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American Morning

Bush to Speak After Annan at United Nations

Aired September 12, 2002 - 09:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up in our next hour, President Bush goes before the United Nations General Assembly to make the case against Iraq. Let's check in with Richard Roth at the U.N. I guess we are having a better idea of some of what the president may ask for -- Richard, tell us what you have learned.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula. It is the biggest day on the United Nations' calendar, and it is given added weight by President Bush's appearance here at the United Nations General Assembly. Various delegations from the 190 countries that belong to the United Nations are filing in now here to the United Nations.

President Bush arrived within the hour here and was greeted by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. President Bush is going to tell the General Assembly that Iraq must comply with disarmament pledges it has made over the last few years it has not lived up to.

According to the U.S. delegation and officials there, it has been a decade of deception and defiance. The president is going to say it is a great nation, Iraq, but a bad regime. He is not going to give any ultimatums or deadlines, that is supposed to be in a resolution that will be introduced in the Security Council within weeks, and the U.S. hopes to be voted on.

Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, who greeted the secretary -- greeted the U.S. president, however, has a different idea. He says it is only the U.N. that can provide the legitimacy when a nation decides to move against another.

Not everybody here at the United Nations is glad to see President Bush. On the nearby East River in Manhattan, human rights groups, sailed a boat upstream and it said, "Earth to Bush, no Iraq war."

Many countries here are opposed to a unilateral military action by the U.S., and would like to see the security council have a big say -- Paula.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit more about the Security Council. We just had Richard Holbrooke on the air, who is a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and here is what he had to say about what he is hoping will come out of the president's speech today.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: ... the key to this is Russia. If Russia goes along, the U.S. can get this resolution. But if Russia says no, we won't get it. And if the Russians say no and the famous Bush-Putin relationship isn't worth as much as people thought, then the U.S. and the British can move for a concerted, collective action outside the Security Council.

This is exactly what happened three and a half years ago for Kosovo. We never got U.N. permission to bomb Kosovo when I was the envoy negotiating with Milosevic. We tried. The Russians said to us hey, we're going to veto anything you send to the Security Council. When the Europeans, who originally wanted U.N. support, saw they couldn't get it, they came along and supported us.

So I think we have a very good model from the very recent past.

ZAHN: Well, let me ask you this. Do you expect the Russians to say no if this resolution is asked for?

HOLBROOKE: Well, next time Putin is your guest, just ask him that directly.

ZAHN: I'd love to.

HOLBROOKE: Because nobody knows what the Russians are going to do. They haven't said flatly they'll veto, as they did with Kosovo three and a half years ago, and they haven't said flatly they'll go along, as they did 12 years ago when President Bush, Sr. did exactly what we're talking about.

And I want to point out that President Bush, Sr., who was himself ambassador to the U.N. in the '70s and really understood the U.N., used the U.N. perfectly. He got the resolution you and I are talking about now 12 years ago. He got international support and he went to Congress and got their support.

So you have the two precedents, Bush, Sr. getting U.N. support in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm and President Clinton trying the U.N. route, not being able to do it, doing the kind of non-U.N. actions through NATO against Milosevic.

But the important thing, and this is critical, is that the president's speech today show respect for the international community and its process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Richard, let's talk a little more about that. Essentially what the ambassador is saying, that if the fact that the U.S. would make a serious effort through the Security Council, at least allows them the wiggle room later on to take military action without incurring the wrath of the world. What about the pivotal role Russia may play?

ROTH: Well, there is no doubt, Russia, according to diplomats will be the toughest sell. Russia has millions of dollars in business deals that Baghdad owes the Russian regime on, and that plays a role, and Russia always wants to be a player. It is one of five permanent members of the Security Council with a veto.

Now, of course, Russia could always abstain. You are seeing various delegations filing in here to the United Nations. Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov gave U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell a big bear hug yesterday inside the Security Council. Perhaps Secretary Powell will want to return the hug.

And there again, you see President Bush and Secretary-General Annan again in another photo opportunity. In about a half hour, President Bush will follow Kofi Annan with remarks. There is a good relationship between the two men here, but Kofi Annan firing a diplomatic shot across the bow, is telling the U.S., don't go it alone.

And officials have told John King that the U.S. is going to be telling the U.N., live up to your resolutions, enforce what you put on the books or else we might go it alone.

ZAHN: But I think the point Richard Holbrooke was saying, is you really don't have go it alone, even if Russia would veto what we are expecting to be a proposed resolution, that you could make a concerted effort outside of the Security Council to get there.

ROTH: Well, that effort, though, may be military in nature, but if the council vetoes a U.S. resolution, they may say, look, we tried, and that may be enough for some countries.

The U.S. has done this before. The veto Mr. Holbrooke was talking about in Kosovo was really a resolution that would have opposed what the U.S. was doing. The U.S. didn't really put that, I believe, to a straight vote. The U.S. has gone and shown it can go around the U.N. if it has to.

ZAHN: As the nation continues to operate in the orange level of alert, which is the highest state of alert that can be administered, tell us what the level of security is there today.

ROTH: Well, it is the largest we have seen. Many of us had difficulty getting into the building or getting access inside the U.N. headquarters. You have so many heads of state, we just saw there before, President Karzai of Afghanistan go by. Of course, there was an assassination attempt on him just a few days ago, which President Bush is going to note in his speech. Many of these leaders are marked men, and certainly the terrorism threat and things like that are ever present on the minds of various U.N. Security and State Department and Secret Service people here in New York City. Streets cordoned off around the United Nations.

ZAHN: All right. Richard Roth.

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