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American Morning

America's New War: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Discusses U.S. Policy

Aired September 27, 2001 - 11:29   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A possible target in America's new war against terrorism. Let's turn now to a figure familiar with many Americans from the Gulf War, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Mr. Aziz was an Iraqi foreign minister from 1983 to 1991. He served as the main Iraqi negotiator during the Persian Gulf War, and he is the highest ranking Christian in the Iraqi government. Turik Aziz joins us from Baghdad. Welcome, Sir.

I know that President Saddam Hussein has called the terrorist attacks evil, but he says he will not offer any condolences. Are you sorry that more than 6,000 people lost their lives on September 11?

TARIQ AZIZ, IRAQI DEP. PRIME MINISTER: Well, we do not rejoice in the killing of people. That's against our morals and values. But you do not expect us to send condolences to the government which is attacking Iraq on daily basis and killing Iraqi people. This government and its previous governments committed aggression against Iraq, killed children and women, civilians, destroyed houses and many civilian Iraqi properties in the last 10 years.

But we did send condolences to the American people. I personally, under the instructions of President Saddam Hussein, sent condolences to those Americans who showed sympathy to the Iraqi people. I sent it to Mr. Ramsey Clark, who was with us during the aggression in 1991 and to Ms. Kathy Kelly (ph), who has been with us several times here living with the Iraqi people, with the children and women who are suffering from the sanctions, from the aggression. So we showed our sincere feelings toward the killing of people, but we cannot send condolences to the government which is committing aggression against us.

ZAHN: President Bush has said, either countries stand with the United States and its allies or you're with the terrorists. Does that mean you stand with the terrorists?

AZIZ: Well, allow me to say, with all respect to the president of the United States, I think, many people do not agree with them on that kind of definition. There are scores of countries who are neither with the United States nor with the terrorists and hundreds of millions of people who are in the same position.

AZIZ: Mr. Bush wants to divide the world, either with him or against him. That's not a correct and a moral division of the world. We do not condone terrorism, but at the same time we are not with the American government. And this is not our position only; is the position, as I said, of scores of governments in the world, of hundreds of millions of people.

ZAHN: You say you don't condone terrorism, and yet Iraq has been accused for many years of sponsoring state terrorism. Do you acknowledge that there...

AZIZ: Those accusations are...

ZAHN: ... is indeed contradiction there?

AZIZ: No. There is no contradiction, because those accusations are false. We do not result to terrorism. We are a political party, a revolutionary, political party. We have been in power for 33 years in Iraq, and we don't need terrorism to achieve our objectives. We have our own political means to achieve our objectives. And we are a brave people. We don't result to such means.

But also here there is one important thing. What is terrorism? Those who are accusing Iraq of terrorism are defining Palestinian Mujahedeen as terrorist -- the Lebanese Mujahedeen as terrorists. We do not agree with that.

The Palestinians who are struggling to free their country, to emancipate their country from the Zionist occupation are not terrorists. They are heroes. They are mujahedeen in our way of defining people; the same as the Lebanese. So those who are accusing Iraq, are the war mongers in Washington; we know them very well. They want to create false pretext to attack Iraq or to hurt Iraq in any way.

But Iraq is very well known. It's very well known in the region, in the Middle East and in Europe that Iraq is not a country that harbors terrorists or results to terrorism.

ZAHN: All right. But the United States government says that, in 1998, a meeting actually took place between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials. There is another report out this week confirmed by the U.S. government saying that Iraqi operatives actually met with one of the suspected hijackers, Mohamed Atta, earlier this year.

AZIZ: Well, these are false reports. As I said, we don't know Mr. bin Laden. We don't have any contact with him. We don't have any relationship with the Taliban government.

The person who represents Afghanistan in Iraq belongs to the Rabbani government not to Taliban. We do not recognize Taliban, and we don't know these people.

With all respects to everybody, I am not criticizing them or saying good or bad things against them.

But this is a fact, we don't have such a relationship, and all these reports are false and are being used by some sources, as I said, in order to use them as a pretext to hurt Iraq and to commit aggression against Iraq.

ZAHN: You say you have no contact with Osama bin Laden. And yet, once again...

AZIZ: We have not contact, because we do not need it.

ZAHN: And why don't you need?

AZIZ: Simply, because we don't need it. We have our political objectives and our political means, and we do not resort to such ways in order to achieve our objectives. We are very well known.

As I said, we have been in power for 33 years. We are not newcomers to be defined according to the whims of some circus in Washington. Many people in this world know us -- Europeans, even Americans, people in the Middle East and in the world at large, they know what Iraq is, what the government of Iraq is, what the leaders of Iraq are. We are not terrorists and we do not use terrorism. We do not condone terrorism.

But that doesn't mean that we have to side with the American government. The American government is wrong. The American government is a war monger. It's committing aggression against Iraq.

ZAHN: The signal is breaking up here, sir. We're having a little trouble with the transmission here.

Does the Iraqi government know where Osama bin Laden is today?

AZIZ: No, we don't know. We don't know the man, and we don't know his whereabouts, you see.

ZAHN: Let's move on to the issue of weapons. Iraq has used chemical weapons against Iran and against Kurdish refugees. Have you ever shared any of that technology with Afghans?

AZIZ: With Afghan? As I said, we don't have any relationship with the Afghans. How could we share this technology with the Afghans, and the Afghans are not that famous of technology. This is really sarcastic.

ZAHN: Well, I didn't mean it in that vain. But there have been no inspections -- weapons inspections in your country for two and a half years now.

AZIZ: There were inspections in Iraq for seven and a half years. They completed their work. They withdraw as a preparation for the aggression that took place in December 1998, and therefore, they finished their job. They misbehaved. They acted as spies for the American government, and there is no room for them to return to Iraq.

Why should only inspections be on Iraq? Why not in Israel, for instance? The Israelis have nuclear weapons, many other weapons -- chemical, biological. Why don't they send inspectors to Israel and to other countries in the region? Why do they single out Iraq for that?

ZAHN: Well, I can't speak for the U.S. government. But I can ask you this question, can you tell us unequivocally today that Iraq has no chemical or biological weapons or the ability to deliver a weapon of mass destruction?

AZIZ: Yes. We don't have. All those materials were inspected, destroyed, long ago. And Iraq doesn't have any biological or chemical or weapons, you see, under any means to use them against any country or any place. I say that...

ZAHN: If that's the case, Mr. Aziz, why don't you allow inspections and prove that?

AZIZ: Because why they single out Iraq for that. There are spies -- they were spies. Spying not for this purpose, but spying in order to provide information for the American intelligence agencies to eliminate the Iraqi leadership and to attack Iraq and commit aggression against Iraq. That's what they did in the past. And it's not only my view, it's the view even of those people who participated in those kinds of spying on Iraq.

ZAHN: Mr. Aziz, we have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time today.

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