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American Morning

Iraq Says Its Declaration Proves It Has Nothing to Hide

Aired December 10, 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: Back to the issue of Iraq, Iraq now says its declaration proves it has no prohibited weapons, nothing to hide. U.N. inspectors are putting that claim to the test, out in force today at several sites.
Nic Robertson has the very latest from Baghdad -- good morning, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, the very latest from here, a spokesman from Iraq's foreign ministry commenting on the fact that the United States has got its hands on Iraq's declaration at an early stage, saying that this represents a historic blackmail of the U.N., that the United States is violating the charter and mandate of the United Nations. It goes on to say the reason Iraq believes the United States wanted to get its hands on the declaration early is that so that it can manipulate it in order to bring about some active aggression against Iraq.

That is the very latest from here. Weapons inspectors, however, have been going about their work. We've seen them multiply their forces today. More inspectors arrived at the weekend, 20 or 30 more expected today. They've been to four sites today. One team driving five and a half hours across the western Iraqi desert to a site called Akashat (ph). That is a uranium ore site. Also, a team going to the south of Baghdad to ibn Al-Hakam (ph). This is an industrial, a civilian industrial facility. At this site they make air conditioners, they make generators.

They also have, and this was what was very interesting for the U.N. teams there today, they have high precision engineering equipment. This is a type of equipment that's controlled by computers. It's the type of equipment U.N. inspectors could be believed to make high precision items, perhaps for the nuclear industry, perhaps for other industries, Paula.

ZAHN: So what kind of a difference will it make to have these extra inspectors on the ground now?

ROBERTSON: It should make a big difference. Essentially, today we're seeing a doubling of their force where the inspectors who arrive today, we're told by the end of the week they'll have multiplied their ability to look at sites by four times. So essentially really speeding up the process. Also, they brought in over the weekend a helicopter. This is also going to extend their reach, their mobility around the country. We know the inspectors also want to open an office in Mosul in the north. So what we're really expecting to see now is for the inspectors to become more wide ranging, as we've seen today, traveling all the way to the border with Syria, and also more penetrating, more teams going out, getting more work done -- Paula.

ZAHN: Nic Robertson, thanks so much for the update.

Appreciate it.

And former weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes the U.S. should not take action against Iraq without evidence Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. He is the author of "End Game: Solving the Iraq Crisis."

And Scott Ritter is with me now.

Welcome back.

Good to see you.

SCOTT RITTER, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Thanks.

Good to see you.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what CNN has gotten a look at. They have obtained a table of contents of the Iraqi disclosure, which includes a listing of nuclear and secondary sites within the country. Are you surprised by any of these disclosures?

RITTER: No, actually this is almost a mirror image of the declaration that Iraq last submitted to the United Nations in 1998, and I understand that they have a couple of annexes to this document, which update the situation from 1998 to 2002. But, you know, again, without peering into the depths of this document, it's hard to say, you know, if there's anything new in here. But there's no new disclosures just based upon this table of contents. It's all stuff that Iraq has declared in the past.

ZAHN: Yes, you say it's a mirror image. This guy named David Albright, I think a man you know, a former inspector who has also reviewed the document, or at least the table of contents, has said it's nothing more than recycled information. It just is completely, even a regurgitation of information pre-1991.

RITTER: Well, of course. But I mean what do we want from the Iraqis? This, you know, what this shows is the complexity and the difficulties of this problem. We're going to come down to the same problem we had in 1998, where Iraq has submitted a documentation that, you know, a documentation which details what it claims to be its story. And the weapons inspectors are going to view it and say, you know, you can't verify or confirm or prove certain aspects of this, we need additional documentation. The Iraqis say we don't have it. We're going to return to the exact same problem of how do you, you know, verify what the Iraqis can't document?

ZAHN: So how do you verify it? RITTER: Well, this is why I've said look, at the end of the day, you're going to have to step back and bring qualitative judgments into play here. You know, we've scoured this country up and down. We haven't found anything. I'm sure these inspectors now are going to go back and do the same task, squeeze Iraq dry. At the end of the day, you know, I disagree with Donald Rumsfeld. You know, the absence of evidence is the absence of evidence. It means you don't have evidence and without evidence you can't convict.

ZAHN: Already we have Defense Department officials telling our correspondents that intelligence shows that in recent weeks there has been wide dispersal of materials, of weapons of mass destruction. They've been moved to underground facilities, bunkers. They've placed suspected, according to this source, biological material in mobile trucks.

RITTER: Well...

ZAHN: Do you not buy that?

RITTER: Well, it's not that I don't buy it, I need evidence. You know, I, for seven years as a weapons inspector we got the same scoop from the United States and most of the time it turned out to be garbage. You know, what are their sources? Are they defectors? You know, they say they moved them underground. Well, if they have that kind of precise knowledge, give it to the inspectors and let the inspectors go to the facilities.

These inspectors, like I was, are equipped with ground penetrating radar and the most sophisticated sensors. So rather than tell this to the press, I really don't want to be hearing it from you or the "New York Times" or anybody else. Give it to the inspectors and let the inspectors inspect. Let the inspectors do their job. That's called due process.

