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American Morning
Interview With Melissa Fleming
Aired December 09, 2002 - 07:07 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: After receiving the documents this weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency, now pouring over about 2,000 pages dealing with nuclear issues.
A bit earlier today, I talked with Melissa Fleming. She's the spokesperson for the IAEA in Vienna, Austria. And I asked her how many pages so far they've been able to get through.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA FLEMING, IAEA SPOKESPERSON: Well, we've been scanning them since the moment we got them back to IAEA headquarters last night, working until at least 1:00 in the morning, getting up early to start the process again.
The first item -- the first step was to look at the document as an overall, what kind of chapters does it have, what kind of -- what is in its indexes? There was a 300-page portion in Arabic, and our Arabic expert began to start translating that immediately, especially the index, just to give us an idea of what kind of work lies ahead in the next several days.
HEMMER (on camera): What concerns you the most?
FLEMING: We don't really know yet in terms of this declaration what should be our concern. Of course, we're concerned that the declaration is complete, but again, we're not about being concerned. We're about verification. And we're going to scour through this document word for word, and we're going to check it against declarations that we've received in the past.
We have a declaration from 1998 on Iraq's past nuclear weapons program. We're going to have to compare the two documents. We believe that much of the document that we received yesterday is very similar to that 1998 one. We have to look and see, what are the differences?
There are also some new elements that were obvious from what we saw last night. What does this say? What does this mean? Let's check some of this out on the ground using our inspectors in Baghdad.
HEMMER: Given that then, at what point do you believe you'll be able to say, we've gone through the information, we've checked over the documents, and this is the area we need to look at next? Does that come today? Is that Tuesday? Is that a week from now, or a month from now? FLEMING: Well, we're saying that we can provide a preliminary assessment of this document in about 7 to 10 days. Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, is planning to travel to New York to report to the Security Council in about a week's time. At that point, he will have a preliminary assessment.
But we're also reminding people that checking this out, cross- checking it against information that we have in our databases, against new information that we hope to be receiving from member states very soon, and also against what our inspectors are finding on the ground could potentially take weeks.
HEMMER: Back in 1991, it was largely believed that Iraq was very close to developing a nuclear weapon. An Iraqi leading scientist over the weekend had this to say about his current program. I want to play the part in this interview that he had to say, and get your comments from it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have the complete documentation from design to all of the other things. We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb, not tested it. It's for the IAEA to judge how close we were.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: He is saying it is the job of your agency to make that decision of how close they were. How close were they, then?
FLEMING: It's a little bit difficult to say. We have judged in the past that it was possibly around two years. It depended on a number of factors. It is true that they still had outlying problems, as you like, with design, with testing, and also the final stages of enriching their uranium.
So, again, there were some steps, but it does depend -- it's a very complicated process. If countries helped along the way, it can go faster. But we believe they did have quite a ways to go.
HEMMER: But you're saying right now, though, the answer to that ultimately is inconclusive.
FLEMING: Again, it is inconclusive, because it's theoretical. We have a very good understanding of Iraq's past nuclear weapons program. How far they got, and what kind of steps they would have needed to take to complete it. But again, putting a timeframe on those steps is difficult, because it depends on all kinds of factors.
HEMMER: Just about 10 seconds left. Ultimately, do you believe the documents you now have will prove guilt or innocence regarding Iraq?
FLEMING: Well, we're not in the position at all to make any kinds of judgments on this document, truth or no truth. We are in a good position, though, to be able to assess the document in due time against a vast amount of information that we have, and against what our inspectors can go out and look for on the ground.
And they will be probably taking some leads from this document. Inspectors in Vienna might be asking them to follow up based on what they're reading in the declaration.
HEMMER: Melissa Fleming from Vienna, thank you for your time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: And again, we anticipate we'll be speaking with Fleming throughout the next week and possibly over the next two weeks, in fact. She said 7 to 10 days, which on the timetable would put us at mid-week next week before any word comes out of Vienna officially regarding this document down there.
