Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Talk with Richard Butler

Aired November 18, 2002 - 10:28   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.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as we mentioned at the top of the hour, the road to war or peace reaches the crossroads in Iraq. An advanced team of U.N. weapons inspectors have arrived several hours ago in Baghdad. And their primary mission is going to be logistical, setting the stage for full resumption of inspections late next week, November 22. Now, a critical date in many minds is December 8th, that's the deadline for Iraq's disclosure of any weapons in its arsenal. Earlier this morning, I spoke with former chief weapons inspector Richard butler about this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMB. RICHARD BUTLER: That's a very good question, Leon. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. You know, the critical thing, given these really rather extraordinary powers that the new inspector has been given, powers I wish I had four years ago, the critical thing I think is for them so to behave in a way that shows they are completely objective, that they're going to begin at the beginning in order to end at the end. They're not staging some Broadway spectacle, you know, straight to the top and so on. They have a database. They know what they need to look at. They should go about that in an orderly fashion to establish what has happened in the four years of no inspectors in each of the areas, chemical, biological, nuclear and missile.

And I think if they did that methodically in the first instance, that would demonstrate to the Iraqis that they're objective people, they're prepared to do this job in a fully professional way. But having made that point, of course, given that the chief inspector has to report back to the Security Council within two months on what is the situation in Iraq, that in the near future, they must, of course, go for some of the real jewels, some of the places where they truly do believe Iraq has been hiding serious weapons, and they must do that on a no notice, surprise inspection basis, but I would have thought not on day one, but, you know, a little more -- a couple of weeks down the track.

HARRIS: Well, considering your suspicions of what Iraq has been up to in the past four years where there have been no inspections, what do you think would be the most -- I guess the key site of concern? Would it be a biological site or a nuclear site or maybe a chemical site instead?

BUTLER: Yeah, again, that's a terrific question. There's no doubt that Iraq has had a very substantial chemical weapons arsenal and has used it, both outside the country and inside, on its own people. The big, black hole, and that's what I called it in the past, the black hole, the place of no light, of no really clear indicator of how large their program was was biology. Saddam seems to have been incredibly attached to killing people with germs and their biology program has to be a very significant target. But, you know, it's hard to look past nuclear as something of profound concern, because Saddam was very close to having a nuclear explosive capability, and in the intervening period without inspections, there have been very credible reports that he brought back together his nuclear weapons design team and was hard at work on trying to create an atomic bomb, and that would have to be, I think, a relatively high priority.

HARRIS: Let me ask you then about the tools that these inspectors will be working with. We've been talking in recent days about the political tool that they have, this unanimous vote by the Security Council which is going to give them a great mandate here. But what about the actual physical tools or electronic tools or whatever, the tools of inspection that they have? Do you know for sure that these tools that they're working with are updated enough to perhaps find things they were not able to find the first go around?

BUTLER: I believe they've got equipment that exceeds what we had. Towards the end of our time, we were moving towards ground penetrating radar, for example, so that we could look underground and see what might be buried. That was very important, because we had evidence that Iraq had hidden some weapons underground. I assume they have that kind of equipment. I know they have much more modern equipment than what we had. And I know that their ability to conduct surveillance from the sky will be improved on what we had. So I don't think that they will lack for equipment just as you point out they no longer lack for political power to go anywhere, any time, to look at anything.

HARRIS: Ambassador Richard Butler, thank you very much. We appreciate your patience. It is a very late evening there in Sydney. Good night.

BUTLER: Thank you. Pleasure to be with you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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 November 18, 2002 - 10:28   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as we mentioned at the top of the hour, the road to war or peace reaches the crossroads in Iraq. An advanced team of U.N. weapons inspectors have arrived several hours ago in Baghdad. And their primary mission is going to be logistical, setting the stage for full resumption of inspections late next week, November 22. Now, a critical date in many minds is December 8th, that's the deadline for Iraq's disclosure of any weapons in its arsenal. Earlier this morning, I spoke with former chief weapons inspector Richard butler about this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMB. RICHARD BUTLER: That's a very good question, Leon. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. You know, the critical thing, given these really rather extraordinary powers that the new inspector has been given, powers I wish I had four years ago, the critical thing I think is for them so to behave in a way that shows they are completely objective, that they're going to begin at the beginning in order to end at the end. They're not staging some Broadway spectacle, you know, straight to the top and so on. They have a database. They know what they need to look at. They should go about that in an orderly fashion to establish what has happened in the four years of no inspectors in each of the areas, chemical, biological, nuclear and missile.

And I think if they did that methodically in the first instance, that would demonstrate to the Iraqis that they're objective people, they're prepared to do this job in a fully professional way. But having made that point, of course, given that the chief inspector has to report back to the Security Council within two months on what is the situation in Iraq, that in the near future, they must, of course, go for some of the real jewels, some of the places where they truly do believe Iraq has been hiding serious weapons, and they must do that on a no notice, surprise inspection basis, but I would have thought not on day one, but, you know, a little more -- a couple of weeks down the track.

HARRIS: Well, considering your suspicions of what Iraq has been up to in the past four years where there have been no inspections, what do you think would be the most -- I guess the key site of concern? Would it be a biological site or a nuclear site or maybe a chemical site instead?

BUTLER: Yeah, again, that's a terrific question. There's no doubt that Iraq has had a very substantial chemical weapons arsenal and has used it, both outside the country and inside, on its own people. The big, black hole, and that's what I called it in the past, the black hole, the place of no light, of no really clear indicator of how large their program was was biology. Saddam seems to have been incredibly attached to killing people with germs and their biology program has to be a very significant target. But, you know, it's hard to look past nuclear as something of profound concern, because Saddam was very close to having a nuclear explosive capability, and in the intervening period without inspections, there have been very credible reports that he brought back together his nuclear weapons design team and was hard at work on trying to create an atomic bomb, and that would have to be, I think, a relatively high priority.

HARRIS: Let me ask you then about the tools that these inspectors will be working with. We've been talking in recent days about the political tool that they have, this unanimous vote by the Security Council which is going to give them a great mandate here. But what about the actual physical tools or electronic tools or whatever, the tools of inspection that they have? Do you know for sure that these tools that they're working with are updated enough to perhaps find things they were not able to find the first go around?

BUTLER: I believe they've got equipment that exceeds what we had. Towards the end of our time, we were moving towards ground penetrating radar, for example, so that we could look underground and see what might be buried. That was very important, because we had evidence that Iraq had hidden some weapons underground. I assume they have that kind of equipment. I know they have much more modern equipment than what we had. And I know that their ability to conduct surveillance from the sky will be improved on what we had. So I don't think that they will lack for equipment just as you point out they no longer lack for political power to go anywhere, any time, to look at anything.

HARRIS: Ambassador Richard Butler, thank you very much. We appreciate your patience. It is a very late evening there in Sydney. Good night.

BUTLER: Thank you. Pleasure to be with you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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