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American Morning

Blair Pushes Case Against Iraq

Aired September 24, 2002 - 07:21   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A special edition this morning. For those of you who joined us at the top of the hour, you saw that we had taken Tony Blair's speech to a very packed House of Commons, where he laid out Britain's case against Iraq. The important distinction, I think, Bill, that he made, he never mentioned any, he never mentioned regime change. He just talked about disarmament and the need to get these weapons of mass destruction out of his hands.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, what we're seeing right now is truly a sales pitch by the British prime minister. This is his appeal to his own members of parliament and certainly it is a wide appeal to the British people who are listening.

At one time he called Saddam Hussein cruel and sadistic as a leader and then he emphasized diplomacy, in Tony Blair's words, "lacking the threat of force never works."

Let's go back a short time ago. More from Tony Blair in parliament a short time in London.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: As the dossier sets out, we estimate on the basis of the U.N.'s work that there were up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including one and a half tons of DX nerve agent, up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, growth media sufficient to produce 26,000 liters of anthrax spores and over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents.

All of this was missing and unaccounted for.

Military action by the U.S. and U.K. followed and a certain amount of infrastructure for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and missile capability was destroyed, setting the Iraqi program back, but not ending it.

From late 1998 onwards, therefore, the sole inhibition on Saddam's WMD program was the sanctions regime. Iraq was forbidden to use the revenue from its oil, except for certain specified non- military purposes.

The sanctions regime, however, was also subject to illegal trading and abuse. Because of concerns about its inadequacy and the impact on the Iraqi people, we made several attempts to refine it, culminating in a new U.N. resolution in May of this year. But it was only partially effective. Around $3 billion of money is illegally taken by Saddam every year now, double the figure for the year 2000. Self-evidently, there is no proper accounting for this money.

Because of concerns that a containment policy based on sanctions alone could not sufficiently inhabitant Saddam's weapons program, negotiations continued even after 1998 to gain readmission for the U.N. inspectors.

In 1999, a new U.N. resolution demanding their reentry was passed and ignored.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Again, Prime Minister Tony Blair in an address to members of parliament a short time ago. He says the evidence against Iraq must be dealt with now.

And, Paula, one other thing he mentioned several times actually, the mobile laboratories apparently that have been set up and established for production of biological warfare agents.

We will talk about that, the threat of those and other things throughout the country of Iraq in a moment here with a guest, in about 10 minutes time, in fact.

ZAHN: Let's bring John King into the discussion. He joins us from the White House right now.

John, you made a point of the fact that the prime minister did not call for regime change but did call for disarmament several times during this speech. Was that also coordinated with the Bush administration or would they have wanted him to go further?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they would love for Prime Minister Blair to go further, but they perfectly understand here at the Bush White House that the prime minister cannot carry that argument in the domestic politics of Great Britain or of the broader audience in Europe. That is one key distinction between these two leaders, the president and prime minister, who say the United Nations must act, must confront Saddam Hussein with the threat of military force and that if it does not, they will.

They agree on the goal to that point. But the prime minister saying yes, he would love to see a regime change in Baghdad, but that that would not be the stated goal of any operation Great Britain was involved in militarily.

One other distinction, Paula. We frequently hear the president say he worries about a marriage between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups like al Qaeda, that Saddam Hussein would share chemical or biological or, god forbid, nuclear technology with terrorist groups like al Qaeda.

Completely missing from Prime Minister Blair's speech because British diplomats say there's no evidence Saddam Hussein has ever done that, that Saddam Hussein is a loner, a man who, according to the prime minister, has stolen money from the oil for food program, money that is supposed to go for humanitarian purposes, a madman, the prime minister said at one point. But they see no evidence in Great Britain that Saddam Hussein in his history has ever struck such an alliance.

So that is also not in the British argument. These two leaders, President Bush and prime minister, agree on most things but their arguments are slightly different. And the most detailed difference is the call for regime change here in Washington, disarmament in London.

ZAHN: John King, thanks so much.