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 9, 2002 - 07:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: After receiving the documents this weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency, now pouring over about 2,000 pages dealing with nuclear issues.
A bit earlier today, I talked with Melissa Fleming. She's the spokesperson for the IAEA in Vienna, Austria. And I asked her how many pages so far they've been able to get through.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA FLEMING, IAEA SPOKESPERSON: Well, we've been scanning them since the moment we got them back to IAEA headquarters last night, working until at least 1:00 in the morning, getting up early to start the process again.
The first item -- the first step was to look at the document as an overall, what kind of chapters does it have, what kind of -- what is in its indexes? There was a 300-page portion in Arabic, and our Arabic expert began to start translating that immediately, especially the index, just to give us an idea of what kind of work lies ahead in the next several days.
HEMMER (on camera): What concerns you the most?
FLEMING: We don't really know yet in terms of this declaration what should be our concern. Of course, we're concerned that the declaration is complete, but again, we're not about being concerned. We're about verification. And we're going to scour through this document word for word, and we're going to check it against declarations that we've received in the past.
We have a declaration from 1998 on Iraq's past nuclear weapons program. We're going to have to compare the two documents. We believe that much of the document that we received yesterday is very similar to that 1998 one. We have to look and see, what are the differences?
There are also some new elements that were obvious from what we saw last night. What does this say? What does this mean? Let's check some of this out on the ground using our inspectors in Baghdad.
HEMMER: Given that then, at what point do you believe you'll be able to say, we've gone through the information, we've checked over the documents, and this is the area we need to look at next? Does that come today? Is that Tuesday? Is that a week from now, or a month from now? FLEMING: Well, we're saying that we can provide a preliminary assessment of this document in about 7 to 10 days. Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, is planning to travel to New York to report to the Security Council in about a week's time. At that point, he will have a preliminary assessment.
But we're also reminding people that checking this out, cross- checking it against information that we have in our databases, against new information that we hope to be receiving from member states very soon, and also against what our inspectors are finding on the ground could potentially take weeks.
HEMMER: Back in 1991, it was largely believed that Iraq was very close to developing a nuclear weapon. An Iraqi leading scientist over the weekend had this to say about his current program. I want to play the part in this interview that he had to say, and get your comments from it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have the complete documentation from design to all of the other things. We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb, not tested it. It's for the IAEA to judge how close we were.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: He is saying it is the job of your agency to make that decision of how close they were. How close were they, then?
FLEMING: It's a little bit difficult to say. We have judged in the past that it was possibly around two years. It depended on a number of factors. It is true that they still had outlying problems, as you like, with design, with testing, and also the final stages of enriching their uranium.
So, again, there were some steps, but it does depend -- it's a very complicated process. If countries helped along the way, it can go faster. But we believe they did have quite a ways to go.
HEMMER: But you're saying right now, though, the answer to that ultimately is inconclusive.
FLEMING: Again, it is inconclusive, because it's theoretical. We have a very good understanding of Iraq's past nuclear weapons program. How far they got, and what kind of steps they would have needed to take to complete it. But again, putting a timeframe on those steps is difficult, because it depends on all kinds of factors.
HEMMER: Just about 10 seconds left. Ultimately, do you believe the documents you now have will prove guilt or innocence regarding Iraq?
FLEMING: Well, we're not in the position at all to make any kinds of judgments on this document, truth or no truth. We are in a good position, though, to be able to assess the document in due time against a vast amount of information that we have, and against what our inspectors can go out and look for on the ground.
And they will be probably taking some leads from this document. Inspectors in Vienna might be asking them to follow up based on what they're reading in the declaration.
HEMMER: Melissa Fleming from Vienna, thank you for your time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: And again, we anticipate we'll be speaking with Fleming throughout the next week and possibly over the next two weeks, in fact. She said 7 to 10 days, which on the timetable would put us at mid-week next week before any word comes out of Vienna officially regarding this document down there.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
