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American Morning
White House Dismisses Hussein's Criticism
Aired December 05, 2002 - 07:33 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: Quickly, back to Iraq right now, the White House meeting today to consider how it should respond to those weapons declarations of Iraq expected this weekend. Between the snowflakes on the front lawn, here's Suzanne Malveaux for an update from there -- good morning.
It looks great there, by the way.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is. It's very comfortable, actually. The White House is really dismissing any kind of criticism coming from Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration believes that it is on the right track and they're looking at that December 8 deadline, when Iraq has to declare its weapons program.
There will be a meeting, it's scheduled, a meeting for cabinet level officials to discuss some of the options, to respond to that declaration. Really, the debate here is whether or not to push weapons inspectors harder or to rely more on U.S. intelligence. Either way, they're expecting thousands of, hundreds, thousands of pages of documents to come in on Saturday. It'll take four or five days to process that, so there won't be an immediate response, at least a rhetorical response, not any kind of immediate military response, administration officials are saying.
And later today, President Bush will be meeting with the president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi. You may recall that the twin terrorist attacks in Kenya, Mombasa, Kenya just last week against the Israelis. Certainly on the top of their agenda is going to be the war on terror. Administration officials say there are already some American military that perform these exercises, drills inside that country. And now the Kenyan military are joining them -- Bill.
HEMMER: Suzanne, quickly here, help clarify something. This may not come as much of a surprise to many viewers if you follow the internal maneuverings of the White House, but apparently some sort of rift between Dick Cheney and Colin Powell regarding Iraq. Don't know how severe it is, how deep it might run. Maybe you could clarify it for us.
MALVEAUX: It's certainly a debate between the hawks and the doves. Essentially, how much diplomacy do you exercise in terms of trying to put pressure on Hans Blix, in charge of the U.N. weapons inspectors, to get in there and to really do a job, a tough job to try to find those weapons or do you let go and you say well, let's rely more on U.S. intelligence and let's look at our own facts and figures and make our own determination, leading a coalition and decide to use military force. This is something that's been debated for weeks, for months now, and, of course, it's playing out as we get closer to the deadline.
HEMMER: Very true.
Thanks, Suzanne.
Watch that snow plow. We can see it and hear it today.
Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, thanks.
MALVEAUX: Thanks.
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 December 5, 2002 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Quickly, back to Iraq right now, the White House meeting today to consider how it should respond to those weapons declarations of Iraq expected this weekend. Between the snowflakes on the front lawn, here's Suzanne Malveaux for an update from there -- good morning.
It looks great there, by the way.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is. It's very comfortable, actually. The White House is really dismissing any kind of criticism coming from Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration believes that it is on the right track and they're looking at that December 8 deadline, when Iraq has to declare its weapons program.
There will be a meeting, it's scheduled, a meeting for cabinet level officials to discuss some of the options, to respond to that declaration. Really, the debate here is whether or not to push weapons inspectors harder or to rely more on U.S. intelligence. Either way, they're expecting thousands of, hundreds, thousands of pages of documents to come in on Saturday. It'll take four or five days to process that, so there won't be an immediate response, at least a rhetorical response, not any kind of immediate military response, administration officials are saying.
And later today, President Bush will be meeting with the president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi. You may recall that the twin terrorist attacks in Kenya, Mombasa, Kenya just last week against the Israelis. Certainly on the top of their agenda is going to be the war on terror. Administration officials say there are already some American military that perform these exercises, drills inside that country. And now the Kenyan military are joining them -- Bill.
HEMMER: Suzanne, quickly here, help clarify something. This may not come as much of a surprise to many viewers if you follow the internal maneuverings of the White House, but apparently some sort of rift between Dick Cheney and Colin Powell regarding Iraq. Don't know how severe it is, how deep it might run. Maybe you could clarify it for us.
MALVEAUX: It's certainly a debate between the hawks and the doves. Essentially, how much diplomacy do you exercise in terms of trying to put pressure on Hans Blix, in charge of the U.N. weapons inspectors, to get in there and to really do a job, a tough job to try to find those weapons or do you let go and you say well, let's rely more on U.S. intelligence and let's look at our own facts and figures and make our own determination, leading a coalition and decide to use military force. This is something that's been debated for weeks, for months now, and, of course, it's playing out as we get closer to the deadline.
HEMMER: Very true.
Thanks, Suzanne.
Watch that snow plow. We can see it and hear it today.
Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, thanks.
MALVEAUX: Thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
