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Interview with Amy Smithson

Aired April 16, 2003 - 15:43   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Many Americans remain convinced that Saddam Hussein did in fact have weapons of mass destruction. There are various theories why he did not use them during the war and why they have not been found. Our guest is Amy Smithson, who directs a project at the Stimson Center to stop the spread of chemical and biological weapons.
Ms. Smithson, good to have you with us.

AMY SMITHSON, HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER: My pleasure to be with you.

O'BRIEN: First of all, are you surprised that the U.S. military has not found any caches of weapons of mass destruction yet in Iraq?

SMITHSON: Not really. This is a rather large country. And there are so many different places where Iraq has hidden things in the past, including dumping gyroscopes in the Tigris River. And even in the few days that this war lasted, there were things found in schools and hospitals. There are a lot of places to look.

It's a big country. This is going to take some time.

O'BRIEN: Do you care to predict how much time?

SMITHSON: No, I don't have a crystal ball. I can just tell you that this is going to be a painstaking process. The Iraqis were incredibly skilled at deceiving U.N. inspectors over a series of years. They learned a lot of additional things along the way. And I'd like to give the U.N. inspectors credit for making progress, despite the Iraqis efforts in that regard. They did a lot to unravel the chemical and biological weapons programs there.

O'BRIEN: As long as you mentioned those inspectors, there are some in the U.N., Kofi Annan among them, who would like to see weapons inspectors go back to Iraq now. Is that a good idea in the sense that it would give an air of impartiality over the search? There is a lot of skepticism right now by U.S. motives all around the world.

SMITHSON: I would wholeheartedly advocate that United Nations inspectors join these teams for several reasons. Principally, because they've got a lot of expertise to lend to the effort. And they also, better than many of the soldiers who know a lot about shooting guns and tanks and the like, but are not nearly as familiar as these inspectors are with this scope of these programs, the history of these programs, the individuals that were involved in it and the sites and types of weapons they were developing. So they are important to include for those reasons. But they're also important to include for the impartiality reason that you mentioned before. There are numerous countries around the world who didn't agree with this war to begin with and who may tend to discard evidence, bona fide evidence of weapons if these inspectors are not involved.

O'BRIEN: Well give me a sense. You seem very certain that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Just for a moment, hypothetically, if none are found, where does that leave the Bush administration?

SMITHSON: I'd say that leaves the Bush administration in a rather difficult place, especially at a time when the Bush administration is repeating charges that Syria and other countries are similarly armed. So it will be very important for coalition forces, hopefully with the help of United Nations inspectors, to unearth the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction once and for all.

O'BRIEN: Amy Smithson, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

SMITHSON: My pleasure.

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 April 16, 2003 - 15:43   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Many Americans remain convinced that Saddam Hussein did in fact have weapons of mass destruction. There are various theories why he did not use them during the war and why they have not been found. Our guest is Amy Smithson, who directs a project at the Stimson Center to stop the spread of chemical and biological weapons.
Ms. Smithson, good to have you with us.

AMY SMITHSON, HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER: My pleasure to be with you.

O'BRIEN: First of all, are you surprised that the U.S. military has not found any caches of weapons of mass destruction yet in Iraq?

SMITHSON: Not really. This is a rather large country. And there are so many different places where Iraq has hidden things in the past, including dumping gyroscopes in the Tigris River. And even in the few days that this war lasted, there were things found in schools and hospitals. There are a lot of places to look.

It's a big country. This is going to take some time.

O'BRIEN: Do you care to predict how much time?

SMITHSON: No, I don't have a crystal ball. I can just tell you that this is going to be a painstaking process. The Iraqis were incredibly skilled at deceiving U.N. inspectors over a series of years. They learned a lot of additional things along the way. And I'd like to give the U.N. inspectors credit for making progress, despite the Iraqis efforts in that regard. They did a lot to unravel the chemical and biological weapons programs there.

O'BRIEN: As long as you mentioned those inspectors, there are some in the U.N., Kofi Annan among them, who would like to see weapons inspectors go back to Iraq now. Is that a good idea in the sense that it would give an air of impartiality over the search? There is a lot of skepticism right now by U.S. motives all around the world.

SMITHSON: I would wholeheartedly advocate that United Nations inspectors join these teams for several reasons. Principally, because they've got a lot of expertise to lend to the effort. And they also, better than many of the soldiers who know a lot about shooting guns and tanks and the like, but are not nearly as familiar as these inspectors are with this scope of these programs, the history of these programs, the individuals that were involved in it and the sites and types of weapons they were developing. So they are important to include for those reasons. But they're also important to include for the impartiality reason that you mentioned before. There are numerous countries around the world who didn't agree with this war to begin with and who may tend to discard evidence, bona fide evidence of weapons if these inspectors are not involved.

O'BRIEN: Well give me a sense. You seem very certain that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Just for a moment, hypothetically, if none are found, where does that leave the Bush administration?

SMITHSON: I'd say that leaves the Bush administration in a rather difficult place, especially at a time when the Bush administration is repeating charges that Syria and other countries are similarly armed. So it will be very important for coalition forces, hopefully with the help of United Nations inspectors, to unearth the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction once and for all.

O'BRIEN: Amy Smithson, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

SMITHSON: My pleasure.

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