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CNN Live At Daybreak

NATO Not in Support of War in Iraq

Aired March 19, 2002 - 05:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. officials say President Bush is keeping military action as an option to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But while supporting the war on terror in Afghanistan, NATO is not rubber stamping an Allied invasion of Iraq.

CNN's Matthew Chance has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The high tech aircraft helping secure the skies over the United States, not American, but NATO. Five of these AWACS radar fitted surveillance planes were pledged after the 9/11 attacks. On board, NATO's Secretary-General, wearing the jacket of the multinational flight crew.

The deployment of these aircraft to the United States, he told me, is more than just symbolic.

GEORGE ROBERTSON, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: These AWACS are the eyes and ears of homeland defense for the United States. They're there because they're needed, because the American AWACS have gone to war to the other side of the world.

CHANCE: With U.S. planes in Afghanistan, these highly sensitive radar systems here flying over Britain, they're used to monitor the Eastern Seaboard of the United States for rogue aircraft. Lord Robertson says NATO commitment to the war on terror is wholehearted, but that does not include support for an extension of the war to Iraq. At least not yet.

ROBERTSON: I know of no plans for attacking at the moment. But if intelligence were assuring that Saddam Hussein was giving support or was hiding al Qaeda network people, then clearly the North Atlantic countries (ph) would want to know about it and would consider its implications.

CHANCE (on camera): And evidence that Iraq was constructing weapons of mass destruction, would that be enough?

ROBERTSON: The Iraqi capacity in weapons of mass destruction is well known and, of course, there have been some U.N. Security Council resolutions not allowing inspectors to be in there at this stage. So they represent a potential threat to the international community. But so far as NATO is concerned, as it stands at the moment, it has to be linked to attacks on Washington and New York.

CHANCE (voice-over): So the word from NATO is that diplomatic and material support like these AWACS aircraft will continue to flow to the United States so long as their war on terror is confined to reprisals for the September 11 attacks. On the more pressing issue of Iraq, there's still much debate and division in the NATO ranks.

Matthew Chance, CNN, at the Geilenkirchen Air Base in Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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