no mistake about it, we're not going away we're going to win this and win it quickly, I think would that send a message to the Iraqi people that we, in fact, aren't going away, that we are a stable ally, and that in the near future they will able to go out at night, they will be able to go to work without carrying a gun. I saw a report recently where people in that society don't have the -- even that level of comfort. They can't go out on the streets without carrying a gun to get to their job. Their wives don't have the ability to walk on the streets or to drive to the stores without being accompanied, if they have the wealth, by an armed guard. You can't expect where there's that level of disruption and that level of violence going on for people to be worried about, well, how do we form a government? How do we create a stable society?

>> Michael Grant: Osama Bin Laden?

>> John Shaddegg: We got to get him. A serious problem. I think, hopefully, we can take some of the resources we've had kind of tracing down Saddam to go after Osama. He remains a tremendous threat to the nation and some would say the bigger threat to the nation and I would agree with that.

>> Michael Grant: Obviously much more mobile than Saddam Hussein it turns out.

>> John Shaddegg: And younger and more fit and with a vast arm of people who, in fact, believe in his cause, whereas I don't think Saddam had a cause.

>> Michael Grant: Arizona Congressman John Shaddegg, good to see you.

>> John Shaddegg: My pleasure.

>> Michael Grant: Thank you very much. January 5th next year Phoenix Mayor-Elect Phil Gordon will officially take office. He succeeds Mayor Skip Rimsza who has held that office longer than any of his predecessors. Producer Larry Lemmons talks with the Mayor about his impact on the city.

>> Larry Lemmons: Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, first elected in 1994, reelected in 1995 and 1999. He served on the Phoenix City Council District 3 before that, and he was vice Mayor in 1993. You have the distinction, Mr. Mayor, of actually having been Mayor of Phoenix longer than any of your predecessors, nine years. Pretty extraordinary.

>> Skip Rimsza: Well, the years are certainly important, but I really think that the things we were able to get done during those nine years is even more exciting, certainly for me.

>> Larry Lemmons: You do have a reputation of having gotten a lot of things done. I wanted to read you something from John Talton in the republic who was a pretty good quote over your legacy. He said Rimsza presided over the beginning of the light rail system, expanded transit a new civic plaza, the Translational Genomics Institute, 50,000 acres of desert preserves and a reviving downtown. He won the deserved reputation as a shrewd campaign tactician and maintained moderate governance as his fellow Arizona Republicans were veering ever more into zealotry. Consider the source. Never the less --

>>Skip Rimsza: I understand.

>> Larry Lemmons: To what do you attribute that success?

>> Skip Rimsza: I think I was able to preside over the City of Phoenix during a time that was unique when people tried to come together to find solutions to problems they saw that were going to reduce the quality of life. We just had a great partnership over the nine years with the chamber, with our labor organizations, with neighborhood groups, and that partnership, I think, really paid off for me and for the community and I like to think in a lot of ways we caused those partnerships to take place. We allowed, for example, council members within the City of Phoenix to chair each one of my initiatives. We moved each one of the initiatives through the public process and a council member, depending on what the issue was, was allow to do chair it rather than just being the Mayor. That's why I think we were able to get that done. Civic plaza is a great example, a relatively recent one. The business community was very helpful in getting the legislature's approval of that program and, of course, we led the charge to get the voters to approve the city's contribution. So that kind of balance, I think was good for us in the City of Phoenix.

>> Larry Lemmons: And Phoenix was going through a very dynamic time at that point, and it also showed when Phoenix was sort of losing a certain amount of clout in the legislature, when you had the surrounding cities growing so much and getting greater representation, how did you deal with that dynamic, with the other governments and other cities?

>> Skip Rimsza: Well, in many cases we developed partnerships with those other cities, and they were big supporters. For example, of our civic plaza project. They're a partner with me when it comes to light rail. Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa and Glendale all are partners in the light rail project. So part of what we did is kind of get those cities to have ownership with these major urban initiatives, give them a component of it. It's still been a little bit of a struggle because certainly some members of the legislature don't have the same vision, but I think you would find most the mayors in the Valley have a similar vision about how the Valley needs to work together to move ahead.

