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American Morning
Road to War?
Aired December 20, 2002 - 07:04 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 and whether war is inevitable. While the UN expressed its clear disappointment with Iraq's declaration, the harshest indictments came yesterday from the United States and Britain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: These are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We consider this to be one further material breach of the resolution.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMB. TO UN: There's no doubt in our minds there are omissions from this declaration of information that should have been there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Meanwhile, the president continues to hold meetings on the Iraq situation, and may have comments on Iraq a little bit later today for all of us to hear.
Let's turn to Frank Buckley, who is standing by at the White House to bring us up-to-date on what we might expect later on today.
Good morning -- Frank.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
The president today meets with the so-called Middle East Quartet -- that's leaders from Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- to talk about the Middle East peace roadmap. That's going to happen at around 2:30 this afternoon. We're expecting then for the president to at least hear questions. We don't know if he'll respond to the questions, but he'll hear questions from the reporters who are gathered with him for that photo opportunity at 2:30 today.
Now, yesterday, Secretary Powell, as you just mentioned and you just heard, made it very clear that the U.S. feels that Iraq totally failed to meet the requirements of the UN Security Council resolution.
And we heard for the first time some of the specifics that the U.S. has problems with. Some of the capabilities that inspectors talked about in 1998 that Iraq had the capability to produce some 26,000 liters of anthrax that wasn't -- that that specific issue wasn't addressed in the declaration. Also a biological agent called botulinum toxin. Inspectors said that Iraq had the capability to produce twice the amount that was listed in this declaration. There are other things as well, various mustard gasses, sarin and VX nerve gas. They were not addressed in the declaration.
So, the U.S. making very clear that it has some problems with the declaration that was filed by Iraq -- Paula.
ZAHN: Frank Buckley, thanks so much.
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 - 07:04 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 and whether war is inevitable. While the UN expressed its clear disappointment with Iraq's declaration, the harshest indictments came yesterday from the United States and Britain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: These are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We consider this to be one further material breach of the resolution.
JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMB. TO UN: There's no doubt in our minds there are omissions from this declaration of information that should have been there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Meanwhile, the president continues to hold meetings on the Iraq situation, and may have comments on Iraq a little bit later today for all of us to hear.
Let's turn to Frank Buckley, who is standing by at the White House to bring us up-to-date on what we might expect later on today.
Good morning -- Frank.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
The president today meets with the so-called Middle East Quartet -- that's leaders from Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- to talk about the Middle East peace roadmap. That's going to happen at around 2:30 this afternoon. We're expecting then for the president to at least hear questions. We don't know if he'll respond to the questions, but he'll hear questions from the reporters who are gathered with him for that photo opportunity at 2:30 today.
Now, yesterday, Secretary Powell, as you just mentioned and you just heard, made it very clear that the U.S. feels that Iraq totally failed to meet the requirements of the UN Security Council resolution.
And we heard for the first time some of the specifics that the U.S. has problems with. Some of the capabilities that inspectors talked about in 1998 that Iraq had the capability to produce some 26,000 liters of anthrax that wasn't -- that that specific issue wasn't addressed in the declaration. Also a biological agent called botulinum toxin. Inspectors said that Iraq had the capability to produce twice the amount that was listed in this declaration. There are other things as well, various mustard gasses, sarin and VX nerve gas. They were not addressed in the declaration.
So, the U.S. making very clear that it has some problems with the declaration that was filed by Iraq -- Paula.
ZAHN: Frank Buckley, thanks so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
