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American Morning

Interview with Ken Pollack

Aired December 18, 2002 - 07:18   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: One of the major topics this morning that we continue to watch: Is the U.S. ready to declare that Iraq has fallen fall short -- far short, rather, of its requirement to provide a complete and accurate accounting of its weapons programs? The president meets with the National Security Council today.
Let's talk about what will play out over the next couple of weeks now with Ken Pollack, former CIA analyst and author of "The Threatening Storm: The case for invading Iraq." Ken is back with us in D.C. this morning.

Good to see you again -- good morning to you.

KEN POLLACK, FORMER CIA ANALYST: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Gauge the war drum beat today. Is the U.S. closer than we were a week ago?

POLLACK: I think we are certainly closer. You've heard any number of statements coming from the administration. John King earlier talking about the fact that the administration has basically concluded that the Iraqi declaration is a sham. The Iraqis have not come forward with any new information. They are not coming clean on their weapons of mass destruction program. And in many cases, they haven't even made an effort to try to explain all of the vast gaps in what they were claiming and what the UN inspectors were finding even back in the 1990s.

HEMMER: What explains that, Ken? Why would the Iraqis hold off on that, knowing the implications that may follow?

POLLACK: Well, as best we can tell, Saddam seems to believe that he can do what he did in the 1990s, which is shift the onus of proof from Iraq having to prove that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction to the inspectors having to prove that he does. That's exceedingly difficult, and he has some reason to believe that this might work, because it did work for him in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, he did successfully transfer the burden of proof, and it's one of the reasons that the inspections process broke down in 1998. He seems to think that he can do the same thing now, and therefore, he thinks the best thing he can do is say, I've got nothing, and if you think I do, you have to prove otherwise.

HEMMER: Well, listen, bring it back to the U.S. quickly. Colin Powell, a quick comment from what he had to say this week regarding where the U.S. position is headed. POLLACK: Well, what the secretary...

HEMMER: And one second, Ken, we're going to listen to it, and we'll come back and talk about it. Here's Colin Powell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We said at the very beginning that we approached it with skepticism, and the information I've received so far is that that skepticism is well-founded. There are problems with the declaration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: How big are the problems? What does the White House do right now? And the speculation earlier in the week that Colin Powell or President Bush might go to the UN this week and make that declaration public hasn't happened just yet. Do you anticipate it at this point?

POLLACK: I think we're still waiting to see what the administration decides. The debate really is, as Bill Richardson was describing it earlier: Do you declare material breach sooner or later? Do you allow the inspections process to play out a little longer? Or do you try to base the decision to go to war solely on the false Iraqi declaration?

The administration just hasn't sorted that out yet. And really, that debate is not about whether or not the United States goes to war, because effectively what you're hearing Colin Powell say is, the Iraqis had their last chance and they haven't come clean with that last chance.

The debate now is over what is the best route for the United States to take in going to war in terms of building as big a coalition as possible. That's really the key right now is trying to convince as many countries as possible to join us in taking action against Iraq. And the debate is: Do you do it sooner based on the declaration, which is the cleanest Iraqi lie that we're likely to have, or do you wait in the hope that the inspectors will reveal additional Iraqi perfidy?

HEMMER: You say not one U.S. option right now is that great -- 15 seconds to go here. Why not?

POLLACK: Well the problem that we have is that going into the inspections, everyone thought one of two things would happen, either the Iraqis would block the inspectors and the entire world would rally around the United States to go to war, or else the Iraqis would come clean and hand over their weapons and they'd be disarmed and we wouldn't have to go to war.

Those, of course, were part of the two least likely things to happen, and in fact, what we've seen is they aren't happening, neither is happening. So, what we've got now is a situation where the Iraqis are cooperating, but they're not complying. They are allowing the inspectors to go wherever they want to and see whatever they want to, but they're clearly not handing over any of the components of their weapons of mass destruction program.

So, the problem that the U.S. has is, what do we do? Can we go to war without that clean smoking gun? And if we do, how many countries are going to be willing to come with us?

HEMMER: All good questions.

POLLACK: And if we don't go to war, how do we make inspections work?

HEMMER: Thank you, Ken -- out of time. Ken Pollock in D.C., we will talk again, I am certain. Thanks again.

