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CNN Live At Daybreak
Target: Terrorism: Interview of Former UN Weapons Inspector Richard Butler
Aired October 25, 2001 - 07:32 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush says America is winning the war against terrorism.
Let's get some thoughts on the strategy the U.S. and its allies are using right now and how it is working.
CNN's Satinder Bindra reports from Afghanistan, where Northern Alliance forces are struggling to gain more ground against Taliban fighters. Then, former UN chief weapons inspector Richard Butler will join us to talk about an Osama bin Laden-Saddam Hussein connection.
First, though, Satinder's report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As U.S. planes continue to bomb frontline Taliban positions, the Northern Alliance is urging Washington to step up such attacks.
DR. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, NORTHERN ALLIANCE FOREIGN MINISTER: It will be a much more preferable situation if we see the end of this campaign with good results, with the objectives achieved before the end of Ramadan.
BINDRA: The Muslim holy month of Ramzan, or Ramadan, begins in a few weeks. During this time, the Northern Alliance feels any more civilian casualties will cause widespread anger.
ABDULLAH: Some sort of civilian casualties are inevitable in any military campaign, that's understandable. On the other side, I think there are ways, and those ways should be used in order to avoid major civilian casualties.
BINDRA: In addition to avoiding casualties, Alliance forces warn of the precarious humanitarian conditions inside Afghanistan. The war and the sustained U.S.-led bombing campaign has driven hundreds of thousands away from their homes.
Still, the Northern Alliance recognizes that recent American attacks on frontline Taliban positions signal a more aggressive U.S. campaign to help its troops. Coinciding with these attacks, senior Alliance commanders and U.S. Army officials are also meeting to discuss military strategy. ABDULLAH: A little coordination will produce better results, there is no doubt about it, since we are fighting a common enemy.
BINDRA: The Alliance's enemy, the Taliban, still controls two strategic northern cities, Taloqan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Northern Alliance troops are engaging Taliban forces on both these fronts, but it may still be a long time before Mazar changes hands.
ABDULLAH: Still, the fighting which is going on in Mazar-e- Sharif is not in the city. It is in the area south to the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, in the districts, in the mountainous regions of Mazar- e-Sharif. Still, there will be a few more days before we could talk about the city itself.
BINDRA (on camera): In the meantime, Washington has given no clear indication that the bombing campaign will cease during the holy month of Ramadan. The United States says the airstrikes are unlikely to ease up until the Taliban is toppled and the al Qaeda network is destroyed.
Satinder Bindra, CNN, Khoja Bahawuddin, northeastern Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And we want to look now at two of the central figures in current and past conflicts, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Are the two men rivals, or do they actually support each other?
For some perspective on all that, we turn to former United Nations chief weapons inspector Ambassador Richard Butler.
Good morning.
RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER UNITED NATIONS WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to see you. How are you?
ZAHN: Thank you. I'm fine, thanks.
BUTLER: Good.
ZAHN: So tell us a little bit about any connection there is that might exist between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
BUTLER: Yes, I think it's a fascinating story, Paula. There is evidence that the Iraqi intelligence service -- Saddam Hussein's spooks -- have gone south and had meetings with Osama bin Laden. I take that as a fact. But -- but...
ZAHN: However, now these Czech officials are denying that Mohamed Atta ever came and met in Prague with these Iraqi intelligence officials, at a time when our intelligence is telling us they did.
BUTLER: Well, I have to tell you that's news to me. Until a little while ago, I understood the Czech government was saying absolutely, that they did meet and subsequently throw out of Prague, throw out of the Czech Republic, the Iraqi intelligence person, because of the mischief he was getting up to. I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: Yes, and that's a secondary report, but the bottom line remains that there have been contacts over a period of time...
BUTLER: They admit. Of course, there have been.
And you know -- this is hilarious -- there's even a report that on one of the occasions I was in Baghdad, at the Rashid Hotel, Osama bin Laden was also there. And I think it's true. I think I saw him out of the corner of my eye one day when I walked through the entranceway. He's been to Baghdad. Iraq has offered him refuge there, but of course now he's in Afghanistan.
