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American Morning

Interview with David Kay

Aired October 04, 2002 - 08:02   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: When senior Bush administration officials meet with Hans Blix today in Washington. The message to the chief U.N. weapons inspector will be do not take no for an answer from the Iraqis.
The president wants to be sure that U.N. inspectors would be allowed to wherever they want whenever they want.

David Kay knows what it's like to be on the ground in Iraq. He was one of the first U.N. inspectors in Baghdad after the Gulf War.

And he joins us this morning from Washington.

Welcome back. Good to have you with us this morning, sir.

DAVID KAY, FORMER U.N. INSPECTOR: Good to be here, Paula.

ZAHN: Before we talk about what you were up against, let's talk about what Hans Blix now appears to be saying. According to our reporters in Washington, he seems to be willing to wait until a new U.N. resolution is in place before inspectors go to Iraq. Without that, what would they be up against?

KAY: Well, without the rights that he did not successfully negotiate in Vienna with the Iraqis, that is, the right to go anywhere, anytime; the right to conduct aerial inspections over the whole country in safety; and most importantly, the right to conduct interrogations of Iraqi scientists and engineers without their security minders being shoulder to shoulder with them, it's a hopeless effort. You cannot have effective inspections under those conditions.

ZAHN: I know you have described what, how impossible your own mission was back then. I'm going to share with the audience a little bit of what you had to say -- and you very clearly document it on this trip -- the challenges where when you were on the ground in Iraq.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAY: All of the material which was on this site on Sunday when we came through has been on a, we can see a warehouse area where we found objects under crates, is now totally empty.

Here are heavy equipment tracks in the compound to which we were denied access on Sunday. The amount of heavy equipment available for moving things is visible here. Heavy equipment tracks in this direction towards our bus, heavy equipment tracks back towards the east in this compound, toward where materials are stored. As I pan to the left in this photograph, you will get a good view of the heavy equipment available here -- cranes, lifters, bulldozers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: How common was that, for you to arrive at the site where it was so obvious that things had been moved?

KAY: Unfortunately it was very common, particularly during that first inspection. We spent 10 days chasing around the country a moving object where the Iraqis refused to give us access when we needed it. We finally did defeat them and gain access to it, but it was with no cooperation from the Iraqis.

ZAHN: What would happen when you would have a no notice inspection?

KAY: Well, we conducted the first no notice inspection in June of 1991. We showed up at a base that the Iraqis did not expect us to appear and the Iraqi base commander made what was for him a fatal mistake. He allowed me to put three inspectors on a 50 meter water tower. We saw they were moving things out of the back gate. I got inspectors around. They couldn't stop them, but they photographed them. The Iraqis fired warning shots, tried to seize the film, but I had very, very innovative inspectors who knew how to keep the film away from the Iraqis. And we got photo documentation of a previously denied and unknown uranium enrichment program.

ZAHN: You've got to be kidding?

KAY: No. No, it wasn't, quite frankly, it wasn't funny then. You know, it's never funny having your own men fired at and you're operating under conditions where you didn't -- there were only, you know, in that inspection trip at that point only 10 of us, 10 inspectors against the entire Iraqi Army and, more importantly, the Iraqi security establishment operating in Baghdad, a long way from home for a little kid from Texas.

ZAHN: We also have another video that shows the confrontation that happened when you and Iraqi officials were together and you identified a truck actually carrying materials subject to inspection. Let's watch that now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAY: I must request that you inform the commander of the seriousness of vehicle movement on this site. Vehicle movement on this site at this point puts you in clear violation of the Security Council resolution. I have no alternative but to inform New York that a clear Security Council resolution has now been violated by the government over Iraq and simply to step back and inform them that that action is taken.

The commander is in serious violation of an agreement that your own government has signed. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: So, you read the Iraqis the riot act there. What happened?

KAY: Well, Paula, about the only tools you had as an inspector -- you didn't have armed troops with you -- is you had a video camera or a satellite telephone link and however willing you were to read them the riot act. In that case, they continued to move things out of the facility. We photographed it and reported it in to the Security Council for their action.

