Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Nuclear Revelation in Iraq

Aired June 26, 2003 - 07:04   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go ahead and move on to a story that CNN was breaking over the last day. More now on Iraq and the unearthing of components that could have helped Saddam Hussein's regime to build nuclear weapons.
Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, has this exclusive report.

David -- good morning.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, there was real exhilaration at the CIA recently among senior officials when they saw the parts of a nuclear gas centrifuge program and all of the documents necessary to rebuild that on a table at the CIA. But there is also a desperate search now for what are believed to be three additional sets of parts and documents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): CNN has learned that the Central Intelligence Agency has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology, parts needed to develop a bomb program that were hidden in a back yard in Baghdad.

The parts were dug up by this man, Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi, who had hidden them under a rose bush 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.

They are the key parts and documents for reconstructing a sophisticated gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium for bombs, shown exclusively to CNN at CIA headquarters in Virginia.

ENSOR: Former U.N. arms inspector David Kay, now in charge of the CIA effort, started work earlier this week in Baghdad. We spoke to him about the case over a secure teleconferencing line from CIA headquarters.

DAVID KAY, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO CIA DIRECTOR: It begins to tell us how huge our job is. Remember, his material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden. There is no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections. I couldn't have done it. My successors couldn't have done it.

ENSOR: The gas centrifuge equipment dates back to Iraq's pre- 1991 efforts to build nuclear weapons. Experts say the documents and pieces Obeidi gave the U.S. were the critical information and parts to restart a nuclear weapons program and would have saved Saddam's regime several years and as much as hundreds of millions of dollars for research.

(on camera): What did you think about seeing all of this stuff on a table in the CIA?

KAY: It was the realization that I hadn't gotten all of the parts. I certainly hadn't gotten all of the documentation. So, there was a moment, a pang of regret, but there was also almost an exhilaration that now maybe we have a chance to take this to the very bottom.

ENSOR (voice-over): U.S. officials emphasize this is not a smoking gun. This is not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon, but it is evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now, Mahdi Obeidi, the scientist who turned over these documents and this material, told the CIA that there are three additional sets of the documents, and possibly also of some of the parts. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, there is a search now, a very, very strenuous search, to find those other three sets.

He did believe he had some of the names of one or two of the scientists at least, and obviously the CIA is following up with them.

We'll have much more on this story and on some other weapons-in- Iraq-related subjects, Mike Boettcher and I, later this even on "LIVE FROM THE HEADLINES WITH PAULA ZAHN." We had some rather unique access, both to Obeidi and at the Central Intelligence Agency -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Well, David, let me ask you about Mr. Obeidi. It was 12 years ago that he says that he buried this under this rose bush in his back yard. Why is he coming forward now?

ENSOR: Well, obviously he's coming in part because he feels safer to do so with American troops on the streets in Baghdad. He was no longer in fear of his life if he were to announce what he knew about the program that had existed under Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he requested that the CIA move him and his family to a position of greater safety outside the country, and that has been done -- Daryn.

KAGAN: David Ensor, I look forward to more of your reporting on the story. Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's pick up on that point with our next guests. What does this information tell us about the Saddam Hussein regime and what's going on now in Iraq?

My guests now, our CNN analyst, Ken Pollack -- he's a senior fellow at the Saban Center at Brookings -- and Terence Taylor, a former U.N. weapons inspector, and they are both in Washington.

I want to begin with you, Ken. On that point, the fact that Mr. Obeidi has come forward, that in and of itself is very significant, isn't it?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Absolutely. As you heard David Kay say in David Ensor's piece, the key to all of this is going to be having Iraqi scientists come forward. This centrifuge -- these pieces of the centrifuge were buried underneath this man's back yard. There is no way that even David Kay's new team of 1,500 people is going to be able to dig up every back yard in Iraq.

Until Iraqis start coming forward, no team is going to be able to find the full extent of Iraq's WMD programs, and Obeidi having come forward, and hopefully other scientists seeing that he is well- treated, that he is safe, they will also feel like it's fine for them to come forward and start talking about what they know as well.

O'BRIEN: Terry, do you think the dominoes will start to fall and more scientists will come forward? That is key, isn't it?

TERENCE TAYLOR, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: It certainly is, and not only scientists like Mr. Obeidi but perhaps more junior people, mid-level and lower-level people who probably have more up-to- date knowledge on where things are at the moment. So, I think this is a very encouraging sign. I mean, it just shows it's yet another piece of evidence that the Iraqi regime, the former regime, thank goodness, was burying away components of the program for it to be restarted at some later date.

O'BRIEN: Ken, let's try to get a sense of scale here, though. What was found under this rose bush could be a very small part of a potential weapons program. I'm thinking about the Manhattan Project and the size of something like that in order to build usable nuclear weapons. Surely there are many others in Iraq now if there was such a program that would know a lot about it.

