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American Morning
U.N. Inspectors Bound For Baghdad
Aired November 25, 2002 - 07:03 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: That team of U.N. inspectors is expected to land in Baghdad in just a couple of hours from now. The first contingent of 18 specialists could be heading into a tense atmosphere, because Iraqi officials are complaining that the U.S. is just looking for an excuse to go to war.
Let's go live to Baghdad now for the very latest from our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson.
Good morning -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, that detailed in a letter -- that concern detailed in a letter from Naji Sabri, the foreign minister here, to Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations. It was a 15-page letter raising many, many issues that Iraq has with Resolution 1441. It doesn't say that they're going to stop (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but it does say it believes the resolution contradicts international law.
One of the specific issues the foreign minister raises, he says that what he described as possibly thousands of pages of documentation that Iraq has to submit by December the 8th, its declaration of all of its weapons of mass destruction.
He says that's so complex, if Iraq just makes one tiny error, he says that could be a pretext for an attack on Iraq. Of course, he raises many, many other concerns.
But perhaps the important thing at the moment is nobody is expecting that, at this moment at least, to stop the work of those inspectors.
Now, that new team of 18 inspectors due to land here in about two hours' time, there will be in this team 12 experts on missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and there will be 6 experts in the nuclear field. Now, they're expected to get to work Wednesday. All they're going to do today, by the way, is check into their hotels. By the time they arrive, it's going to be dark.
Wednesday, they're going to begin to head out to sites that have previously been inspected, where monitoring equipment has been left behind -- that being in 1998. They're going to check that monitoring equipment, try and form what they call a baseline, figure out what it is Iraq has been doing over the last four years -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right, Nic Robertson, we're going to leave it there and come back to you a little bit later on this morning.
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 25, 2002 - 07:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: That team of U.N. inspectors is expected to land in Baghdad in just a couple of hours from now. The first contingent of 18 specialists could be heading into a tense atmosphere, because Iraqi officials are complaining that the U.S. is just looking for an excuse to go to war.
Let's go live to Baghdad now for the very latest from our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson.
Good morning -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, that detailed in a letter -- that concern detailed in a letter from Naji Sabri, the foreign minister here, to Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations. It was a 15-page letter raising many, many issues that Iraq has with Resolution 1441. It doesn't say that they're going to stop (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but it does say it believes the resolution contradicts international law.
One of the specific issues the foreign minister raises, he says that what he described as possibly thousands of pages of documentation that Iraq has to submit by December the 8th, its declaration of all of its weapons of mass destruction.
He says that's so complex, if Iraq just makes one tiny error, he says that could be a pretext for an attack on Iraq. Of course, he raises many, many other concerns.
But perhaps the important thing at the moment is nobody is expecting that, at this moment at least, to stop the work of those inspectors.
Now, that new team of 18 inspectors due to land here in about two hours' time, there will be in this team 12 experts on missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and there will be 6 experts in the nuclear field. Now, they're expected to get to work Wednesday. All they're going to do today, by the way, is check into their hotels. By the time they arrive, it's going to be dark.
Wednesday, they're going to begin to head out to sites that have previously been inspected, where monitoring equipment has been left behind -- that being in 1998. They're going to check that monitoring equipment, try and form what they call a baseline, figure out what it is Iraq has been doing over the last four years -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right, Nic Robertson, we're going to leave it there and come back to you a little bit later on this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
