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CNN Live Saturday
Weapons Inspectors Prepare to Resume Duties in Baghdad Monday
Aired November 16, 2002 - 17:02 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 LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are beginning now with the big picture on the U.N., Iraq, and world security. Three years and 11 months after the last time weapons inspectors were in Baghdad, they will resume their duties inside that city on Monday.
We have people covering this crucial mission from every angle. Our correspondents are in Cyprus, Paris, at the White House, in Baghdad and Kuwait. We begin in Cyprus, though, where an advance team of weapons inspectors is gathering. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix is scheduled to meet with them tomorrow. CNN's senior international correspondent Sheila MacVicar joins us from Larnaka, Cyprus with the latest from there. Sheila, can you give us the nuts and bolts of what we can expect?
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, what we're seeing here is basically, as you said, an advance team. They're assembling here. Dr. Blix, the head of the U.N. inspections team is due here tomorrow. He will fly with his advance team to Baghdad on Monday.
Now, a large part of what this team will be doing are essentially, basically getting their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the ground, literally trying to get their vehicles working, repainting their headquarters, reestablishing laboratories, putting the things in place, including secure communications that they need in order to be able to operate effectively.
In addition to that, and perhaps most importantly, Dr. Blix and the senior members of the U.N. inspection team will be meeting with Iraqi officials. Now, we still don't know at what level those meeting will take place. They have told us that they don't know yet who they will be seeing in Iraq but that's to begin the political and diplomatic process of reestablishing relations after such a long break. Those are very important things.
They've told us that they expect within a week or ten days the first real weapons inspectors will be on the ground and will be reestablishing contact on the ground, going back to facilities that they had monitored in the past, reestablishing the video and other kinds of links that were there designed to insure long-term monitoring and then we will begin to see some real inspections.
Of course, the deadline here, the next date that is extremely important is December the 8th, and that's when Iraq is supposed to present its dossier, its file on its weapons of mass destruction. Of course, we've heard from Iraq again today saying that while they welcome the weapons inspectors, they have nothing, they have no weapons of mass destruction, nothing for the weapons inspectors to find, calling U.S. allegations and other assertions that there are, in fact, weapons of mass destruction present in Iraq nothing but lies.
Now, earlier this evening I talked to Ewan Buchanan who is the public information officer for the U.N. weapons inspectors and we talked about the kinds of inspections that Dr. Blix was planning to run and whether or not the notion of aggressiveness was really appropriate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EWAN BUCHANAN, BLIX SPOKESMAN: There are words that we'd like to use to characterize ourselves. We'll be dynamic, effective, correct, rather than necessarily aggressive. It's not our job to provoke or to harass or to humiliate the Iraqi side. Our job is to have effective, credible inspections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACVICAR: Now what this is about, of course, is trying to draw some distance between the previous U.N. weapons inspection regime which, of course, came to an end sometime ago, a regime that was characterized frequently with a tremendous amount of ranker on both sides. Dr. Blix saying though what he wants to do is proceed with what he calls effective, credible inspections and that indeed is what we will be looking to see what they can accomplish -- Carol.
LIN: Absolutely. All right, thank you very much Sheila MacVicar reporting live from Larnaka, Cyprus.
Well, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix does say that he expects Iraq to fully cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. He says technological improvements since 1998 should help the inspection process. CNN's Senior U.N. Correspondent Richard Roth is traveling with Dr. Blix. He joins us by telephone from Vienna, Austria. Richard, I know you just landed but give us a sense of what Dr. Blix is telling you about his optimism.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's guarded optimism, I think, but he puts it in the hands of the Iraqis. It's up to them, he says, to disarm. Otherwise, he knows very well what the Security Council has in mind, which is "serious consequences" under its unanimous resolution of two weeks ago.
This resolution is so packed with warnings and consequences that no matter what Baghdad does, as soon as it veers off the line of cooperation, there's language in it that the U.S. can use to support an attack. Nevertheless, at Kennedy Airport in New York Friday evening, I did ask him if he was still optimistic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: You're in your job since January, 2000 I believe. How does it feel to finally be engaged, to be going to Iraq? HANS BLIX, CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well, it's a good feeling. Of course we are eager, having prepared ourselves for such a long time so, eventually to use the things that we have learned and to try to be directly helpful to the Security Council.
ROTH: Are you optimistic?
BLIX: Well, I will only say that we are determined to do our best. It's very hard to predict what's going to happen but it certainly feels -- I feel that it would be in Iraq's interest to cooperate and to reveal whatever they have. As the Security Council says, this is their last chance.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: Hans Blix spent Saturday in Paris, France. He met with the foreign minister, France saying it played a key role in the Security Council resolution, France telling the chief inspector to tell President Saddam Hussein to play by the rules of the inspection game. Blix also said he's still looking for inspectors from Arab countries.
