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CNN Live Today
Blair Trying to Win More Support
Aired March 12, 2003 - 11:01 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Prime minister today -- Tony Blair reaffirmed Britain's commitment to disarming Iraq. Blair is trying to win more support within the U.N. Security Council and among his own parliament.
CNN's senior European political correspondent, Robin Oakley, joins us now live from London with more on that story -- hello to you, Robin.
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Heidi. And Tony Blair is under every kind of pressure, really, on this issue of the military action against Iraq. He's got only 19 percent of the British public, according to opinion polls with him if he goes for a military assault on Saddam Hussein without the backing of the United Nations. He's got up to 200 of his own Labour Party MPs threatening to rebel in a parliamentary vote. He's got Clare Short, a member of his cabinet, saying she will walk out of that cabinet if he goes for military action alongside the U.S. without getting the backing of the U.N. Security Council. So Tony Blair is investing everything he can in an effort to try and get that second U.N. Security Council resolution, and now the British -- latest British concessions are a series of benchmarks against which Saddam Hussein's desire and willingness to disarm would be measured, set alongside, perhaps, a slippage of the date of the final ultimatum date for him, and Tony Blair spelled out to British MPs today just what were the lines of his thinking in terms of the reassurance he would seek from Saddam Hussein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: What we are looking at is whether we can set out a very clear set of tests for Iraq to meet in order to demonstrate that it is in full compliance, not partial compliance, but full compliance. For example, based on what the inspectors have already found, the anthrax, the thousands of liters unaccounted for, either produce it or produce the documentation showing it is destroyed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OAKLEY: And officials have since then filled out the six main conditions which the British would want to get into that U.N. Security Council resolution. First of all, Saddam Hussein would have to go on television and confess that he had misled the world about his weapons.
Secondly, he would have to permit the interview without minders or tape recorders of Iraqi scientists abroad, probably in Cyprus. Thirdly, he would have to destroy all the Al Samoud missiles. He would have to account for the aerial drones which Tony Blair says can spread chemical and biological weapons.
He would have to explain the mobile chemical laboratories that have been moving around in Iraq, and Tony Blair has been spelling out these details to MPs. British officials are now saying that they are willing to make concessions in order to win over those essential swing votes in the U.N. Security Council. And at the same time, Tony Blair is being very critical of the French, saying that it would be quite wrong for the French, as they're suggesting, to veto a resolution which has not yet been finalized.
How can he -- how can they say they're going to veto this resolution when they don't actually know what's in it, he is suggesting, and that looks like a British prime minister who is willing to defy a veto in the U.N. Security Council and line up with the United States for military action against Saddam Hussein, whatever his own party thinks of it -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Robin, let me ask you quickly, we've been hearing an awful lot about the very difficult position that Tony Blair is in. You mentioned the 19 percent of people who are in support of what he has said he wants to do, along with the United States, but he can't go back on his plan as far as doing what he thinks needs to be done. In his words, the best thing for his country. What do you think about this? What's the next step for him?
OAKLEY: No, he can't really go back on it, and none of the British MPs I've talked to expect him to go back on his commitment. When he was questioned by MPs in the Parliament today, he was again insistent that the whole authority of the United Nations would be destroyed, that other dictators like Saddam Hussein would arise, and would arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction if there wasn't firm action taken on this occasion, and despite suggestions which have highly embarrassed the British government from Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. defense secretary, to suggest that the U.S. might go it alone and that the U.K. might not be with them in any military action, Tony Blair is making it quite clear that British troops would be involved at the end of the day in any military action taken against Saddam Hussein -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Robin Oakley, live from London. Thank you so much.
We are also going to go now to the State Department where we have Andrea Koppel standing by to tell us more about all of the different countries and where they stand. Certainly some of them on the fence as we've been talking about all morning, counting those votes and how important it is to this second U.N. resolution -- Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, the Bush administration believes that it is only one vote away from having the nine necessary to pass the Security Council resolution without a veto. This development really has just happened in the last day. The U.S. now believes that it has the support of those three African countries who were among the six undecided members of the Security Council. They include Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, and then also in the "yes" column now, I'm told, is Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf, of course, the president of Pakistan, has a very close relationship with President Bush, one that really became stronger after September 11.
Now, as far as those holdouts, I'm told that it's Mexico and Chile, the two Latin American countries who are being worked on now, as I'm told. One official telling me Bush and Blair are attempting to do whatever it takes to get the Latins to commit.
Another official telling me that really what the countries are looking for is, in his words, they want to feel as if they've had an input in the process that they can then say this is what the resolution looked like before, and now this is what it looks like today, and we helped to affect that change.
I want to tell you a little bit about these two countries. Most Americans, obviously, very familiar with Mexico. We share a 2,000- mile border with that country. The president, Vicente Fox, by the way, today is undergoing back surgery, but he did speak with President Bush last night.