POLLACK: Well, certainly there was any number of people. There have been reports of as many as 14,000 Iraqis were working on the nuclear program at one point in time. So, yes, to the extent that Iraqis were maintaining that program, even a sleeper program in the sense that the components were buried and the people were dispersed and sent off, but told whenever Saddam gives the order, you're to come back and to start work. Certainly there should be a lot of people out there somewhere in Iraq who have knowledge about this program. And as Terry is suggesting, you've got to get to the technicians, as well as the scientists. And the key is now that Obeidi has come forward, will others do so as well?

O'BRIEN: Terry, when you look at this videotape -- I'm not an expert on this sort of thing -- is there any doubt in your mind that the CIA has captured what it says it is, these diagrams, these pieces of the centrifuge, are they as key as has been suggested?

TAYLOR: Well, they are very important components. And as Ken has said, there will be many more parts. We're looking at something that's part of what would be a cascade for a gas centrifuge enrichment plant. So, there will be many more bits. But what's important is that these parts are difficult to make. You'd need all of the machine tools and everything to do that. And equally important are the blueprints. So, you know, if you're thinking about hiding elements which will allow a program to be restarted when conditions are right, this is a very important find.

O'BRIEN: And there's one other component which we should talk about, Ken. At minimum, it requires at least 30 pounds or more of uranium in order to make a weapons-grade type of situation, a bomb. That is something that is more easily detected, isn't it?

POLLACK: It should be, absolutely, and it's why the Iraqis seemed to basically go underground on the program, because it is harder to conceal the fissile material. Buying it on the black market is very hard. The Iraqis have been trying for a very long period of time to do so, not had a whole lot of luck.

But clearly, Saddam's expectation was that at some point in time he would be able to acquire those materials, and when he did so he wanted to be able to have the centrifuge cascade ready to go so that he could start building bombs.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly, there is uranium in Iraq, correct?

POLLACK: Yes, oh, a very good point, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

POLLACK: Yes, there are natural uranium deposits in Iraq. The Iraqis would have had to mine that. That was something that the inspectors were watching. But, again, I think the expectation must have been on Saddam's part that at some point in time, the inspectors would be out of Iraq and he would be in a position to go ahead and once again start mining it.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks very much. Ken Pollack, Terence Taylor, appreciate your perspective on all of this.

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 June 26, 2003 - 07:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go ahead and move on to a story that CNN was breaking over the last day. More now on Iraq and the unearthing of components that could have helped Saddam Hussein's regime to build nuclear weapons.
Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, has this exclusive report.

David -- good morning.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, there was real exhilaration at the CIA recently among senior officials when they saw the parts of a nuclear gas centrifuge program and all of the documents necessary to rebuild that on a table at the CIA. But there is also a desperate search now for what are believed to be three additional sets of parts and documents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): CNN has learned that the Central Intelligence Agency has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology, parts needed to develop a bomb program that were hidden in a back yard in Baghdad.

The parts were dug up by this man, Iraqi scientist Mahdi Obeidi, who had hidden them under a rose bush 12 years ago under orders from Qusay Hussein and Saddam Hussein's then son-in-law, Hussein Kamel.

They are the key parts and documents for reconstructing a sophisticated gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium for bombs, shown exclusively to CNN at CIA headquarters in Virginia.

ENSOR: Former U.N. arms inspector David Kay, now in charge of the CIA effort, started work earlier this week in Baghdad. We spoke to him about the case over a secure teleconferencing line from CIA headquarters.

DAVID KAY, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO CIA DIRECTOR: It begins to tell us how huge our job is. Remember, his material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden. There is no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections. I couldn't have done it. My successors couldn't have done it.

ENSOR: The gas centrifuge equipment dates back to Iraq's pre- 1991 efforts to build nuclear weapons. Experts say the documents and pieces Obeidi gave the U.S. were the critical information and parts to restart a nuclear weapons program and would have saved Saddam's regime several years and as much as hundreds of millions of dollars for research.

(on camera): What did you think about seeing all of this stuff on a table in the CIA?

KAY: It was the realization that I hadn't gotten all of the parts. I certainly hadn't gotten all of the documentation. So, there was a moment, a pang of regret, but there was also almost an exhilaration that now maybe we have a chance to take this to the very bottom.

ENSOR (voice-over): U.S. officials emphasize this is not a smoking gun. This is not evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapon, but it is evidence the Iraqis concealed plans to reconstitute their nuclear program as soon as the world was no longer looking.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now, Mahdi Obeidi, the scientist who turned over these documents and this material, told the CIA that there are three additional sets of the documents, and possibly also of some of the parts. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, there is a search now, a very, very strenuous search, to find those other three sets.

He did believe he had some of the names of one or two of the scientists at least, and obviously the CIA is following up with them.

