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American Morning

Is Weapons Hunt Working?

Aired January 06, 2003 - 08:06   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: Now back to Iraq. In a speech broadcast on Iraqi TV today, Saddam Hussein said U.N. inspectors are not looking for weapons. Instead, he says, they are spying on Iraq's military. U.N. inspectors have been at it for five weeks now and on January 27th they are due to report on what they've seen.
Is the weapons hunt working at all?

Joining us now to talk about that, Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst on Iraq and author of?

KEN POLLACK, FORMER CIA IRAQ ANALYST: "The Threatening Storm: The Case For Invading Iraq."

ZAHN: All right. We've got to make sure we get the plug in there for your book, which actually gives us a very good history of why things are happening the way they are today.

POLLACK: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: There was a disturbing note in the "L.A. Times" recently quoting an inspector saying that if we were to publish a report right now, we would have zilch to put in it.

POLLACK: Right. This is the problem that we have got, which is that all along Saddam's game has been to cooperate with the inspectors without actually complying with the resolution. So he's letting the inspectors go wherever they want to. He's allowing them to see whatever they want to see. But he's not actually surrendering everything. And this is Saddam's game.

He is playing for international opinion. And he...

ZAHN: And you say he's always 10 steps ahead of the inspection teams that follow.

POLLACK: Well, this is -- right. This is what we've found over the course of the last 10, 12 years is that Saddam is much better at hiding his weapons than the inspectors are at finding them, which is why he believes he can win this game. As long as the inspectors keep going around and finding nothing, he believes that the international opinion will turn his way. And I think this speech is just further pushing in that direction, trying to discredit the inspection process further.

ZAHN: Is there anything likely to change all that? We should say that there's a new field office 240 miles north of Baghdad and they will begin to employ some six helicopters to scour that area. Will that make any difference at all?

POLLACK: It's always possible. The Iraqis are capable of making mistakes and during the 1990s there were at least two or three occasions where the inspectors did manage to turn up something on the Iraqis. But it was always very small. And I think this time around we have to assume that the Iraqis have done an even better job. This is what we're seeing, is they've done an even better job of hiding everything that they have.

So there is always a chance. But right now it's really just a hope.

ZAHN: And inspectors finally are getting access to some intelligence provided by whom, the U.S. government and some of the other allies?

POLLACK: Right.

ZAHN: Is that going to make any discernable difference?

POLLACK: Again, it's always possible. I don't know what the U.S. government has this time around. But, again, I think we have to be very modest about what we can expect from it. I remember during the 1990s when I was in the U.S. government running this effort, in part, and I remember any number of nights going to sleep knowing that we had just provided the inspectors with some juicy nugget that we were certain was going to allow them to find something that the Iraqis had overnight. And I'd wake up in the morning and find out that, in fact, they'd gone to the place and it had been completely cleaned.

ZAHN: What does it mean right now that Iraq's chief liaison officer to the weapons inspectors says that after 237 visits in five weeks, the inspectors have found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the list goes on and on, saying, I think what he said at the top of this, that the idea is that they have cooperated, time to move on? That is so darned predictable, isn't it?

POLLACK: Absolutely. We knew this going into this, that that would be Saddam's game and the problem is it seems to be working. The big question that's out there is is the United States going to allow it to? The Iraqis gave a declaration on December 7 which was absolutely farcical. There is no one -- even the inspectors said that the declaration is absolutely ridiculous. So we know that the Iraqis aren't complying. They're not trying to come clean with what they actually have. They're not trying to actually help the inspectors do their job.

And the question is how long is the United States going to allow the inspections to run on if they're not finding anything? How long do they hope...

ZAHN: What is your guess?

POLLACK: My guess is it's...

ZAHN: And is there a war? POLLACK: Well, I think that a war is pretty likely at this point in time because the Iraqis are demonstrating that they're not willing to comply. As for timing, I think that we're weeks away.

ZAHN: Weeks away? And once -- so you're thinking there is that time window of February everybody's talking about.

POLLACK: Exactly. I don't see the Bush administration allowing this to run on much beyond February. I think...

ZAHN: And we are seeing increased movement of troops that we can't ignore.

POLLACK: Exactly. The buildup is going on. Once we get a certain number of troops out there, it's going to be very hard to sustain those troops out there for very long and my guess is that by the end of this month, the beginning of next month we'll be at that point. And I think at that point, the Bush administration is going to say if the inspections haven't produced the smoking gun, which they probably won't, but you can still hope that they will, I think at that point the Bush administration is going to have to say you know what? We've given the Iraqis every chance. We've tried to find the smoking gun. We can't do either of those things. We're going to have to go ahead and do this.

ZAHN: And at the same time dealing with North Korea.

POLLACK: That's the trick. And that's really the key for the Bush administration is they've now got two crises on their plate and can they handle both of them?

ZAHN: Ken Pollack, always good to see you, author of "The Threatening Storm."

POLLACK: Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: Nice to actually see you in person. We usually interview you when you're in Washington.

