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CNN Live Saturday
U.S. Remains Skeptical as Iraq Starts Destroying Missiles
Aired March 01, 2003 - 17:26 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: Countries pushing for a diplomatic end to the Iraqi crisis point to the news that Baghdad's actually started destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles, and they see it as a sign that inspections are working. The U.S., however, remains skeptical, so we brought in CNN analyst Kenneth Pollack to join us to talk a little bit more about that. He's with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute. Ken, good to see you.
KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Good to see you, Carol. Thanks for having me.
LIN: And happy to have you. What was your reaction when you finally heard that they've began at least destroying four missiles?
POLLACK: Well, I was kind of relieved since I was predicting all along that they were going to do so. I think it was entirely to be expected, to be honest with you. This was one where I think it was somewhat painful for Saddam to give on this. They had put quite a bit of resources into the Al Samoud 2 missile program. It was intended to be the test bed for longer range missile development. I think it was something that Saddam considered a very important element of his weapons of mass destruction program.
With that said, it was clearly something that he could give up to avert a war against Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition. It was the kind of thing which is important to him, but not so important that he couldn't afford to give it up if it was necessary. And in so doing, really buy a lot of international support. And as we all know, because he said it publicly, that's exactly what Saddam is trying to do. He's trying to play the international public opinion and hope that international public opinion tries to prevent the United States. So it's a good way for him to show that he's cooperating to make it seem as if he's really going along with disarmament.
LIN: So we have now the destruction of at least four Al Samoud 2 missiles. We've got conversations, ongoing conversations between the Iraqis and U.N. weapons inspectors tomorrow about their VX nerve gas program, as well as private interviews now with Iraqi scientists. Does this indicate that Saddam Hussein is ready to comply with Resolution 1441 and avoid war?
POLLACK: I would say no. Obviously, other people are going to see it differently. But again, what we're seeing from Iraq is the Iraqis doing the absolute minimum necessary to actually make it seem as if they are complying. Everything that the U.N. has asked them to do, they're doing, at least in small doses so that they can say, hey, you asked for this, we're doing it. You asked for that, we're doing it.
But you heard Mr. Blix in his report say that, still, Iraqi cooperation overall has been really quite limited. And that's the whole point. Iraqis aren't interested in complying. Saddam has said very publicly, his intention is just to wait out this entire crisis. And they're trying to dole out little dribs and drabs of cooperation to feed the anti-war sentiment, which they know is very strong, very pronounced, and giving a real problem to the Bush administration.
LIN: So how is this likely to affect the U.N. Security Council, which meets on Tuesday, and the vote on the second resolution that will be coming up in the next couple of weeks?
POLLACK: I think probably the best way to put it, Carol, is that it's not going to help the Bush administration. It doesn't necessarily hurt them, because the fact of the matter is, at this point in time, the Bush administration is counting on getting the votes based on old-fashioned diplomacy. They're not expecting that the Iraqis are going to do something so foolish that it will make it clear that they're not interested in complying. They're also not expecting to get a whole lot of help from Mr. Blix, Dr. ElBaradei, any of the inspectors. They're expecting to have to do this on their own, by going to all the different countries and saying, look, you know what the score is, it's time to take care of this guy, we gave him his last chance, we want to go to war, and we're going to have you on board, we're going to get you on board through old-fashioned diplomacy, horse trading.
But it would have been very useful to the Bush administration if the Iraqis had been seen as not complying, because that might have turned public opinion around. And really, public opinion is a hindrance to the Bush administration, because it's putting a brake on these countries who have basically said they'd like to be supportive, but they don't want to go against their publics.
LIN: So, Ken, what do you think is going to happen next, then?
POLLACK: Well, I think that the Bush administration did get an important win today. You know, the other story of the day that you have been talking about, you talked about with Peter Bergen, the big break in the al Qaeda issue, arresting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. That's what the Bush administration is going to play up. And they're going to be able to go back and say, look, a lot of our critics were saying that we shouldn't go to war with Iraq because it would be a distraction from the war on terrorism. Well, as you can see, we are prosecuting the war on terrorism and we're making big strides, big progress there.
So I think that they will focus very heavily on that to try to work on public opinion. I think they've also got a very important decision to make on Turkey. Do they allow the 4th Infantry Division's equipment to continue to sit off the Turkish ports, or do they send them down to Kuwait? And that's an important decision.
Turkey was important to have those troops in place, not so much militarily. Militarily we can do this all out of Kuwait and still win the war, but politically they were very important to reassure both the Kurds and the Turks that we would be there to prevent either of them from taking unilateral action. So I think they've got a big decision to make on Turkey. And then beyond that, I think they're going to go back to the U.N. and they are going to keep trying to work on the non- permanent members diplomatically to bring them around, going to each of the African countries, to Chile, to all these other countries, and saying, what does it take you to get to yes?
LIN: A lot is going to happen in the next 14 days. It will be interesting to watch. Thank you very much, Kenneth Pollack.
