Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

What Was Going On in Saddam's Mind, Can we Trust Tariq Aziz?

Aired November 03, 2003 - 14:17   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: The mind of Saddam Hussein. American military officials are still wondering what he was thinking when he didn't use weapons of mass destruction to defend Baghdad. Was he bluffing? Tariq Aziz, Hussein's former deputy prime minister, has been cooperating with U.S. interrogators. Aziz says that his boss never ordered the use of chemical or biological weapons because he didn't have any.
Now according to "The Washington Post," Aziz says, "Iraq did not possess stocks of chemical or biological or nuclear weapons on the eve of the war. Yet Hussein personally ordered several secret programs to build or buy long-range missiles in defiance of international sanctions."

What was he thinking? Ken Pollack, senior fellow and director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution joins us from Washington to talk more about it. Ken, great to see you.

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Good to see you, Kyra. Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: It's always a pleasure. We were talking about Tariq Aziz. How do you define this man but political manipulator? Do you believe anything that he says anyway?

POLLACK: Well, I think obviously you want to listen to what he has to say because he is one of a few people who may know what Saddam Hussein had going on in his head. And, of course, that is a great mystery right now.

By the same token, you got to take whatever he says with more than a few grains of salt. Tariq Aziz has been lying for his entire life. That is how he got where he is. As best we can tell, he's lied to the other Iraqis, he's lied within the system, and, of course, he spent a lot of time lying to other people.

He has incentives to tell Westerners what he thinks they want to hear or what he thinks will help him out what is a tight situation for him. You got to be careful.

PHILLIPS: Obviously, every case is different. Form an intelligence perspective, when you get someone like Tariq Aziz right off the battlefield, is he better with regard to information right when the coals are hot or later on down the road or vice versa?

POLLACK: It really depends on the person's state of mind when he or she is captured.

If a person comes in and they're very scared and they're in a psychologically vulnerable state of mind, that's a moment when an interrogator might have the greatest success in getting them to reveal secrets that they might want to keep to themselves.

When other people are captured, they're concerned and nervous, and they don't want to say anything and it takes a prolonged period of interrogation to get them to reveal anything.

PHILLIPS: You got to look for their weaknesses and tear down the psychological defenses and see where you go as you pick this person apart?

POLLACK: Exactly. This is the skills of an interrogator. It's important to keep in mind that these kind of interrogations, are as much and probably more art than science.

What good interrogators do is start to get a feel for the person. What his or her strengths are, what their weaknesses are, what kind of psychological defenses they're trying to use to keep the information hidden, what kinds of lines of attack they can develop to get beyond those psychological defenses and get the person to reveal the information he or she doesn't want to reveal.

PHILLIPS: Now we look at the situation now in Iraq. We haven't seen active WMD, we haven't seen these massive attacks with WMD. But we have seen a lot of missile attacks. We have seen a lot of soldiers die. It sort of makes sense then what allegedly is coming out of the mouth of Tariq Aziz?

POLLACK: Sure. What Tariq Aziz is saying does seem to be consistent what we've seen so far. To date, U.S. weapons inspectors have not been able to find stockpiles of biological agents or signs of an active nuclear program.

So it is plausible what Tariq Aziz is saying. Particularly "The Post" piece you mentioned at the beginning of the segment also pointed out that there are Iraqis who have said Saddam Hussein went to chemical engineers and personnel and special programs and said, How long will it take me to reconstitute a chemical warfare program? And he was told it would take no time at all, we can do it quickly.

What Aziz is saying is because of that he decided to put his effort on the missiles, which would take a lot longer to develop.

PHILLIPS: Ken, always a pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you.

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




Aziz?>


Aired November 3, 2003 - 14:17   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The mind of Saddam Hussein. American military officials are still wondering what he was thinking when he didn't use weapons of mass destruction to defend Baghdad. Was he bluffing? Tariq Aziz, Hussein's former deputy prime minister, has been cooperating with U.S. interrogators. Aziz says that his boss never ordered the use of chemical or biological weapons because he didn't have any.
Now according to "The Washington Post," Aziz says, "Iraq did not possess stocks of chemical or biological or nuclear weapons on the eve of the war. Yet Hussein personally ordered several secret programs to build or buy long-range missiles in defiance of international sanctions."

What was he thinking? Ken Pollack, senior fellow and director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution joins us from Washington to talk more about it. Ken, great to see you.

KEN POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Good to see you, Kyra. Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: It's always a pleasure. We were talking about Tariq Aziz. How do you define this man but political manipulator? Do you believe anything that he says anyway?

POLLACK: Well, I think obviously you want to listen to what he has to say because he is one of a few people who may know what Saddam Hussein had going on in his head. And, of course, that is a great mystery right now.

By the same token, you got to take whatever he says with more than a few grains of salt. Tariq Aziz has been lying for his entire life. That is how he got where he is. As best we can tell, he's lied to the other Iraqis, he's lied within the system, and, of course, he spent a lot of time lying to other people.

He has incentives to tell Westerners what he thinks they want to hear or what he thinks will help him out what is a tight situation for him. You got to be careful.

PHILLIPS: Obviously, every case is different. Form an intelligence perspective, when you get someone like Tariq Aziz right off the battlefield, is he better with regard to information right when the coals are hot or later on down the road or vice versa?

POLLACK: It really depends on the person's state of mind when he or she is captured.

If a person comes in and they're very scared and they're in a psychologically vulnerable state of mind, that's a moment when an interrogator might have the greatest success in getting them to reveal secrets that they might want to keep to themselves.

When other people are captured, they're concerned and nervous, and they don't want to say anything and it takes a prolonged period of interrogation to get them to reveal anything.

PHILLIPS: You got to look for their weaknesses and tear down the psychological defenses and see where you go as you pick this person apart?

POLLACK: Exactly. This is the skills of an interrogator. It's important to keep in mind that these kind of interrogations, are as much and probably more art than science.

What good interrogators do is start to get a feel for the person. What his or her strengths are, what their weaknesses are, what kind of psychological defenses they're trying to use to keep the information hidden, what kinds of lines of attack they can develop to get beyond those psychological defenses and get the person to reveal the information he or she doesn't want to reveal.

PHILLIPS: Now we look at the situation now in Iraq. We haven't seen active WMD, we haven't seen these massive attacks with WMD. But we have seen a lot of missile attacks. We have seen a lot of soldiers die. It sort of makes sense then what allegedly is coming out of the mouth of Tariq Aziz?

POLLACK: Sure. What Tariq Aziz is saying does seem to be consistent what we've seen so far. To date, U.S. weapons inspectors have not been able to find stockpiles of biological agents or signs of an active nuclear program.

So it is plausible what Tariq Aziz is saying. Particularly "The Post" piece you mentioned at the beginning of the segment also pointed out that there are Iraqis who have said Saddam Hussein went to chemical engineers and personnel and special programs and said, How long will it take me to reconstitute a chemical warfare program? And he was told it would take no time at all, we can do it quickly.

What Aziz is saying is because of that he decided to put his effort on the missiles, which would take a lot longer to develop.

PHILLIPS: Ken, always a pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you.

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




Aziz?>