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CNN Live At Daybreak
Target: Syria?
Aired April 15, 2003 - 06:34 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: Let's talk about Syria now. U.S. demands on Syria are causing concern on the streets and in the government of Damascus.
As CNN's Sheila MacVicar reports, Syrians aren't sure why they're being targeted or what the U.S. really wants.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): There is a steady drumbeat.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First things first, we're here in Iraq now. And the second thing about Syria is, is that we expect cooperation, and I'm hopeful we'll receive cooperation.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We have seen a chemical weapons test in Syria over the past 12-15 months. And second, that we have intelligence that shows that Syria has allowed Syrians and others to come across the border into Iraq.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I would expect that Syrian authorities will do everything they could not to provide these people safe haven.
MACVICAR: A litany of allegations and accusations that on the streets of Damascus leaves people angry and feeling threatened. There is not much in the Syrian newspapers about what the U.S. administration is saying, but Syrians listen to radio and watch TV.
"We always thought that when the U.S. finished with Iraq," he says, "they would start to make accusations against Syria."
"We are lost," says this man. "Why are the Americans treating us like this?"
FAROUK AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Sometimes they don't know what they want.
MACVICAR: Sometimes even the government here seems bewildered by what the U.S. administration says.
AL-SHARAA: We have no problem if you give us any sort of evidence, because if we say to you, no, you are not believing us, because this is the third, fourth statement that you are directing against Syria. MACVICAR: Out here in the Syrian desert is the border with Iraq, sealed now, at least officially, after U.S. pressure. The Syrians insist no members of Saddam Hussein's regime have entered Syria, and Western diplomats in Damascus agree, saying the intelligence on which that allegation is apparently based is -- quote -- "dubious."
(on camera): But there are serious questions, as Britain's foreign secretary has said, that will require serious answers, questions about Syria's covert chemical weapons program, about its continuing support for groups labeled as terrorist organizations, like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Now that the U.S. administration has the attention of the Syrians, what are they going to ask them to do?
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Damascus.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Well, let's explore that question a little more. Let's go live to Washington right now and talk to our White House correspondent, Dana Bash.
Dana -- what does the president want Syria to do specifically?
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Specifically at this point, their top concern, they say here at the White House, is the fact that they believe that Syria is harboring some members of Saddam Hussein's leadership.
Now, of course, the Syrians are denying that, and they're really unclear, or at least they're not telling us specifically, if they think that they're actually -- these people are staying in Syria or they're sort of using it as a weigh station to get to other places.
But there, you see a picture of Bashar al-Assad. That is a key figure here in this whole scenario, of course, because he is the leader of Syria, and he's relatively new. He's been there just about three years.
And the White House is sort of ratcheting up the pressure on him specifically. They feel that because he is so new and relatively young that he is coaxable; that he is somebody who can sort of look to his staff and see what happened in a very, very quick way to Saddam Hussein being toppled just three weeks, and say, well, I don't want that to happen to me.
And the White House, therefore, is using the fact that the Iraqi war happened very quickly, and in fact that they do believe that Syria is helping Iraq, not just in potentially harboring members of its leadership, but they have been saying over the past few weeks that they believe that Syria has helped Iraq in the war by selling military equipment and other things.
So what they are hoping is by saying that Bashar al-Assad is a young leader, a new leader, an untested leader, perhaps it will be a signal to him that he can change his ways without facing the same fate that Saddam Hussein did.
COSTELLO: Yes, they're just looking for some information.
We understood that Saddam Hussein's wife and his cousin may be there. Had you heard that?
BASH: They're being very tight-lipped about who exactly they believe is in -- has potentially has crossed the border. We've asked a number of times, and they're saying that for intelligence reasons, they're not telling us. So we don't know exactly who or how many, if any, of those 55 cards in that deck have crossed over the border.
COSTELLO: Understand. Dana Bash reporting live from Washington. Many thanks to 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 April 15, 2003 - 06:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about Syria now. U.S. demands on Syria are causing concern on the streets and in the government of Damascus.
As CNN's Sheila MacVicar reports, Syrians aren't sure why they're being targeted or what the U.S. really wants.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): There is a steady drumbeat.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First things first, we're here in Iraq now. And the second thing about Syria is, is that we expect cooperation, and I'm hopeful we'll receive cooperation.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We have seen a chemical weapons test in Syria over the past 12-15 months. And second, that we have intelligence that shows that Syria has allowed Syrians and others to come across the border into Iraq.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I would expect that Syrian authorities will do everything they could not to provide these people safe haven.
MACVICAR: A litany of allegations and accusations that on the streets of Damascus leaves people angry and feeling threatened. There is not much in the Syrian newspapers about what the U.S. administration is saying, but Syrians listen to radio and watch TV.
"We always thought that when the U.S. finished with Iraq," he says, "they would start to make accusations against Syria."
"We are lost," says this man. "Why are the Americans treating us like this?"
FAROUK AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Sometimes they don't know what they want.
MACVICAR: Sometimes even the government here seems bewildered by what the U.S. administration says.
AL-SHARAA: We have no problem if you give us any sort of evidence, because if we say to you, no, you are not believing us, because this is the third, fourth statement that you are directing against Syria. MACVICAR: Out here in the Syrian desert is the border with Iraq, sealed now, at least officially, after U.S. pressure. The Syrians insist no members of Saddam Hussein's regime have entered Syria, and Western diplomats in Damascus agree, saying the intelligence on which that allegation is apparently based is -- quote -- "dubious."
(on camera): But there are serious questions, as Britain's foreign secretary has said, that will require serious answers, questions about Syria's covert chemical weapons program, about its continuing support for groups labeled as terrorist organizations, like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Now that the U.S. administration has the attention of the Syrians, what are they going to ask them to do?
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Damascus.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Well, let's explore that question a little more. Let's go live to Washington right now and talk to our White House correspondent, Dana Bash.
Dana -- what does the president want Syria to do specifically?
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Specifically at this point, their top concern, they say here at the White House, is the fact that they believe that Syria is harboring some members of Saddam Hussein's leadership.
Now, of course, the Syrians are denying that, and they're really unclear, or at least they're not telling us specifically, if they think that they're actually -- these people are staying in Syria or they're sort of using it as a weigh station to get to other places.
But there, you see a picture of Bashar al-Assad. That is a key figure here in this whole scenario, of course, because he is the leader of Syria, and he's relatively new. He's been there just about three years.
And the White House is sort of ratcheting up the pressure on him specifically. They feel that because he is so new and relatively young that he is coaxable; that he is somebody who can sort of look to his staff and see what happened in a very, very quick way to Saddam Hussein being toppled just three weeks, and say, well, I don't want that to happen to me.
And the White House, therefore, is using the fact that the Iraqi war happened very quickly, and in fact that they do believe that Syria is helping Iraq, not just in potentially harboring members of its leadership, but they have been saying over the past few weeks that they believe that Syria has helped Iraq in the war by selling military equipment and other things.
So what they are hoping is by saying that Bashar al-Assad is a young leader, a new leader, an untested leader, perhaps it will be a signal to him that he can change his ways without facing the same fate that Saddam Hussein did.
COSTELLO: Yes, they're just looking for some information.
We understood that Saddam Hussein's wife and his cousin may be there. Had you heard that?
BASH: They're being very tight-lipped about who exactly they believe is in -- has potentially has crossed the border. We've asked a number of times, and they're saying that for intelligence reasons, they're not telling us. So we don't know exactly who or how many, if any, of those 55 cards in that deck have crossed over the border.
COSTELLO: Understand. Dana Bash reporting live from Washington. Many thanks to 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.
