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American Morning

Interview with Joseph Wilson

Aired December 20, 2002 - 07:06   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The secretary of state, Colin Powell, says the U.S. is disappointed, but not deceived by Iraq's weapons report. The U.S. says there are gaps in the report that constitute a material breach of the UN mandate. Does this put the U.S. on course for a war with Iraq?
Well, to answer that, let's turn to Ambassador Joseph Wilson, former U.S. charge d'affairs in Iraq, one of the last diplomats to meet one-on-one with Saddam Hussein, and he joins us from Washington,

Good to see you again, Mr. Ambassador.

AMB. JOSEPH WILSON, FMR. U.S. CHARGE D'AFFAIRS: Good morning, Paula. How are you today?

ZAHN: I'm fine, thanks. How significant is it that you think Colin Powell used the phrase "material breach" yesterday? He is, after all, the one in the administration who is perceived as the most reluctant to go to war.

WILSON: Well, I think it's very significant, but the real significance is Saddam is not meeting even the minimum requirement in his declaration. It's, once again, evidence that when offered an opportunity to miscalculate, he will. So, it's the U.S. reaction to a really shoddy job I think as would have been expected.

ZAHN: Powell was very careful to say that this first material breach, at least that he was citing publicly, was not necessarily a pretext for war, and he outlined this strategy in the upcoming weeks where you have a full audit of the Iraqi declaration, perhaps interviews with Iraqi scientists, and then the U.S. sharing some intelligence information with inspectors on the ground. What is the significance of all of that?

WILSON: Well, Paula, I think that the president has made very clear that war is the last option to be used only if all other options fail. And so, I think that's where we're headed. We're going to be headed towards intrusive inspections, probably more targeted inspections based on intelligence that the U.S. and other friendly services share with the UN inspection teams. They're going to have to find and round up some of these scientists and figure out how they're going to get them out of the country or interview them there in Iraq.

But we've got until January 27, but I have to say, it doesn't look real good. If Saddam thinks that this president is bluffing, I fear that once again he's going to be wrong.

ZAHN: And do you view January 7 as sort of a drop date for the administration for military action?

WILSON: I think it's actually January 27 will be the date at which certain decisions are made. And then, of course, as I've said before on this show, the question of whether there's going to be a war is really Saddam's to answer. If he complies with the resolution, there will be no war.

That said, since he's apparently not complying, the question of timing and scope and structure of the war is clearly ours to describe. I think it's frankly about time for us to have a serious debate on what that war is going to look like, and what really are we in for over not just the next two or three months, but the next decade where we're likely going to have to maintain a military presence in Iraq, which is going to be increasingly a hostile region I think for reasons related to the terrorism war.

ZAHN: In closing this morning, I just wanted you to analyze the administration's strategy now that it's becoming I guess abundantly clear. "The Washington Post" writing this morning that overall, the negative reaction to the Iraqi declaration was an early vindication of the administration's strategy, allowing Mr. Hussein to show by his own actions that he will not give up his secret weapons peacefully.

WILSON: Well, you know, we've always prided ourselves on being a nation of laws, and that includes international laws. So, it was perfectly appropriate for us to go to the UN, seek a broad, multilateral consensus on which to proceed. And I think it will be equally important for us to maintain as broad a coalition as we possibly can going forward on this, either with another UN resolution or with a consensus supporting a coalition of friends as we did in Kosovo. And then, we'll just get on with the task.

Anytime that you have a multilateral coalition, you have a more tightly-defined range of parameters within which you can work, and I suspect that what we're going to end up with is something that allows us to use all necessary means for the purpose of disarming Saddam, which is consistent with what the president has said. He's talked about forcible disarmament. That is possible to do with a limited ground invasion or no ground invasion whatsoever. And I worry much more about the occupation, pacification and continued presence in Iraq over a longer period of time.

ZAHN: That's good that you bring that up, because Senator Biden and Senator Lugar are our guests in the next hour, and they've written an op-ed piece on just that issue, and they'll be joining us at about the top of the hour, about an hour from now.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, thanks for teasing our next story on the show.

WILSON: Well, thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: We really appreciate your helping us out.