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 18, 2002 - 07:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the major topics this morning that we continue to watch: Is the U.S. ready to declare that Iraq has fallen fall short -- far short, rather, of its requirement to provide a complete and accurate accounting of its weapons programs? The president meets with the National Security Council today.
Let's talk about what will play out over the next couple of weeks now with Ken Pollack, former CIA analyst and author of "The Threatening Storm: The case for invading Iraq." Ken is back with us in D.C. this morning.

Good to see you again -- good morning to you.

KEN POLLACK, FORMER CIA ANALYST: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Gauge the war drum beat today. Is the U.S. closer than we were a week ago?

POLLACK: I think we are certainly closer. You've heard any number of statements coming from the administration. John King earlier talking about the fact that the administration has basically concluded that the Iraqi declaration is a sham. The Iraqis have not come forward with any new information. They are not coming clean on their weapons of mass destruction program. And in many cases, they haven't even made an effort to try to explain all of the vast gaps in what they were claiming and what the UN inspectors were finding even back in the 1990s.

HEMMER: What explains that, Ken? Why would the Iraqis hold off on that, knowing the implications that may follow?

POLLACK: Well, as best we can tell, Saddam seems to believe that he can do what he did in the 1990s, which is shift the onus of proof from Iraq having to prove that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction to the inspectors having to prove that he does. That's exceedingly difficult, and he has some reason to believe that this might work, because it did work for him in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, he did successfully transfer the burden of proof, and it's one of the reasons that the inspections process broke down in 1998. He seems to think that he can do the same thing now, and therefore, he thinks the best thing he can do is say, I've got nothing, and if you think I do, you have to prove otherwise.

HEMMER: Well, listen, bring it back to the U.S. quickly. Colin Powell, a quick comment from what he had to say this week regarding where the U.S. position is headed. POLLACK: Well, what the secretary...

HEMMER: And one second, Ken, we're going to listen to it, and we'll come back and talk about it. Here's Colin Powell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We said at the very beginning that we approached it with skepticism, and the information I've received so far is that that skepticism is well-founded. There are problems with the declaration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: How big are the problems? What does the White House do right now? And the speculation earlier in the week that Colin Powell or President Bush might go to the UN this week and make that declaration public hasn't happened just yet. Do you anticipate it at this point?

POLLACK: I think we're still waiting to see what the administration decides. The debate really is, as Bill Richardson was describing it earlier: Do you declare material breach sooner or later? Do you allow the inspections process to play out a little longer? Or do you try to base the decision to go to war solely on the false Iraqi declaration?

The administration just hasn't sorted that out yet. And really, that debate is not about whether or not the United States goes to war, because effectively what you're hearing Colin Powell say is, the Iraqis had their last chance and they haven't come clean with that last chance.

The debate now is over what is the best route for the United States to take in going to war in terms of building as big a coalition as possible. That's really the key right now is trying to convince as many countries as possible to join us in taking action against Iraq. And the debate is: Do you do it sooner based on the declaration, which is the cleanest Iraqi lie that we're likely to have, or do you wait in the hope that the inspectors will reveal additional Iraqi perfidy?

HEMMER: You say not one U.S. option right now is that great -- 15 seconds to go here. Why not?

POLLACK: Well the problem that we have is that going into the inspections, everyone thought one of two things would happen, either the Iraqis would block the inspectors and the entire world would rally around the United States to go to war, or else the Iraqis would come clean and hand over their weapons and they'd be disarmed and we wouldn't have to go to war.

Those, of course, were part of the two least likely things to happen, and in fact, what we've seen is they aren't happening, neither is happening. So, what we've got now is a situation where the Iraqis are cooperating, but they're not complying. They are allowing the inspectors to go wherever they want to and see whatever they want to, but they're clearly not handing over any of the components of their weapons of mass destruction program.

So, the problem that the U.S. has is, what do we do? Can we go to war without that clean smoking gun? And if we do, how many countries are going to be willing to come with us?

HEMMER: All good questions.

POLLACK: And if we don't go to war, how do we make inspections work?

HEMMER: Thank you, Ken -- out of time. Ken Pollock in D.C., we will talk again, I am certain. Thanks again.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.