Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

White House Calling Iraq Find Serious, Troubling

Aired January 17, 2003 - 14:19   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: Follow-up today to the discovery of chemical warheads by U.N. inspectors in Iraq. The White House is calling the find serious and troubling. But despite that it's still far from certain this is the smoking gun that proves Iraq's harboring weapons of mass destruction.
To talk more about this, terrorism expert and national security analyst Ken Robinson.

Ken, what did you find as you were investigating this story?

KEN ROBINSON, NATL. SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's interesting, Kyra, that the past is a prologue. We're sitting, looking at some research from 1991, and 1991, the 82nd airborne division destroyed a chemical weapons facility at Camacea (ph). They destroyed that facility, thinking they were destroying high-explosive 122 millimeter rounds, the same type of rockets whiff were found yesterday. However, the Iraqis did a terrible job of marking these rounds, and when they were destroyed, the 82nd assumed at the time that these were conventional munitions.

Later, we now learned that that caused the plume, which then caused the release of low sarins on the battlefield. Now we have The Iraqi making the same excuse yesterday they failed to properly mark their rounds and that these rounds were left over from the Gulf War.

PHILLIPS: So let's say the Iraqis continue to say we may have a number of other mistakes in our accounting practices. Could this be a threat to inspectors? You were talking about sarin gas being released in previous years. What about now? Is there a threat that maybe inspectors may come upon and not know it?

ROBINSON: There is an enormous threat there, because Iraq was constantly procuring these weapons and distributing them throughout the battlefield. The largest issue, the thing the administration has been making the same point, which is, it's not the responsibility of the United Nations special commission to go out and find these things, it's the responsibility of the Iraqi government to present them and to allow them to be destroyed under supervision.

PHILLIPS: So this is not necessarily a smoking gun, but it sounds like you're saying, definitely an act of deception?

ROBINSON: Well, I'm not even sure we can say it's an act of deception. It may be an act of sloppy accounting on the part of the Iraqis. The -- when 12 rounds were found at Filuga (ph), and Filuga (ph) is another weapons storage location in Iraq, in 1991, and the Iraqis said, well, those rounds came from Ukider (ph), the same place in which we found the rockets yesterday. And at the time, the community was disturbed because they thought there may have ban chemical release at Ukider (ph) from coalition bombing, so they did modeling at the time, and then later the intelligence community in 2002 put out a report in which they said that they attributed those rounds found at Ukider (ph) in 1987 to have been from the Iran-Iraq war, which interestingly, is the same excuse given by the Iraqis yesterday.

PHILLIPS: So my final question, this discovery, will it change the inspection process from here on out, taking a look at the possible threat and what we see from the past?

ROBINSON: Well, I'm sure they're proceeding with extreme caution. What will be interesting will be any chemical tests which come up on the rounds which were found yesterday, to see if there's any precursors, or any evidence those rounds had been weaponized, and what the purity of that test will show.

So really, it's still the wait and see for UNMOVIC to release their report on what they determine.

PHILLIPS: Terrorism expert, Ken Robinson. Thanks Ken.

ROBINSON: 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 January 17, 2003 - 14:19   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Follow-up today to the discovery of chemical warheads by U.N. inspectors in Iraq. The White House is calling the find serious and troubling. But despite that it's still far from certain this is the smoking gun that proves Iraq's harboring weapons of mass destruction.
To talk more about this, terrorism expert and national security analyst Ken Robinson.

Ken, what did you find as you were investigating this story?

KEN ROBINSON, NATL. SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's interesting, Kyra, that the past is a prologue. We're sitting, looking at some research from 1991, and 1991, the 82nd airborne division destroyed a chemical weapons facility at Camacea (ph). They destroyed that facility, thinking they were destroying high-explosive 122 millimeter rounds, the same type of rockets whiff were found yesterday. However, the Iraqis did a terrible job of marking these rounds, and when they were destroyed, the 82nd assumed at the time that these were conventional munitions.

Later, we now learned that that caused the plume, which then caused the release of low sarins on the battlefield. Now we have The Iraqi making the same excuse yesterday they failed to properly mark their rounds and that these rounds were left over from the Gulf War.

PHILLIPS: So let's say the Iraqis continue to say we may have a number of other mistakes in our accounting practices. Could this be a threat to inspectors? You were talking about sarin gas being released in previous years. What about now? Is there a threat that maybe inspectors may come upon and not know it?

ROBINSON: There is an enormous threat there, because Iraq was constantly procuring these weapons and distributing them throughout the battlefield. The largest issue, the thing the administration has been making the same point, which is, it's not the responsibility of the United Nations special commission to go out and find these things, it's the responsibility of the Iraqi government to present them and to allow them to be destroyed under supervision.

PHILLIPS: So this is not necessarily a smoking gun, but it sounds like you're saying, definitely an act of deception?

ROBINSON: Well, I'm not even sure we can say it's an act of deception. It may be an act of sloppy accounting on the part of the Iraqis. The -- when 12 rounds were found at Filuga (ph), and Filuga (ph) is another weapons storage location in Iraq, in 1991, and the Iraqis said, well, those rounds came from Ukider (ph), the same place in which we found the rockets yesterday. And at the time, the community was disturbed because they thought there may have ban chemical release at Ukider (ph) from coalition bombing, so they did modeling at the time, and then later the intelligence community in 2002 put out a report in which they said that they attributed those rounds found at Ukider (ph) in 1987 to have been from the Iran-Iraq war, which interestingly, is the same excuse given by the Iraqis yesterday.

PHILLIPS: So my final question, this discovery, will it change the inspection process from here on out, taking a look at the possible threat and what we see from the past?

ROBINSON: Well, I'm sure they're proceeding with extreme caution. What will be interesting will be any chemical tests which come up on the rounds which were found yesterday, to see if there's any precursors, or any evidence those rounds had been weaponized, and what the purity of that test will show.

So really, it's still the wait and see for UNMOVIC to release their report on what they determine.

PHILLIPS: Terrorism expert, Ken Robinson. Thanks Ken.

ROBINSON: 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