In addition, the U.S. gives Mexico at least $36 million in U.S. aid. It has, obviously, as I said, strong ties between President Bush and Fox. I do think we have a graphic to put up. And in addition, what we're looking for right now -- I think we don't have that graphic -- but what the Mexicans are hoping to get, and this is long before the resolution issue came up, Heidi, is a better immigration deal. Vicente Fox wants to have Mexican workers get legal status here, and there are millions of illegal Mexicans.
Now, as far as Chile is concerned, just very quickly, it gets about $1.1 million in U.S. aid, and it wants desperately to get more U.S. investment. On the Hill right now is a free trade agreement that Chile is hoping Congress will pass quite soon -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Interesting. Thank you so much, Andrea Koppel from the State Department.
Well, the Bush administration has been pressing for a vote at the United Nations this week. CNN White House Correspondent Dana Bash joins us now live with the latest -- hi, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. Well, first on the issue of the benchmarks that Robin Oakley was detailing that Tony Blair gave details himself in Parliament earlier today, the White House -- it is kind of worth noting that President Bush and Tony Blair are clearly in different positions here.
The president, if you believe the polls that have come out lately, actually is getting more support from the American people for perhaps going it -- not alone, but without the United Nations. There seems to be, according to public opinion polls, a growing frustration among Americans with the United Nations. That is opposed to Tony Blair who, as Robin noted, doesn't have very much support at all in his country if the United Nations doesn't act with regards to dealing with Iraq militarily.
So there's clearly a difference there, but the president here knows what Tony Blair is up against, and knows the kind of situation he is in. So he is being -- they're being very careful here at the White House. They're not fully endorsing the idea of that six-point plan, but they are certainly not ruling it out at all.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer saying that he's not going to get into specifics of any one proposal by any other nation, but he was very clear to say that the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Great Britain in all of its diplomatic efforts.
Now, meanwhile on the vote count and on the press to get more votes at the United Nations, the president -- we haven't seen the president really since last Thursday when he had his nationally televised press conference, but he has been working very hard behind the scenes. He had a meeting earlier today with his top national security team, including Colin Powell, the Secretary of State; Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary; and others, so he continues to have very important meetings.
He also is continuing to make very important phone calls, do some diplomatic dialing. He spoke this morning with the leaders of the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, and in addition, he spoke with the head of the Philippines. Those, of course, are not Security Council members at the United Nations, but we are told he is going to make some more of those calls later on today. They are not saying publicly that they have the nine votes to make up a majority at the United Nations yet. They are being very cautious here at the White House, careful to say that they don't know for sure where the votes are until the vote is actually taken.
So they're being very careful on that -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you.
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 12, 2003 - 11:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Prime minister today -- Tony Blair reaffirmed Britain's commitment to disarming Iraq. Blair is trying to win more support within the U.N. Security Council and among his own parliament.
CNN's senior European political correspondent, Robin Oakley, joins us now live from London with more on that story -- hello to you, Robin.
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Heidi. And Tony Blair is under every kind of pressure, really, on this issue of the military action against Iraq. He's got only 19 percent of the British public, according to opinion polls with him if he goes for a military assault on Saddam Hussein without the backing of the United Nations. He's got up to 200 of his own Labour Party MPs threatening to rebel in a parliamentary vote. He's got Clare Short, a member of his cabinet, saying she will walk out of that cabinet if he goes for military action alongside the U.S. without getting the backing of the U.N. Security Council. So Tony Blair is investing everything he can in an effort to try and get that second U.N. Security Council resolution, and now the British -- latest British concessions are a series of benchmarks against which Saddam Hussein's desire and willingness to disarm would be measured, set alongside, perhaps, a slippage of the date of the final ultimatum date for him, and Tony Blair spelled out to British MPs today just what were the lines of his thinking in terms of the reassurance he would seek from Saddam Hussein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: What we are looking at is whether we can set out a very clear set of tests for Iraq to meet in order to demonstrate that it is in full compliance, not partial compliance, but full compliance. For example, based on what the inspectors have already found, the anthrax, the thousands of liters unaccounted for, either produce it or produce the documentation showing it is destroyed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OAKLEY: And officials have since then filled out the six main conditions which the British would want to get into that U.N. Security Council resolution. First of all, Saddam Hussein would have to go on television and confess that he had misled the world about his weapons.
Secondly, he would have to permit the interview without minders or tape recorders of Iraqi scientists abroad, probably in Cyprus. Thirdly, he would have to destroy all the Al Samoud missiles. He would have to account for the aerial drones which Tony Blair says can spread chemical and biological weapons.
He would have to explain the mobile chemical laboratories that have been moving around in Iraq, and Tony Blair has been spelling out these details to MPs. British officials are now saying that they are willing to make concessions in order to win over those essential swing votes in the U.N. Security Council. And at the same time, Tony Blair is being very critical of the French, saying that it would be quite wrong for the French, as they're suggesting, to veto a resolution which has not yet been finalized.
