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American Morning

Preview of Powell's Upcoming Presentation

Aired February 05, 2003 - 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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: When Secretary of State Colin Powell goes before the U.N. today and the Security Council, he will be armed with satellite photos and intercepted phone conversations, detailed proof, the U.S. says, that Iraq is hiding banned weapons.
For more now on Mr. Powell's presentation, we turn to our own military analyst, General Wesley Clark, who joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Good to see you again, General.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Nice to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for joining us this morning.

Let's talk a little bit about the impact these military satellite photos might have on the Security Council. First of all, how good is the detail in them?

CLARK: Well, the detail will be excellent. I mean you could see a book from outer space. If you opened up a blanket and put a book on it, you'd see the book. Now, you couldn't read the book, but you can see very small objects with good detail.

ZAHN: So you'll be able to actually see inside a building?

CLARK: Not actually inside a building. The satellites don't, they don't look through walls. They may show a heat source, but they're not going to look through a wall.

ZAHN: Let's talk about these audio intercepts that the secretary of state is expected to share with the U.N. body.

How convincing might those be, apparently of conversations that took place between Iraqi officials and their scientists encouraging them to move stuff?

CLARK: Well, I think it should be convincing because there's no doubt from any of us who have been on the inside that the Iraqis have had a weapons of mass destruction program. It was never fully dismantled when the U.N. was in there before. It is being concealed. They do have an active program to conceal their capabilities and hush their scientists and I think that's the evidence that General Powell is going to show today. And I think it should be convincing.

ZAHN: According to a report in "Newsweek," the debate over whether to make these intercepts public as, in their words, "extraordinary," because I guess intercepts by the NSA are considered the most jealously guarded of all U.S. intelligence agencies.

CLARK: Well, they have to be.

ZAHN: Does that in and of itself show us what impact they're going to have?

CLARK: I think it shows how seriously the administration takes this presentation of the evidence, Paula, because whenever you expose conversations like this, you risk compromising the source, whatever the radio is, whatever the frequencies are, whatever the method of collection is. Now, I'm sure the Iraqis will go back and sanitize it after that and that'll be the end of our ability to collect that kind of information in the future from that source.

And so this is a make or break presentation, from the administration's point of view. But it's not just the weight of the evidence here that's important. I think there are a couple of other things. Number one is, of course, General Powell, although the American people rate him higher than the president, he's speaking the president's policy.

Number two, the Europeans have a lot of this evidence already and what they're waiting to see is what impact his speech can have on European public opinion so they can realign and get more cozy with the United States' policy.

And, third, I think we have to ask really what's the strategy here, because from the beginning, as we've looked at this, we've said the goal is to make Americans safer. And somehow this question has gotten turned into how much evidence do you have about these weapons when the real question, it seems to me, is is this the right strategy?

Now, we've answered that question. The credibility of the United States is on the line and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world's got to get with us.

ZAHN: The credibility of the United States is on the line, sir? What about the credibility of the U.N. here?

CLARK: Absolutely. But the U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with.

ZAHN: I know you're going to be watching today. We'll be looking forward to checking in with you tomorrow to see how you thought it all played.

General Wesley Clark, it's always good to see you.

CLARK: Nice to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: CNN is going to have some special coverage of Mr. Powell's address at the United Nations, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

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 February 5, 2003 - 07:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: When Secretary of State Colin Powell goes before the U.N. today and the Security Council, he will be armed with satellite photos and intercepted phone conversations, detailed proof, the U.S. says, that Iraq is hiding banned weapons.
For more now on Mr. Powell's presentation, we turn to our own military analyst, General Wesley Clark, who joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Good to see you again, General.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Nice to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for joining us this morning.

Let's talk a little bit about the impact these military satellite photos might have on the Security Council. First of all, how good is the detail in them?

CLARK: Well, the detail will be excellent. I mean you could see a book from outer space. If you opened up a blanket and put a book on it, you'd see the book. Now, you couldn't read the book, but you can see very small objects with good detail.

ZAHN: So you'll be able to actually see inside a building?

CLARK: Not actually inside a building. The satellites don't, they don't look through walls. They may show a heat source, but they're not going to look through a wall.

ZAHN: Let's talk about these audio intercepts that the secretary of state is expected to share with the U.N. body.

How convincing might those be, apparently of conversations that took place between Iraqi officials and their scientists encouraging them to move stuff?

CLARK: Well, I think it should be convincing because there's no doubt from any of us who have been on the inside that the Iraqis have had a weapons of mass destruction program. It was never fully dismantled when the U.N. was in there before. It is being concealed. They do have an active program to conceal their capabilities and hush their scientists and I think that's the evidence that General Powell is going to show today. And I think it should be convincing.

ZAHN: According to a report in "Newsweek," the debate over whether to make these intercepts public as, in their words, "extraordinary," because I guess intercepts by the NSA are considered the most jealously guarded of all U.S. intelligence agencies.

CLARK: Well, they have to be.

ZAHN: Does that in and of itself show us what impact they're going to have?

CLARK: I think it shows how seriously the administration takes this presentation of the evidence, Paula, because whenever you expose conversations like this, you risk compromising the source, whatever the radio is, whatever the frequencies are, whatever the method of collection is. Now, I'm sure the Iraqis will go back and sanitize it after that and that'll be the end of our ability to collect that kind of information in the future from that source.

And so this is a make or break presentation, from the administration's point of view. But it's not just the weight of the evidence here that's important. I think there are a couple of other things. Number one is, of course, General Powell, although the American people rate him higher than the president, he's speaking the president's policy.

Number two, the Europeans have a lot of this evidence already and what they're waiting to see is what impact his speech can have on European public opinion so they can realign and get more cozy with the United States' policy.

And, third, I think we have to ask really what's the strategy here, because from the beginning, as we've looked at this, we've said the goal is to make Americans safer. And somehow this question has gotten turned into how much evidence do you have about these weapons when the real question, it seems to me, is is this the right strategy?

Now, we've answered that question. The credibility of the United States is on the line and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we're going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world's got to get with us.

ZAHN: The credibility of the United States is on the line, sir? What about the credibility of the U.N. here?

CLARK: Absolutely. But the U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with.

ZAHN: I know you're going to be watching today. We'll be looking forward to checking in with you tomorrow to see how you thought it all played.

General Wesley Clark, it's always good to see you.

CLARK: Nice to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: CNN is going to have some special coverage of Mr. Powell's address at the United Nations, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

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