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CNN Live At Daybreak
New Chinese Guidelines on Missile Exports; U.S. Intensifies Pressure on Iraq
Aired August 28, 2002 - 06:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have more on the war on terror now with a team of reports from James Martone, who joins us from Baghdad.
But we begin in Hong Kong, where CNN's Mike Chinoy has some new information for us about new guidelines regarding China's weapons policy.
Mike -- what's that about?
MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
Well, one of the consequences of the war against terrorism has been that the United States has tried to improve relations with China. Before September 11 of last year, Sino-American ties were somewhat tense, once the Bush administration came into office, but that's changed.
And now, in the last couple of days, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has been in Beijing, and there have been some interesting developments that have consequences for the war on terrorism.
The United States has been pressing China for some time to toughen controls on exports of missile-related technology. The United States concerned about Beijing's exports of that technology to countries like Pakistan and Iran.
Now, the Chinese have announced new guidelines that will tighten controls on the export of missiles. It's not a blanket ban, but Chinese companies seeking to export missile-related technology will have to get government approval.
Shortly after the Chinese made that announcement, there was a gesture from the Bush administration. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage announcing that a small Islamic militant group operating in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang had been labeled by the Bush administration as a terrorist organization. This group is called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and it's fighting to end the Chinese rule in the western part of China, which is predominantly Islamic.
The Chinese have used the war against terrorism, according to human rights critics, as an excuse to toughen repression all across the board in that part of China. But in this case, Beijing says there is evidence that that group had ties with al Qaeda, and now the United States has added it to its list of terrorist organizations -- Carol. COSTELLO: Understand. Mike Chinoy reporting live from China -- thank you.
We want to go to Baghdad now, where we find CNN's James Martone. James has just returned from a tour of a warehouse in Iraq in the search for weapons.
James -- what did you see?
JAMES MARTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that trip started early this morning. We were put in cars and all drove off to about 80 kilometers west of Baghdad to a place called Thorfat (ph). The site is Fallujah (ph), which is the site of what Iraq says is a pesticide plant, and what the United States recently has said -- or accused Iraq of trying to make chemical weapons there.
So we were led through by Iraqi officials. What we saw were warehouses, I would say three-fourths empty. What we did see on the ground, boxes of things like rat poison was one item that an official there showed us. There were pesticides that farmers use, they said, in their crops.
They said that this plant, which was established in '87, has always been used for pesticides. They said that when the U.N. UNSCOM, the weapons inspectors were in Iraq, that they visited it on numerous occasions, and we even saw UNSCOM stickers to that effect.
They said, however, in 1991, it was bombed, then again in 1998. And since 1998, they say, there has been no -- obviously no monitoring, because UNSCOM is not there.
Interesting, we saw a machine, which they said was a formulator to produce a kind of pesticide that kills what's called a white fly that kills trees -- fruit trees here. And they suggested that, perhaps, was what the United States thinks is behind chemical weapons.
Also, today in the papers, responses in the state papers to the statements coming out of Washington that there should be a pre-emptive strike. Leading papers, "Al-Thawra," which is a leading paper here in Iraq, characterized the statements by U.S. Vice President Cheney as "hysterical." They said that such statements only got Arabs further together, and that they would -- the Arabs would foil any attempts by the U.S.
The president, as we know, of the country, Saddam Hussein, has said that any attack on his country would be an attack on the entire world. And his ministers, two at least, his vice president and his foreign minister, outside of the country now on a round trying to build up support in the face of any eventual U.S. strike -- Carol.
COSTELLO: More of the same, then.
James Martone reporting live from Baghdad this morning -- thank you.
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