How can he -- how can they say they're going to veto this resolution when they don't actually know what's in it, he is suggesting, and that looks like a British prime minister who is willing to defy a veto in the U.N. Security Council and line up with the United States for military action against Saddam Hussein, whatever his own party thinks of it -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Robin, let me ask you quickly, we've been hearing an awful lot about the very difficult position that Tony Blair is in. You mentioned the 19 percent of people who are in support of what he has said he wants to do, along with the United States, but he can't go back on his plan as far as doing what he thinks needs to be done. In his words, the best thing for his country. What do you think about this? What's the next step for him?
OAKLEY: No, he can't really go back on it, and none of the British MPs I've talked to expect him to go back on his commitment. When he was questioned by MPs in the Parliament today, he was again insistent that the whole authority of the United Nations would be destroyed, that other dictators like Saddam Hussein would arise, and would arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction if there wasn't firm action taken on this occasion, and despite suggestions which have highly embarrassed the British government from Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. defense secretary, to suggest that the U.S. might go it alone and that the U.K. might not be with them in any military action, Tony Blair is making it quite clear that British troops would be involved at the end of the day in any military action taken against Saddam Hussein -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Robin Oakley, live from London. Thank you so much.
We are also going to go now to the State Department where we have Andrea Koppel standing by to tell us more about all of the different countries and where they stand. Certainly some of them on the fence as we've been talking about all morning, counting those votes and how important it is to this second U.N. resolution -- Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, the Bush administration believes that it is only one vote away from having the nine necessary to pass the Security Council resolution without a veto. This development really has just happened in the last day. The U.S. now believes that it has the support of those three African countries who were among the six undecided members of the Security Council. They include Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, and then also in the "yes" column now, I'm told, is Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf, of course, the president of Pakistan, has a very close relationship with President Bush, one that really became stronger after September 11.
Now, as far as those holdouts, I'm told that it's Mexico and Chile, the two Latin American countries who are being worked on now, as I'm told. One official telling me Bush and Blair are attempting to do whatever it takes to get the Latins to commit.
Another official telling me that really what the countries are looking for is, in his words, they want to feel as if they've had an input in the process that they can then say this is what the resolution looked like before, and now this is what it looks like today, and we helped to affect that change.
I want to tell you a little bit about these two countries. Most Americans, obviously, very familiar with Mexico. We share a 2,000- mile border with that country. The president, Vicente Fox, by the way, today is undergoing back surgery, but he did speak with President Bush last night.
In addition, the U.S. gives Mexico at least $36 million in U.S. aid. It has, obviously, as I said, strong ties between President Bush and Fox. I do think we have a graphic to put up. And in addition, what we're looking for right now -- I think we don't have that graphic -- but what the Mexicans are hoping to get, and this is long before the resolution issue came up, Heidi, is a better immigration deal. Vicente Fox wants to have Mexican workers get legal status here, and there are millions of illegal Mexicans.
Now, as far as Chile is concerned, just very quickly, it gets about $1.1 million in U.S. aid, and it wants desperately to get more U.S. investment. On the Hill right now is a free trade agreement that Chile is hoping Congress will pass quite soon -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Interesting. Thank you so much, Andrea Koppel from the State Department.
Well, the Bush administration has been pressing for a vote at the United Nations this week. CNN White House Correspondent Dana Bash joins us now live with the latest -- hi, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. Well, first on the issue of the benchmarks that Robin Oakley was detailing that Tony Blair gave details himself in Parliament earlier today, the White House -- it is kind of worth noting that President Bush and Tony Blair are clearly in different positions here.
The president, if you believe the polls that have come out lately, actually is getting more support from the American people for perhaps going it -- not alone, but without the United Nations. There seems to be, according to public opinion polls, a growing frustration among Americans with the United Nations. That is opposed to Tony Blair who, as Robin noted, doesn't have very much support at all in his country if the United Nations doesn't act with regards to dealing with Iraq militarily.
So there's clearly a difference there, but the president here knows what Tony Blair is up against, and knows the kind of situation he is in. So he is being -- they're being very careful here at the White House. They're not fully endorsing the idea of that six-point plan, but they are certainly not ruling it out at all.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer saying that he's not going to get into specifics of any one proposal by any other nation, but he was very clear to say that the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Great Britain in all of its diplomatic efforts.
Now, meanwhile on the vote count and on the press to get more votes at the United Nations, the president -- we haven't seen the president really since last Thursday when he had his nationally televised press conference, but he has been working very hard behind the scenes. He had a meeting earlier today with his top national security team, including Colin Powell, the Secretary of State; Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary; and others, so he continues to have very important meetings.
He also is continuing to make very important phone calls, do some diplomatic dialing. He spoke this morning with the leaders of the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, and in addition, he spoke with the head of the Philippines. Those, of course, are not Security Council members at the United Nations, but we are told he is going to make some more of those calls later on today. They are not saying publicly that they have the nine votes to make up a majority at the United Nations yet. They are being very cautious here at the White House, careful to say that they don't know for sure where the votes are until the vote is actually taken.
So they're being very careful on that -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Dana Bash, live from the White House. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