We'll have much more on this story and on some other weapons-in- Iraq-related subjects, Mike Boettcher and I, later this even on "LIVE FROM THE HEADLINES WITH PAULA ZAHN." We had some rather unique access, both to Obeidi and at the Central Intelligence Agency -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Well, David, let me ask you about Mr. Obeidi. It was 12 years ago that he says that he buried this under this rose bush in his back yard. Why is he coming forward now?

ENSOR: Well, obviously he's coming in part because he feels safer to do so with American troops on the streets in Baghdad. He was no longer in fear of his life if he were to announce what he knew about the program that had existed under Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he requested that the CIA move him and his family to a position of greater safety outside the country, and that has been done -- Daryn.

KAGAN: David Ensor, I look forward to more of your reporting on the story. Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's pick up on that point with our next guests. What does this information tell us about the Saddam Hussein regime and what's going on now in Iraq?

My guests now, our CNN analyst, Ken Pollack -- he's a senior fellow at the Saban Center at Brookings -- and Terence Taylor, a former U.N. weapons inspector, and they are both in Washington.

I want to begin with you, Ken. On that point, the fact that Mr. Obeidi has come forward, that in and of itself is very significant, isn't it?

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Absolutely. As you heard David Kay say in David Ensor's piece, the key to all of this is going to be having Iraqi scientists come forward. This centrifuge -- these pieces of the centrifuge were buried underneath this man's back yard. There is no way that even David Kay's new team of 1,500 people is going to be able to dig up every back yard in Iraq.

Until Iraqis start coming forward, no team is going to be able to find the full extent of Iraq's WMD programs, and Obeidi having come forward, and hopefully other scientists seeing that he is well- treated, that he is safe, they will also feel like it's fine for them to come forward and start talking about what they know as well.

O'BRIEN: Terry, do you think the dominoes will start to fall and more scientists will come forward? That is key, isn't it?

TERENCE TAYLOR, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: It certainly is, and not only scientists like Mr. Obeidi but perhaps more junior people, mid-level and lower-level people who probably have more up-to- date knowledge on where things are at the moment. So, I think this is a very encouraging sign. I mean, it just shows it's yet another piece of evidence that the Iraqi regime, the former regime, thank goodness, was burying away components of the program for it to be restarted at some later date.

O'BRIEN: Ken, let's try to get a sense of scale here, though. What was found under this rose bush could be a very small part of a potential weapons program. I'm thinking about the Manhattan Project and the size of something like that in order to build usable nuclear weapons. Surely there are many others in Iraq now if there was such a program that would know a lot about it.

POLLACK: Well, certainly there was any number of people. There have been reports of as many as 14,000 Iraqis were working on the nuclear program at one point in time. So, yes, to the extent that Iraqis were maintaining that program, even a sleeper program in the sense that the components were buried and the people were dispersed and sent off, but told whenever Saddam gives the order, you're to come back and to start work. Certainly there should be a lot of people out there somewhere in Iraq who have knowledge about this program. And as Terry is suggesting, you've got to get to the technicians, as well as the scientists. And the key is now that Obeidi has come forward, will others do so as well?

O'BRIEN: Terry, when you look at this videotape -- I'm not an expert on this sort of thing -- is there any doubt in your mind that the CIA has captured what it says it is, these diagrams, these pieces of the centrifuge, are they as key as has been suggested?

TAYLOR: Well, they are very important components. And as Ken has said, there will be many more parts. We're looking at something that's part of what would be a cascade for a gas centrifuge enrichment plant. So, there will be many more bits. But what's important is that these parts are difficult to make. You'd need all of the machine tools and everything to do that. And equally important are the blueprints. So, you know, if you're thinking about hiding elements which will allow a program to be restarted when conditions are right, this is a very important find.

O'BRIEN: And there's one other component which we should talk about, Ken. At minimum, it requires at least 30 pounds or more of uranium in order to make a weapons-grade type of situation, a bomb. That is something that is more easily detected, isn't it?

POLLACK: It should be, absolutely, and it's why the Iraqis seemed to basically go underground on the program, because it is harder to conceal the fissile material. Buying it on the black market is very hard. The Iraqis have been trying for a very long period of time to do so, not had a whole lot of luck.

But clearly, Saddam's expectation was that at some point in time he would be able to acquire those materials, and when he did so he wanted to be able to have the centrifuge cascade ready to go so that he could start building bombs.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly, there is uranium in Iraq, correct?

POLLACK: Yes, oh, a very good point, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

POLLACK: Yes, there are natural uranium deposits in Iraq. The Iraqis would have had to mine that. That was something that the inspectors were watching. But, again, I think the expectation must have been on Saddam's part that at some point in time, the inspectors would be out of Iraq and he would be in a position to go ahead and once again start mining it.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks very much. Ken Pollack, Terence Taylor, appreciate your perspective on all of this.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.