POLLACK: You're welcome.
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 March 1, 2003 - 17:26 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Countries pushing for a diplomatic end to the Iraqi crisis point to the news that Baghdad's actually started destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles, and they see it as a sign that inspections are working. The U.S., however, remains skeptical, so we brought in CNN analyst Kenneth Pollack to join us to talk a little bit more about that. He's with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute. Ken, good to see you.
KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Good to see you, Carol. Thanks for having me.
LIN: And happy to have you. What was your reaction when you finally heard that they've began at least destroying four missiles?
POLLACK: Well, I was kind of relieved since I was predicting all along that they were going to do so. I think it was entirely to be expected, to be honest with you. This was one where I think it was somewhat painful for Saddam to give on this. They had put quite a bit of resources into the Al Samoud 2 missile program. It was intended to be the test bed for longer range missile development. I think it was something that Saddam considered a very important element of his weapons of mass destruction program.
With that said, it was clearly something that he could give up to avert a war against Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition. It was the kind of thing which is important to him, but not so important that he couldn't afford to give it up if it was necessary. And in so doing, really buy a lot of international support. And as we all know, because he said it publicly, that's exactly what Saddam is trying to do. He's trying to play the international public opinion and hope that international public opinion tries to prevent the United States. So it's a good way for him to show that he's cooperating to make it seem as if he's really going along with disarmament.
LIN: So we have now the destruction of at least four Al Samoud 2 missiles. We've got conversations, ongoing conversations between the Iraqis and U.N. weapons inspectors tomorrow about their VX nerve gas program, as well as private interviews now with Iraqi scientists. Does this indicate that Saddam Hussein is ready to comply with Resolution 1441 and avoid war?
POLLACK: I would say no. Obviously, other people are going to see it differently. But again, what we're seeing from Iraq is the Iraqis doing the absolute minimum necessary to actually make it seem as if they are complying. Everything that the U.N. has asked them to do, they're doing, at least in small doses so that they can say, hey, you asked for this, we're doing it. You asked for that, we're doing it.
But you heard Mr. Blix in his report say that, still, Iraqi cooperation overall has been really quite limited. And that's the whole point. Iraqis aren't interested in complying. Saddam has said very publicly, his intention is just to wait out this entire crisis. And they're trying to dole out little dribs and drabs of cooperation to feed the anti-war sentiment, which they know is very strong, very pronounced, and giving a real problem to the Bush administration.
LIN: So how is this likely to affect the U.N. Security Council, which meets on Tuesday, and the vote on the second resolution that will be coming up in the next couple of weeks?
POLLACK: I think probably the best way to put it, Carol, is that it's not going to help the Bush administration. It doesn't necessarily hurt them, because the fact of the matter is, at this point in time, the Bush administration is counting on getting the votes based on old-fashioned diplomacy. They're not expecting that the Iraqis are going to do something so foolish that it will make it clear that they're not interested in complying. They're also not expecting to get a whole lot of help from Mr. Blix, Dr. ElBaradei, any of the inspectors. They're expecting to have to do this on their own, by going to all the different countries and saying, look, you know what the score is, it's time to take care of this guy, we gave him his last chance, we want to go to war, and we're going to have you on board, we're going to get you on board through old-fashioned diplomacy, horse trading.
But it would have been very useful to the Bush administration if the Iraqis had been seen as not complying, because that might have turned public opinion around. And really, public opinion is a hindrance to the Bush administration, because it's putting a brake on these countries who have basically said they'd like to be supportive, but they don't want to go against their publics.
LIN: So, Ken, what do you think is going to happen next, then?
POLLACK: Well, I think that the Bush administration did get an important win today. You know, the other story of the day that you have been talking about, you talked about with Peter Bergen, the big break in the al Qaeda issue, arresting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. That's what the Bush administration is going to play up. And they're going to be able to go back and say, look, a lot of our critics were saying that we shouldn't go to war with Iraq because it would be a distraction from the war on terrorism. Well, as you can see, we are prosecuting the war on terrorism and we're making big strides, big progress there.
So I think that they will focus very heavily on that to try to work on public opinion. I think they've also got a very important decision to make on Turkey. Do they allow the 4th Infantry Division's equipment to continue to sit off the Turkish ports, or do they send them down to Kuwait? And that's an important decision.
Turkey was important to have those troops in place, not so much militarily. Militarily we can do this all out of Kuwait and still win the war, but politically they were very important to reassure both the Kurds and the Turks that we would be there to prevent either of them from taking unilateral action. So I think they've got a big decision to make on Turkey. And then beyond that, I think they're going to go back to the U.N. and they are going to keep trying to work on the non- permanent members diplomatically to bring them around, going to each of the African countries, to Chile, to all these other countries, and saying, what does it take you to get to yes?
LIN: A lot is going to happen in the next 14 days. It will be interesting to watch. Thank you very much, Kenneth Pollack.
POLLACK: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