He only has offers so far from Jordan. A multinational contingent as always when it comes to the U.N., inspectors from 45 different countries. He has 280 people at his disposal but the first numbers will be just teams of 30 or so getting in, starting on Monday, the first group paving the way for later inspections -- Carol.
LIN: Richard, real quick on your part, which sites is he most interested in hitting first?
ROTH: Well, they're being very tight-lipped about exactly where they want to go. They seem to have a hundred of at least 800 that they want to hone in on. The U.S., other countries, have been able to give the weapons agency intelligence information gathered from defectors and others and that's what they're going to maybe shoot for. It could be some rude awakening for the Iraqi government, some surprise, knock-knock situations that may test the Iraqi commitment right off the bat.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Richard Roth, who just landed in Vienna, Austria with Dr. Blix.
All right, President Bush says he is looking for only one thing from the Iraqis, full disarmament. CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us with more on that from the White House tonight. Suzanne, is the White House as optimistic as Dr. Blix?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the White House really isn't very optimistic at all. They have always doubted Saddam Hussein's word and whether or not he is really going to cooperate at all. The Bush administration is really interested in testing Saddam Hussein as quickly as possible. They are encouraged by what Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said earlier today, that they're on an accelerated timetable, a schedule that will put them there a lot faster than what they had anticipated before. There are already some in the administration who believe that Iraq is already in material breach of the U.N. resolution, that it has violated the U.N. resolution. They point to the fact that Iraqi military fired upon allied forces that were patrolling the southern no-fly zone over Iraq within the last 24 hours. Now, President Bush earlier today in which weekly address issuing a stern warning to Saddam Hussein that he must cooperate with inspectors, must disarm or face serious consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This week, the dictator of Iraq told the U.N. he would give weapons inspectors unrestricted access to his country. We've heard such pledges before and they have uniformly betrayed. America and the world are now watching Saddam Hussein closely. Any act of defiance or delay will indicate that he is taking the path of deception once again, and this time the consequences would be severe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, earlier this week President Bush met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan here at the White House. It became very clear that the president has a much lower threshold for what is required authorizing the use of military force against Saddam Hussein if he does not comply. The president reiterating that the policy is zero tolerance.
And, just to give you a sense of how quickly the timetable is, we're looking at some critical dates, one being Monday, November 18. That is when Blix and the weapons inspectors will be back inside, November 27 when the inspections resume, and we're looking at December 8, that's when Iraq must declare any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons program, and then late January when inspectors are going to report back to the Security Council.
Now, we expect that the president is going to be making his case against Saddam Hussein, against Iraq. He's going to be attending the NATO Summit this week in Eastern Europe. He's going to be meeting with at least a dozen world leaders and this is going to be a top priority in those meetings -- Carol.
LIN: You bet, all right thank you very much Suzanne Malveaux, live at the White House tonight. Well, even as the advance team prepares for its mission in Iraq, there is word of air strikes in the southern no-fly zone. U.S. and British planes patrolling the area fired on an Iraqi communications facility after coming under antiaircraft fire. CNN's Rym Brahimi has the latest from inside Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A tense situation here in Baghdad as Iraq prepares to welcome the head of the U.N. weapons team here on Monday. Now, a military spokesman was quoted on the Iraqi state run official newswire as saying that seven civilians had been killed in an air raid over the province of Najaf. That's about 160 kilometers south of Baghdad. Apparently, they were killed in an air raid by U.S. and British warplanes was the announcement.
Now, this comes as inspectors prepare to come back to Iraq after an absence of four years, and Iraqis are being told by the state run media, by their leaders that accepting the resolution and allowing inspectors back in was a wise decision because it will allow Iraq to come clean and to show the world it has no weapons of mass destruction, a point that was stressed again by Iraq's vice prime minister a little earlier on.
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEP. PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Mr. Blix and Mr. Baradei will arrive in Baghdad next Monday and we will welcome them and deal with them and discuss their future work. America raised the issue of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to launch an aggression. Now, we will start to reveal the truth and they are very worried that the truth will prevail, because their lies will be exposed, God willing, and their real intentions will be clear.
BRAHIMI (voice-over): A little earlier in the day, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein addressed the Iraqi people but addressed especially the Iraqi members of parliament who had called to reject that resolution a few days before. Now, the Iraqi president explained why it was important. His statement was broadcast on Iraqi TV and was also read by the speaker of the parliament Mr. Sadoun Hammadi, the president saying that it was important because it had warded off for now the threat of a U.S. led, a unilateral U.S. led attack.
Now, this is also something that's been repeated in the media. The president also in his address said that for those members of the Security Council that were genuinely interested in trying to find out whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, well this was an opportunity for Iraq to prove to the world that the U.S. and Britain were not after disarmament but were after attacking Iraq.
