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American Morning
Critical Day in Showdown with Iraq
Aired January 27, 2003 - 08:00 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: AMERICAN MORNING comes to you from all over the world today, a critical day in the showdown with Iraq. Here in New York, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will be expected to arrive at the U.N. within the hour. They will deliver their highly anticipated progress report on the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
They are not expected to say they have found a so-called smoking gun. It is believed that they will say that Iraq continues to withhold key information and is not fully cooperating with the inspectors and that they need more time.
Bill Hemmer is on duty in Kuwait City this morning. He'll be there all week long as American troops train and get ready for the possibility of war -- Bill, good morning.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Paula, hello again from Kuwait City.
A long trip over the weekend getting out here to the desert, but yet again we find ourselves here, 12 years after the Persian Gulf War, yet again on the precipice of the possibility of another war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq. And certainly it is s critical day at the U.N. today, with Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei going today to make their presentation, said to be 60 minutes in length, starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.
And from there, going into Tuesday and Wednesday, you will have the U.N. Security Council going over this progress report, trying to gauge right now the level of Iraqi cooperation and how much longer these inspections may take place.
We've already been given a strong indication from the White House that the appetite in Washington is not very strong for much more time. How all this debate is figured out and worked from here is certainly something the entire world is waiting and watching to see. In Kuwait already, Paula, 25,000 troops have gathered. They continue to gather and the numbers grow by the day.
More in a moment from here -- Paula.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Bill.
We will get back to you in a couple minutes or so.
Meanwhile this morning, the U.N.'s chief arms inspectors report to the Security Council, as we mentioned, on the search for banned weapons in Iraq. They are expected to say that Iraq's arms declaration is incomplete and that inspectors need more time. But will they say anything that might increase support for military action?
Joining us now to talk about the report, former weapons inspector Terence Taylor.
Nice to see you in person for a change.
TERENCE TAYLOR, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to be here.
ZAHN: If the Iraqis are granted a couple weeks more for these inspections, what is is going to yield, anything that we haven't seen so far?
TAYLOR: Well, unless the Iraqis come forward and deliver new information and answer the outstanding issues, as they're called, on their weapons programs, that is, nuclear, biological, chemical and prohibited missile programs, not much is going to happen over two weeks. It took us years in the 1990s to uncover the hard evidence, with the same kind of access rights and everything. So it's very hard to see how in a few weeks Hans Blix's inspectors can uncover anything new.
ZAHN: Well, let's talk about the problem of the inspectors not being granted private time with Iraqi scientists. How critical is that to them finding a smoking gun?
TAYLOR: Well, it is important. I wouldn't say it was absolutely the critical point. It depends on the scientists themselves and the engineers and whether they will come forward and whether they'll willingly give information. I have my doubts whether they would do that given the environment in which they live and the pressure which they're under from the regime.
ZAHN: And the environment in which they live, Paul Wolfowitz last week suggesting that if they cooperate with the inspectors, they're going to end up dead.
TAYLOR: Well, that could possibly happen. We did do some interviews, a lot of interviews in the 1990s, some of which were very successful on the ground, particularly those that were taken place with surprise, in other words, it wasn't planned ahead. We, you know, we didn't say can we see doctor so and so tomorrow, but caught the person by surprise. They were very productive.
ZAHN: And did you do those with minders or there were no Iraqi officials on duty at that?
TAYLOR: Well, we did them, minders were present, but they weren't aware that that's what we were going to be doing as an interview. So they weren't very well prepared. So I think surprise is the key.
ZAHN: And do you have any reason to believe that those scientists who were surprised by you were alive two to three months later? Do you know?
TAYLOR: I don't know.
ZAHN: And were they fearful when you talked to them?
TAYLOR: They were certainly under very great pressure, that was obvious.
ZAHN: So help us better understand the climate under which Hans Blix and ElBaradei greet the U.N. today.
TAYLOR: Well, I think they are going to say that they've been allowed extensive access. They've been to some sensitive sites, too. For example, they've been to a mosque. They've been to the so-called Saddam's palaces, which are big compounds. So the access hasn't been a problem. So they've been making a very positive report about that.
But this is what happened in the 1990s. Access was less of a problem until you, of course, came somewhere sensitive or where they might be hiding something. And then it became difficult. But I don't think that's happened yet for these inspectors.
So it's very hard to see what other positive things that Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei can say.
