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CNN Live At Daybreak
President Bush Talks Tough on Iraq
Aired January 15, 2003 - 05:08 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 on to the matter of Iraq, a situation which does not seem to be cooling off. At the White House, President Bush talked about Saddam Hussein and the U.N. inspectors' search for weapons of mass destruction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The world came together and we have given him one last chance to disarm. So far I haven't seen any evidence that he has disarmed. Time is running out on Saddam Hussein. He must disarm. I'm sick and tired of games and deception.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Up to a quarter million U.S. troops are being mobilized for deployment to the Persian Gulf or to within striking distance of Iraq by mid-February. And as we just said, more U.S. troops are moving into the Gulf region to give weight to President Bush's resolve.
For reaction to that and President Bush's tough talk, we want to go to CNN's Martin Savidge in Kuwait City with the story. And the buildup just continues to get bigger -- Marty.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does, in fact, Carol.
Good morning to you.
In fact, you mentioned, this was the toughest talk we've heard from President Bush regarding this very subject. And to be honest here, on the streets of Kuwait it didn't exactly send a jolt of electricity, not that people believe that war is exactly imminent.
Let me give you an example of the papers here in English. "War Can Be Averted" was the headline. That was attributed to Kofi Annan, the head of the United Nations. It was only the "Arab Times" that picked up on what President Bush had to say by saying that "Time Is Running Out."
And, in fact, that's kind of a microcosm of how Kuwaitis are divided into two camps. One group is still hopeful that war can be averted. They believe Saddam Hussein has to go. They just hope that war is not the means that brings that about. Then there's the other group, that's a bit more fatalist, believing that war is an inevitability and that perhaps sooner is better than later.
Here's just a sample of people we talked to.
First, a woman we joined at breakfast then a taxi driver.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We count every few months, OK, here, there is war, there is no war, Saddam is coming, Saddam is leaving. So that's, we want to raise up our kids and that's our life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day we try to deal with Saddam and he has never changed. This has been his way for 12 years and I think what President Bush said is the solution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: So to be honest, Carol, the tough talk from the president wasn't exactly picked up[ by the Kuwaiti people here, that indication that time is running out. But the truth is they don't have to hear it from the president. It is something they feel -- Carol.
COSTELLO: I can only imagine, because they're much closer to the action than we are in the United States.
Thanks very much.
Martin Savidge reporting live from Kuwait City this morning.
With the possibility of war, more reservists are being called to active duty. These Marine Corps reservists reporting in New Haven, Connecticut will soon deploy to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. And family and friends say good-bye to members of a National Guard unit in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two hundred fifty soldiers are heading to Fort Stewart, Georgia for more training.
U.N. inspectors created quite a stir when they showed up at Saddam Hussein's main palace in Baghdad this morning.
Our Rym Brahimi was among the journalists following those inspectors and she joins us now on the telephone from outside the palace -- and, Rym, the important thing about this palace is it houses Saddam's main office, right?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears that it is. This is what's known as the Republican Palace and it's been here for a while, and it is known to have a lot of offices, active offices where a lot of staff from the presidential office come in, including apparently from time to time the president himself.
Now, of course, we don't know who is actually in the palace right now. We know the inspectors arrived early on this morning, a joint team, from what we understand. One team of inspectors has already left. The other one is still in the compound and you can see their cars from the entrance gate.
First off, there was a lot of nervousness when the journalists arrived. We were prevented from filming initially. This is what the Iraqis call a sensitive site. Now, the first time the inspectors visited a presidential compound a couple of months ago, well, it seen as a provocation by the Iraqis. They said there was no way a presidential palace would actually have any weapons of mass destruction and therefore there was no justification for inspectors actually going to check a presidential palace.
This time the timing is interesting. First, it comes just a few days before the visit of the two U.N. chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, and also it comes at a moment when this rhetoric seems to have stepped up. In the past two days we've seen increasing complaints by Iraqis about what they say is the bad behavior of inspectors -- freezing sites, preventing employees from moving and blocking them for hours at a site and the other day complaining even about the way they drove, saying they violated traffic rules -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad from outside the main gates of one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces.
We're going to have much more on this as DAYBREAK continues.
