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Inspectors Search Chemical Complex
Aired December 09, 2002 - 13:17 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: In Iraq, a team of weapons inspectors visited a chemical warehouse and production facility 55 miles northwest of Baghdad, a facility Iraq claims was built during the Gulf War and is now inactive.
More on this from our senior national correspondent Nic Robertson. He's live in the Iraqi capital.
Nic, is it indeed inactive?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we went to that site with the weapons inspectors today. They went in, we stayed outside. They took four hours to do their job. When they left, we were taken in by the director of the plant. No, it is active. They say that it was bombed in '91, it was bombed in '98, each time they rebuilt it. After they built it in the -- rebuilt it in the mid-'90s, it came under U.N. monitoring.
Now the U.N. believed that it was a plant that was used at one time to make precursor chemicals for the nerve agent program that Iraq had. Now -- right now the director there told us that it makes phenol and chlorine products, such things as water purification and detergents. Those are the type of products he says it makes now.
Now one of the interesting things that happened there today, he told us that when the inspectors went on the site, and some of these inspectors were new inspectors, only just arrived in country yesterday, they split into two teams. One team spent three-and-a-half hours interviewing the two directors of the plant there.
I asked him would he be prepared, as it can be called for in the U.N. Resolution 1441, to leave the country and be interviewed outside of the country? He said, no, that he was an Iraqi. He would be happy to be interviewed in Iraq. He would be happy to do it in private.
This, Kyra, is something we've heard from inspectors from the directors of plants at the two other sites that were visited today. This is quite a new thing emerging from Iraqi officials, that they don't want to leave the country, they're quite happy to be interviewed here -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, Nic, how will the inspections change over the next couple of weeks?
ROBERTSON: We're going to see more inspectors arriving. In 25 yesterday, 20 to 30 tomorrow. They were expecting to see the number of teams ramping up from two, but it's been recently up to eight teams going out fairly quickly.
Also, the U.N. has a helicopter that came in over the weekend. That helicopter came in on an aircraft. It's having the rotor blades fitted. It's being equipped ready for flight. It's going to move off to a base south of Baghdad. It's the first of a fleet of eight.
The U.N. also hopes to open offices in the north and the south of the country. So what we're going to see is more people on the ground, more mobility and a spreading out of the operations moving it well away from Baghdad -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So, Nic, are -- one more question, are employees of these plants speaking freely? Do you get that sense? And I -- because there's been talk that maybe there's a lot of pressure on them to say specific things and would they leave country to do interviews, say, in the United States?
ROBERTSON: Well, the first part of the question, it was interesting today that from the three different facilities visited, roughly the same message emerging. Now of course it's been an issue over the weekend, so it's been something people are thinking about and asking questions about, but interesting to hear that from all three different facilities.
The impression we had at the facility we went to was that the plant manager spoke freely. He would be unlikely to be a plant manager there unless he was a reasonably senior official within the country. So I think perhaps that answers that part of the question.
When it comes to leaving to go to the United States, in the past the people that have wanted to leave are people who have had a reason to defect, people who have had a reason to believe they might reasonably get their families out with them as well. Those people are very unlikely to be sort of making that kind of gesture to the inspectors publicly known -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Nic Robertson live from Baghdad. Thanks, Nic.
And for the very latest on the Showdown with Iraq, you can depend on CNN, of course. Go to our Web site CNN.com. AOL keyword, CNN. Once you're there, you'll find in depth reporting, interactive maps and a history of the conflict. CNN.com.
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 9, 2002 - 13:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Iraq, a team of weapons inspectors visited a chemical warehouse and production facility 55 miles northwest of Baghdad, a facility Iraq claims was built during the Gulf War and is now inactive.
More on this from our senior national correspondent Nic Robertson. He's live in the Iraqi capital.
Nic, is it indeed inactive?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we went to that site with the weapons inspectors today. They went in, we stayed outside. They took four hours to do their job. When they left, we were taken in by the director of the plant. No, it is active. They say that it was bombed in '91, it was bombed in '98, each time they rebuilt it. After they built it in the -- rebuilt it in the mid-'90s, it came under U.N. monitoring.
Now the U.N. believed that it was a plant that was used at one time to make precursor chemicals for the nerve agent program that Iraq had. Now -- right now the director there told us that it makes phenol and chlorine products, such things as water purification and detergents. Those are the type of products he says it makes now.
Now one of the interesting things that happened there today, he told us that when the inspectors went on the site, and some of these inspectors were new inspectors, only just arrived in country yesterday, they split into two teams. One team spent three-and-a-half hours interviewing the two directors of the plant there.
I asked him would he be prepared, as it can be called for in the U.N. Resolution 1441, to leave the country and be interviewed outside of the country? He said, no, that he was an Iraqi. He would be happy to be interviewed in Iraq. He would be happy to do it in private.
This, Kyra, is something we've heard from inspectors from the directors of plants at the two other sites that were visited today. This is quite a new thing emerging from Iraqi officials, that they don't want to leave the country, they're quite happy to be interviewed here -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, Nic, how will the inspections change over the next couple of weeks?
ROBERTSON: We're going to see more inspectors arriving. In 25 yesterday, 20 to 30 tomorrow. They were expecting to see the number of teams ramping up from two, but it's been recently up to eight teams going out fairly quickly.
Also, the U.N. has a helicopter that came in over the weekend. That helicopter came in on an aircraft. It's having the rotor blades fitted. It's being equipped ready for flight. It's going to move off to a base south of Baghdad. It's the first of a fleet of eight.
The U.N. also hopes to open offices in the north and the south of the country. So what we're going to see is more people on the ground, more mobility and a spreading out of the operations moving it well away from Baghdad -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So, Nic, are -- one more question, are employees of these plants speaking freely? Do you get that sense? And I -- because there's been talk that maybe there's a lot of pressure on them to say specific things and would they leave country to do interviews, say, in the United States?
ROBERTSON: Well, the first part of the question, it was interesting today that from the three different facilities visited, roughly the same message emerging. Now of course it's been an issue over the weekend, so it's been something people are thinking about and asking questions about, but interesting to hear that from all three different facilities.
The impression we had at the facility we went to was that the plant manager spoke freely. He would be unlikely to be a plant manager there unless he was a reasonably senior official within the country. So I think perhaps that answers that part of the question.
When it comes to leaving to go to the United States, in the past the people that have wanted to leave are people who have had a reason to defect, people who have had a reason to believe they might reasonably get their families out with them as well. Those people are very unlikely to be sort of making that kind of gesture to the inspectors publicly known -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Nic Robertson live from Baghdad. Thanks, Nic.
And for the very latest on the Showdown with Iraq, you can depend on CNN, of course. Go to our Web site CNN.com. AOL keyword, CNN. Once you're there, you'll find in depth reporting, interactive maps and a history of the conflict. CNN.com.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
