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CNN Live At Daybreak
Advanced Team of U.N. Weapons Inspectors Has Arrived in Iraq
Aired November 18, 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: As we have said, it is an historic day. An advanced team of U.N. weapons inspectors due to arrive in Iraq. In fact, they have arrived right now.
Rym Brahimi is on the line right now -- Rym, are you there?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hello.
We're actually still waiting for that plane to land. There's a lot of media around. There's a lot of press. We've already seen the general director of the Iraqi national monitoring department walk into the VIP lounge. He's, I think, the high level official that's going to meet Mr. Hans Blix when he arrives -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Rym, tell us more about who's on this plane. How many inspectors are there?
BRAHIMI: Well, there's got to be mainly, as you know, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, the head of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei. Then they're going to be along with, I think there's a little more than a dozen inspectors. Now, these are the people that Hans Blix, after his three day stay in Baghdad, is going to leave behind because they're going to organize the logistics for the advance, for the team that's going to arrive on the 27th of November -- back to you.
COSTELLO: So basically this team that's on the plane now, they're going to work out things like logistics until the rest of the team arrives?
BRAHIMI: Exactly. We're expecting them any minute now.
COSTELLO: And who will meet them at the airport?
BRAHIMI: Well, we've just seen a group of high level Iraqi officials. The main person that I saw, the high level official that I saw was the lieutenant general Hosam Amin. Now, he's the general director of the national monitoring department. This was the sort of counterpart in Iraq to the inspectors when the inspector teams, the previous U.N. inspection teams were going on until 1998. And this lieutenant general was the main person in charge, in many cases of just even accompanying those inspectors to certain places.
But he was the highest level person in that team.
COSTELLO: I understand.
We're going to let you get back to work there, Rym, and await that plane/'s landing.
We want to go to Nic Robertson now. He's live in Baghdad -- good morning, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
Well, when that plane touches down, it will have been exactly three years, 11 months and two days since the last inspection team was working here in Iraq. Now, Hans Blix is leading in a team that appears to be better trained. He has instructed them to have, to be trained in cultural sensitivities here in Iraq. He has also, they're also expected to be using higher tech equipment to go about their business of inspections throughout the country.
Now, Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister in Iraq, has assured them of immediate access. Perhaps the first indication that Iraq is opening its doors, so to speak, is the very fact that the inspection teams are touching down at Saddam International Airport. The inspection teams that came here in the 1990s had to land about 50 miles west of Baghdad at Al-Habaneir (ph), a military air strip. The fact that this mission can now land so close to Baghdad, much closer to its offices, an indication, perhaps, of more cooperation at this stage from the Iraqi authorities.
Now, today Hans Blix is expected to meet with senior Iraqi officials. A timetable has not yet been worked out for that. U.N. inspectors were having meetings last night in Lonica (ph) and they expect to, amongst themselves, and they expect to get better indications of who they can expect to meet with in Iraq, which officials, when they actually land here.
Now, many of the members are coming, almost 25 people coming with Hans Blix, logistics and communications experts. They have a lot of equipment that we understand is going into the old U.N. offices. These offices have been deserted for almost four years. They were the same offices the U.N. team's used before. And what we know, one of the items that we definitely know is on board that aircraft coming with Hans Blix is cleaning equipment, hoovering (ph) equipment so they can help clean up those offices.
But we're also expecting them to install computer equipment to get their laboratories up and running and to service their vehicles. A fleet of vehicles last used by the last U.N. inspection team has been sitting outside their offices almost for the last four years now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, my goodness. So this is going to be a long process. I guess the first test for the Iraqis will really come on December 8 when they have to turn over that list to the inspectors of their weapons programs.
ROBERTSON: That's right, December the 8th, the date 30 days after the passing of the U.N. Resolution 1441. The United Nations has said that Iraq must produce a document that outlines all its weapons of mass destruction, all its processes involved therewith. Now, up to now Iraq says it doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction. So it does very much remain to be seen exactly what Iraq will put in that document, whether or not they will come up with a blank form or whether or not there will be a detailed list of sites that perhaps the U.N. inspectors should go to.
Hans Blix has said that there are over, there are 700 sites that he knows that he wants to visit. Now, the last U.N. inspectors, over a period of seven years, visited 1,015 sites. So it does give you some idea of the scale of the task that faces that Hans Blix and all those inspectors when they arrive.
COSTELLO: OK.
We're going to check back with you throughout the morning.
Nic Robertson, thank you.
