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CNN Live At Daybreak

No Official Iraqi Response to Cheney

Aired August 27, 2002 - 05:29   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have brought you Vice President Dick Cheney's case for an attack on Iraq. Now we want to get reaction from the Iraqis.
And for that we go live to Baghdad and our James Martone -- good morning, James.

JAMES MARTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, today in Baghdad so far no official response to those statements. The newspapers this morning don't address them directly, but they do call U.S. policy towards Iraq "cowboyish," "arrogant," they say. The president of the country, President Saddam Hussein, has not addressed those. We saw him recently on television where he's speaking to his different ministers.

His vice president, however, in newspaper reports this morning does address the issue of weapons inspectors, says that he would be open to those, Iraq would be open to those and also condemns what he says is U.S. aggressive policies.

Now, interesting in town today -- and he's just left, in fact, was the foreign minister of Qatar. He was in town. He arrived yesterday saying I've come to avert, to try and avert on behalf of Arabs what would be a terrible shock for the Arab world and for the region if there is any sort of attacks on Iraq. That's basically the tone of the Arab countries. Iraq does feel that they do have support of most Arab countries.

Also, Naji Sabril, the foreign minister of Iraq, is off as we speak. He's in China. He's supposed to go from there to Moscow. Both Russia and China are permanent members of the security council and, very important, sympathetic to Iraq. Iraq is very much under a diplomatic campaign to try and avert any sort of bombing.

The Cheney remarks come in light of what Iraqis say are very numerous statements out of the U.S., out of Washington that lead them to believe that an attack here is almost unavoidable. As for people, people, regular people you talk to on the street, they say that they think there will be an attack. They also say that this is something we've seen before, they've seen for 10 years, that it's something they're used to. But there is a sense here that something is up and people have, according to diplomats and even a few times we've seen people buying more, perhaps, soap, more flour, things that they wouldn't normally buy so much of before in apprehension of an attack -- Atlanta? COSTELLO: James, is Saddam Hussein preparing his military for a fight? I mean what is he doing physically to prepare for a possible war?

MARTONE: Good question. It's very hard to gauge from here. Not a lot is said about what the military is doing. Diplomats we have spoken to here in Baghdad do say there are what they call some sort of reinforcements around cities, meaning that there's an up stepped presence of military in different cities around Iraq. A diplomat we spoke to recently also said that perhaps that is, in his view, he said, probably to avoid any internal problems that could arise.

But so it's very much invisibly to us when you walk around. It's not so much different than perhaps last year or the year before. But the thought is, according to diplomats, that there is some sort of military, let's say, readiness that wasn't there perhaps several months ago -- Atlanta.

COSTELLO: All right, James Martone, thank you very much for that report, live from Baghdad.

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