ZAHN: Well, let's talk about the obvious negative things they can layout today.
TAYLOR: Well...
ZAHN: What are the most glaring examples you have seen so far of Iraqi non-compliance?
TAYLOR: Well, first of all, it's their so-called full and final complete declaration, which was given on the 7th of December. That declaration didn't contain any new information whatsoever and did not address the key outstanding issues on the chemical, biological, missile and nuclear programs at all. In fact, it fell back a little bit in some ways.
There were criticisms of Iraq in former U.N. reports which were edited out in this report. So it was actually a slight slip backwards, in my view.
And in the inspection process, it's, they've played cat and mouse. That is to say, the Iraqis have. In other words, they've given no new information. The Security Council resolution is perfectly clear, the onus is on Iraq to deliver up the information, say where things are, say exactly what they've done.
ZAHN: You say the resolution is perfectly clear.
TAYLOR: Yes, it is.
ZAHN: Are America's allies acting like that is the case, particularly when it comes to France and Germany? People were saying they know what they signed in 1441. What is it they don't get?
TAYLOR: I think they realize that the onus is on Iraq to do so and they say that. But they're not actually putting that into practice in policy terms. So really we have to put the pressure on Iraq to deliver up. And that must continue. Otherwise, we will be inspecting for years, as we were in the 1990s. We won't have moved forward at all.
ZAHN: Do you see us going to war a month or two down the road?
TAYLOR: Well, I think if the, if there's not a strategic decision by the regime in Baghdad to change the policy, to deliver up information, 150 inspectors or so are not going to be able to turn over every stone in Iraq. So it's looking more likely as we stand at this moment.
ZAHN: Terence Taylor, thanks for dropping by.
TAYLOR: My pleasure.
ZAHN: Look forward to covering the U.N. activities with you a little bit later on this morning.
Stay tuned to CNN for our special coverage of "Showdown Iraq: The Weapons Report." That begins at 10:00 Eastern time. That would be 7:00 Pacific -- Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Paula, over the weekend in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, Colin Powell made a substantial speech yesterday. And part of his speech dealt with the potential for a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the terrorist network. This is something that has been talked about going back 17 months to 9/11.
Here's what the secretary of state had to say yesterday in Switzerland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Saddam should tell the truth and tell the truth now. The more we wait, the more chance there is for this dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, more time for him to pass a weapon, share a technology or to use these weapons again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: That was Colin Powell, again, yesterday in Switzerland.
We want to get to Atlanta now and our national correspondent, Mike Boettcher, who joins us with more on this topic and certainly the words of Colin Powell yesterday -- Mike, perhaps the best and simplest way to ask this question is this way, why does the White House right now believe that there is a connection to al Qaeda when dealing with Baghdad? MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they believe that there have been connections for several years. I can tell you, Bill, where the heat is right now. I can't make the direct links for you. But the heat is on a man named Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. Now, in October, President Bush made a speech referring to a top al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment in Baghdad as proof that Baghdad was cooperating with terrorists. That man was Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
A few days later, an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan was assassinated, Laurence Foley. Now, Jordanian authorities have accused Zarqawi of masterminding that assassination. The links that are being looked at by the coalition intelligence agencies in the Middle East and in this country are links between Zarqawi and Baghdad. They're trying to find out if those links do exist, and they may have some keys because two people have been arrested in that plot and the question is what do they know and are they making links for the administration to Iraq and al Qaeda?
HEMMER: Yes, Mike, if we can go back even further in history, is there an historical link here between Baghdad and al Qaeda that you've looked into and found?
BOETTCHER: Well, dating back to the early to mid-1990s, when al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were based in Khartoum in the Sudan, there was a competition of sorts under way between Iranian intelligence and Iraqi intelligence to penetrate al Qaeda to gain what are called agents of influence to perhaps down the line use al Qaeda for their own purposes.
Now, that is an historical tie that has been talked about by people who have been arrested in al Qaeda. It's not known how close those ties are. You know, this is such a murky area to find out and that's one of the reasons the administration went away from making the terrorism link to trying to make the link with weapons of mass destruction. That's all changed with the specter of al-Zarqawi and perhaps hard links can be made there. So we'll see.
That's one of the reasons you're seeing, I believe, statements about possible links between Iraq and al Qaeda coming from the administration -- Bill.
HEMMER: Mike Boettcher on top of it, as he always is, at the CNN Center.
