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CNN Live Today
At Least Five U.N. Inspection Teams on Job in Iraq
Aired December 30, 2002 - 11:10 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 LIN, CNN ANCHOR: At least five U.N. inspection teams are on the job in Iraq this morning. A missile factory, a health facility and a nuclear research lab are among the sites visited today.
CNN's Rym Brahimi joins us live from Baghdad, where it is early evening already.
Rym, how did the search go?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So far, Carol, we're still lathe waiting for the final assessment for the day from the United Nations weapons inspections spokesman, but meanwhile, I can add to the couple of sites you've mentioned, another two. They went to -- this one team actually went to the Iran border toward the east, far away from the capital, to check out some communication facility. So that's going to be an interesting site to visit. And another team went to a laboratory.
So it's still a lot of work, and it just hit me, Carol, the inspectors in the 31 days since they started those inspections have actually only taken three days off. They've been at work pretty hard. They slowed down sometime yesterday. There were only three or four sites until then, but today, again, picked up the pace, and I think the reason for that, Carol, is there's going to be a couple of deadlines coming up for them.
On January the 9th, they're expected to provide their own assessment, the inspectors are going to have to provide their assessment of the weapons declaration that Iraq submitted earlier this month, but the big deadline is really January 27th. That's something that's everybody is going to be keeping an eye on including secretary of the state of the United States Colin Powell, who said that he was waiting to see what was going to come up there -- Carol.
LIN: Rym, I'm just wondering, your report is following the latest out of North Korea, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are or reaction that you're getting in Iraq to what may be perceived as a double standard that the Bush administration is using, diplomacy and patience with North Korea, but the threat of war with Iraq when it comes to weapons of mass destruction.
BRAHIMI: Absolutely, Carol. You've put your finger on a very sore point here for Iraqi officials, and actually also for a lot of the Iraqi people that we talked to. This is something that came up in a lot of the editorials in the past few days, but especially today, the newspaper that's run by the main ruling Baath Party, Al-Sara (ph), blasting the United States, denouncing those double standards, saying North Korea is actually declaring openly it has a weapons program, and the U.S. is dealing with it diplomatically. We, on the other hand, it says, have no weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. still wants to bomb us, and what people here are saying, and what some officials also would say is that this is proof enough for them. They point to that as proof that the U.S. is not interested in disarming Iraq at all, but just interested in actually laying its hands on Iraqi oil -- Carol.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Rym Brahimi, reporting live from Baghdad for us.
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 30, 2002 - 11:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: At least five U.N. inspection teams are on the job in Iraq this morning. A missile factory, a health facility and a nuclear research lab are among the sites visited today.
CNN's Rym Brahimi joins us live from Baghdad, where it is early evening already.
Rym, how did the search go?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So far, Carol, we're still lathe waiting for the final assessment for the day from the United Nations weapons inspections spokesman, but meanwhile, I can add to the couple of sites you've mentioned, another two. They went to -- this one team actually went to the Iran border toward the east, far away from the capital, to check out some communication facility. So that's going to be an interesting site to visit. And another team went to a laboratory.
So it's still a lot of work, and it just hit me, Carol, the inspectors in the 31 days since they started those inspections have actually only taken three days off. They've been at work pretty hard. They slowed down sometime yesterday. There were only three or four sites until then, but today, again, picked up the pace, and I think the reason for that, Carol, is there's going to be a couple of deadlines coming up for them.
On January the 9th, they're expected to provide their own assessment, the inspectors are going to have to provide their assessment of the weapons declaration that Iraq submitted earlier this month, but the big deadline is really January 27th. That's something that's everybody is going to be keeping an eye on including secretary of the state of the United States Colin Powell, who said that he was waiting to see what was going to come up there -- Carol.
LIN: Rym, I'm just wondering, your report is following the latest out of North Korea, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are or reaction that you're getting in Iraq to what may be perceived as a double standard that the Bush administration is using, diplomacy and patience with North Korea, but the threat of war with Iraq when it comes to weapons of mass destruction.
BRAHIMI: Absolutely, Carol. You've put your finger on a very sore point here for Iraqi officials, and actually also for a lot of the Iraqi people that we talked to. This is something that came up in a lot of the editorials in the past few days, but especially today, the newspaper that's run by the main ruling Baath Party, Al-Sara (ph), blasting the United States, denouncing those double standards, saying North Korea is actually declaring openly it has a weapons program, and the U.S. is dealing with it diplomatically. We, on the other hand, it says, have no weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. still wants to bomb us, and what people here are saying, and what some officials also would say is that this is proof enough for them. They point to that as proof that the U.S. is not interested in disarming Iraq at all, but just interested in actually laying its hands on Iraqi oil -- Carol.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Rym Brahimi, reporting live from Baghdad for us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