>> Larry Lemmons: You actually called it the quality of life trifecta earlier in your tenure, and on that you were talking about --

>> Skip Rimsza: Parks and preserves.

>> Larry Lemmons: And the light rail and --

>> Skip Rimsza: The bond program.

>> Larry Lemmons: Right. Can you talk about each one of those things separately and what were the challenges of each one -- start with -- he well, let's start with actually light rail. We wanted to show this. On December 5th, Mayor Rimsza was presented with this really wonderful bobblehead, light rail Mayor. Does he look like you?

>> Skip Rimsza: I think it's pretty similar. What do you think?

>> Larry Lemmons: It is just incredible. What an incredible likeness.

>> Skip Rimza: We had about a thousand of these we gave out at a really nice black tie dinner the chamber put on for me. It was kind of fun.

>> Larry Lemmons: And talking about your legacy and how extensive it was. Again, talk about light rail, it's called Metro now. And you have a CEO of that.

>> Skip Rimsza: Rick has just been brought on board to run the system. He came to us from Atlanta, that's where he last ran a light rail system. A very talented guy. What we're trying to do with the trifecta is establish an agenda for three major items we wanted the public to approve and support us on. We started actually with the parks and preserve initiative. That was one to allow us to buy those acres and preserve them forever, kind of continuing the legacy of open space purchases within the City of Phoenix. We followed up on it relatively quickly with the light really election, which won quite handily and by a large margin. That large margin, by the way, turned out to be very helpful, because as I think most of your watchers know, they know there was a lot of opposition to that. By winning by a large margin, we were able to garner a little more support and really reduce some of the objection we might have had by some folks in the legislature and frankly put ourselves in a position to get a 50% federal match for the funding for this project. That was the second component. The third component was the bond election, a real quality of life package, but it also had some large public safety components. And then we did an add-on, actual lay couple add-ons. Civic plaza was a add-on. We had a public election on that. In 2000 it won quite handily and late or we were able to get the legislature by the narrowest of margins to approve a state match to that project. So it's a $600 million expansion and next week I expect to advance the downtown hotels. So I feel good about where we've gotten with those major community projects.

>> Larry Lemmons: And, again, you were talking about there was a lot of opposition to light rail. It was very difficult to get through. But as you said, talking about the cooperation from the west, because it will be coming from the northwest, it will be coming from the East Valley into downtown Phoenix, obviously anyone who has driven in Phoenix realizes the need for some sort of really quality mass transit in order to get people around fairly quickly. What do you think this will give Phoenix specifically? I mean, immediately? What will be the short-term effect of having a light transit system.

>> Skip Rimsza: I think short-term effect will be you will see more reurbanization, less people will be choosing to live out in the hinterlands and they will want to move in closer to be close to the universities, close to downtown, to be close to sporting venues and be in more a dynamic synergistic traditional urban center. I think it connects with the aging of America. The baby-boomers are getting old, many how the house in the suburbs with the mission tile roof and the lawn to mow, and I think many will be saying now you have the light rail system, it's becoming dynamic, let's get ourselves a nice condo and live in a central urban area instead of living in the suburbs. Kids are gone. No reason for us to live out this far. I think you're going to get a nice influx of that population. I also think you're going to see because of T-GEN, our genomics effort, a nice advanced education science-based group really growing nicely in downtown Phoenix and frankly complementing already what's going on here in Tempe. I think there's going to be a lot of benefits. But if you think about, let's go to 20009, by 20009 light rail will be up and running, civic plaza will have been expanded, a huge new facility and we'll, of course, have a downtown hotel a thousand-room facility to serve the community. Sky Harbor airport will have been fully reconditioned now. We're building a new rental car terminal. We have three runways a beautiful fourth terminal with an addition planned. I think we're going to be in position for another great decade here in this region, because of the decisions we've made about investing for our future.

