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CNN Live At Daybreak

International News Desk

Aired October 10, 2002 - 05:53   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: Of course, we're following many international stories throughout the day here on CNN. It is that time when we check in with our senior international editor David Clinch, who's joining us now and patiently waiting.
DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Good morning. That's OK. Good morning, Carol.

Let's start with Iraq. A couple of things. We heard, it was very early in the morning Eastern time, 3:00 a.m., we heard a press conference from the Iraqi deputy prime minister in which he made it clear from the Iraqi point of view that they have no weapons of mass destruction. But he specifically mentioned these two sites that were mentioned in the Blair dossier a couple of weeks ago and one site that was mentioned by President Bush in his speech the other day. And the U.S. administration released photographs, aerial photographs of these sites and called them suspicious.

He says they're not suspicious, come and look at them.

COSTELLO: OK.

CLINCH: Well, actually, we're going to get a chance to do that. Nic Robertson, who's now in Baghdad, is going to get a government accompanied, you know, as usual, trip to one of these sites. Now, to be clear, the American administration said that they didn't necessarily know for sure what was going on at these sites, but that they counted them as suspicious because they saw activity going on around these sites...

COSTELLO: Rebuilding going on.

CLINCH: Rebuilding, and, actually, the Iraqis acknowledged today that they did rebuild it. Well, they rebuilt it because it was bombed during the Gulf War. That's obvious. But the Americans seem to think that the activities that they're seeing around it lead them to believe that there's something else going on there than the stated purpose of the factories.

Well, Nic's going to get a chance to go out there. As usual, though, we're going to have to be fairly skeptical about what we're allowed to see.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

CLINCH: So we'll see how that goes. And then, you know, just to quickly review the sort of, you know, status report of where we are on the Iraq story right now, we're expecting President Bush to get, probably today, approval from the House of Representatives at some point, probably the Senate, too, for his authority to use force if necessary. Then we'll expect at some point in the next week or so for them to go back to the U.N. to get the resolution the Bush administration wants to have.

Neither will probably end up being as strong as the Bush administration wanted. But regardless, when they happen we then expect inspectors to be back in before the end of the month.

COSTELLO: And so the situation drags on.

CLINCH: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes.

CLINCH: Now, one thing for the record yesterday, on Iran, we mentioned Christiane Amanpour not being able to go into Iran with Jack Straw...

COSTELLO: Yes, that story showed up in the "New York Times."

CLINCH: Yes, well, it's an interesting story. Just for the record, the Iranians didn't exactly explain why they didn't give Christiane a visa. But they did bring up from their point of view the story of Iranian cultural characters, people like singers and movie directors, having a very hard time getting visas to come to the U.S., some of them missing awards ceremonies, similar to what happened with the Cubans...

COSTELLO: Oh, OK, coming into this country.

CLINCH: ... and the Latin, on the Latin Grammys. So it didn't make an absolutely direct connection there, and obviously, you know, CNN doesn't represent the U.S. government. But from their point of view, why should they facilitate, you know, our visa when Iranians, Saudis, Cubans, others are having a hard time getting into the U.S.

COSTELLO: Because we've actually been getting a lot of e-mails from viewers saying that Christiane is Iranian born and maybe that's why the Iranian government won't let her in.

CLINCH: Who knows? But they're making the point that it's hard for Iranians to get in here at the moment. So, we'll see.

COSTELLO: Enough said.

David Clinch, thank you very much, for being patient this morning, too, as we got through all the news of the day.

CLINCH: OK.

COSTELLO: We'll let you get back to work.

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 10, 2002 - 05:53   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, we're following many international stories throughout the day here on CNN. It is that time when we check in with our senior international editor David Clinch, who's joining us now and patiently waiting.
DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Good morning. That's OK. Good morning, Carol.

Let's start with Iraq. A couple of things. We heard, it was very early in the morning Eastern time, 3:00 a.m., we heard a press conference from the Iraqi deputy prime minister in which he made it clear from the Iraqi point of view that they have no weapons of mass destruction. But he specifically mentioned these two sites that were mentioned in the Blair dossier a couple of weeks ago and one site that was mentioned by President Bush in his speech the other day. And the U.S. administration released photographs, aerial photographs of these sites and called them suspicious.

He says they're not suspicious, come and look at them.

COSTELLO: OK.

CLINCH: Well, actually, we're going to get a chance to do that. Nic Robertson, who's now in Baghdad, is going to get a government accompanied, you know, as usual, trip to one of these sites. Now, to be clear, the American administration said that they didn't necessarily know for sure what was going on at these sites, but that they counted them as suspicious because they saw activity going on around these sites...

COSTELLO: Rebuilding going on.

CLINCH: Rebuilding, and, actually, the Iraqis acknowledged today that they did rebuild it. Well, they rebuilt it because it was bombed during the Gulf War. That's obvious. But the Americans seem to think that the activities that they're seeing around it lead them to believe that there's something else going on there than the stated purpose of the factories.

Well, Nic's going to get a chance to go out there. As usual, though, we're going to have to be fairly skeptical about what we're allowed to see.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

CLINCH: So we'll see how that goes. And then, you know, just to quickly review the sort of, you know, status report of where we are on the Iraq story right now, we're expecting President Bush to get, probably today, approval from the House of Representatives at some point, probably the Senate, too, for his authority to use force if necessary. Then we'll expect at some point in the next week or so for them to go back to the U.N. to get the resolution the Bush administration wants to have.

Neither will probably end up being as strong as the Bush administration wanted. But regardless, when they happen we then expect inspectors to be back in before the end of the month.

COSTELLO: And so the situation drags on.

CLINCH: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes.

CLINCH: Now, one thing for the record yesterday, on Iran, we mentioned Christiane Amanpour not being able to go into Iran with Jack Straw...

COSTELLO: Yes, that story showed up in the "New York Times."

CLINCH: Yes, well, it's an interesting story. Just for the record, the Iranians didn't exactly explain why they didn't give Christiane a visa. But they did bring up from their point of view the story of Iranian cultural characters, people like singers and movie directors, having a very hard time getting visas to come to the U.S., some of them missing awards ceremonies, similar to what happened with the Cubans...

COSTELLO: Oh, OK, coming into this country.

CLINCH: ... and the Latin, on the Latin Grammys. So it didn't make an absolutely direct connection there, and obviously, you know, CNN doesn't represent the U.S. government. But from their point of view, why should they facilitate, you know, our visa when Iranians, Saudis, Cubans, others are having a hard time getting into the U.S.

COSTELLO: Because we've actually been getting a lot of e-mails from viewers saying that Christiane is Iranian born and maybe that's why the Iranian government won't let her in.

CLINCH: Who knows? But they're making the point that it's hard for Iranians to get in here at the moment. So, we'll see.

COSTELLO: Enough said.

David Clinch, thank you very much, for being patient this morning, too, as we got through all the news of the day.

CLINCH: OK.

COSTELLO: We'll let you get back to work.

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