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American Morning
Saddam Hussein has Until Friday to Agree to U.N. Resolution
Aired November 12, 2002 - 09:04 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: Saddam Hussein has until Friday to agree to the U.N. resolution that would put weapons inspectors back into that country. The Iraqi parliament has weighed in, voting unanimously against the plan.
Jane Arraf joins us live from Baghdad with the very latest.
Jane, I wanted to start off with the latest reaction from the White House. They are calling this move on the parliament's part -- quote -- pure feeder; the only voice that matters is Saddam's.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Paula, it's hard to dispute that. His is the voice that matters, but the way this decision will be made is through his Revolution Command Council, which are sort of his top advisers, military and otherwise, his longtime aides, and he does appear to take some advice from them.
Having said that, the decision, despite that rejection from the national assembly, does seem to be leaning towards accepting this resolution.
Now, we got a little taste of that in parliament this morning when a letter arrived from the president's son, Ude (ph) Saddam Hussein, who is not only the head of an influential newspaper here, he's a member of parliament. And in that letter, he went against the tide, saying that actually Iraq should accept the resolution, and acceptance doesn't mean surrender. Now he has a couple of calls of his own. One is that Arab inspectors be among the weapons teams, but his letter will likely be the way his father goes when he chairs that Revolution Command Council Meeting to decide whether to say yes or no -- Paula.
ZAHN: So what if they ultimately fall under the spell of Ude (ph) and accept the resolution, then what would happen next?
ARRAF: Well, then comes the really hard part. Hard enough to accept this resolution for a country that has for years been saying that the weapons inspectors are spies intent on destroying Iraq. Now that Iraq has said it will let them in and it has made that pledge previously before the resolution came out, saying that it would allow unconditional access for the weapons inspectors, this is where it gets tricky. They have about a month to come up with a full accounting of all previous weapons programs, lists of goods, lists of dual-use items that could be used for weapons, basically every single thing in this country that could potentially be used in an illicit weapons program.
After that, the inspectors will arrive, and they have only a couple of months to do their work. Compared to the seven years it took them previously, this is really quite a tight timeframe with very severe consequences threatened in the resolution for basically anything that could go wrong. So this is where it really does get dangerous -- Paula.
ZAHN: Jane Arraf, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Resolution>
Aired November 12, 2002 - 09:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Saddam Hussein has until Friday to agree to the U.N. resolution that would put weapons inspectors back into that country. The Iraqi parliament has weighed in, voting unanimously against the plan.
Jane Arraf joins us live from Baghdad with the very latest.
Jane, I wanted to start off with the latest reaction from the White House. They are calling this move on the parliament's part -- quote -- pure feeder; the only voice that matters is Saddam's.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Paula, it's hard to dispute that. His is the voice that matters, but the way this decision will be made is through his Revolution Command Council, which are sort of his top advisers, military and otherwise, his longtime aides, and he does appear to take some advice from them.
Having said that, the decision, despite that rejection from the national assembly, does seem to be leaning towards accepting this resolution.
Now, we got a little taste of that in parliament this morning when a letter arrived from the president's son, Ude (ph) Saddam Hussein, who is not only the head of an influential newspaper here, he's a member of parliament. And in that letter, he went against the tide, saying that actually Iraq should accept the resolution, and acceptance doesn't mean surrender. Now he has a couple of calls of his own. One is that Arab inspectors be among the weapons teams, but his letter will likely be the way his father goes when he chairs that Revolution Command Council Meeting to decide whether to say yes or no -- Paula.
ZAHN: So what if they ultimately fall under the spell of Ude (ph) and accept the resolution, then what would happen next?
ARRAF: Well, then comes the really hard part. Hard enough to accept this resolution for a country that has for years been saying that the weapons inspectors are spies intent on destroying Iraq. Now that Iraq has said it will let them in and it has made that pledge previously before the resolution came out, saying that it would allow unconditional access for the weapons inspectors, this is where it gets tricky. They have about a month to come up with a full accounting of all previous weapons programs, lists of goods, lists of dual-use items that could be used for weapons, basically every single thing in this country that could potentially be used in an illicit weapons program.
After that, the inspectors will arrive, and they have only a couple of months to do their work. Compared to the seven years it took them previously, this is really quite a tight timeframe with very severe consequences threatened in the resolution for basically anything that could go wrong. So this is where it really does get dangerous -- Paula.
ZAHN: Jane Arraf, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Resolution>
