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CNN Live Today
U.S., U.K., Spain Lobbying for Their Resolution
Aired March 11, 2003 - 10:01 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: At the U.N., allies are testing their skills and semantics and salesmanship. Diplomats from the U.S., Great Britain, and Spain intensively lobbying for their resolution, and the CNN senior U.N. correspondent, Richard Roth, is standing by at his post. He has got the very latest, and Richard, despite all this lobbying, it seems as though there is not very much support being built among those sitting on the fence.
ROTH: Well, right now, there has to be also some agreement, maybe, between the U.S. and U.K. on how long to let Saddam Hussein go before any type of military action, because Britain is very interested in getting so-called benchmarks, outstanding issues presented to the Iraqi leadership to test the compliance on specific disarmament tasks presented by the inspectors. The U.S. is interested in this, but for how long? Britain has been giving indications in the last 48 hours that the March 17 deadline proposed in latest resolution could be extended further, maybe even until the end of the month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: We haven't proposed a two-phase approach. We are examining whether Iraq can be set some tests to show that it has taken a strategic decision to disarm, and then if it passes those tests, we'll move on to giving the inspectors as much power as they need to complete the verified disarmament.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: This type of approach moves closer to what some of those uncommitted members have been calling for and it also moves closer to a compromise floated by the Canadian government in the last few weeks. If we can check the latest scoreboard, it hasn't moved much.
You might want to go out to the concession stand in the last few weeks on this. Those in favor of this resolution as it currently stands now, at least publicly, the U.S., U.K., Bulgaria, and Spain. Those against, France, which again last evening issued a strong call that it will be ready to use its veto. France, Russia, China, Germany, and Syria, and on the fence still, Pakistan, Mexico, Guinea, Chile, Cameroon, and Angola.
Many of those countries may intend to abstain, and if the United States fails to get the required nine votes in favor, then it wouldn't even matter whether someone planned to veto, because the vote would thus not take place. You need at least nine in favor to move forward -- Leon. HARRIS: All right, Richard, I have to ask you about the other signals that we're getting from Pakistan. We expect there is going to be an announcement there by the prime minister some time fairly soon now, as a matter of fact, maybe within another 10 or 15 minutes indicating that they may be abstaining. What are you hearing about that?
ROTH: We are told, still, that publicly and privately Pakistan has not announced its plans, and we are somewhat steering away from that story for the moment.
HARRIS: OK. Got you. Understood. Richard Roth at the U.N. We will get back to you later on -- Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: There may be a half dozen countries that remain undecided on the resolution, but as you just heard Richard Roth say, France is not one of them. French leaders and their Russian counterparts have vowed to veto the measure regardless of what the majority decides.
CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris now with the very latest on that -- hello, Jim.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... spectrum from the extreme right to the extreme left, French were congratulating Jacques Chirac this morning for what he had to say last night, basically saying that no matter what the circumstances, France would vote no on the resolution that was on the Security Council table yesterday.
Here is the way "Liberation," one of the sort of left-leaning papers put it this morning, with a big red front page that says "no," spelling "no" in the English fashion. In French, it should be N-O-N. But this, in the English fashion, show that Americans and Britons can understand exactly what Chirac meant, apparently.
In any case, that no could be negotiable, because, in fact, it is a no with regard to the resolution that was on the table yesterday. Now, that is starting to change today, if we are hearing correctly from Great Britain. Tony Blair and some of the people around him are saying that perhaps, as Richard just reported, there might be a chance to extend the March 17 deadline, which is less than a week away, that there might be a chance of putting in some benchmarks for compliance that would actually determine exactly what the Iraqis have to do to comply.
Both of those items might work to bring the French around as to negotiating position.
Part of the evidence for that is something that Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, had to say last Friday after the United Nations meeting. He told reporters then that the French are not wed to 120 days of further inspections as they had originally said, that they were -- perhaps could settle for something less than that. So they are at least open to negotiation. But, of course, there is a vast difference between talking about six days, which was in yesterday's resolution, and 120 days for further inspections to continue in Iraq, and there would have to be an awful lot of negotiating done in order to resolve that difference, I think -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Jim, do you think it's possible that with the decision of France and Russia to possibly veto this resolution that that will have any impact on those countries that remain undecided?
