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CNN Live At Daybreak
Debt Relief For Iraq
Aired December 16, 2003 - 06:07 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: President Bush's old friend, James Baker, is in France this morning for some delicate negotiations. Yes, they have to do with Iraq, Jacques Chirac, and $3 billion.
We take you live to Paris now and CNN's Jim Bittermann.
Are Baker and Chirac meeting now -- Jim?
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are right now. In fact, Baker pulled up here just a couple of minutes before noon past time about two or three minutes before 6:00 your time. In fact, he's going to be meeting with Chirac, but he's also going on from here to Germany, Italy, Britain and Russia -- all countries owed a great deal of money by Iraq.
And basically, the Baker mission is to try to talk these countries into doing something about either canceling or rescheduling this debt in some way -- $40 billion owed to the 19 members of the Paris club and another $80 billion that Iraq owes to its Arab neighbors.
So, he's got a big job ahead of him to try to talk these countries into some kind of a way of easing the debt for the Iraqis.
Now, the French yesterday, through their foreign minister, Dominique de Villipin, has said that they will work on some kind of solution with some kind of way to ease the burden on the Iraqis. And they were able to say that to the Iraqis themselves.
There was a very high-level Iraqi delegation that was in town yesterday, and so they didn't have to make this statement first to James Baker, but I'm sure it's something that has certainly made the atmosphere here a lot better, as did the arrest of Saddam Hussein over the weekend, I think that gave everybody a chance to move away from last year's -- last week's, rather, very bitter debate and dispute over the reconstruction contracts in Iraq that left a sour taste in everybody's mouth.
And the presence of Mr. Baker here, I think, is reassuring. I mean, the Europeans know him from his years as the secretary of state. And as one analyst here put it, Mr. Baker shows that the adults back in charge in Washington and the neocom (ph) ayatollahs are back in the closet -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, my! Jim Bittermann reporting live from France this morning. 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 December 16, 2003 - 06:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush's old friend, James Baker, is in France this morning for some delicate negotiations. Yes, they have to do with Iraq, Jacques Chirac, and $3 billion.
We take you live to Paris now and CNN's Jim Bittermann.
Are Baker and Chirac meeting now -- Jim?
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are right now. In fact, Baker pulled up here just a couple of minutes before noon past time about two or three minutes before 6:00 your time. In fact, he's going to be meeting with Chirac, but he's also going on from here to Germany, Italy, Britain and Russia -- all countries owed a great deal of money by Iraq.
And basically, the Baker mission is to try to talk these countries into doing something about either canceling or rescheduling this debt in some way -- $40 billion owed to the 19 members of the Paris club and another $80 billion that Iraq owes to its Arab neighbors.
So, he's got a big job ahead of him to try to talk these countries into some kind of a way of easing the debt for the Iraqis.
Now, the French yesterday, through their foreign minister, Dominique de Villipin, has said that they will work on some kind of solution with some kind of way to ease the burden on the Iraqis. And they were able to say that to the Iraqis themselves.
There was a very high-level Iraqi delegation that was in town yesterday, and so they didn't have to make this statement first to James Baker, but I'm sure it's something that has certainly made the atmosphere here a lot better, as did the arrest of Saddam Hussein over the weekend, I think that gave everybody a chance to move away from last year's -- last week's, rather, very bitter debate and dispute over the reconstruction contracts in Iraq that left a sour taste in everybody's mouth.
And the presence of Mr. Baker here, I think, is reassuring. I mean, the Europeans know him from his years as the secretary of state. And as one analyst here put it, Mr. Baker shows that the adults back in charge in Washington and the neocom (ph) ayatollahs are back in the closet -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh, my! Jim Bittermann reporting live from France this morning. 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.