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 January 6, 2003 - 08:06   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to Iraq. In a speech broadcast on Iraqi TV today, Saddam Hussein said U.N. inspectors are not looking for weapons. Instead, he says, they are spying on Iraq's military. U.N. inspectors have been at it for five weeks now and on January 27th they are due to report on what they've seen.
Is the weapons hunt working at all?

Joining us now to talk about that, Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst on Iraq and author of?

KEN POLLACK, FORMER CIA IRAQ ANALYST: "The Threatening Storm: The Case For Invading Iraq."

ZAHN: All right. We've got to make sure we get the plug in there for your book, which actually gives us a very good history of why things are happening the way they are today.

POLLACK: Thanks, Paula.

ZAHN: There was a disturbing note in the "L.A. Times" recently quoting an inspector saying that if we were to publish a report right now, we would have zilch to put in it.

POLLACK: Right. This is the problem that we have got, which is that all along Saddam's game has been to cooperate with the inspectors without actually complying with the resolution. So he's letting the inspectors go wherever they want to. He's allowing them to see whatever they want to see. But he's not actually surrendering everything. And this is Saddam's game.

He is playing for international opinion. And he...

ZAHN: And you say he's always 10 steps ahead of the inspection teams that follow.

POLLACK: Well, this is -- right. This is what we've found over the course of the last 10, 12 years is that Saddam is much better at hiding his weapons than the inspectors are at finding them, which is why he believes he can win this game. As long as the inspectors keep going around and finding nothing, he believes that the international opinion will turn his way. And I think this speech is just further pushing in that direction, trying to discredit the inspection process further.

ZAHN: Is there anything likely to change all that? We should say that there's a new field office 240 miles north of Baghdad and they will begin to employ some six helicopters to scour that area. Will that make any difference at all?

POLLACK: It's always possible. The Iraqis are capable of making mistakes and during the 1990s there were at least two or three occasions where the inspectors did manage to turn up something on the Iraqis. But it was always very small. And I think this time around we have to assume that the Iraqis have done an even better job. This is what we're seeing, is they've done an even better job of hiding everything that they have.

So there is always a chance. But right now it's really just a hope.

ZAHN: And inspectors finally are getting access to some intelligence provided by whom, the U.S. government and some of the other allies?

POLLACK: Right.

ZAHN: Is that going to make any discernable difference?

POLLACK: Again, it's always possible. I don't know what the U.S. government has this time around. But, again, I think we have to be very modest about what we can expect from it. I remember during the 1990s when I was in the U.S. government running this effort, in part, and I remember any number of nights going to sleep knowing that we had just provided the inspectors with some juicy nugget that we were certain was going to allow them to find something that the Iraqis had overnight. And I'd wake up in the morning and find out that, in fact, they'd gone to the place and it had been completely cleaned.

ZAHN: What does it mean right now that Iraq's chief liaison officer to the weapons inspectors says that after 237 visits in five weeks, the inspectors have found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the list goes on and on, saying, I think what he said at the top of this, that the idea is that they have cooperated, time to move on? That is so darned predictable, isn't it?

POLLACK: Absolutely. We knew this going into this, that that would be Saddam's game and the problem is it seems to be working. The big question that's out there is is the United States going to allow it to? The Iraqis gave a declaration on December 7 which was absolutely farcical. There is no one -- even the inspectors said that the declaration is absolutely ridiculous. So we know that the Iraqis aren't complying. They're not trying to come clean with what they actually have. They're not trying to actually help the inspectors do their job.

And the question is how long is the United States going to allow the inspections to run on if they're not finding anything? How long do they hope...

ZAHN: What is your guess?

POLLACK: My guess is it's...

ZAHN: And is there a war? POLLACK: Well, I think that a war is pretty likely at this point in time because the Iraqis are demonstrating that they're not willing to comply. As for timing, I think that we're weeks away.

ZAHN: Weeks away? And once -- so you're thinking there is that time window of February everybody's talking about.

POLLACK: Exactly. I don't see the Bush administration allowing this to run on much beyond February. I think...

ZAHN: And we are seeing increased movement of troops that we can't ignore.

POLLACK: Exactly. The buildup is going on. Once we get a certain number of troops out there, it's going to be very hard to sustain those troops out there for very long and my guess is that by the end of this month, the beginning of next month we'll be at that point. And I think at that point, the Bush administration is going to say if the inspections haven't produced the smoking gun, which they probably won't, but you can still hope that they will, I think at that point the Bush administration is going to have to say you know what? We've given the Iraqis every chance. We've tried to find the smoking gun. We can't do either of those things. We're going to have to go ahead and do this.

ZAHN: And at the same time dealing with North Korea.

POLLACK: That's the trick. And that's really the key for the Bush administration is they've now got two crises on their plate and can they handle both of them?

ZAHN: Ken Pollack, always good to see you, author of "The Threatening Storm."

POLLACK: Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: Nice to actually see you in person. We usually interview you when you're in Washington.

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