BITTERMANN: Well, one of the things that we've heard overnight here from people around Dominique de Villepin, the foreign minister here, he took a very quick trip through Africa yesterday, meeting with three of those countries, which are on the fence, Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea. And afterwards, diplomatic sources were telling us that he was quite pleased with his trip, and in the case of Cameroon and Guinea, he believes that they perhaps will be voting with an abstention. Now, that is enough to thwart the United States. If you take in Pakistan as well, you are talking about the United States not getting the nine votes it needs.
But again, all of this is based on the Security Council resolution which was on the table yesterday, and today there is a new resolution being talked about, by the British at least, whether or not Washington will go along with that, I don't know. But in any case that could definitely change the parameters again in terms of how people are going to vote -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. It remains ever changing. Jim Bittermann live from Paris. Thank you.
HARRIS: All right. Now, let's spin the globe and get the view from the Iraqi capital this morning. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson is in Baghdad -- Nic, good morning -- good afternoon there, what's the latest?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, today, more destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles. Three of the Al Samoud 2 missiles have been destroyed. Nine warheads, one launcher, and some containers for the missile propellant. Also we are told by U.N. officials that at a different site, some smaller components related to Al Samoud 2 missile have also been destroyed.
We've also been seeing today some of the growing signs, albeit slow, albeit small, that this capital is preparing for war. Around some of the government ministries today, a small number of sandbags being put out, making some small positions around those government ministry buildings.
Also we've been hearing from deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz saying that he believes Iraqi officials believe that the United States and Great Britain are only pushing for war, that they are not intending and not pushing in the direction of extending the U.N. inspection work here in Iraq. He has warned the United States and Great Britain against attacking Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: They cannot take Baghdad. They cannot take Baghdad. The people of Iraq are prepared to fight to defend their sovereignty, their honor, their national interests. They cannot take Iraq easily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: Now, the overall feeling here among the people we talked to is there is a great deal of uncertainty about what is going to happen, when it could happen, what shape it could take, what shape it could happen in. People very concerned about the possibility of war. All these visible signs that happen on streets, they are all indicators to people that war could be coming soon -- Leon.
HARRIS: Thanks very much, Nic. Nic Robertson reporting live from Baghdad -- Heidi.
COLLINS: There are several high level meetings going on today at the White House. Just a few minutes ago, Bush administration officials wrapped up their daily informal meeting.
CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux took part in the so-called gaggle, which is done off camera, and Suzanne joins us now with the very latest on that -- hi, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. We have learned that President Bush has spoken to the president of Angola. This is a key member of the U.N. Security Council. Publicly they have not made up their minds, they are undecided, but one of those key members, six of them that say that they are undecided at this time, we have been told the president is going to making a couple of calls in afternoon to two other U.N. Security Council members.
Now in terms of this March 17 deadline, whether or not there is any wiggle room on this, Ari Fleischer said -- and I'm quoting here -- he says "there is little room for diplomacy," but not much more, that the exact time would be determined by the diplomats.
When asked about this proposal of perhaps a one month extension from the March 17 deadline, he called that a nonstarter. He went on to say that there is not a lot of room, not a lot of time. Including those benchmarks, yes, Ari Fleischer saying there is some wiggle room, they are still working on that language.
As you can imagine, Heidi, there is really a big robust debate that is happening here at the White House. People are somewhat divided whether or not they should extend that deadline. Some are saying by days, certainly no more than a week, not the weeks and months that some of the other U.N. Security Council members are calling for. The administration is very clear on one point, that they want that vote for the U.N. resolution to take place this week. They are not saying exactly when, but they are calling for this week.
There are some who arrived here at the White House. We saw a number of top advisers meeting with the president this morning. The vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as the head of the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security. Some in the administration say, Look, there is no need to extend this deadline. Saddam Hussein has been given all the time he needs, as well as the U.N. Security Council members, all the time they need to make up their minds. There are others who say, it is worth it to put in a little bit more time to get those undecided to vote for this resolution -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Suzanne Malveaux live from a very snowy White House today.
