James Martone: Iraq gets ready

CNN Correspondent James Martone

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- As the United States attempts to build support for a possible military attack against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Iraq also is making preparations of its own on the military and diplomatic fronts. CNN Correspondent James Martone is in Iraq's capital of Baghdad, where he discussed the development with CNN's Catherine Callaway.

CALLAWAY: What are you seeing on the ground there? Are you seeing any war preparations there in Baghdad?

MARTONE: What we do hear from diplomats is that there are perhaps more checkpoints, that there is a sort of reinforcing, as they call it, of sites around Baghdad.

But when you go outside, as we did today, to some streets of Baghdad, people appear to be going around their business as normal. They don't want to talk very much beyond saying that any strike would be illegitimate, which is, in fact, what their country has been saying.

They tend to toe, if you will, the government line, which is it would be unjustified. What they will say often is that it's something we're used to, something that we've been under since the war with Iran, and afterwards the Gulf War. So people, yes, not happy, but resigned.

CALLAWAY: James, let me quickly ask you about what -- you mentioned this, but tell us a little bit more, exactly what the Iraqi media is reporting about all this.

MARTONE: The Iraqi media is and has been saying that the United States will be defeated, both in public opinion as well as, they even say they would defeat in war.

What they're saying today in the newspapers, the state-run newspaper, is that, how can Bush, they say, still continue when he knows that the world, as one newspaper said, is against him?

They have been sending out their ministers, their foreign minister was just in China, the vice president in Syria and Lebanon, all on a sort of rallying mission for support they say they're getting from not only Arab and Muslim countries but from other countries as well against any attack.

CALLAWAY:There have been about 34 strikes in the no-fly zone, both in the north and the south over the last few years. We've seen that intensify. How has that played in the Iraqi media there, and what is the reaction on the streets?

MARTONE: The reaction on the street is that there are innocent people being killed. That's what people say. The government officials say that it's U.S. and British coalition planes attacking civilian sites.

Of course, the U.S. and Britain say, no, we're protecting our pilots and we are striking at Iraqi radar. In any case, people are being killed and that's what people -- the Iraqis say -- they say we're in the middle of this and being killed, no matter who's doing the shooting.