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 January 15, 2003 - 05:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to the matter of Iraq, a situation which does not seem to be cooling off. At the White House, President Bush talked about Saddam Hussein and the U.N. inspectors' search for weapons of mass destruction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The world came together and we have given him one last chance to disarm. So far I haven't seen any evidence that he has disarmed. Time is running out on Saddam Hussein. He must disarm. I'm sick and tired of games and deception.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Up to a quarter million U.S. troops are being mobilized for deployment to the Persian Gulf or to within striking distance of Iraq by mid-February. And as we just said, more U.S. troops are moving into the Gulf region to give weight to President Bush's resolve.
For reaction to that and President Bush's tough talk, we want to go to CNN's Martin Savidge in Kuwait City with the story. And the buildup just continues to get bigger -- Marty.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does, in fact, Carol.
Good morning to you.
In fact, you mentioned, this was the toughest talk we've heard from President Bush regarding this very subject. And to be honest here, on the streets of Kuwait it didn't exactly send a jolt of electricity, not that people believe that war is exactly imminent.
Let me give you an example of the papers here in English. "War Can Be Averted" was the headline. That was attributed to Kofi Annan, the head of the United Nations. It was only the "Arab Times" that picked up on what President Bush had to say by saying that "Time Is Running Out."
And, in fact, that's kind of a microcosm of how Kuwaitis are divided into two camps. One group is still hopeful that war can be averted. They believe Saddam Hussein has to go. They just hope that war is not the means that brings that about. Then there's the other group, that's a bit more fatalist, believing that war is an inevitability and that perhaps sooner is better than later.
Here's just a sample of people we talked to.
First, a woman we joined at breakfast then a taxi driver.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We count every few months, OK, here, there is war, there is no war, Saddam is coming, Saddam is leaving. So that's, we want to raise up our kids and that's our life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day we try to deal with Saddam and he has never changed. This has been his way for 12 years and I think what President Bush said is the solution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: So to be honest, Carol, the tough talk from the president wasn't exactly picked up[ by the Kuwaiti people here, that indication that time is running out. But the truth is they don't have to hear it from the president. It is something they feel -- Carol.
COSTELLO: I can only imagine, because they're much closer to the action than we are in the United States.
Thanks very much.
Martin Savidge reporting live from Kuwait City this morning.
With the possibility of war, more reservists are being called to active duty. These Marine Corps reservists reporting in New Haven, Connecticut will soon deploy to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. And family and friends say good-bye to members of a National Guard unit in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two hundred fifty soldiers are heading to Fort Stewart, Georgia for more training.
U.N. inspectors created quite a stir when they showed up at Saddam Hussein's main palace in Baghdad this morning.
Our Rym Brahimi was among the journalists following those inspectors and she joins us now on the telephone from outside the palace -- and, Rym, the important thing about this palace is it houses Saddam's main office, right?
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears that it is. This is what's known as the Republican Palace and it's been here for a while, and it is known to have a lot of offices, active offices where a lot of staff from the presidential office come in, including apparently from time to time the president himself.
Now, of course, we don't know who is actually in the palace right now. We know the inspectors arrived early on this morning, a joint team, from what we understand. One team of inspectors has already left. The other one is still in the compound and you can see their cars from the entrance gate.
First off, there was a lot of nervousness when the journalists arrived. We were prevented from filming initially. This is what the Iraqis call a sensitive site. Now, the first time the inspectors visited a presidential compound a couple of months ago, well, it seen as a provocation by the Iraqis. They said there was no way a presidential palace would actually have any weapons of mass destruction and therefore there was no justification for inspectors actually going to check a presidential palace.
This time the timing is interesting. First, it comes just a few days before the visit of the two U.N. chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, and also it comes at a moment when this rhetoric seems to have stepped up. In the past two days we've seen increasing complaints by Iraqis about what they say is the bad behavior of inspectors -- freezing sites, preventing employees from moving and blocking them for hours at a site and the other day complaining even about the way they drove, saying they violated traffic rules -- back to you.
COSTELLO: Rym Brahimi reporting live from Baghdad from outside the main gates of one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces.
We're going to have much more on this as DAYBREAK continues.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
