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CNN Live At Daybreak

Bush Receiving Advice on Iraq

Aired August 26, 2002 - 05:06   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: An Iraq attack is still very much on the table, as President Bush considers options for overthrowing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He's getting a lot of advice. Republicans, Democrats, even members of his father's administration are weighing in.
Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The advice keeps coming for President Bush from members of his father's administration who wrestled with Saddam Hussein a decade ago. The latest to speak out, former Secretary of State James Baker. In a "New York Times" op- ed he writes: "The only realistic way to effect regime change in through the application of military force."

But he also urges the president to get international support, just as he and the former president did during the Gulf War.

"Although the United States could certainly succeed," Baker says, "we should try our best not to have to go it alone."

Other Republicans, though, say the president must act, even without a coalition, to stop Saddam.

SEN. JAMES INHOFE, (R), OKLAHOMA: We can't be talking this thing to death, as we did in the case of Osama bin Laden.

WALLACE: But before launching any preemptive strike on Iraq, some Democrats argue the president must make the case to the American people.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: What we have is an administration that is beating its breast with all of this rhetoric about how they're going to do this or that. The president needs the country behind him.

WALLACE: Aides say the president will go to the American people when he has made a decision about how to deal with Saddam Hussein. And as for Arab public opinion, the State Department will provide media training this week to 17 Iraqi exiles from North America and Europe, encouraging them to speak out in Arabic that the Iraqi people would be better off without Saddam.

(on camera): So would Iraq's neighbors, the president argues. He'll deliver that message personally to the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Tuesday during a visit to his Texas ranch. The president pleading the case to a Saudi government that so far is not backing a military attack.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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