ZAHN: And was any action taken?

KAY: Action was taken in that case. I was very lucky. In 1991, we had a united Security Council behind the inspectors. And I cannot tell you what a great difference that made. That made our life, while frustrating in dealing with the Iraqis, ultimately satisfactory. Unfortunately, by 1995, the Council had fragmented and '95 through '98 was probably the most frustrating period any arms control inspectors have ever hade.

ZAHN: I wanted to close with an incident we don't have on tape. But you were actually held by the Iraqis over some documents you seized. What was that all about?

KAY: We seized 60,000 pages of Iraqi documentation of their nuclear weapons program, including an actual diagram of their first nuclear weapon. So these were Iraqi documents in Iraqi words. You don't have to be a scientist to understand. Much of the rest of our data made sense if you had a science background, but not necessarily a policymaker or a diplomat.

These were the damning documents of a 20 year program to violate their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to achieve nuclear weapons in large numbers in Iraq. They refused to let us leave with the documents. I said we're not leaving this site until we have the documents. And we spent four days in a downtown Baghdad parking lot.

At the end, though, we got the documents.

ZAHN: Glad you did.

Finally, in closing this morning, very quickly here, if Hans Blix puts off inspectors going to Iraq until there is a new U.N. resolution, what do you think Saddam's doing in the meantime?

KAY: Well, I think Saddam will play his usual game, that is, in the end -- because what he wants to avoid is military action that removes him from the scene -- he will, in the end, say oh, OK, come on, inspect anything you want to, hoping that by the time the inspectors get there and the first couple of inspections will go trouble free, he will start restricting the inspectors' access and hope it will never be serious enough to get the attention of the Security Council, and his program will survive. I think inspections -- this is an inspection trap, quite frankly, with the numbers and resources and rights we seem to be heading for.

ZAHN: Well, we always appreciate your perspective, David.

Thank you for taking us back to those very challenging days in the '90s when you were on the ground doing what Hans Blix might be doing here shortly.

Thank you again for joining us.

KAY: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay.

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 October 4, 2002 - 08:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: When senior Bush administration officials meet with Hans Blix today in Washington. The message to the chief U.N. weapons inspector will be do not take no for an answer from the Iraqis.
The president wants to be sure that U.N. inspectors would be allowed to wherever they want whenever they want.

David Kay knows what it's like to be on the ground in Iraq. He was one of the first U.N. inspectors in Baghdad after the Gulf War.

And he joins us this morning from Washington.

Welcome back. Good to have you with us this morning, sir.

DAVID KAY, FORMER U.N. INSPECTOR: Good to be here, Paula.

ZAHN: Before we talk about what you were up against, let's talk about what Hans Blix now appears to be saying. According to our reporters in Washington, he seems to be willing to wait until a new U.N. resolution is in place before inspectors go to Iraq. Without that, what would they be up against?

KAY: Well, without the rights that he did not successfully negotiate in Vienna with the Iraqis, that is, the right to go anywhere, anytime; the right to conduct aerial inspections over the whole country in safety; and most importantly, the right to conduct interrogations of Iraqi scientists and engineers without their security minders being shoulder to shoulder with them, it's a hopeless effort. You cannot have effective inspections under those conditions.

ZAHN: I know you have described what, how impossible your own mission was back then. I'm going to share with the audience a little bit of what you had to say -- and you very clearly document it on this trip -- the challenges where when you were on the ground in Iraq.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAY: All of the material which was on this site on Sunday when we came through has been on a, we can see a warehouse area where we found objects under crates, is now totally empty.

Here are heavy equipment tracks in the compound to which we were denied access on Sunday. The amount of heavy equipment available for moving things is visible here. Heavy equipment tracks in this direction towards our bus, heavy equipment tracks back towards the east in this compound, toward where materials are stored. As I pan to the left in this photograph, you will get a good view of the heavy equipment available here -- cranes, lifters, bulldozers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: How common was that, for you to arrive at the site where it was so obvious that things had been moved?