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 March 11, 2003 - 10:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: At the U.N., allies are testing their skills and semantics and salesmanship. Diplomats from the U.S., Great Britain, and Spain intensively lobbying for their resolution, and the CNN senior U.N. correspondent, Richard Roth, is standing by at his post. He has got the very latest, and Richard, despite all this lobbying, it seems as though there is not very much support being built among those sitting on the fence.
ROTH: Well, right now, there has to be also some agreement, maybe, between the U.S. and U.K. on how long to let Saddam Hussein go before any type of military action, because Britain is very interested in getting so-called benchmarks, outstanding issues presented to the Iraqi leadership to test the compliance on specific disarmament tasks presented by the inspectors. The U.S. is interested in this, but for how long? Britain has been giving indications in the last 48 hours that the March 17 deadline proposed in latest resolution could be extended further, maybe even until the end of the month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: We haven't proposed a two-phase approach. We are examining whether Iraq can be set some tests to show that it has taken a strategic decision to disarm, and then if it passes those tests, we'll move on to giving the inspectors as much power as they need to complete the verified disarmament.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: This type of approach moves closer to what some of those uncommitted members have been calling for and it also moves closer to a compromise floated by the Canadian government in the last few weeks. If we can check the latest scoreboard, it hasn't moved much.
You might want to go out to the concession stand in the last few weeks on this. Those in favor of this resolution as it currently stands now, at least publicly, the U.S., U.K., Bulgaria, and Spain. Those against, France, which again last evening issued a strong call that it will be ready to use its veto. France, Russia, China, Germany, and Syria, and on the fence still, Pakistan, Mexico, Guinea, Chile, Cameroon, and Angola.
Many of those countries may intend to abstain, and if the United States fails to get the required nine votes in favor, then it wouldn't even matter whether someone planned to veto, because the vote would thus not take place. You need at least nine in favor to move forward -- Leon. HARRIS: All right, Richard, I have to ask you about the other signals that we're getting from Pakistan. We expect there is going to be an announcement there by the prime minister some time fairly soon now, as a matter of fact, maybe within another 10 or 15 minutes indicating that they may be abstaining. What are you hearing about that?
ROTH: We are told, still, that publicly and privately Pakistan has not announced its plans, and we are somewhat steering away from that story for the moment.
HARRIS: OK. Got you. Understood. Richard Roth at the U.N. We will get back to you later on -- Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: There may be a half dozen countries that remain undecided on the resolution, but as you just heard Richard Roth say, France is not one of them. French leaders and their Russian counterparts have vowed to veto the measure regardless of what the majority decides.
CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris now with the very latest on that -- hello, Jim.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... spectrum from the extreme right to the extreme left, French were congratulating Jacques Chirac this morning for what he had to say last night, basically saying that no matter what the circumstances, France would vote no on the resolution that was on the Security Council table yesterday.
Here is the way "Liberation," one of the sort of left-leaning papers put it this morning, with a big red front page that says "no," spelling "no" in the English fashion. In French, it should be N-O-N. But this, in the English fashion, show that Americans and Britons can understand exactly what Chirac meant, apparently.
In any case, that no could be negotiable, because, in fact, it is a no with regard to the resolution that was on the table yesterday. Now, that is starting to change today, if we are hearing correctly from Great Britain. Tony Blair and some of the people around him are saying that perhaps, as Richard just reported, there might be a chance to extend the March 17 deadline, which is less than a week away, that there might be a chance of putting in some benchmarks for compliance that would actually determine exactly what the Iraqis have to do to comply.
Both of those items might work to bring the French around as to negotiating position.
Part of the evidence for that is something that Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, had to say last Friday after the United Nations meeting. He told reporters then that the French are not wed to 120 days of further inspections as they had originally said, that they were -- perhaps could settle for something less than that. So they are at least open to negotiation. But, of course, there is a vast difference between talking about six days, which was in yesterday's resolution, and 120 days for further inspections to continue in Iraq, and there would have to be an awful lot of negotiating done in order to resolve that difference, I think -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Jim, do you think it's possible that with the decision of France and Russia to possibly veto this resolution that that will have any impact on those countries that remain undecided?