Thank you, Mike.
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 27, 2003 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: AMERICAN MORNING comes to you from all over the world today, a critical day in the showdown with Iraq. Here in New York, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will be expected to arrive at the U.N. within the hour. They will deliver their highly anticipated progress report on the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
They are not expected to say they have found a so-called smoking gun. It is believed that they will say that Iraq continues to withhold key information and is not fully cooperating with the inspectors and that they need more time.
Bill Hemmer is on duty in Kuwait City this morning. He'll be there all week long as American troops train and get ready for the possibility of war -- Bill, good morning.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Paula, hello again from Kuwait City.
A long trip over the weekend getting out here to the desert, but yet again we find ourselves here, 12 years after the Persian Gulf War, yet again on the precipice of the possibility of another war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq. And certainly it is s critical day at the U.N. today, with Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei going today to make their presentation, said to be 60 minutes in length, starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.
And from there, going into Tuesday and Wednesday, you will have the U.N. Security Council going over this progress report, trying to gauge right now the level of Iraqi cooperation and how much longer these inspections may take place.
We've already been given a strong indication from the White House that the appetite in Washington is not very strong for much more time. How all this debate is figured out and worked from here is certainly something the entire world is waiting and watching to see. In Kuwait already, Paula, 25,000 troops have gathered. They continue to gather and the numbers grow by the day.
More in a moment from here -- Paula.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Bill.
We will get back to you in a couple minutes or so.
Meanwhile this morning, the U.N.'s chief arms inspectors report to the Security Council, as we mentioned, on the search for banned weapons in Iraq. They are expected to say that Iraq's arms declaration is incomplete and that inspectors need more time. But will they say anything that might increase support for military action?
Joining us now to talk about the report, former weapons inspector Terence Taylor.
Nice to see you in person for a change.
TERENCE TAYLOR, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to be here.
ZAHN: If the Iraqis are granted a couple weeks more for these inspections, what is is going to yield, anything that we haven't seen so far?
TAYLOR: Well, unless the Iraqis come forward and deliver new information and answer the outstanding issues, as they're called, on their weapons programs, that is, nuclear, biological, chemical and prohibited missile programs, not much is going to happen over two weeks. It took us years in the 1990s to uncover the hard evidence, with the same kind of access rights and everything. So it's very hard to see how in a few weeks Hans Blix's inspectors can uncover anything new.
ZAHN: Well, let's talk about the problem of the inspectors not being granted private time with Iraqi scientists. How critical is that to them finding a smoking gun?
TAYLOR: Well, it is important. I wouldn't say it was absolutely the critical point. It depends on the scientists themselves and the engineers and whether they will come forward and whether they'll willingly give information. I have my doubts whether they would do that given the environment in which they live and the pressure which they're under from the regime.
ZAHN: And the environment in which they live, Paul Wolfowitz last week suggesting that if they cooperate with the inspectors, they're going to end up dead.
TAYLOR: Well, that could possibly happen. We did do some interviews, a lot of interviews in the 1990s, some of which were very successful on the ground, particularly those that were taken place with surprise, in other words, it wasn't planned ahead. We, you know, we didn't say can we see doctor so and so tomorrow, but caught the person by surprise. They were very productive.
ZAHN: And did you do those with minders or there were no Iraqi officials on duty at that?
TAYLOR: Well, we did them, minders were present, but they weren't aware that that's what we were going to be doing as an interview. So they weren't very well prepared. So I think surprise is the key.
ZAHN: And do you have any reason to believe that those scientists who were surprised by you were alive two to three months later? Do you know?
TAYLOR: I don't know.
ZAHN: And were they fearful when you talked to them?
TAYLOR: They were certainly under very great pressure, that was obvious.
ZAHN: So help us better understand the climate under which Hans Blix and ElBaradei greet the U.N. today.
TAYLOR: Well, I think they are going to say that they've been allowed extensive access. They've been to some sensitive sites, too. For example, they've been to a mosque. They've been to the so-called Saddam's palaces, which are big compounds. So the access hasn't been a problem. So they've been making a very positive report about that.
But this is what happened in the 1990s. Access was less of a problem until you, of course, came somewhere sensitive or where they might be hiding something. And then it became difficult. But I don't think that's happened yet for these inspectors.
So it's very hard to see what other positive things that Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei can say.
ZAHN: Well, let's talk about the obvious negative things they can layout today.
