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CNN Live Today
Bush Makes Clear How to Avoid War With Iraq
Aired September 12, 2002 - 13:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has made it clear how to avoid a war with Iraq, and he says it's up to Baghdad and the United Nations.
CNN's John King witnessed today's speech, where the president made his case, and stated his terms quite directly.
Hi, John.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Quite directly indeed, Kyra.
Hello to you.
For months and weeks, people have been asking the president what is your evidence against Saddam Hussein? The president today in a dramatic and defining speech to the United Nations General Assembly tried to turn the tables, if you will. He said the evidence is already out there. With the Iraqi delegation in the audience, President Bush said that Saddam Hussein was an outlaw who for more than a decade has broken every promise he has made to the United Nations, to disarm, to let the world verify that he has no chemical, no biological, no nuclear weapons.
The president said the very credibility of the United Nations was at stake here in enforcing its own resolutions. The president said he very much wanting to work with the United Nations. That was answering some of his critics, but he also made clear the U.S. resolve, and he made clear his patience is limited.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather. We must stand up for you our security and for the permanent rights and the hopes of mankind.
By heritage, and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand, and delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The challenge to win a new resolution from the United Nations Security Council. Secretary of State Powell will stay behind and lobby key members of the United Nations. We are told at CNN the administration wants inspectors back into Iraq within weeks, but it also wants tough language stating any interference with those inspectors could result in military action. The one solid ally in this debate right now is Great Britain. The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on hand for the president's speech. He said much lobbying remains to be done, but in his words, Jack Straw said that president's argument was compelling.
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JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECY.: This is an urgent matter. No one who heard President Bush's speech can be in any doubt whatsoever about the urgency of dealing with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and the responsibility resting on the shoulders of this international community, the United Nations. So the intensive discussions begin now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Those intensive discussions not only here in New York as Secretary Powell and President Bush lobby key members of the United Nations. The administration also preparing to send delegations to Moscow, to Paris and to Beijing to lobby those three nations, France, Russia and China, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. They could have veto authority. Administration officials, though, believe, they are making slow buy steady progress in building the case against Saddam -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: John King, thank you.
KING: And just a short time ago, we received this reaction to the president's speech. It came from Iraq's U.N. ambassador.
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MOHAMMAD AL-DOURI, IRAQI AMB. TO THE U.N.: It seems to me that since the U.S. president discovered that it is impossible to find any evidence that Iraq possesses or develops weapons of mass destruction, and lacking any evidence to link Iraq to terrorism, he chooses to deceive the world and his own people by the longest series of fabrications that has been ever told by a leader of a nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: We've been waiting for reaction from the Iraqi capital, specifically Saddam Hussein.
CNN's Rula Amin is standing by there.
Rula, anything yet?
RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nothing yet, Kyra.
We have heard one comment so far, in a comment, political comment before Iraq's main news. One of the anchors was talking about the speech. He said that President Bush has failed to provide the evidence that he has promised world he will present in order to make a strong case for an attack against Baghdad. We have heard from Iraqi officials, however, from previous days in last few months. Many denials for many of the charges that President Bush laid out there. They don't have weapons of mass destruction anymore. They say they have nothing to do with terrorism, and that they are not a threat to anybody -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Rula Amin, thank you. We'll be awaiting word from there. We'll continue to check in with you.
Let's talk a little bit more about Iraq, the U.N. and President Bush. With that, we turn to James Rubin, former spokesperson for the Clinton State Department. He is a professor of international relations now at the London School of Economics.
Hi, Jamie.
JAMES RUBIN, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF STATE: Hello.
PHILLIPS: What do you think? Did President Bush make any headway in his argument for military force against Iraq?
RUBIN: I think he did. I think he made a very compelling case for why it is that Iraq is in violation are the series of U.N. resolutions. And how danger us it is for the world and for the credibility of United Nations for the United Nations to do nothing in the face of this defiance and this decade of defiance that he called it.
Where details were left out is exactly how the administration intends to work within the U.N. system. There is a lot of room for maneuvering here, because the president done spell out whether we would seek a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force. And if he on did seek such a resolution, whether its mission -- and this is the really tricky part -- whether the mission of that resolution, the war objective, would be to change the regime.