BRAHIMI (on camera): Finally, the president stressed it was now up to the Security Council to do its bit and to lift the sanctions.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Monday>
Aired November 16, 2002 - 17:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are beginning now with the big picture on the U.N., Iraq, and world security. Three years and 11 months after the last time weapons inspectors were in Baghdad, they will resume their duties inside that city on Monday.
We have people covering this crucial mission from every angle. Our correspondents are in Cyprus, Paris, at the White House, in Baghdad and Kuwait. We begin in Cyprus, though, where an advance team of weapons inspectors is gathering. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix is scheduled to meet with them tomorrow. CNN's senior international correspondent Sheila MacVicar joins us from Larnaka, Cyprus with the latest from there. Sheila, can you give us the nuts and bolts of what we can expect?
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, what we're seeing here is basically, as you said, an advance team. They're assembling here. Dr. Blix, the head of the U.N. inspections team is due here tomorrow. He will fly with his advance team to Baghdad on Monday.
Now, a large part of what this team will be doing are essentially, basically getting their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the ground, literally trying to get their vehicles working, repainting their headquarters, reestablishing laboratories, putting the things in place, including secure communications that they need in order to be able to operate effectively.
In addition to that, and perhaps most importantly, Dr. Blix and the senior members of the U.N. inspection team will be meeting with Iraqi officials. Now, we still don't know at what level those meeting will take place. They have told us that they don't know yet who they will be seeing in Iraq but that's to begin the political and diplomatic process of reestablishing relations after such a long break. Those are very important things.
They've told us that they expect within a week or ten days the first real weapons inspectors will be on the ground and will be reestablishing contact on the ground, going back to facilities that they had monitored in the past, reestablishing the video and other kinds of links that were there designed to insure long-term monitoring and then we will begin to see some real inspections.
Of course, the deadline here, the next date that is extremely important is December the 8th, and that's when Iraq is supposed to present its dossier, its file on its weapons of mass destruction. Of course, we've heard from Iraq again today saying that while they welcome the weapons inspectors, they have nothing, they have no weapons of mass destruction, nothing for the weapons inspectors to find, calling U.S. allegations and other assertions that there are, in fact, weapons of mass destruction present in Iraq nothing but lies.
Now, earlier this evening I talked to Ewan Buchanan who is the public information officer for the U.N. weapons inspectors and we talked about the kinds of inspections that Dr. Blix was planning to run and whether or not the notion of aggressiveness was really appropriate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EWAN BUCHANAN, BLIX SPOKESMAN: There are words that we'd like to use to characterize ourselves. We'll be dynamic, effective, correct, rather than necessarily aggressive. It's not our job to provoke or to harass or to humiliate the Iraqi side. Our job is to have effective, credible inspections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACVICAR: Now what this is about, of course, is trying to draw some distance between the previous U.N. weapons inspection regime which, of course, came to an end sometime ago, a regime that was characterized frequently with a tremendous amount of ranker on both sides. Dr. Blix saying though what he wants to do is proceed with what he calls effective, credible inspections and that indeed is what we will be looking to see what they can accomplish -- Carol.
LIN: Absolutely. All right, thank you very much Sheila MacVicar reporting live from Larnaka, Cyprus.
Well, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix does say that he expects Iraq to fully cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. He says technological improvements since 1998 should help the inspection process. CNN's Senior U.N. Correspondent Richard Roth is traveling with Dr. Blix. He joins us by telephone from Vienna, Austria. Richard, I know you just landed but give us a sense of what Dr. Blix is telling you about his optimism.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's guarded optimism, I think, but he puts it in the hands of the Iraqis. It's up to them, he says, to disarm. Otherwise, he knows very well what the Security Council has in mind, which is "serious consequences" under its unanimous resolution of two weeks ago.
This resolution is so packed with warnings and consequences that no matter what Baghdad does, as soon as it veers off the line of cooperation, there's language in it that the U.S. can use to support an attack. Nevertheless, at Kennedy Airport in New York Friday evening, I did ask him if he was still optimistic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: You're in your job since January, 2000 I believe. How does it feel to finally be engaged, to be going to Iraq? HANS BLIX, CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well, it's a good feeling. Of course we are eager, having prepared ourselves for such a long time so, eventually to use the things that we have learned and to try to be directly helpful to the Security Council.
ROTH: Are you optimistic?
BLIX: Well, I will only say that we are determined to do our best. It's very hard to predict what's going to happen but it certainly feels -- I feel that it would be in Iraq's interest to cooperate and to reveal whatever they have. As the Security Council says, this is their last chance.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: Hans Blix spent Saturday in Paris, France. He met with the foreign minister, France saying it played a key role in the Security Council resolution, France telling the chief inspector to tell President Saddam Hussein to play by the rules of the inspection game. Blix also said he's still looking for inspectors from Arab countries.
