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American Morning

Interview with Michael Elliott

Aired September 09, 2002 - 09:17   ET

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

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The verbal war over Iraq continues, with the president's team hitting the airwaves this weekend trying to rally support for military action. The president made a similar sales pitch to Congress last week, meeting with key members at the White House. He will also make his case to the world at the U.N. in New York on Thursday.
"Time" magazine editor at large, Michael Elliott, writes about the president's war plan this week in the latest edition. He is with us this morning. Good to see you.

MICHAEL ELLIOTT, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "TIME": Good to see you.

HEMMER: Bottom line that you make in this article is that President Bush will not be alone ultimately.

ELLIOTT: That is my view. I think that we're at the beginning of a process that is going to last maybe a month, maybe two months in which he makes the case to international leaders, and at the end of that process, I think, we are going to find that he has a pretty substantial alliance of people who are prepared to back -- first of all, a very aggressive inspectionary team in Iraq with understanding that if that does not work there is military action. I don't think the U.S. is going to be alone on this at all.

HEMMER: Why do you get this measure, why do you get this gauge when we hear, almost on a daily basis, this line of world leaders coming out and saying they are against it, we haven't seen the proof, you have got to go to the U.N. first then we'll talk about inspections, blah, blah, blah.

ELLIOTT: Well, you know, diplomacy is a strange business, and what people say publicly is kind of best regarded as only a vaguely useful guide to what they believe privately. If you go through important countries one by one, in the case of Russia, I think it is quite plain that relations with the United States, and more importantly, Moscow than relations with Iraq. So that is just a kind of question of the balance.

In case of France, the president of France has an interview in the "New York Times" this morning. The point of the French is not to kind of disagree with the Americans for the sake of it. The point of the French is to say, can we get U.N. agreement, U.N. sanctions for this. I think we will, and I think when we do that, the French will be on board.

HEMMER: Let me pull a clip from you article, here, Michael. You are writing here, and I will put up for our viewers here -- "Diplomacy," you say, "where what is said in public is merely a useful guide to private conviction, has a curious logic," your point that you just made right here -- you continue, "in essence, Washington believes it is more likely to get a multilateral solution on Iraq if it appears ready to take action unilaterally."

I think what you are saying -- I don't want to put words in your mouth -- the president has come out and said, We have this evidence, this is our case, you are either with us or against us, in a sense, right?

ELLIOTT: Yes -- I think the administration is being quite clever, actually. It is kind of a mad-man's cleverness, if you like, because what they are doing is saying, Look, we want you to be with us when we do this, but if you are not, that's OK. That's OK. We're going to do it anyway. And their assumption is that by saying we're going to do this anyway, we are going to get rid of this guy anyway, they will actually -- when it comes down to it, when push comes to shove, they will have people with them.

HEMMER: Fifteen seconds. The message at U.N. on Thursday is what and how strong?

ELLIOTT: The message at the U.N. is you guys have failed. These are your resolutions, the U.N.'s resolutions that Saddam Hussein has been thumbing his nose at for the last 11 years, so are you going to help me make sure that your resolutions are adhered to?

HEMMER: He used word "stiffing" last week.

ELLIOTT: Yes. We'll see.

HEMMER: Iraq has been "stiffing"...

(CROSSTALK)

ELLIOTT: ... the international community.

HEMMER: Thank you, Michael. Michael Elliott, "Time" magazine. Good piece. Here is Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Haven't seen you in a while. Great to have you back, Michael. You look like summer wore well on you.

ELLIOTT: Crete.

ZAHN: Crete. Oh, that's it.

HEMMER: That will do it.

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