And This is the hardest part for the Bush administration, to figure out a way make the case for military action, but not ask United Nations to support regime change, which they will never support. They may support implementing resolutions, guaranteeing that the inspectors get back, ensuring that human rights are protected, getting Kuwaiti prisoners released, that kind of thing, but they are never going support the administration in effort to overthrow the regime, and the president wisely skirted that issue.
PHILLIPS: So is there anyone -- sounds like you are saying no -- in the U.N. General Assembly that definitely 100 percent support the ouster of Saddam Hussein?
RUBIN: Well, I think the few governments -- I can't think of any other besides the Israeli will articulate as their policy goal, that is regime change, that is overthrowing Saddam Hussein, even the British government, which is perhaps the administration's closest ally, describes its mission as guaranteeing the disarmament of Iraq.
Now if you read between the line of the president's speech and some of the comments by the British and others, they acknowledge that so long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, there is every reason to believe Iraq will never disarm. But they are not prepared to go as far as Bush administration has gone to articulate as the goal of military and political policy, the overthrow of a specific government, and that is where the details need to be ironed out.
PHILLIPS: Now, Jamie, during the first Bush administration, there was an overwhelming consensus, the U.N. -- I mean, the world for that matter -- were against Saddam Hussein. Why has that opinion changed, especially after 9/11?
RUBIN: Well, I think the reason it's changed is that at that time, an Arab state -- Iraq -- had invaded another Arab state -- Kuwait -- and most of the Arab states saw Saddam as an imminent threat to their very survival. And once the regional group in the U.N., the region most affected, takes a stand, the rest of the U.N. goes along.
So at that time, all of the Arab states saw Saddam as a direct threat, they supported military action, the Saudis, the Syrians, the Egyptians. All of these countries were parts of a military coalition. Now after 10 years, they don't see Saddam as a direct threat. And they link to 09/11 the link to terrorism that has been suggested by some in the administration has not been particularly successful. And I think it was very wise of president today to not try to make that link.
Saddam Hussein, the danger from Saddam Hussein, existed prior to September 11th, and will exist long after Al Qaeda is gone. The danger is a regime that is that ruthless and has used weapons of mass destruction, having weapons of mass destruction is simply unacceptable in the modern era, and that is a very different thing from Al Qaeda, a very different thing from September 11th. And I think that is the reason why the views are so different right now.
PHILLIPS: But, Jamie, Saddam has not cooperated with weapons inspectors in the past. And you mentioned the past 10 years, even the president mentioned the past 10 years. Isn't that -- or why isn't that enough for the U.N. to say, OK, we get it, we have to support military action now against Iraq?
RUBIN: Well, first will all, I think under the right circumstances, key U.N. countries, including Britain, including France, and possibly including Russia, will support military action to enforce U.N. resolutions. I wouldn't say that's impossible at all. The question will be what the mission will be and to what extent countries will be willing to support this mission.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that the Russians or the French, for that matter, will label as a war aim that they are prepared to support the overthrow of a specific regime. So that is why I think it would be relatively easy to get support in the U.N. for military action to destroy for example, 100 specific weapon sites that he might to use to develop weapons of mass destruction. Destroying those sites either by ground forces or air forces, that you could probably get support for. Even the German government officials have been hinting that they would support that. Where the support evaporates, is when you state as your war aim, the overthrow of the regime, and you raise all of these questions about what comes next and who decides what regimes exists in the world, and that's why I think next step for the administration is to start to spell out what its long-term objectives are for -- in Iraq. They've started to do so in this speech, talking out a democratic Iraq, U.N.-supervised elections, the reconstruction of the country, but that needs to spelled out, and it needs to be backed up by the credibility that could come if we did a better job of finishing the job in Afghanistan, really, helping secure the countryside, and show that when United States over close a government, the Taliban in this case, that the result is reconstruction, support, democracy and greater degree of happiness for the people. That will help us win converts in Muslim world, in the case of Iraq.
PHILLIPS: James Rubin, thank you.
RUBIN: Thank you
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