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CNN Saturday Morning News
U.N. Inspectors Return to Site of Warhead Find
Aired January 18, 2003 - 07:02 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get back to our top story this hour, Iraq. United Nations weapons inspectors have returned to the site where 12 empty chemical warheads were found two days ago.
Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is standing by in Baghdad with the latest on that. Nic, what do they hope to find on their second visit?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Miles, when they made that first visit two days ago, they said categorically 11 of those 122-millimeter warheads were in fact chemical warheads. They said that there was one other warhead that they'd seen that they were concerned about, that they needed to do further investigations.
Now, this is an ammunition storage facility. It's an old ammunition storage facility. The particular part of a complex that these warheads were found in a few days ago, built in the late 1990s, somewhat newer, we are told.
Now, it, as I said, is a large facility. We do not know what else the weapons inspectors may have gone back there for, but we do know, however, there was that one outstanding issue of a warhead, that when they visited two days ago and they left, they had sealed that warhead in its box so they could go back and take another look at it.
Another interesting development today, Dimitri Perricos, who is the team leader of the chemical and biological weapons teams here, the most senior figure at doing that side of the inspection work, joined a biological team today visiting a food testing and storage facility near Baghdad.
Now, at that facility, they looked at two large trucks. One of those trucks appears to be constructed as a mobile laboratory. This is some 40-foot-long trailer, the sort of thing you would see heading down the highway between cities carrying large goods. That appeared to be fitted out as a mobile laboratory, and it's been speculated in the past, put forward by both the United States and British governments, that Iraq does indeed have mobile biological warfare units constructed in this type of manner, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Nic, let's try to put this all in perspective. I want to ask you a little more about those mobile facilities in just a second. But back to the 12 empty casings that were found. Given the number of inspections that have occurred, the number of locations, what should that lead us to believe? Does that indicate that perhaps there are many more of these mobile facilities, if you will, that have made it very difficult for inspectors to find anything? Or is it possible that there just isn't that much to find in Iraq right now?
ROBERTSON: Well, if you believe the statistics that have been put forward by both the British and the United States governments, it would indicate there are many thousands of shells, many hundreds of tons of chemical precursors. So indeed, comparative to what has been found, there is a lot more to discover if the statistics put forward by these two governments are accurate.
I think perhaps one of the interesting things at this time is that Dimitri Perricos has just returned from New York, where he's been at the United Nations headquarters. The Iraqi foreign ministry here puts out a daily briefing on what the inspectors do. They pointed to him in particular as going -- as coming back saying he wasn't going to do inspections, and then suddenly going out, doing some very -- what they call interesting inspections.
So perhaps an indication that he's coming back with more information on where to look, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, Nic, one quick question. Hitting a moving target, trying to identify moving targets, how do the inspectors do that?
ROBERTSON: It's going to be information, Miles. They're going to have to get that key information. We're told that best information going to come from those Iraqi scientists if they can be interviewed privately, maybe outside the country, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you, Nic Robertson, appreciate it. We'll check in with you a little bit later.
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 18, 2003 - 07:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get back to our top story this hour, Iraq. United Nations weapons inspectors have returned to the site where 12 empty chemical warheads were found two days ago.
Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is standing by in Baghdad with the latest on that. Nic, what do they hope to find on their second visit?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Miles, when they made that first visit two days ago, they said categorically 11 of those 122-millimeter warheads were in fact chemical warheads. They said that there was one other warhead that they'd seen that they were concerned about, that they needed to do further investigations.
Now, this is an ammunition storage facility. It's an old ammunition storage facility. The particular part of a complex that these warheads were found in a few days ago, built in the late 1990s, somewhat newer, we are told.
Now, it, as I said, is a large facility. We do not know what else the weapons inspectors may have gone back there for, but we do know, however, there was that one outstanding issue of a warhead, that when they visited two days ago and they left, they had sealed that warhead in its box so they could go back and take another look at it.
Another interesting development today, Dimitri Perricos, who is the team leader of the chemical and biological weapons teams here, the most senior figure at doing that side of the inspection work, joined a biological team today visiting a food testing and storage facility near Baghdad.
Now, at that facility, they looked at two large trucks. One of those trucks appears to be constructed as a mobile laboratory. This is some 40-foot-long trailer, the sort of thing you would see heading down the highway between cities carrying large goods. That appeared to be fitted out as a mobile laboratory, and it's been speculated in the past, put forward by both the United States and British governments, that Iraq does indeed have mobile biological warfare units constructed in this type of manner, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Nic, let's try to put this all in perspective. I want to ask you a little more about those mobile facilities in just a second. But back to the 12 empty casings that were found. Given the number of inspections that have occurred, the number of locations, what should that lead us to believe? Does that indicate that perhaps there are many more of these mobile facilities, if you will, that have made it very difficult for inspectors to find anything? Or is it possible that there just isn't that much to find in Iraq right now?
ROBERTSON: Well, if you believe the statistics that have been put forward by both the British and the United States governments, it would indicate there are many thousands of shells, many hundreds of tons of chemical precursors. So indeed, comparative to what has been found, there is a lot more to discover if the statistics put forward by these two governments are accurate.
I think perhaps one of the interesting things at this time is that Dimitri Perricos has just returned from New York, where he's been at the United Nations headquarters. The Iraqi foreign ministry here puts out a daily briefing on what the inspectors do. They pointed to him in particular as going -- as coming back saying he wasn't going to do inspections, and then suddenly going out, doing some very -- what they call interesting inspections.
So perhaps an indication that he's coming back with more information on where to look, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, Nic, one quick question. Hitting a moving target, trying to identify moving targets, how do the inspectors do that?
ROBERTSON: It's going to be information, Miles. They're going to have to get that key information. We're told that best information going to come from those Iraqi scientists if they can be interviewed privately, maybe outside the country, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you, Nic Robertson, appreciate it. We'll check in with you a little bit later.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