Now what's really interesting is, those contacts aside, do these two men, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, have the same objectives? I suspect they don't.
ZAHN: Why would Saddam Hussein want a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists in his country that potentially could weaken his power base? Does that make any sense?
BUTLER: It makes no sense, and I think you're absolutely on the right track there. In one of the conversations I had in Baghdad a few years ago with Saddam's right-hand man, he made very clear to me that they have a real problem with what they call Islamic theocracies -- you know, states organized along religious lines -- because Saddam's state, although it's Muslim, is actually rather secular. It's Baath Socialist Party, but Arab and Islamic. So that's why they had a problem with Iran, because Iran is organized pretty much around religious lines.
Osama bin Laden has as his fundamental objective to take over in Saudi Arabia, the neighboring country to Iraq, and make Saudi Arabia a religious state, an Islamist state.
ZAHN: And competing with the oil supplies of Iraq.
BUTLER: Yes, yes, the two largest possessors of oil, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. I don't know that the Arab town would be big enough for the two of them, to paraphrase the Wild West.
ZAHN: Is there, though, the potential that Saddam Hussein would support Osama bin Laden to a certain point?
BUTLER: Yes, I think there is. And one thing surely they have in common is hostility to the United States.
ZAHN: Sure.
BUTLER: But if Osama bin Laden started to gain some of his political objectives in the region, I think that would give Saddam Hussein quite a deal of heartburn. So it's going to be interesting to see how these two guys play it out if Osama bin Laden survives, which we all hope he doesn't -- but there you go. ZAHN: Actually, who was it, Donald Rumsfeld, yesterday, I guess...
BUTLER: Right.
ZAHN: ... said once again, We may never get him, but certainly the Taliban will go down.
Come back to this point, though, of what the backdrop is of some people pushing to ease sanctions against Iraq.
BUTLER: Right.
ZAHN: At a time where you're seeing these other relations go off.
BUTLER: Yes, that's a real problem. There was a proposal that Secretary of State Colin Powell made a little while ago to take away all sanctions except on military goods, and I think that's a good idea. I think that's a smart idea because we're losing politically the propaganda argument about sanctions and how they hurt ordinary Iraqis and so on, which leaves aside completely the fact that Saddam's responsible for them. He could have had sanctions lifted at any time if he'd simply given us the weapons. That was the deal.
Anyway, now after September 11, I'm not sure that that proposal can be taken much further. I mean could you imagine, Paula, that people would readily accept that in this time of war against terrorism, by the way, we're going to lift sanctions on Iraq?
ZAHN: Yes, I don't think so.
BUTLER: You know I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.
ZAHN: A quick final thought for us this morning on some of the reporting that is now saying that the government is at least telling through sources that additives have been found in some of the testing of this anthrax that went to Sen. Daschle's office and that there could potentially only be three sources for the grade of anthrax that we've seen here.
BUTLER: Yes, that scientific route, forensic inquiry, is paying off. We now know that it is pretty much weapons grade anthrax, quite sophisticated stuff, small particles, additives you know added into it so that it floats through the air, and people are getting sick even though they haven't necessarily handled the envelope, that it's coming through the air -- we know all that. And now we know that there are three possible sources of that: One is here in the United States, and the others remain Iraq and the former Soviet Union.
ZAHN: But people are looking about the possibility of some sort of domestic terror group being involved in this. Is that a prospect you take seriously?
BUTLER: Yes, I do. ZAHN: Where would they have gotten this stuff?
BUTLER: Basic anthrax was readily available to anyone with a scientific license, a license to conduct research. There was once, until about 1969, a significant biological weapons industry in this country. The know-how is out there. We're the most open society in the world. You can probably learn a lot about this stuff on the Internet, for example.
But, yes, Paula, I think the possibility that this was ground at home is edging up a little. So you know, the authorities are right to be looking into that, in my opinion.
ZAHN: Yes, and if you gleaned all the newspapers this morning and when we listen to the reports we're getting for CNN, that seems to be a potential that's taken much more seriously than it was in the initial weeks.
BUTLER: Yes, I think so.
ZAHN: Ambassador Butler, thanks for joining us this morning.
BUTLER: Good to see you.
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