He only has offers so far from Jordan. A multinational contingent as always when it comes to the U.N., inspectors from 45 different countries. He has 280 people at his disposal but the first numbers will be just teams of 30 or so getting in, starting on Monday, the first group paving the way for later inspections -- Carol.
LIN: Richard, real quick on your part, which sites is he most interested in hitting first?
ROTH: Well, they're being very tight-lipped about exactly where they want to go. They seem to have a hundred of at least 800 that they want to hone in on. The U.S., other countries, have been able to give the weapons agency intelligence information gathered from defectors and others and that's what they're going to maybe shoot for. It could be some rude awakening for the Iraqi government, some surprise, knock-knock situations that may test the Iraqi commitment right off the bat.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Richard Roth, who just landed in Vienna, Austria with Dr. Blix.
All right, President Bush says he is looking for only one thing from the Iraqis, full disarmament. CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us with more on that from the White House tonight. Suzanne, is the White House as optimistic as Dr. Blix?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the White House really isn't very optimistic at all. They have always doubted Saddam Hussein's word and whether or not he is really going to cooperate at all. The Bush administration is really interested in testing Saddam Hussein as quickly as possible. They are encouraged by what Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix said earlier today, that they're on an accelerated timetable, a schedule that will put them there a lot faster than what they had anticipated before. There are already some in the administration who believe that Iraq is already in material breach of the U.N. resolution, that it has violated the U.N. resolution. They point to the fact that Iraqi military fired upon allied forces that were patrolling the southern no-fly zone over Iraq within the last 24 hours. Now, President Bush earlier today in which weekly address issuing a stern warning to Saddam Hussein that he must cooperate with inspectors, must disarm or face serious consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This week, the dictator of Iraq told the U.N. he would give weapons inspectors unrestricted access to his country. We've heard such pledges before and they have uniformly betrayed. America and the world are now watching Saddam Hussein closely. Any act of defiance or delay will indicate that he is taking the path of deception once again, and this time the consequences would be severe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, earlier this week President Bush met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan here at the White House. It became very clear that the president has a much lower threshold for what is required authorizing the use of military force against Saddam Hussein if he does not comply. The president reiterating that the policy is zero tolerance.
And, just to give you a sense of how quickly the timetable is, we're looking at some critical dates, one being Monday, November 18. That is when Blix and the weapons inspectors will be back inside, November 27 when the inspections resume, and we're looking at December 8, that's when Iraq must declare any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons program, and then late January when inspectors are going to report back to the Security Council.
Now, we expect that the president is going to be making his case against Saddam Hussein, against Iraq. He's going to be attending the NATO Summit this week in Eastern Europe. He's going to be meeting with at least a dozen world leaders and this is going to be a top priority in those meetings -- Carol.
LIN: You bet, all right thank you very much Suzanne Malveaux, live at the White House tonight. Well, even as the advance team prepares for its mission in Iraq, there is word of air strikes in the southern no-fly zone. U.S. and British planes patrolling the area fired on an Iraqi communications facility after coming under antiaircraft fire. CNN's Rym Brahimi has the latest from inside Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A tense situation here in Baghdad as Iraq prepares to welcome the head of the U.N. weapons team here on Monday. Now, a military spokesman was quoted on the Iraqi state run official newswire as saying that seven civilians had been killed in an air raid over the province of Najaf. That's about 160 kilometers south of Baghdad. Apparently, they were killed in an air raid by U.S. and British warplanes was the announcement.
Now, this comes as inspectors prepare to come back to Iraq after an absence of four years, and Iraqis are being told by the state run media, by their leaders that accepting the resolution and allowing inspectors back in was a wise decision because it will allow Iraq to come clean and to show the world it has no weapons of mass destruction, a point that was stressed again by Iraq's vice prime minister a little earlier on.
TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEP. PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Mr. Blix and Mr. Baradei will arrive in Baghdad next Monday and we will welcome them and deal with them and discuss their future work. America raised the issue of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to launch an aggression. Now, we will start to reveal the truth and they are very worried that the truth will prevail, because their lies will be exposed, God willing, and their real intentions will be clear.
BRAHIMI (voice-over): A little earlier in the day, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein addressed the Iraqi people but addressed especially the Iraqi members of parliament who had called to reject that resolution a few days before. Now, the Iraqi president explained why it was important. His statement was broadcast on Iraqi TV and was also read by the speaker of the parliament Mr. Sadoun Hammadi, the president saying that it was important because it had warded off for now the threat of a U.S. led, a unilateral U.S. led attack.
Now, this is also something that's been repeated in the media. The president also in his address said that for those members of the Security Council that were genuinely interested in trying to find out whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, well this was an opportunity for Iraq to prove to the world that the U.S. and Britain were not after disarmament but were after attacking Iraq.
BRAHIMI (on camera): Finally, the president stressed it was now up to the Security Council to do its bit and to lift the sanctions.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Monday>
