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Mohammed: How exactly will leaving Saddam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?

[Six-second pause.]

Andrea Buffa: Um, again, what I need to say is …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … that regime change … listen, regime change, regime change has been issued to the Iraqi …
Mohammed (with Andrea): No, you are not listening. How exactly will leaving Saddam …

Andrea: … people. How will b … how will bombing Iraq help bring peace into …

Andrea (with Mohammed): and bombing thousands of people and killing thousands of innocent people and …
Mohammed (with Andrea): I will explain it to you, if you would like me to answer your question, since you are choosing not to answer mine.

Bryan Suits: Okay, let him, let him …

Bryan (with Mohammed): … let him explain, let Mohammed explain how bombing will work …
Mohammed (with Bryan): then you are choosing, then you are choosing to play ping pong, and not answer my question, little girl. I will answer yours. There will be civilian deaths in the war. Saddam has killed two million people. There are families here in this country who lost forty or thirty people on one day in a gas attack by Saddam Hussein, little girl.

[Andrea laughs in background.]

Mohammed: And I will tell you this: yes, civilians will die. My cousins will die, maybe, Allah forbid. But here is a certainty that you do not understand in your simplistic, nickelodeon diplomacy, is that you are guaranteed to have civilians die under Saddam. So now, you try again to answer my question, without playing the ping-pong: how does leaving Saddam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?

[Two-second pause.]

Andrea: I mean, I guess what folks who listen to this show are saying, or who are calling in —

Mohammed: I am not asking what folks listening to this show say …

Andrea: You know —

Mohammed: Can you answer the question, little girl?

Andrea: Ha ha ha …

Mohammed: Oh, now you laugh at people dying?

Mohammed (with Andrea): You are unable to answer the question.
Andrea (with Mohammed): Well, yeah, well, what I'm laughing at …

Andrea: … is that it seems like you need to, um, personally …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … attack me to make your point …
Mohammed (with Andrea): I do not want advice from you.

Mohammed: I am not giving …

Mohammed (with Bryan): … you advice …
Bryan (with Mohammed): Well, I, I …

Andrea (with Mohammed): What I want to say …
Mohammed (with Andrea): I am answering your question …

Bryan: Mohammed, Mohammed, let me, let me pose it this way: Andrea, I have the feeling that if you just answer his question, he'll be happy.

Andrea: Ha ha ha ha …

Bryan: And I'm, by the way, I'm not baited by your laughter.

Mohammed: You know that …

Mohammed (with Andrea): … laughter in the background?
Andrea (with Mohammed): Yeah, what I believe is that bombing and killing people …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … is not going to bring peace and justice. What I, what I also believe is there is there are other alternatives if we can pursue …
Mohammed (with Andrea): You can't answer the question. You are a joke. You are a joke. You cannot answer the question. You cannot answer the question. You are a joke.

Andrea: Ah —

Mohammed (with Bryan): You are a joke. I will give you one more chance, and then I never listen to a word you say again, you chirping bird.
Bryan (with Mohammed): How, how, how …

Bryan: … will promoting peace … how can you promote peace and justice without removing Saddam?

Andrea (with Bryan): Okay, and I also just want to say that although you are, um …
Bryan (with Andrea): That's his question. It's real simple, Andrea.

Andrea: And what I'm saying … ha ha ha …

Bryan: You're not answ …

Bryan (with Mohammed and Andrea): Ha ha ha …
Mohammed (with Andrea and Bryan): Listen to the …
Andrea (with Bryan and Mohammed): No!

Mohammed (with Bryan): … laughter of this little bird …
Bryan (with Mohammed): Hey, [exhales], I …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … you guys …
Mohammed (with Andrea): … who must despise herself.

Andrea (with Bryan): I don't, I don't think …
Bryan (with Andrea): I don't know, I don't … I'm trying so hard, Andrea.

Andrea: I don't think that, you know, calling somebody a little bird is going to help address the serious questions that millions of …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … people are worried about …
Mohammed (with Andrea): You do not answer the serious questions.

Andrea: … millions of people are worried about the consequences of a war, okay? Millions of …

Mohammed (with Andrea): No, I am not okay …
Andrea (with Mohammed): People are worried about the …

Mohammed: … with you not answering the question.

