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American Morning
Richard Butler's Views on Iraq's Reaction to the President's Comment
Aired November 28, 2001 - 07:30 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: The Northern Alliance, with the help of U.S. forces in the air and now on the ground, forced the Taliban out of most of the areas it once controlled. The Marine landing this week is something we, of course, have been discussing in great detail. We're going to come back to that a little bit later on.
But what we want to talk about now is the continued fallout from the president's comments about Iraq on Monday.
We are joined by Richard Butler of the Council on Foreign Relations who is the former chief U.N. weapons inspector and our ambassador in residence -- good morning.
RICHARD BUTLER, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: So after you talked quite pointedly about your...
BUTLER: Right.
ZAHN: ... reaction to what the president had said, shortly thereafter yesterday, the Iraqis basically said...
BUTLER: Get lost.
ZAHN: ... get out of here, get lost.
BUTLER: They made...
ZAHN: You weren't surprised by that.
BUTLER: They -- no...
ZAHN: You expected them to have that reaction.
BUTLER: Absolutely, but they made it crystal clear they have no intention of bending to the president's demand that arms control inspectors be let back into Iraq. They say lift all sanctions first and then we'll think about it. They don't -- they don't even say then we'll do it, they say we'll think about it. And they go on to say, by the way, we have no weapons of mass destruction.
Paula, this is a crucial point. The president of the United States said if we find that they're developing weapons of mass destruction, we'll take action against them. And yesterday we discussed that. I said...
ZAHN: We know that, don't we?
BUTLER: I said -- yes, we said well what does he mean "if we find." It is an established fact that they have weapons of mass destruction. The only thing we don't know is how much they've increased them in the period of three years without inspectors.
Let me tell you this, a few weeks, maybe seven or eight days, before the president made his remarks in the Rose Garden on Monday, the deputies, the Undersecretary of State, John Balton (ph), the man responsible for all this stuff, was telling the biological weapons conference in Geneva that Iraq does have biological weapons. The administration...
ZAHN: So where's the disconnect here?
BUTLER: I don't' know why...
ZAHN: Was it because it was an impromptu news conference and...
BUTLER: No.
ZAHN: ... perhaps...
BUTLER: No.
ZAHN: ... the proper briefing...
BUTLER: No, because...
ZAHN: ... wasn't done?
BUTLER: No, no, no. The president has said this before, if we find they are. He said it in his first foreign visit after taking up office when he went south to Mexico to see Vicente Fox. I remember it very well. In his first press conference there he said if we find Saddam is doing this, we'll take care of him. And you know, I don't know why the administration is prevaricating about whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, it does. The big question is what to do about it. And there, interestingly, the Security Council of the U.N. yesterday took an interesting decision.
ZAHN: Well let's talk about that within context...
BUTLER: Right.
ZAHN: ... of all the politics involved here.
BUTLER: Right. Right.
ZAHN: Some people were expecting the United States to put up a much bigger fight. Russia's gotten involved in this whole thing.
BUTLER: Exactly.
ZAHN: Help us better understand how this all came to play yesterday.
BUTLER: Well yesterday the Security Council, with U.S. agreement, decided to rollover, to extend for six months the current sanctions regime which enables Iraq to sell oil. The money goes into a U.N. account from which Iraq can buy food and medicines for its people. The U.S. Colin Powell wants that to stop. He knows the sanctions aren't working. There's a big leakage of black market and so on. He wants to take away that oil-for-food arrangement and only have sanctions on military goods. That is smart sanctions. The Russians vetoed that last February, they resisted again yesterday and the U.S. went along with it and said, OK, we'll have a rollover of the existing arrangement for six months, putting off the crucial issue of smart sanctions. The politics of that, Paula, I think are fascinating.
ZAHN: Because we know at the same time Russian officials entered Kabul yesterday. Those are the first foreign representatives to reach Kabul now.
BUTLER: Absolutely.
ZAHN: U.S. isn't there, the British isn't there, they're all on the outskirts of Kabul...
BUTLER: That's right.
ZAHN: ... but not in the town. So what's going on here?
BUTLER: This is a big story. I say watch the Russians. It's fascinating, we're in this new relationship with them but there are still some old elements there. They're still protecting Iraq, as we saw yesterday at the U.N. They went into Kabul without telling anyone yesterday. A hundred man group arrived, took over what was the old Russian Embassy, the population of Kabul trembling because the Russians were back. A U.N. official was asked did the Russians tell you you were coming -- they were coming? Not at all. It's just like they did in Kosovo, remember, they rushed in and grabbed a position at Pristina Airport (ph) as the war in Kosovo was ending. It's really interesting.
ZAHN: But you say (UNINTELLIGIBLE) there's a quid pro quo here...
BUTLER: Yes.
ZAHN: ... by getting the Russians not to veto the smart sanctions that they were allowed to do it? Is that what you're saying that they were allowed to do this?
BUTLER: No, I'm saying...
(CROSSTALK) BUTLER: I'm saying we're in a really interesting position now with the Russians. They're in the coalition. There's a report now that we're going to -- listen to this, incredible, we're going to bring them into NATO. They're going to have a role in what was the West's anti-Communist alliance, NATO. They're going to have a role soon in planning in NATO.
But on the other hand, they're still playing the great game. That's the name of a book that studied the whole situation in Afghanistan, Iraq and -- over hundreds of years. It's a great book.
Now they're still in the great game. They're still getting in first into Kabul with a toehold on the ground while our forces are discretely on the outskirts of the city while that conference in Bonn takes place on what kind of new Afghan government would there be.
I tell you, Paula, this is fascinating, watch the Russians.
ZAHN: And it's a good thing we have our own ambassador in residence to help us better understand the great game because it's incredibly complicated.
BUTLER: OK.
ZAHN: Dr. (ph) Richard Butler, thanks.
BUTLER: Good to see you.
ZAHN: Same time, same place tomorrow morning.
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