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American Morning
President Bush Meeting Congressional Leaders This Morning
Aired September 04, 2002 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is meeting congressional leaders a bit later on this morning at the White House. He wants to talk about Iraq, and he's hoping to build support for his policy.
Senior White House correspondent John King is standing by on the North Lawn of the executive mansion, with some thoughts on what the president might have to say.
Good morning, John.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Paula.
We are told that you just mentioned, the president wants to reach out to Congress. He wants to assure Congress that as he decides whether it will take military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power, that he will consult the Congress, that he will seek Congressional support if and when he comes to that choice, and that he wants to listen to the ideas and skepticism from key members of Congress as well.
The questions the president is likely to face is, when will he make the decisions, how much would it cost, how many troops would it take, and would it distract, as many senators and lawmakers fear, from the ongoing war against terrorism?
The White House says this is really the beginning of a concerted effort by the president to get out ahead now and explaining his policy. Key meetings with Congress here today. A big speech to the United Nations general assembly, a little more than a week from now, the day after the September 11th anniversary.
Mr. Bush will address the United Nations, and CNN is told, he will lay out the challenge saying Iraq is everyday violating its post- Persian Gulf War agreement with the United Nations, and the United Nations must demand that Iraq imply with those agreements. One of those agreements of course is to have weapons inspectors in Iraq. They left in 1998. Iraq refused to let them back in. This administration is openly skeptical that inspectors would work now, believing Saddam Hussein would do everything in his power to keep them away from suspected weapons sites.
But as the president focuses on Congress here at home, this debate playing out around the world as well.
Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations in South Africa, he met with a key Iraqi official, Tariq Aziz there. Mr. Annan said he told Mr. Aziz if you want to quiet all this talk of a military confrontation, Iraq must let those inspectors back in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFFI ANNAN, U.N. SECY. GENERAL: I indicated to him that the inspectors must go in. They should comply with U.N. resolutions, and I'm not the only one encouraging them to do this. The leaders in the region and most leaders around the world are asking them to comply, including governments that are sympathetic to the Iraqi position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now Vice President Cheney will be among those at that congressional meeting here at the White House this morning. He has taken the lead at the White House, saying he does not believe Saddam Hussein will open the doors to real access to any weapons inspectors, but here in the administration, they acknowledge, despite their skepticism, that this could work again, and accept at least a debate about expectations and challenge Hussein to let them back, in the short term, if there is to be any hope of building international support for military confrontation down the road -- Paula.
ZAHN: So, John, put this all in perspective for us this morning. The president addresses members of the Congress at a time where key members are openly talking about the need for the president to build his case before Congress. How are they likely to respond to his message today?
KING: Well, I've spoken to key lawmakers and key agents in both parties who say if the president asks for a congressional resolution today, it likely would pass. The question is, how big of a margin would the president want, and obviously you want as big a margin as possible. So as the president makes his case personally today, the vice president and the national security adviser, on hand here at the White House, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld also will go to Capitol Hill this afternoon to deliver a classified briefing. Perhaps there, some of the sensitive intelligence information that this admission insists shows that Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction.
Administration officials say this was a debate in the news media and a political (UNINTELLIGIBLE) story this summer that the president will take charge of it now, and that he is prepared to share that information, and he is hopeful that once he does, he will get the backing of the Congress, and by a very large, lopsided, bipartisan margin.
ZAHN: Very quickly here, John, will this at all change any timetable for any congressional hearings that might be held on Iraq?
KING: There will be hearings before Congress goes this year. Congress slated to be in session about a month now, and then leave for the election, but already talk of coming back after the elections for what is called a lame duck session here in Washington.
Iraq will be the subject before the elections, and if Congress comes back at the end of the year, rest assured it will be the topic again.
ZAHN: You will be one busy guy. John King, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
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