BITTERMANN: Well, one of the things that we've heard overnight here from people around Dominique de Villepin, the foreign minister here, he took a very quick trip through Africa yesterday, meeting with three of those countries, which are on the fence, Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea. And afterwards, diplomatic sources were telling us that he was quite pleased with his trip, and in the case of Cameroon and Guinea, he believes that they perhaps will be voting with an abstention. Now, that is enough to thwart the United States. If you take in Pakistan as well, you are talking about the United States not getting the nine votes it needs.
But again, all of this is based on the Security Council resolution which was on the table yesterday, and today there is a new resolution being talked about, by the British at least, whether or not Washington will go along with that, I don't know. But in any case that could definitely change the parameters again in terms of how people are going to vote -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. It remains ever changing. Jim Bittermann live from Paris. Thank you.
HARRIS: All right. Now, let's spin the globe and get the view from the Iraqi capital this morning. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson is in Baghdad -- Nic, good morning -- good afternoon there, what's the latest?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, today, more destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles. Three of the Al Samoud 2 missiles have been destroyed. Nine warheads, one launcher, and some containers for the missile propellant. Also we are told by U.N. officials that at a different site, some smaller components related to Al Samoud 2 missile have also been destroyed.
We've also been seeing today some of the growing signs, albeit slow, albeit small, that this capital is preparing for war. Around some of the government ministries today, a small number of sandbags being put out, making some small positions around those government ministry buildings.
Also we've been hearing from deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz saying that he believes Iraqi officials believe that the United States and Great Britain are only pushing for war, that they are not intending and not pushing in the direction of extending the U.N. inspection work here in Iraq. He has warned the United States and Great Britain against attacking Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: They cannot take Baghdad. They cannot take Baghdad. The people of Iraq are prepared to fight to defend their sovereignty, their honor, their national interests. They cannot take Iraq easily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: Now, the overall feeling here among the people we talked to is there is a great deal of uncertainty about what is going to happen, when it could happen, what shape it could take, what shape it could happen in. People very concerned about the possibility of war. All these visible signs that happen on streets, they are all indicators to people that war could be coming soon -- Leon.
HARRIS: Thanks very much, Nic. Nic Robertson reporting live from Baghdad -- Heidi.
COLLINS: There are several high level meetings going on today at the White House. Just a few minutes ago, Bush administration officials wrapped up their daily informal meeting.
CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux took part in the so-called gaggle, which is done off camera, and Suzanne joins us now with the very latest on that -- hi, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. We have learned that President Bush has spoken to the president of Angola. This is a key member of the U.N. Security Council. Publicly they have not made up their minds, they are undecided, but one of those key members, six of them that say that they are undecided at this time, we have been told the president is going to making a couple of calls in afternoon to two other U.N. Security Council members.
Now in terms of this March 17 deadline, whether or not there is any wiggle room on this, Ari Fleischer said -- and I'm quoting here -- he says "there is little room for diplomacy," but not much more, that the exact time would be determined by the diplomats.
When asked about this proposal of perhaps a one month extension from the March 17 deadline, he called that a nonstarter. He went on to say that there is not a lot of room, not a lot of time. Including those benchmarks, yes, Ari Fleischer saying there is some wiggle room, they are still working on that language.
As you can imagine, Heidi, there is really a big robust debate that is happening here at the White House. People are somewhat divided whether or not they should extend that deadline. Some are saying by days, certainly no more than a week, not the weeks and months that some of the other U.N. Security Council members are calling for. The administration is very clear on one point, that they want that vote for the U.N. resolution to take place this week. They are not saying exactly when, but they are calling for this week.
There are some who arrived here at the White House. We saw a number of top advisers meeting with the president this morning. The vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as the head of the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security. Some in the administration say, Look, there is no need to extend this deadline. Saddam Hussein has been given all the time he needs, as well as the U.N. Security Council members, all the time they need to make up their minds. There are others who say, it is worth it to put in a little bit more time to get those undecided to vote for this resolution -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Suzanne Malveaux live from a very snowy White House today.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