Andrea:… bombing and killing many people and millions of people are worried about …

Andrea (with Bryan): …increasing security for us, the people in the United States if we go to war, and additionally, I don't, um …

Bryan (with Andrea): Sure, sure, sure, I, we're, we're, we're retreading the same territory, the, the, yeah, we're retreading …

Bryan (with Mohammed): … but you're not, you're not …
Mohammed (with Bryan): You're a posturing little girl.

Bryan (with Andrea): You're, you're not answering the question, Andrea.
Andrea (with Bryan): Ha ha ha.

Bryan: Andrea, Andrea, you can continue to petutantly gale …

Andrea: Well …

Bryan (with Andrea): … in laughter, but you're, you have to admit …
Andrea (with Bryan): I'm, I'm …

Bryan (with Andrea): … you're not answering his question. It's a simple question …
Andrea (with Bryan): … well, I'm, I'm laughing at him calling me a little girl.

Andrea (with Bryan): and I think that you guys are being …
Bryan (with Andrea): You're coming off, you're coming off like my 9-year-old niece.

[Brief silence.]

Andrea: The only, it seems like the only focus that we can have here is Saddam Hussein, and the fact is that Iraq …

Andrea (with Mohammed and Bryan): … and that the people
Mohammed (with Andrea and Bryan): That is the focus of the war.
Bryan (with Andrea and Mohammed): Well … the …

Andrea (with Mohammed): … who are going to be killed in the bombing campaign …
Mohammed (with Andrea): Do you understand one thing about anything?

Andrea (with Mohammed and Bryan): … and what I said before is that …
Mohammed (with Andrea and Bryan): That is the focus of the war.
Bryan (with Andrea and Mohammed): Cur — cur — curiously, Andrea, you're …

Andrea: … there are alternatives, and …

Bryan: Yeah, alright, but curiously, you're talking to a guy from Iraq, and you're telling him that peace and justice will somehow remove the guy that is the reason he had to emigrate here. [Pause.] Is that what you're saying?

Andrea: What I'm saying is that …

Mohammed: Now, she precedes herself again …

Andrea: … is that true peace and justice for the Iraqi people through international law, through diplomacy …

Mohammed (with Andrea): International law has failed, Andrea.
Andrea (with Mohammed): … through pressure, through …

Andrea: … various different initiatives. If we can pursue them in North Korea, if we can pursue them in Israel and Palestine, and all over the world, we can pursue them in Iraq.

Mohammed (with Bryan): And can I say one more …
Bryan (with Mohammed): Go …

Mohammed (with Bryan and Andrea): … thing before I go …
Andrea (with Bryan and Mohammed): And, and, I also …
Bryan (with Andrea and Mohammed): No, no, no, no …

Andrea (with Bryan): No! I …
Bryan (with Andrea): An-, An-, Andrea, Mohammed has to go, he's a …

Andrea (with Bryan): Ha ha ha ha ha …
Bryan (with Andrea): … caller, he gets to go …

Bryan: … You've been on, uh, for 45 minutes.

Mohammed (with Bryan): I'm going to be, I …
Bryan (with Mohammed): Go ahead, ahead …

Mohammed: One more thing, please, Bryan.

Bryan: Yeah, go ahead.

Mohammed: If you, if you personally end up going to the Gulf, Allah will bless you, because Saddam is a pretend Muslim, and everybody knows this.

Bryan: Yeah.

Mohammed: And for the listeners who hear this girl, and she thinks that I insult her with the term, I do not insult her. Being a little girl is natural. We all start out children, and we learn and grow. But she has no point lecturing me on what will happen in Iraq, or lecturing you. This is why this so-called peace movement … they cannot even justify their own name. And I will remind you, if they leave Saddam in power they guarantee that … if he is removed, there will be some, but for a short time. And the Iraqi people are ready, and they will welcome the Americans, including if, Allah forbid, Bryan, uh, Suites, go. So, Andrea, do not take it as being an insult that you are a little girl. You are simply not ready for the adult world. Thank you, Bryan.

Bryan: Uh, thank you, Mohammed. What he's referring to, Andrea, is that tomorrow …

Andrea: Uh —

Bryan: … tomorrow night is my final night here on KVI. My, I, I'm being called up by the Army National Guard. I was in the first Desert Storm. I pray to God I'm not in the second one. I just wonder, as they say, in 10 years … will people shake my hand and say 'thanks for my freedom'? Or will they shake your hand? Neither you nor I know.