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American Morning
Interview With Former CIA Director James Woolsey
Aired April 25, 2003 - 08:06 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the tension between the U.S. and North Korea. Not only does Pyongyang say it has at least one nuclear weapon, it also says it plans to prove it. That's according to the senior Bush administration official working in China.
James Woolsey, former CIA director, is our guest this live morning in Washington to talk about this with us.
Good morning, sir. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good morning, Bill. It's good to be with you.
HEMMER: In the past, the North has bluffed on a number of issues. Do you think they're bluffing now? Or is this a case where you cannot afford not to take their word seriously?
WOOLSEY: I think we have to take them seriously. Certainly, they have enough nuclear material for a couple of weapons, and given their technology and the relative ease of building a simple weapon once you have the fissionable material, we've felt for some years, the last few months anyway, that they have a couple of weapons.
The question is whether or not by reprocessing the plutonium rods from Yongbyon they've been able to start serial production of enough plutonium to have, say, several weapons a month. Once they do that, they'll be able to sell plutonium to, say, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. And given the way they make their money is by selling drugs illegally and selling missiles illegally -- those are their two principal exports -- certainly, they would sell plutonium to groups like al Qaeda.
HEMMER: Help me understand this: If it's long been believed that they had one or two nuclear weapons, what changes in the equation now based on this statement that was given in Beijing?
WOOLSEY: I think if they only had enough plutonium for one or two, they were likely to make them and hold on to them for some sort of, you know, demonstrative purposes or just to be a nuclear power. If they're producing enough plutonium for several a month, they have a product that they can sell for substantial amounts of money to terrorist groups, and no one doubts that they would do that.
HEMMER: On the military front. What are you thinking in North Korea after watching the U.S. devastate Baghdad in essentially 21 days? I know the military picture is much different on the Korean peninsula. But what are you thinking right now? Do you feel more insecure about your own security which leads the North to thinking they have to develop these weapons? Or do you want to back off a little bit and open up the negotiation table?
WOOLSEY: I don't think we should back off. We have to call their bluff. I think that the military situation is very a difficult one, because North Korea has about the fourth-largest army in the world, several hundred thousand troops right on the DMZ. And their artillery, thousands of tubes of it, is within range of Seoul, and a lot of it is in tunnels that can be shunted out quickly and fired and brought back.
So any war in Korea would kill tens to hundreds of thousands of South Koreans...
HEMMER: Sure.
WOOLSEY: ... and possibly thousands of American troops relative early. We would win, I think there is no doubt about that, but this would be a very different proposition than what happened in Iraq.
HEMMER: I want to get your thought quickly here on what's happening in Baghdad, getting word of a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi...
WOOLSEY: Yes.
HEMMER: ... who used to be the spy chief in Iraq. You know this man well?
WOOLSEY: Oh, that's a big catch if that Reuters report is true. That's like catching Khalid Sheik Mohammed for al Qaeda.
HEMMER: Really?
WOOLSEY: It's a big catch. And this man was involved we know in a number of contacts with al Qaeda. So this would be a very, very interesting development. The biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got.
HEMMER: And near Syria, if true, if it plays out that way, the significance there again tells you what?
WOOLSEY: Well, both the Syrians and the Iranians, regardless of what they say, the governments there are trying to promote terrorism and disruption in Iraq. Their nightmare is a democratic Iraq that the United States might help develop, because it could well mean, indirectly even, the end of their two regimes.
So regardless of what Assad says in Syria or Khomeini in Iran, if they say they are not interfering in Iraq, I think they're lying. And so, the fact that Hijazi may have been caught trying to get out to Syria wouldn't surprise me at all.
HEMMER: Good to talk with you, as always.
WOOLSEY: Good to be with you. HEMMER: James Woolsey, former CIA director down in D.C.
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 25, 2003 - 08:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the tension between the U.S. and North Korea. Not only does Pyongyang say it has at least one nuclear weapon, it also says it plans to prove it. That's according to the senior Bush administration official working in China.
James Woolsey, former CIA director, is our guest this live morning in Washington to talk about this with us.
Good morning, sir. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good morning, Bill. It's good to be with you.
HEMMER: In the past, the North has bluffed on a number of issues. Do you think they're bluffing now? Or is this a case where you cannot afford not to take their word seriously?
WOOLSEY: I think we have to take them seriously. Certainly, they have enough nuclear material for a couple of weapons, and given their technology and the relative ease of building a simple weapon once you have the fissionable material, we've felt for some years, the last few months anyway, that they have a couple of weapons.
The question is whether or not by reprocessing the plutonium rods from Yongbyon they've been able to start serial production of enough plutonium to have, say, several weapons a month. Once they do that, they'll be able to sell plutonium to, say, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. And given the way they make their money is by selling drugs illegally and selling missiles illegally -- those are their two principal exports -- certainly, they would sell plutonium to groups like al Qaeda.
HEMMER: Help me understand this: If it's long been believed that they had one or two nuclear weapons, what changes in the equation now based on this statement that was given in Beijing?
WOOLSEY: I think if they only had enough plutonium for one or two, they were likely to make them and hold on to them for some sort of, you know, demonstrative purposes or just to be a nuclear power. If they're producing enough plutonium for several a month, they have a product that they can sell for substantial amounts of money to terrorist groups, and no one doubts that they would do that.
HEMMER: On the military front. What are you thinking in North Korea after watching the U.S. devastate Baghdad in essentially 21 days? I know the military picture is much different on the Korean peninsula. But what are you thinking right now? Do you feel more insecure about your own security which leads the North to thinking they have to develop these weapons? Or do you want to back off a little bit and open up the negotiation table?
WOOLSEY: I don't think we should back off. We have to call their bluff. I think that the military situation is very a difficult one, because North Korea has about the fourth-largest army in the world, several hundred thousand troops right on the DMZ. And their artillery, thousands of tubes of it, is within range of Seoul, and a lot of it is in tunnels that can be shunted out quickly and fired and brought back.
So any war in Korea would kill tens to hundreds of thousands of South Koreans...
HEMMER: Sure.
WOOLSEY: ... and possibly thousands of American troops relative early. We would win, I think there is no doubt about that, but this would be a very different proposition than what happened in Iraq.
HEMMER: I want to get your thought quickly here on what's happening in Baghdad, getting word of a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi...
WOOLSEY: Yes.
HEMMER: ... who used to be the spy chief in Iraq. You know this man well?
WOOLSEY: Oh, that's a big catch if that Reuters report is true. That's like catching Khalid Sheik Mohammed for al Qaeda.
HEMMER: Really?
WOOLSEY: It's a big catch. And this man was involved we know in a number of contacts with al Qaeda. So this would be a very, very interesting development. The biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got.
HEMMER: And near Syria, if true, if it plays out that way, the significance there again tells you what?
WOOLSEY: Well, both the Syrians and the Iranians, regardless of what they say, the governments there are trying to promote terrorism and disruption in Iraq. Their nightmare is a democratic Iraq that the United States might help develop, because it could well mean, indirectly even, the end of their two regimes.
So regardless of what Assad says in Syria or Khomeini in Iran, if they say they are not interfering in Iraq, I think they're lying. And so, the fact that Hijazi may have been caught trying to get out to Syria wouldn't surprise me at all.
HEMMER: Good to talk with you, as always.
WOOLSEY: Good to be with you. HEMMER: James Woolsey, former CIA director down in D.C.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