>> Larry Lemmons: And, of course, investing in downtown Phoenix, too, when you're talking about the transformation of downtown Phoenix, T-GEN, the light rail, and everything that has occurred --

>>Skip Rimsza: The ballpark.

>> Larry Lemmons: The ballpark.

>> Skip Rimsza: Bank One Ball Park and America West you a rain which kind of started it all, those are very exciting amenities. The beauty about baseball for downtown Phoenix is it has so many games, you have so many events by baseball alone, then add a few on either end, the insight bowl game, that's really been a nice addition for us because it's not just 12 or 14 events a year. It's about 100 all said and done.

>> Larry Lemmons: Talk a little bit about the importance of these desert preserves. There's so much development in this city. This city is known for development. It's about growth, after all.

>> Skip Rimsza: It is, really.

>> Larry Lemmons: But at the same time you do want to preserve a little bit of the flavor of the area as well, and you have done that to a certain extent.

>> Skip Rimsza: We really have done that. It started back in the 1920s when the Heard family protected South Mountain, in the '70s and in the '60s Barry Goldwater and Margaret Hance stepped up. Barry Goldwater worked hard on protecting Camelback Mountain, and Margaret Hance worked hard on protecting the Phoenix mountain preserves. We said, it's clear our city will move out to the north and we started buying acreage out there to protect it from development. It's gone pretty nicely. The key for us is we've tried to get out there before development has really become entrenched. Scottsdale has really struggled with open space purchases but the truth is, it's hard to catch up because that land is become so wildly expensive for them the City of Scottsdale can hardly afford what that land is worth today.

>> Larry Lemmons: What do you see in the future in terms of that? I mean, will that be a constant struggle?

>> Skip Rimsza: Constant. It will never stop. It will never stop. Because in a community like ours where the developers have a lot of input into how cities get shaped and frankly because the land values only go one direction up and because we have been building infrastructure to facility land development, freeways facilitate land development, water systems facilitate water development, I think it's going to be a constant struggle and I don't think any city in this region is going to have enough money to do all they would like to do to protect open space, but it is a critical component to quality of life. We don't have tall mountains with snow on top of them. We don't have a beach. We really should protect that open space and make sure houses don't creep up the mountainsides.

>> Larry Lemmons: And, of course, the tourism, too. People come here obviously to shop --

>> Play golf.

>> Larry Lemmons: And play golf. Let's not forget that. But, of course, they come for the scenery as well. They love to be part of the desert environment.

>>Skip Rimsza: I think our tourism business will grow more quickly because the truth is with this aging of America demographic, most people have kind of done the beach things and to come to an environment like the Valley here in Phoenix and just enjoy a little golf and enjoy kind of a relaxed setting, I think, is going to become more and more popular and you get to stay in the United States. Travelling is getting to be more of a concern to folks.

>>Larry Lemmons: In talking, too, about diversifying the economy, bringing T-GEN, you know, and of course, Michael Crow also promoting the knowledge economy and all that --

>> Skip Rimsza: What an amazing time. Dr. Crow joins ASU, Dr. Jeff Trent joins us at the T-GEN facility, Dr. Lichen at the U of A decides to partner with Dr. Hager. The cities north and south, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson decide to come together. The legislature steps up. The governor gets excited about it. All of a sudden we as a region are actually on the map in this wonderful new science could that change the shape of human health in the world. We have the brightest and the best and because of the three universities and because of the state support and the city facilitating the construction of the core facility, we're really in a place where I think we can make a difference, and maybe add a whole new different component to our economy. The one bad thing about our region is we're still very dependent on development. And we had, of course, semi conductor but the semi conductor industry is not only struggling but it's moving offshore. That's a new component that maybe we can keep here for a while and give us a new type of economy to be excited about.

>> Larry Lemmons: What sort of challenges do you see for your successor, Phil Gordon, in the coming years? What sort of trends did you see that he would have to face?