ZAHN: What about moving documents to individual homes, making it nearly impossible for inspectors to find this stuff?

RITTER: Well, as, if that is true, that would be making it nearly impossible for the inspectors to find this stuff. Now you enter down the path of proving the negative. And once you go down that path, this is never going to end. The United States will always say the inspectors can't find this stuff without establishing there's any stuff to find.

What documents are we talking about? This is a hypothetical. Moving what documents to what houses? I can sit back and say Iraq's doing just about anything. I can hypothesize anything. These mobile trucks that everybody talks about is a United Nations hypothesis back in 1993. There is no hard intelligence that these trucks ever existed. It's just something we made up to try and figure out why we're not finding anything.

So what happens when we investigate the trucks and you don't find the trucks? Does it mean they don't exist or Iraq's really doing a good job of hiding them? It's an impossible, it's a never ending story.

ZAHN: Do you believe they exist, these mobile trucks? I know you say you don't have proof that they either do or don't exist. What do you think?

RITTER: You know, this is a tough one because for seven years the Iraqis lied to us and cooperated. There's a really mixed record going on here. The bottom line is we're talking about war. And before we go to war, we're going to need some solid evidence. You know, I'm not a big fan of Saddam Hussein, I'm not a big fan of the Iraqi regime. But I'm a big fan of the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America and I don't want them going to war and giving their lives until we determine that there's a cause worthy of this sacrifice. And however inconvenient inspections are, at the end of the day all those inspectors come home alive and we don't have to worry about body bags. I like that process.

ZAHN: We've got about 20 seconds left. Your reaction to another piece of information, the weapons declaration that refers to a now terminated radiation bomb project, possibly a dirty bomb. That on the heels of a key aide to Saddam Hussein saying that Iraq was very close to having a nuclear weapon at one point.

RITTER: None of this is new. This is all stuff that Iraq has fully disclosed in the past. The dirty bomb is a program that Iraq has acknowledged. They gave us the diagrams. We interviewed the scientists and we've confirmed that that program was terminated. It never really reached fruition. And Iraq being close to a bomb, again, it's something the Iraqis had acknowledged fully in the past. None of this is new. Regardless of what Ari Fleischer or anybody else from the White House says, we don't have a smoking gun and without a smoking gun we really shouldn't be talking about going to war.

ZAHN: Scott Ritter, we've got to leave it there.

Thank you so much for dropping by.

RITTER: Thank you.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time 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 December 10, 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: Back to the issue of Iraq, Iraq now says its declaration proves it has no prohibited weapons, nothing to hide. U.N. inspectors are putting that claim to the test, out in force today at several sites.
Nic Robertson has the very latest from Baghdad -- good morning, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, the very latest from here, a spokesman from Iraq's foreign ministry commenting on the fact that the United States has got its hands on Iraq's declaration at an early stage, saying that this represents a historic blackmail of the U.N., that the United States is violating the charter and mandate of the United Nations. It goes on to say the reason Iraq believes the United States wanted to get its hands on the declaration early is that so that it can manipulate it in order to bring about some active aggression against Iraq.

That is the very latest from here. Weapons inspectors, however, have been going about their work. We've seen them multiply their forces today. More inspectors arrived at the weekend, 20 or 30 more expected today. They've been to four sites today. One team driving five and a half hours across the western Iraqi desert to a site called Akashat (ph). That is a uranium ore site. Also, a team going to the south of Baghdad to ibn Al-Hakam (ph). This is an industrial, a civilian industrial facility. At this site they make air conditioners, they make generators.

They also have, and this was what was very interesting for the U.N. teams there today, they have high precision engineering equipment. This is a type of equipment that's controlled by computers. It's the type of equipment U.N. inspectors could be believed to make high precision items, perhaps for the nuclear industry, perhaps for other industries, Paula.

ZAHN: So what kind of a difference will it make to have these extra inspectors on the ground now?

ROBERTSON: It should make a big difference. Essentially, today we're seeing a doubling of their force where the inspectors who arrive today, we're told by the end of the week they'll have multiplied their ability to look at sites by four times. So essentially really speeding up the process. Also, they brought in over the weekend a helicopter. This is also going to extend their reach, their mobility around the country. We know the inspectors also want to open an office in Mosul in the north. So what we're really expecting to see now is for the inspectors to become more wide ranging, as we've seen today, traveling all the way to the border with Syria, and also more penetrating, more teams going out, getting more work done -- Paula.

ZAHN: Nic Robertson, thanks so much for the update.

Appreciate it.

And former weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes the U.S. should not take action against Iraq without evidence Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. He is the author of "End Game: Solving the Iraq Crisis."

And Scott Ritter is with me now.

Welcome back.

Good to see you.

SCOTT RITTER, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Thanks.

Good to see you.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what CNN has gotten a look at. They have obtained a table of contents of the Iraqi disclosure, which includes a listing of nuclear and secondary sites within the country. Are you surprised by any of these disclosures?

