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CNN Live At Daybreak
Ball Gets Rolling on Plans for Return of Weapons Inspectors to Iraq
Aired September 30, 2002 - 05:02 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the ball really gets rolling today on plans for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. U.N. weapons experts are expected to lay out their conditions during meetings with Iraqi officials. The two day talks are taking place in Vienna,
Austria right now.
Our Sheila MacVicar reports on what the U.N. experts will likely face once they're back in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their vehicles sit where they were left four years ago in a dusty parking lot in Baghdad. Their offices locked, communications systems destroyed. Before U.N. weapons inspectors can even begin looking for Iraq's illegal weapons, they have to do a little housekeeping.
MARK GWOZDECKY, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: There's no way of knowing the state of repair of those offices, our vehicles, our helicopters.
MACVICAR: Getting up and running will be the first and probably easiest test of Iraq's cooperation. Former U.N. weapons inspectors say the long history of attempting to disarm Iraq has been marked by what they call cheat and retreat, and warn that may still be Iraq's strategy now.
TIM TRAVEN, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They cheat with the lying about what they held. They would retreat when the evidence was -- they were confronted with the evidence, and come up with a new lie.
MACVICAR: After his experience as an inspector, Tim Traven wrote a book on Iraq's strategy of concealment.
TRAVEN: They never told the full truth and unless they told the full truth, we couldn't say they were genuinely cooperative.
MACVICAR: It does turn out that Iraq was right about one thing. The inspectors, Tariq Aziz frequently charged, were spying. The United Nations has admitted some did share information with their own governments. That trafficking in intelligence, we are now told, has been stopped.
Over the decade of the '90s, say critics, the U.N. inspection regime was gradually eroded by Iraqi refusals that led to parking lot stand-offs.
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Our refusal for that impression led to a fury in the Security Council.
MACVICAR: But all too often, the Security Council talked tough and did little.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: If the Security Council isn't willing to enforce its own resolutions, then they shouldn't send in the inspectors, because the last thing we need is another cat and mouse game that was, such as what was played out in the mid- and late-1990s with the inspectors.
MACVICAR: Or another crisis caused by the many palaces of Saddam Hussein. It's not yet clear if they will be open to inspectors and under what rules or what happens if they are not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We still don't know if Bahran (ph) is going to be a point.
MACVICAR: At the International Atomic Energy Agency, where a team of inspectors is prepared to leave within days, the plan of action is ready.
GWOZDECKY: We are operating on the assumption that we're returning on the basis of those mandates, which give us basically any time, anywhere, anyone kind of powers.
MACVICAR: There have been no inspections for four years. But as the British dossier on Iraq showed, a lot of intelligence has been collected, from satellite images, spies and the tales of defector, a lot of places to look, a lot of things to look for.
(on camera): And the biggest question -- how fast could the inspectors find it all? That all depends, they say, on Iraq's cooperation. And right now Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: We're going to go live to Vienna and to Baghdad in just a bit.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Inspectors to Iraq>
Aired September 30, 2002 - 05:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the ball really gets rolling today on plans for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. U.N. weapons experts are expected to lay out their conditions during meetings with Iraqi officials. The two day talks are taking place in Vienna,
Austria right now.
Our Sheila MacVicar reports on what the U.N. experts will likely face once they're back in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their vehicles sit where they were left four years ago in a dusty parking lot in Baghdad. Their offices locked, communications systems destroyed. Before U.N. weapons inspectors can even begin looking for Iraq's illegal weapons, they have to do a little housekeeping.
MARK GWOZDECKY, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: There's no way of knowing the state of repair of those offices, our vehicles, our helicopters.
MACVICAR: Getting up and running will be the first and probably easiest test of Iraq's cooperation. Former U.N. weapons inspectors say the long history of attempting to disarm Iraq has been marked by what they call cheat and retreat, and warn that may still be Iraq's strategy now.
TIM TRAVEN, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They cheat with the lying about what they held. They would retreat when the evidence was -- they were confronted with the evidence, and come up with a new lie.
MACVICAR: After his experience as an inspector, Tim Traven wrote a book on Iraq's strategy of concealment.
TRAVEN: They never told the full truth and unless they told the full truth, we couldn't say they were genuinely cooperative.
MACVICAR: It does turn out that Iraq was right about one thing. The inspectors, Tariq Aziz frequently charged, were spying. The United Nations has admitted some did share information with their own governments. That trafficking in intelligence, we are now told, has been stopped.
Over the decade of the '90s, say critics, the U.N. inspection regime was gradually eroded by Iraqi refusals that led to parking lot stand-offs.
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Our refusal for that impression led to a fury in the Security Council.
MACVICAR: But all too often, the Security Council talked tough and did little.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: If the Security Council isn't willing to enforce its own resolutions, then they shouldn't send in the inspectors, because the last thing we need is another cat and mouse game that was, such as what was played out in the mid- and late-1990s with the inspectors.
MACVICAR: Or another crisis caused by the many palaces of Saddam Hussein. It's not yet clear if they will be open to inspectors and under what rules or what happens if they are not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We still don't know if Bahran (ph) is going to be a point.
MACVICAR: At the International Atomic Energy Agency, where a team of inspectors is prepared to leave within days, the plan of action is ready.
GWOZDECKY: We are operating on the assumption that we're returning on the basis of those mandates, which give us basically any time, anywhere, anyone kind of powers.
MACVICAR: There have been no inspections for four years. But as the British dossier on Iraq showed, a lot of intelligence has been collected, from satellite images, spies and the tales of defector, a lot of places to look, a lot of things to look for.
(on camera): And the biggest question -- how fast could the inspectors find it all? That all depends, they say, on Iraq's cooperation. And right now Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: We're going to go live to Vienna and to Baghdad in just a bit.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Inspectors to Iraq>