TAYLOR: Well...
ZAHN: What are the most glaring examples you have seen so far of Iraqi non-compliance?
TAYLOR: Well, first of all, it's their so-called full and final complete declaration, which was given on the 7th of December. That declaration didn't contain any new information whatsoever and did not address the key outstanding issues on the chemical, biological, missile and nuclear programs at all. In fact, it fell back a little bit in some ways.
There were criticisms of Iraq in former U.N. reports which were edited out in this report. So it was actually a slight slip backwards, in my view.
And in the inspection process, it's, they've played cat and mouse. That is to say, the Iraqis have. In other words, they've given no new information. The Security Council resolution is perfectly clear, the onus is on Iraq to deliver up the information, say where things are, say exactly what they've done.
ZAHN: You say the resolution is perfectly clear.
TAYLOR: Yes, it is.
ZAHN: Are America's allies acting like that is the case, particularly when it comes to France and Germany? People were saying they know what they signed in 1441. What is it they don't get?
TAYLOR: I think they realize that the onus is on Iraq to do so and they say that. But they're not actually putting that into practice in policy terms. So really we have to put the pressure on Iraq to deliver up. And that must continue. Otherwise, we will be inspecting for years, as we were in the 1990s. We won't have moved forward at all.
ZAHN: Do you see us going to war a month or two down the road?
TAYLOR: Well, I think if the, if there's not a strategic decision by the regime in Baghdad to change the policy, to deliver up information, 150 inspectors or so are not going to be able to turn over every stone in Iraq. So it's looking more likely as we stand at this moment.
ZAHN: Terence Taylor, thanks for dropping by.
TAYLOR: My pleasure.
ZAHN: Look forward to covering the U.N. activities with you a little bit later on this morning.
Stay tuned to CNN for our special coverage of "Showdown Iraq: The Weapons Report." That begins at 10:00 Eastern time. That would be 7:00 Pacific -- Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Paula, over the weekend in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, Colin Powell made a substantial speech yesterday. And part of his speech dealt with the potential for a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the terrorist network. This is something that has been talked about going back 17 months to 9/11.
Here's what the secretary of state had to say yesterday in Switzerland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Saddam should tell the truth and tell the truth now. The more we wait, the more chance there is for this dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, more time for him to pass a weapon, share a technology or to use these weapons again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: That was Colin Powell, again, yesterday in Switzerland.
We want to get to Atlanta now and our national correspondent, Mike Boettcher, who joins us with more on this topic and certainly the words of Colin Powell yesterday -- Mike, perhaps the best and simplest way to ask this question is this way, why does the White House right now believe that there is a connection to al Qaeda when dealing with Baghdad? MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they believe that there have been connections for several years. I can tell you, Bill, where the heat is right now. I can't make the direct links for you. But the heat is on a man named Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. Now, in October, President Bush made a speech referring to a top al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment in Baghdad as proof that Baghdad was cooperating with terrorists. That man was Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
A few days later, an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan was assassinated, Laurence Foley. Now, Jordanian authorities have accused Zarqawi of masterminding that assassination. The links that are being looked at by the coalition intelligence agencies in the Middle East and in this country are links between Zarqawi and Baghdad. They're trying to find out if those links do exist, and they may have some keys because two people have been arrested in that plot and the question is what do they know and are they making links for the administration to Iraq and al Qaeda?
HEMMER: Yes, Mike, if we can go back even further in history, is there an historical link here between Baghdad and al Qaeda that you've looked into and found?
BOETTCHER: Well, dating back to the early to mid-1990s, when al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were based in Khartoum in the Sudan, there was a competition of sorts under way between Iranian intelligence and Iraqi intelligence to penetrate al Qaeda to gain what are called agents of influence to perhaps down the line use al Qaeda for their own purposes.
Now, that is an historical tie that has been talked about by people who have been arrested in al Qaeda. It's not known how close those ties are. You know, this is such a murky area to find out and that's one of the reasons the administration went away from making the terrorism link to trying to make the link with weapons of mass destruction. That's all changed with the specter of al-Zarqawi and perhaps hard links can be made there. So we'll see.
That's one of the reasons you're seeing, I believe, statements about possible links between Iraq and al Qaeda coming from the administration -- Bill.
HEMMER: Mike Boettcher on top of it, as he always is, at the CNN Center.
Thank you, Mike.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