RITTER: No, actually this is almost a mirror image of the declaration that Iraq last submitted to the United Nations in 1998, and I understand that they have a couple of annexes to this document, which update the situation from 1998 to 2002. But, you know, again, without peering into the depths of this document, it's hard to say, you know, if there's anything new in here. But there's no new disclosures just based upon this table of contents. It's all stuff that Iraq has declared in the past.

ZAHN: Yes, you say it's a mirror image. This guy named David Albright, I think a man you know, a former inspector who has also reviewed the document, or at least the table of contents, has said it's nothing more than recycled information. It just is completely, even a regurgitation of information pre-1991.

RITTER: Well, of course. But I mean what do we want from the Iraqis? This, you know, what this shows is the complexity and the difficulties of this problem. We're going to come down to the same problem we had in 1998, where Iraq has submitted a documentation that, you know, a documentation which details what it claims to be its story. And the weapons inspectors are going to view it and say, you know, you can't verify or confirm or prove certain aspects of this, we need additional documentation. The Iraqis say we don't have it. We're going to return to the exact same problem of how do you, you know, verify what the Iraqis can't document?

ZAHN: So how do you verify it? RITTER: Well, this is why I've said look, at the end of the day, you're going to have to step back and bring qualitative judgments into play here. You know, we've scoured this country up and down. We haven't found anything. I'm sure these inspectors now are going to go back and do the same task, squeeze Iraq dry. At the end of the day, you know, I disagree with Donald Rumsfeld. You know, the absence of evidence is the absence of evidence. It means you don't have evidence and without evidence you can't convict.

ZAHN: Already we have Defense Department officials telling our correspondents that intelligence shows that in recent weeks there has been wide dispersal of materials, of weapons of mass destruction. They've been moved to underground facilities, bunkers. They've placed suspected, according to this source, biological material in mobile trucks.

RITTER: Well...

ZAHN: Do you not buy that?

RITTER: Well, it's not that I don't buy it, I need evidence. You know, I, for seven years as a weapons inspector we got the same scoop from the United States and most of the time it turned out to be garbage. You know, what are their sources? Are they defectors? You know, they say they moved them underground. Well, if they have that kind of precise knowledge, give it to the inspectors and let the inspectors go to the facilities.

These inspectors, like I was, are equipped with ground penetrating radar and the most sophisticated sensors. So rather than tell this to the press, I really don't want to be hearing it from you or the "New York Times" or anybody else. Give it to the inspectors and let the inspectors inspect. Let the inspectors do their job. That's called due process.

ZAHN: What about moving documents to individual homes, making it nearly impossible for inspectors to find this stuff?

RITTER: Well, as, if that is true, that would be making it nearly impossible for the inspectors to find this stuff. Now you enter down the path of proving the negative. And once you go down that path, this is never going to end. The United States will always say the inspectors can't find this stuff without establishing there's any stuff to find.

What documents are we talking about? This is a hypothetical. Moving what documents to what houses? I can sit back and say Iraq's doing just about anything. I can hypothesize anything. These mobile trucks that everybody talks about is a United Nations hypothesis back in 1993. There is no hard intelligence that these trucks ever existed. It's just something we made up to try and figure out why we're not finding anything.

So what happens when we investigate the trucks and you don't find the trucks? Does it mean they don't exist or Iraq's really doing a good job of hiding them? It's an impossible, it's a never ending story.

ZAHN: Do you believe they exist, these mobile trucks? I know you say you don't have proof that they either do or don't exist. What do you think?

RITTER: You know, this is a tough one because for seven years the Iraqis lied to us and cooperated. There's a really mixed record going on here. The bottom line is we're talking about war. And before we go to war, we're going to need some solid evidence. You know, I'm not a big fan of Saddam Hussein, I'm not a big fan of the Iraqi regime. But I'm a big fan of the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America and I don't want them going to war and giving their lives until we determine that there's a cause worthy of this sacrifice. And however inconvenient inspections are, at the end of the day all those inspectors come home alive and we don't have to worry about body bags. I like that process.

ZAHN: We've got about 20 seconds left. Your reaction to another piece of information, the weapons declaration that refers to a now terminated radiation bomb project, possibly a dirty bomb. That on the heels of a key aide to Saddam Hussein saying that Iraq was very close to having a nuclear weapon at one point.

RITTER: None of this is new. This is all stuff that Iraq has fully disclosed in the past. The dirty bomb is a program that Iraq has acknowledged. They gave us the diagrams. We interviewed the scientists and we've confirmed that that program was terminated. It never really reached fruition. And Iraq being close to a bomb, again, it's something the Iraqis had acknowledged fully in the past. None of this is new. Regardless of what Ari Fleischer or anybody else from the White House says, we don't have a smoking gun and without a smoking gun we really shouldn't be talking about going to war.

ZAHN: Scott Ritter, we've got to leave it there.

Thank you so much for dropping by.

RITTER: Thank you.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time 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