WILSON: Pleasure.

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 - 07:06   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The secretary of state, Colin Powell, says the U.S. is disappointed, but not deceived by Iraq's weapons report. The U.S. says there are gaps in the report that constitute a material breach of the UN mandate. Does this put the U.S. on course for a war with Iraq?
Well, to answer that, let's turn to Ambassador Joseph Wilson, former U.S. charge d'affairs in Iraq, one of the last diplomats to meet one-on-one with Saddam Hussein, and he joins us from Washington,

Good to see you again, Mr. Ambassador.

AMB. JOSEPH WILSON, FMR. U.S. CHARGE D'AFFAIRS: Good morning, Paula. How are you today?

ZAHN: I'm fine, thanks. How significant is it that you think Colin Powell used the phrase "material breach" yesterday? He is, after all, the one in the administration who is perceived as the most reluctant to go to war.

WILSON: Well, I think it's very significant, but the real significance is Saddam is not meeting even the minimum requirement in his declaration. It's, once again, evidence that when offered an opportunity to miscalculate, he will. So, it's the U.S. reaction to a really shoddy job I think as would have been expected.

ZAHN: Powell was very careful to say that this first material breach, at least that he was citing publicly, was not necessarily a pretext for war, and he outlined this strategy in the upcoming weeks where you have a full audit of the Iraqi declaration, perhaps interviews with Iraqi scientists, and then the U.S. sharing some intelligence information with inspectors on the ground. What is the significance of all of that?

WILSON: Well, Paula, I think that the president has made very clear that war is the last option to be used only if all other options fail. And so, I think that's where we're headed. We're going to be headed towards intrusive inspections, probably more targeted inspections based on intelligence that the U.S. and other friendly services share with the UN inspection teams. They're going to have to find and round up some of these scientists and figure out how they're going to get them out of the country or interview them there in Iraq.

But we've got until January 27, but I have to say, it doesn't look real good. If Saddam thinks that this president is bluffing, I fear that once again he's going to be wrong.

ZAHN: And do you view January 7 as sort of a drop date for the administration for military action?

WILSON: I think it's actually January 27 will be the date at which certain decisions are made. And then, of course, as I've said before on this show, the question of whether there's going to be a war is really Saddam's to answer. If he complies with the resolution, there will be no war.

That said, since he's apparently not complying, the question of timing and scope and structure of the war is clearly ours to describe. I think it's frankly about time for us to have a serious debate on what that war is going to look like, and what really are we in for over not just the next two or three months, but the next decade where we're likely going to have to maintain a military presence in Iraq, which is going to be increasingly a hostile region I think for reasons related to the terrorism war.

ZAHN: In closing this morning, I just wanted you to analyze the administration's strategy now that it's becoming I guess abundantly clear. "The Washington Post" writing this morning that overall, the negative reaction to the Iraqi declaration was an early vindication of the administration's strategy, allowing Mr. Hussein to show by his own actions that he will not give up his secret weapons peacefully.

WILSON: Well, you know, we've always prided ourselves on being a nation of laws, and that includes international laws. So, it was perfectly appropriate for us to go to the UN, seek a broad, multilateral consensus on which to proceed. And I think it will be equally important for us to maintain as broad a coalition as we possibly can going forward on this, either with another UN resolution or with a consensus supporting a coalition of friends as we did in Kosovo. And then, we'll just get on with the task.

Anytime that you have a multilateral coalition, you have a more tightly-defined range of parameters within which you can work, and I suspect that what we're going to end up with is something that allows us to use all necessary means for the purpose of disarming Saddam, which is consistent with what the president has said. He's talked about forcible disarmament. That is possible to do with a limited ground invasion or no ground invasion whatsoever. And I worry much more about the occupation, pacification and continued presence in Iraq over a longer period of time.

ZAHN: That's good that you bring that up, because Senator Biden and Senator Lugar are our guests in the next hour, and they've written an op-ed piece on just that issue, and they'll be joining us at about the top of the hour, about an hour from now.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, thanks for teasing our next story on the show.

WILSON: Well, thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: We really appreciate your helping us out.

WILSON: Pleasure.

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