The February sweeps will go out with an unscripted bang Wednesday night: CBS News Dan Rather has scored an exclusive interview with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The network says it will air the interview on \60 Minutes II""--the same night ABC News has rescheduled Barbara Walters' ""20/20'"" interview with actor and accused wife-killer Robert Blake.
Rather reported on the Hussein interview Monday afternoon on CBS Radio News and Monday night on ""CBS Evening News."" The first taped excerpts from the Monday interview in Baghdad were scheduled to air Tuesday morning on CBS News ""Early Show.""
According to CBS, during the interview Hussein challenges President Bush to a live international television and radio debate about the looming war. He envisions it as being along the lines of a U.S. presidential campaign debate, CBS News said.
The Iraqi president also denies in the interview that even his most advanced al Samoud missiles are in violation of U.N. mandates and indicates that he does not intend to destroy them or pledge to destroy them as called for by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, the news division said.
Rather last interviewed Hussein in 1990, the same year he gave interviews to Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer.
Earlier in the February ratings sweeps, CBS News purchased and ran excerpts from Hussein's interview with Tony Benn, retired British lawmaker turned peace activist. That broadcast averaged about 11 million viewers.
The Hussein interview will air directly opposite ABC's ""Survivor""-esque reality series ""I'm a Celebrity---Get Me Out of Here!"" Ironically that show leads into Walters' interview with Blake, who is in solitary at Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles for allegedly killing his wife.
The Associated Press was calling Rather's interview the biggest news ""get"" of the year and one that all of the networks had been chasing. But substitute ""Michael Jackson"" for ""Saddam Hussein"" and some would argue the sentence works just as well.
