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President Bush Continues High Level Meetings in Prague
Aired November 20, 2002 - 07:39 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: Back to the president's business of the day. With an historic NATO summit set to begin tomorrow, President Bush continues high level meetings in Prague this morning. The president is looking for a strong statement from the alliance supporting his position on Iraq. With security concerns high in the Czech capital, it is virtually in an lockdown.
Our own Suzanne Malveaux is there to bring us up to date on what's going on -- good morning, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
President Bush is the first of 19 NATO members to arrive here in Prague for that two day summit. He met earlier today with the Czech president, making it very clear that the U.S. would confront Saddam Hussein, make sure that Iraq disarms, it hopes for NATO support. But also he called on for NATO to be able to transform itself from an organization meant to contain a Soviet expansion to one that can deal with global threats.
There are three different items on the agenda. First of all, they will be welcoming seven new NATO members, all from the former Soviet Bloc. Secondly, they'll be talking about the creation of a rapid deployment force, some 21,000 troops made up of NATO members, to confront terrorist threats around the world. And finally, some sort of support, a statement dealing with Iraq and disarmament.
Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United Nations has said 16 different times you must disarm. And 16 times he said oh, of course, I will, but never did. And so the game's over with. We're through with that. And now he's going to disarm, one way or the other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, the Bush administration does not expect consensus among the NATO members, but rather different types of support from individual NATO members to, concerning the U.N. resolution dealing with Iraq, the troops or air bases, things of that nature. That's why the president's going to be holding these one-on-one meetings later today with the leaders of Turkey, France and Britain -- Paula.
ZAHN: Can you tell us a little bit more about this lockdown that you're living through?
MALVEAUX: Well, it is absolutely amazing the security measures that have been, that are really taking place here. We're talking about the trains have been slowed down. The really, the traffic is at a standstill at this moment. Also, nearly 270 individuals denied in the country recently, did not pass security checks. Yesterday, there was a small explosive that was found on a train track that was detonated and security forces here, the Czech police saying they are confident that they'll be able to deal with this. But you're talking about more than 40 heads of state, 12,000 police officers, 4,000 soldiers, bomb sniffing dogs and, of course, you've got the air force patrolling the skies here, F-15s, F-16s, really an incredible amount of security here. They are hoping that all goes well.
ZAHN: We hope it all goes well. I imagine the residents feel like their city is under siege to a certain extent.
Suzanne Malveaux, thank you very much for that live update.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 20, 2002 - 07:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the president's business of the day. With an historic NATO summit set to begin tomorrow, President Bush continues high level meetings in Prague this morning. The president is looking for a strong statement from the alliance supporting his position on Iraq. With security concerns high in the Czech capital, it is virtually in an lockdown.
Our own Suzanne Malveaux is there to bring us up to date on what's going on -- good morning, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
President Bush is the first of 19 NATO members to arrive here in Prague for that two day summit. He met earlier today with the Czech president, making it very clear that the U.S. would confront Saddam Hussein, make sure that Iraq disarms, it hopes for NATO support. But also he called on for NATO to be able to transform itself from an organization meant to contain a Soviet expansion to one that can deal with global threats.
There are three different items on the agenda. First of all, they will be welcoming seven new NATO members, all from the former Soviet Bloc. Secondly, they'll be talking about the creation of a rapid deployment force, some 21,000 troops made up of NATO members, to confront terrorist threats around the world. And finally, some sort of support, a statement dealing with Iraq and disarmament.
Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United Nations has said 16 different times you must disarm. And 16 times he said oh, of course, I will, but never did. And so the game's over with. We're through with that. And now he's going to disarm, one way or the other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, the Bush administration does not expect consensus among the NATO members, but rather different types of support from individual NATO members to, concerning the U.N. resolution dealing with Iraq, the troops or air bases, things of that nature. That's why the president's going to be holding these one-on-one meetings later today with the leaders of Turkey, France and Britain -- Paula.
ZAHN: Can you tell us a little bit more about this lockdown that you're living through?
MALVEAUX: Well, it is absolutely amazing the security measures that have been, that are really taking place here. We're talking about the trains have been slowed down. The really, the traffic is at a standstill at this moment. Also, nearly 270 individuals denied in the country recently, did not pass security checks. Yesterday, there was a small explosive that was found on a train track that was detonated and security forces here, the Czech police saying they are confident that they'll be able to deal with this. But you're talking about more than 40 heads of state, 12,000 police officers, 4,000 soldiers, bomb sniffing dogs and, of course, you've got the air force patrolling the skies here, F-15s, F-16s, really an incredible amount of security here. They are hoping that all goes well.
ZAHN: We hope it all goes well. I imagine the residents feel like their city is under siege to a certain extent.
Suzanne Malveaux, thank you very much for that live update.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
