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Inspectors Visit Nuclear Site, Former Chemical Bio Plant

Aired December 04, 2002 - 13:05   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Weapons inspectors visited two key sites in Iraq today. One team traveled out of Baghdad to a former chemical weapons plant disarmed during past inspections. A second team entered the nuclear site destroyed by Israeli warplanes in a 1981 air strike. Details of that visit have not been released yet.
And in Washington, the White House is calling on U.N. inspectors to become more aggressive and possibly add more teams. President Bush says inspections are just the beginning. He says that only time will tell if Iraq will disarm as ordered by the U.N. Security Council.

CNN's Nic Robertson went along today on one of the two inspections in Iraq. He's just returned to Baghdad. Joins us there from now to fill us in on the latest -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we traveled with one of the teams about 120 kilometers north of Baghdad, about 70 or 80 miles, to the Al-Muthanna complex. This complex essentially the birthplace in the mid-1980s of Iraq's biological warfare development and essentially the heart of Iraq's chemical weapons production producing VX nerve gas, a lot of precursor agents.

Now the inspectors spent about five hours on that site. After they left -- they did say that they had good cooperation from Iraqi officials. But after they left, journalists were allowed onto the site. We were able to see a lot of destroyed -- what looked like to the untrained eye equipment used in the production of chemicals. There were what looked like fermentation vats full of cement. They had U.N. tag numbers on them. There was broken equipment that had clearly been -- had holes cut in it, broken bombs lying on the floor. That was the work of the U.N. inspection teams that were at the site in the 1990s. They had essentially decommissioned that site.

What we could see there, Kyra, was that -- a lot of dust, a lot of debris lying all over that equipment, apparently lying there as the U.N. had left it, unused. Again, that is from our untrained eye. We don't know what assessment the U.N. inspectors made of that equipment.

We also know today that Iraqi officials have criticized the U.N.'s inspections of a presidential palace, the Al-Sajoud presidential palace, on Tuesday, saying that -- noticing that the Iraq -- the U.N. inspectors didn't put on protective clothing when they went in, saying, therefore, there couldn't have been chemical or biological or nuclear weapons at the site, so why were they visiting?

The spokesman from Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, that's the body that deals with the U.N. inspectors here, saying that he believed that it was U.S. pressure that had led the U.N. inspectors there, calling the visit, unjustified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAM AMIN, IRAQI INSPECTIONS LIAISON: Just on the 1st of December there was a ceremony of breaking the fast in the palace -- in the -- in the Al-Sajoud palace, which had been visited by the inspection team. This means that it is impossible that you could keep any weapons of mass destruction in such a site, for example, chemical or biological or nuclear. And this is -- this is ridiculous, really.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, Kyra, there were no journalists inside that presidential palace when the inspectors were there. We did see pictures of them on Iraqi television looking in cupboards, looking in closets with flashlights, looking in different rooms. We don't know what they were looking for. We do know when they go to sites, not only do they look for equipment, but they also look for documents -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You've talked a lot about equipment, Nic, and I was reading that a large crane was brought in to one of the sites. Do you have any idea what that was for or what that could mean? Is it significant at all?

ROBERTSON: Significant, yes. The crane was used to move some large containers, the type of big metal containers you see on the back of trucks that are put on ships for exporting goods around the world. They moved a couple of those large containers up against the doors of some of the warehouses. Apparently, the U.N. inspectors wanting to ensure that there was no easy access into these warehouses containing the old bombs, containing the old equipment for Iraqi officials to get into those buildings.

When we there were, it was possible to squeeze between the containers and get into those -- get into the warehouse buildings. But it has to be said there was -- the evidence that we saw there -- at least the equipment really looked as if it had been laying idle, the bits that we saw, at least laying idle for a long time.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Nic Robertson bringing us some pretty fascinating access. Thanks, Nic, live from Baghdad.

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 4, 2002 - 13:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Weapons inspectors visited two key sites in Iraq today. One team traveled out of Baghdad to a former chemical weapons plant disarmed during past inspections. A second team entered the nuclear site destroyed by Israeli warplanes in a 1981 air strike. Details of that visit have not been released yet.
And in Washington, the White House is calling on U.N. inspectors to become more aggressive and possibly add more teams. President Bush says inspections are just the beginning. He says that only time will tell if Iraq will disarm as ordered by the U.N. Security Council.

CNN's Nic Robertson went along today on one of the two inspections in Iraq. He's just returned to Baghdad. Joins us there from now to fill us in on the latest -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we traveled with one of the teams about 120 kilometers north of Baghdad, about 70 or 80 miles, to the Al-Muthanna complex. This complex essentially the birthplace in the mid-1980s of Iraq's biological warfare development and essentially the heart of Iraq's chemical weapons production producing VX nerve gas, a lot of precursor agents.

Now the inspectors spent about five hours on that site. After they left -- they did say that they had good cooperation from Iraqi officials. But after they left, journalists were allowed onto the site. We were able to see a lot of destroyed -- what looked like to the untrained eye equipment used in the production of chemicals. There were what looked like fermentation vats full of cement. They had U.N. tag numbers on them. There was broken equipment that had clearly been -- had holes cut in it, broken bombs lying on the floor. That was the work of the U.N. inspection teams that were at the site in the 1990s. They had essentially decommissioned that site.

What we could see there, Kyra, was that -- a lot of dust, a lot of debris lying all over that equipment, apparently lying there as the U.N. had left it, unused. Again, that is from our untrained eye. We don't know what assessment the U.N. inspectors made of that equipment.

We also know today that Iraqi officials have criticized the U.N.'s inspections of a presidential palace, the Al-Sajoud presidential palace, on Tuesday, saying that -- noticing that the Iraq -- the U.N. inspectors didn't put on protective clothing when they went in, saying, therefore, there couldn't have been chemical or biological or nuclear weapons at the site, so why were they visiting?

The spokesman from Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, that's the body that deals with the U.N. inspectors here, saying that he believed that it was U.S. pressure that had led the U.N. inspectors there, calling the visit, unjustified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAM AMIN, IRAQI INSPECTIONS LIAISON: Just on the 1st of December there was a ceremony of breaking the fast in the palace -- in the -- in the Al-Sajoud palace, which had been visited by the inspection team. This means that it is impossible that you could keep any weapons of mass destruction in such a site, for example, chemical or biological or nuclear. And this is -- this is ridiculous, really.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, Kyra, there were no journalists inside that presidential palace when the inspectors were there. We did see pictures of them on Iraqi television looking in cupboards, looking in closets with flashlights, looking in different rooms. We don't know what they were looking for. We do know when they go to sites, not only do they look for equipment, but they also look for documents -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You've talked a lot about equipment, Nic, and I was reading that a large crane was brought in to one of the sites. Do you have any idea what that was for or what that could mean? Is it significant at all?

ROBERTSON: Significant, yes. The crane was used to move some large containers, the type of big metal containers you see on the back of trucks that are put on ships for exporting goods around the world. They moved a couple of those large containers up against the doors of some of the warehouses. Apparently, the U.N. inspectors wanting to ensure that there was no easy access into these warehouses containing the old bombs, containing the old equipment for Iraqi officials to get into those buildings.

When we there were, it was possible to squeeze between the containers and get into those -- get into the warehouse buildings. But it has to be said there was -- the evidence that we saw there -- at least the equipment really looked as if it had been laying idle, the bits that we saw, at least laying idle for a long time.

PHILLIPS: All right. Our Nic Robertson bringing us some pretty fascinating access. Thanks, Nic, live from Baghdad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com