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CNN Live At Daybreak
Fighting Words Over Iraq's Declaration
Aired December 20, 2002 - 06:06 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: Now to the hunt for Iraq's deadly weapons. The U.S. says Baghdad arms declaration is filled with lies and omissions, putting Iraq in material breach of the UN resolution on disarmament, and another step closer to war.
Colin Powell calls it an Iraqi game, and the secretary of state is not amused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We have seen this game again and again, an attempt to sow confusion to buy time, hoping the world will lose interest. This time, the game is not working. This time, the international community is concentrating its attention and increasing its resolve as the true nature of the Iraqi regime is revealed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: UN weapons experts do agree with the United States that Iraq has not provided evidence that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction. UN weapons chief Hans Blix appeared on the PBS program, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Blix explained some of what the Iraqi documents do and don't say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANS BLIX, CHIEF UN WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They give a good deal of information about the -- especially their missile program, which is permissible up to a missile of a range of 150 kilometers, and there are various questions that arise in this context. But the more disturbing I think is that on the chemical weapons program and the biological weapons program, we have not received the assurance, above all not the evidence to allow us to rule out that they still keep weapons of this kind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Now let's find out what they're saying in Iraq about all of this. For that, we turn to our Rym Brahimi, who's live in Baghdad.
And they don't seem to be worried there -- Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, indeed, we still -- we had a briefing actually with the top scientific advisor of President Saddam Hussein, and those were his very words. He said, we're not worried, the rest of the world seems worried, he said, but we're not, because what we've been hearing from the U.S. is just allegations. There is no evidence.
Now, he was talking just as Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, was briefing the United Nations Security Council. He also predicted that Hans Blix would actually say that there was nothing new in the declaration.
And I spoke to Iraqi officials earlier on in the day, and they said, well, if they have any questions, why don't they come up with their questions? We'd be more than glad to answer them.
Now, what's happening here today is we still have no official reaction in Baghdad from Iraqi officials on that issue, but we do have a lot of reaction in the newspapers. The main ruling Baath Party's newspaper, "Al-Thawra," or revolution, saying that the United States is trying to find a pretext to attack Iraq. Now, what it's saying is that the U.S. has failed the American people -- the U.S. administration has failed the American people with the economy, it's failed in Afghanistan, it's failed to rebuild that country, and it's failed to find the al Qaeda leaders, and this is why it's doing this.
And there's even a cartoon here in this newspaper. As you can see, the United Nations here discussing with the world, and in the shade of the United Nations, President Bush making plans probably for war -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So, there is a sense in Iraq that the United Nations and the international community might protect Iraq from an attack by the United States.
BRAHIMI: Well, there definitely has been that hope and that sense, and this is something that Iraq on very, very different levels has been working on. They really have been working those contacts with the international community with a lot of the grassroots movements. You know, a lot of the NGO's, nongovernmental organizations, or humanitarian organizations, making that same call, this is a moral issue, they're saying, Iraq has no reason to be attacked, they've been under sanctions.
So, they've been playing that card a lot, and they've been hoping that the international community would indeed step in to their favor and prevent the U.S. from attacking -- Carol.
COSTELLO: We'll see. Rym Brahimi live from Baghdad 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 20, 2002 - 06:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the hunt for Iraq's deadly weapons. The U.S. says Baghdad arms declaration is filled with lies and omissions, putting Iraq in material breach of the UN resolution on disarmament, and another step closer to war.
Colin Powell calls it an Iraqi game, and the secretary of state is not amused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We have seen this game again and again, an attempt to sow confusion to buy time, hoping the world will lose interest. This time, the game is not working. This time, the international community is concentrating its attention and increasing its resolve as the true nature of the Iraqi regime is revealed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: UN weapons experts do agree with the United States that Iraq has not provided evidence that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction. UN weapons chief Hans Blix appeared on the PBS program, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Blix explained some of what the Iraqi documents do and don't say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANS BLIX, CHIEF UN WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They give a good deal of information about the -- especially their missile program, which is permissible up to a missile of a range of 150 kilometers, and there are various questions that arise in this context. But the more disturbing I think is that on the chemical weapons program and the biological weapons program, we have not received the assurance, above all not the evidence to allow us to rule out that they still keep weapons of this kind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Now let's find out what they're saying in Iraq about all of this. For that, we turn to our Rym Brahimi, who's live in Baghdad.
And they don't seem to be worried there -- Rym.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, indeed, we still -- we had a briefing actually with the top scientific advisor of President Saddam Hussein, and those were his very words. He said, we're not worried, the rest of the world seems worried, he said, but we're not, because what we've been hearing from the U.S. is just allegations. There is no evidence.
Now, he was talking just as Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, was briefing the United Nations Security Council. He also predicted that Hans Blix would actually say that there was nothing new in the declaration.
And I spoke to Iraqi officials earlier on in the day, and they said, well, if they have any questions, why don't they come up with their questions? We'd be more than glad to answer them.
Now, what's happening here today is we still have no official reaction in Baghdad from Iraqi officials on that issue, but we do have a lot of reaction in the newspapers. The main ruling Baath Party's newspaper, "Al-Thawra," or revolution, saying that the United States is trying to find a pretext to attack Iraq. Now, what it's saying is that the U.S. has failed the American people -- the U.S. administration has failed the American people with the economy, it's failed in Afghanistan, it's failed to rebuild that country, and it's failed to find the al Qaeda leaders, and this is why it's doing this.
And there's even a cartoon here in this newspaper. As you can see, the United Nations here discussing with the world, and in the shade of the United Nations, President Bush making plans probably for war -- Carol.
COSTELLO: So, there is a sense in Iraq that the United Nations and the international community might protect Iraq from an attack by the United States.
BRAHIMI: Well, there definitely has been that hope and that sense, and this is something that Iraq on very, very different levels has been working on. They really have been working those contacts with the international community with a lot of the grassroots movements. You know, a lot of the NGO's, nongovernmental organizations, or humanitarian organizations, making that same call, this is a moral issue, they're saying, Iraq has no reason to be attacked, they've been under sanctions.
So, they've been playing that card a lot, and they've been hoping that the international community would indeed step in to their favor and prevent the U.S. from attacking -- Carol.
COSTELLO: We'll see. Rym Brahimi live from Baghdad 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.