KAY: Unfortunately it was very common, particularly during that first inspection. We spent 10 days chasing around the country a moving object where the Iraqis refused to give us access when we needed it. We finally did defeat them and gain access to it, but it was with no cooperation from the Iraqis.

ZAHN: What would happen when you would have a no notice inspection?

KAY: Well, we conducted the first no notice inspection in June of 1991. We showed up at a base that the Iraqis did not expect us to appear and the Iraqi base commander made what was for him a fatal mistake. He allowed me to put three inspectors on a 50 meter water tower. We saw they were moving things out of the back gate. I got inspectors around. They couldn't stop them, but they photographed them. The Iraqis fired warning shots, tried to seize the film, but I had very, very innovative inspectors who knew how to keep the film away from the Iraqis. And we got photo documentation of a previously denied and unknown uranium enrichment program.

ZAHN: You've got to be kidding?

KAY: No. No, it wasn't, quite frankly, it wasn't funny then. You know, it's never funny having your own men fired at and you're operating under conditions where you didn't -- there were only, you know, in that inspection trip at that point only 10 of us, 10 inspectors against the entire Iraqi Army and, more importantly, the Iraqi security establishment operating in Baghdad, a long way from home for a little kid from Texas.

ZAHN: We also have another video that shows the confrontation that happened when you and Iraqi officials were together and you identified a truck actually carrying materials subject to inspection. Let's watch that now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAY: I must request that you inform the commander of the seriousness of vehicle movement on this site. Vehicle movement on this site at this point puts you in clear violation of the Security Council resolution. I have no alternative but to inform New York that a clear Security Council resolution has now been violated by the government over Iraq and simply to step back and inform them that that action is taken.

The commander is in serious violation of an agreement that your own government has signed. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: So, you read the Iraqis the riot act there. What happened?

KAY: Well, Paula, about the only tools you had as an inspector -- you didn't have armed troops with you -- is you had a video camera or a satellite telephone link and however willing you were to read them the riot act. In that case, they continued to move things out of the facility. We photographed it and reported it in to the Security Council for their action.

ZAHN: And was any action taken?

KAY: Action was taken in that case. I was very lucky. In 1991, we had a united Security Council behind the inspectors. And I cannot tell you what a great difference that made. That made our life, while frustrating in dealing with the Iraqis, ultimately satisfactory. Unfortunately, by 1995, the Council had fragmented and '95 through '98 was probably the most frustrating period any arms control inspectors have ever hade.

ZAHN: I wanted to close with an incident we don't have on tape. But you were actually held by the Iraqis over some documents you seized. What was that all about?

KAY: We seized 60,000 pages of Iraqi documentation of their nuclear weapons program, including an actual diagram of their first nuclear weapon. So these were Iraqi documents in Iraqi words. You don't have to be a scientist to understand. Much of the rest of our data made sense if you had a science background, but not necessarily a policymaker or a diplomat.

These were the damning documents of a 20 year program to violate their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to achieve nuclear weapons in large numbers in Iraq. They refused to let us leave with the documents. I said we're not leaving this site until we have the documents. And we spent four days in a downtown Baghdad parking lot.

At the end, though, we got the documents.

ZAHN: Glad you did.

Finally, in closing this morning, very quickly here, if Hans Blix puts off inspectors going to Iraq until there is a new U.N. resolution, what do you think Saddam's doing in the meantime?

KAY: Well, I think Saddam will play his usual game, that is, in the end -- because what he wants to avoid is military action that removes him from the scene -- he will, in the end, say oh, OK, come on, inspect anything you want to, hoping that by the time the inspectors get there and the first couple of inspections will go trouble free, he will start restricting the inspectors' access and hope it will never be serious enough to get the attention of the Security Council, and his program will survive. I think inspections -- this is an inspection trap, quite frankly, with the numbers and resources and rights we seem to be heading for.

ZAHN: Well, we always appreciate your perspective, David.

Thank you for taking us back to those very challenging days in the '90s when you were on the ground doing what Hans Blix might be doing here shortly.

Thank you again for joining us.

KAY: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay.

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