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Senate Opens Hearings Today on U.S. Policy Affecting Iraq

Aired July 31, 2002 - 09:08   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get our attention back in the U.S. right now. There is a Senate panel set to open hearings at about 20 minutes from now on U.S. policy affecting Iraq. No Bush administration policymakers scheduled to testify, however, some of them will be on Capitol Hill for different reasons.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon tracking this now.

Barbara, good morning again.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Bill.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing will open shortly this morning. And as you say, that committee hearing will talk about Iraq, military options for Iraq, but no administration officials. This is going to be a hearing where they are going to hear testimony from a number of analysts, experts, academics, get their views, their thinking about possible military action against Iraq, how to conduct it, what the consequences would be.

Even the committee chairman, Senator Joe Biden, says he knows that the White House, President Bush is not yet ready to make a decision about a military option against Iraq. And in fact that is exactly the case. The White House, the Pentagon, they just simply have not come to any decision about Iraq by all accounts.

But that's not to say that things aren't percolating along. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the last couple of days has said a number of very interesting things laying out some of the military challenges that the U.S. would face if they did engage in military action against Iraq and they did try to go after Saddam's weapons of mass destruction -- those biological, chemical and nuclear weapon sites. Very interesting.

The secretary said yesterday publicly for the first time that yes, Iraq has mobile biological weapons factories that move up and down Iraq's roads and highways. Those, of course, would be extremely difficult for the U.S. to target and destroy. And he also has indicated that in recent months and weeks Iraq has taken additional action to bury some of its weapons of mass destruction underground, try and keep them safe from U.S. bombing attacks.

In addition, he has recently said several times that Iraq is again using fiber optic cable. This is a high-tech method of communicating between air defense sites, command and control, possibly making it easier for Baghdad to speed up its efforts to target U.S. aircraft.

So all of this is in play. And later this afternoon, separate from the Senate Foreign Relations hearing, Secretary Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks will be on Capitol Hill. They're going to be testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They're going to be talking about Operation Enduring Freedom in the war in Afghanistan, but it's virtually certain they're going to get asked about Iraq as well -- Bill.

HEMMER: We'll track it. Barbara, thanks.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

STARR: Thank you.

HEMMER: Again, as we mentioned, 20 minutes away, 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time, CNN will carry those hearings live. Stay tuned for that.

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