>> Skip Rimsza: I think the changing demographic is going to continue to be problematic. For Phoenix, we have a component of the city in the Maryvale area which is 55-year-old housing stock, it's a very large village of housing. I think that area geographically is going to continue to be a challenge. Partly because we've got these new attractive developments in surprise and further out to the west that development is kind of skipping over redeveloping that part of Phoenix and going further west. So I'm really convinced that's going to be a real challenge. I do think the resources for Phoenix are always going to be a challenge. The state's financial crisis invariably impacts the resources the City of Phoenix has, they either take away some of the resources they owe us by previous action or they try to shift some of their costs to us. Those are real challenges. For example, the state's talking about doing something with the prisons to allow people out more quickly. The bottom line is that has an impact on crime in an urban center. So, if someone who is sentenced to seven years gets out in three, the way recidivism works, we have a real strong likelihood our officers will be involved with that individual over the next year once they're released. It will become more acute as we really, really get solidified as the urban central city.

>> Larry Lemmons: Certainly. And the continuing problem as we were discussing earlier about human smuggling, too.

>> Skip Rimsza: It's a real tragedy. We have a very porous border. There is an effort by the fed to try to deal with that but in many cases it's after the fact. Phoenix's murder rate is at the highest level ever today and it's directly attributed to human smuggling. You have a circumstance where the victims don't really trust the police and the police department because they don't want to be deported back to Mexico. You have the coyotes who are perpetrating these kinds of crimes on these individuals really getting engaged with each other because it's a commodity, these people are commodity to them. And we're having a very hard time breaking the backs of these coyotes when you deal with the commodity they're dealing with, which is people who are afraid to talk to a local police department.

>> Larry Lemmons: Certainly. You're still a young man, obviously. Just curious about what you intend to do next?

>> Skip Rimsza: I'm going to spend a little time to myself. I'm going to stay involved in public policy issues that I've become vested in. Certainly light rail is on the top of that list. T-Gen, I'm going to spend a lot of time helping them. I do have triplets that are 7 years old.

>> Larry Lemmons: You're known for that.

>> Skip Rimsza: And I want to spend a little more time with them, although I must share I felt like I spent a lot of time with them as Mayor. I never, ever want to be in a position where I said, gee, I missed some opportunities. I've never miss add single moments with my kids. I was at a school lunch with one of the kids and one of the little girls said to me, gee, you're here a lot. Don't you have a job? I thought, I think that's a good thing, but I'm not sure. But when you have three kids in a first grade class, you're certainly going to be around school quite a bit taking care of your own three children. I'm going to do that. And I'm also going to take some flying lessons. Going to learn how to fly.

>> Larry Lemmons: Oh, that's awesome. And you're an avid hunter already as well. Maybe you can fly up to Alaska yourself.

>> Skip Rimsza: That's pretty treacherous flying. I think it would take a few years and some polishing of my skills before I'd fly in Alaska. But Arizona is a wonderful place to fly, it's beautiful clear skies, great scenery and open space and I think I'll take some advantage of that, too.

>> Larry Lemmons: Thank you very much Mayor Skip Rimsza for all your service for the past nine years that.

>> Skip Rimsza: I've had a lot of fun, I've been a lucky guy. I want to thank the voters for the years of support they've given me.

>> Michael Grant: Here's what's coming up tomorrow night on "Horizon".

>> Citizens finance review commission, a blue ribbon panel looking at tax reform, will soon vote on a series of recommendations to overhaul various taxes in Arizona. Find out what taxes the commission is looking at and how they affect you. Tuesday at 7:00 on "Horizon".

>> Michael Grant: Wednesday we'll talk with Senator John McCain about Saddam Hussein's capture, campaign finance and other subjects. We'll take a look at a new exhibit of Cuban art at the ASU art museum. On Thursday, we'll have a report on our improving economy, and we'll take a look ahead to next year and, of course, on Friday please join us for the Journalists Roundtable review of the week's news events. Thank you very much for being here on a Monday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

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