You can keep up with the weapons inspectors in Iraq on our Web site. While there, check out our special report, "Showdown Iraq." That's at cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Iraq>
Aired November 18, 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: As we have said, it is an historic day. An advanced team of U.N. weapons inspectors due to arrive in Iraq. In fact, they have arrived right now.
Rym Brahimi is on the line right now -- Rym, are you there?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hello.
We're actually still waiting for that plane to land. There's a lot of media around. There's a lot of press. We've already seen the general director of the Iraqi national monitoring department walk into the VIP lounge. He's, I think, the high level official that's going to meet Mr. Hans Blix when he arrives -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Rym, tell us more about who's on this plane. How many inspectors are there?
BRAHIMI: Well, there's got to be mainly, as you know, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, the head of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei. Then they're going to be along with, I think there's a little more than a dozen inspectors. Now, these are the people that Hans Blix, after his three day stay in Baghdad, is going to leave behind because they're going to organize the logistics for the advance, for the team that's going to arrive on the 27th of November -- back to you.
COSTELLO: So basically this team that's on the plane now, they're going to work out things like logistics until the rest of the team arrives?
BRAHIMI: Exactly. We're expecting them any minute now.
COSTELLO: And who will meet them at the airport?
BRAHIMI: Well, we've just seen a group of high level Iraqi officials. The main person that I saw, the high level official that I saw was the lieutenant general Hosam Amin. Now, he's the general director of the national monitoring department. This was the sort of counterpart in Iraq to the inspectors when the inspector teams, the previous U.N. inspection teams were going on until 1998. And this lieutenant general was the main person in charge, in many cases of just even accompanying those inspectors to certain places.
But he was the highest level person in that team.
COSTELLO: I understand.
We're going to let you get back to work there, Rym, and await that plane/'s landing.
We want to go to Nic Robertson now. He's live in Baghdad -- good morning, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
Well, when that plane touches down, it will have been exactly three years, 11 months and two days since the last inspection team was working here in Iraq. Now, Hans Blix is leading in a team that appears to be better trained. He has instructed them to have, to be trained in cultural sensitivities here in Iraq. He has also, they're also expected to be using higher tech equipment to go about their business of inspections throughout the country.
Now, Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister in Iraq, has assured them of immediate access. Perhaps the first indication that Iraq is opening its doors, so to speak, is the very fact that the inspection teams are touching down at Saddam International Airport. The inspection teams that came here in the 1990s had to land about 50 miles west of Baghdad at Al-Habaneir (ph), a military air strip. The fact that this mission can now land so close to Baghdad, much closer to its offices, an indication, perhaps, of more cooperation at this stage from the Iraqi authorities.
Now, today Hans Blix is expected to meet with senior Iraqi officials. A timetable has not yet been worked out for that. U.N. inspectors were having meetings last night in Lonica (ph) and they expect to, amongst themselves, and they expect to get better indications of who they can expect to meet with in Iraq, which officials, when they actually land here.
Now, many of the members are coming, almost 25 people coming with Hans Blix, logistics and communications experts. They have a lot of equipment that we understand is going into the old U.N. offices. These offices have been deserted for almost four years. They were the same offices the U.N. team's used before. And what we know, one of the items that we definitely know is on board that aircraft coming with Hans Blix is cleaning equipment, hoovering (ph) equipment so they can help clean up those offices.
But we're also expecting them to install computer equipment to get their laboratories up and running and to service their vehicles. A fleet of vehicles last used by the last U.N. inspection team has been sitting outside their offices almost for the last four years now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, my goodness. So this is going to be a long process. I guess the first test for the Iraqis will really come on December 8 when they have to turn over that list to the inspectors of their weapons programs.
ROBERTSON: That's right, December the 8th, the date 30 days after the passing of the U.N. Resolution 1441. The United Nations has said that Iraq must produce a document that outlines all its weapons of mass destruction, all its processes involved therewith. Now, up to now Iraq says it doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction. So it does very much remain to be seen exactly what Iraq will put in that document, whether or not they will come up with a blank form or whether or not there will be a detailed list of sites that perhaps the U.N. inspectors should go to.
Hans Blix has said that there are over, there are 700 sites that he knows that he wants to visit. Now, the last U.N. inspectors, over a period of seven years, visited 1,015 sites. So it does give you some idea of the scale of the task that faces that Hans Blix and all those inspectors when they arrive.
COSTELLO: OK.
We're going to check back with you throughout the morning.
Nic Robertson, thank you.
You can keep up with the weapons inspectors in Iraq on our Web site. While there, check out our special report, "Showdown Iraq." That's at cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Iraq>