We are going to stay with this story a lot in this next half hour. We're going to continue to let you know how you, how we think the speech is playing in Great Britain, here, in the United States, and at the U.N.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 24, 2002 - 07:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A special edition this morning. For those of you who joined us at the top of the hour, you saw that we had taken Tony Blair's speech to a very packed House of Commons, where he laid out Britain's case against Iraq. The important distinction, I think, Bill, that he made, he never mentioned any, he never mentioned regime change. He just talked about disarmament and the need to get these weapons of mass destruction out of his hands.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, what we're seeing right now is truly a sales pitch by the British prime minister. This is his appeal to his own members of parliament and certainly it is a wide appeal to the British people who are listening.

At one time he called Saddam Hussein cruel and sadistic as a leader and then he emphasized diplomacy, in Tony Blair's words, "lacking the threat of force never works."

Let's go back a short time ago. More from Tony Blair in parliament a short time in London.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: As the dossier sets out, we estimate on the basis of the U.N.'s work that there were up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including one and a half tons of DX nerve agent, up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, growth media sufficient to produce 26,000 liters of anthrax spores and over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents.

All of this was missing and unaccounted for.

Military action by the U.S. and U.K. followed and a certain amount of infrastructure for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and missile capability was destroyed, setting the Iraqi program back, but not ending it.

From late 1998 onwards, therefore, the sole inhibition on Saddam's WMD program was the sanctions regime. Iraq was forbidden to use the revenue from its oil, except for certain specified non- military purposes.

The sanctions regime, however, was also subject to illegal trading and abuse. Because of concerns about its inadequacy and the impact on the Iraqi people, we made several attempts to refine it, culminating in a new U.N. resolution in May of this year. But it was only partially effective. Around $3 billion of money is illegally taken by Saddam every year now, double the figure for the year 2000. Self-evidently, there is no proper accounting for this money.

Because of concerns that a containment policy based on sanctions alone could not sufficiently inhabitant Saddam's weapons program, negotiations continued even after 1998 to gain readmission for the U.N. inspectors.

In 1999, a new U.N. resolution demanding their reentry was passed and ignored.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Again, Prime Minister Tony Blair in an address to members of parliament a short time ago. He says the evidence against Iraq must be dealt with now.

And, Paula, one other thing he mentioned several times actually, the mobile laboratories apparently that have been set up and established for production of biological warfare agents.

We will talk about that, the threat of those and other things throughout the country of Iraq in a moment here with a guest, in about 10 minutes time, in fact.

ZAHN: Let's bring John King into the discussion. He joins us from the White House right now.

John, you made a point of the fact that the prime minister did not call for regime change but did call for disarmament several times during this speech. Was that also coordinated with the Bush administration or would they have wanted him to go further?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they would love for Prime Minister Blair to go further, but they perfectly understand here at the Bush White House that the prime minister cannot carry that argument in the domestic politics of Great Britain or of the broader audience in Europe. That is one key distinction between these two leaders, the president and prime minister, who say the United Nations must act, must confront Saddam Hussein with the threat of military force and that if it does not, they will.

They agree on the goal to that point. But the prime minister saying yes, he would love to see a regime change in Baghdad, but that that would not be the stated goal of any operation Great Britain was involved in militarily.

One other distinction, Paula. We frequently hear the president say he worries about a marriage between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups like al Qaeda, that Saddam Hussein would share chemical or biological or, god forbid, nuclear technology with terrorist groups like al Qaeda.

Completely missing from Prime Minister Blair's speech because British diplomats say there's no evidence Saddam Hussein has ever done that, that Saddam Hussein is a loner, a man who, according to the prime minister, has stolen money from the oil for food program, money that is supposed to go for humanitarian purposes, a madman, the prime minister said at one point. But they see no evidence in Great Britain that Saddam Hussein in his history has ever struck such an alliance.

So that is also not in the British argument. These two leaders, President Bush and prime minister, agree on most things but their arguments are slightly different. And the most detailed difference is the call for regime change here in Washington, disarmament in London.

ZAHN: John King, thanks so much.

We are going to stay with this story a lot in this next half hour. We're going to continue to let you know how you, how we think the speech is playing in Great Britain, here, in the United States, and at the U.N.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com