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American Morning

Inspectors Express Hope of More Iraqi Cooperation

Aired February 10, 2003 - 07:34   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: Back to our top story of the morning, the U.N.'s top inspectors say they are hopeful that Baghdad will cooperate more with weapons inspectors in Iraq. But chief inspector Hans Blix says weekend talks were not as productive as he had hoped they would be.
Let's catch up with Rym Brahimi who joins us live from Baghdad with Iraq's reaction to all this.

Good morning -- Rym.

RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, so far Iraq's reaction has been asking the inspectors to be fair. So far we also know from the president's top scientific advisor, General Amir al-Saadi, that he says there's been a lot of cooperation. He says they've put forward a lot of suggestions in addition to those 24 documents that they gave the chief U.N. weapons inspectors in their two-day talks here. He also said that on the issue of the U-2 high altitude surveillance planes, well he seemed to -- he seemed to suggest that they were leaning toward a positive response, they were looking at it from a different angle. A response is going to be presented to the U.N. inspectors before Friday when Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei go to the U.N. Security Council. They also suggested ways of verifying what Iraq says about not having any weapons of mass destruction.

Now Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who also met with the two men, called on them to be fair but said that Iraq was prepared to cooperate further.

And something you might be interested in, "Babil," which is the newspaper that's run by the president's son, an editorial here, Paula, calling on both chief U.N. weapons inspectors to resist what they say are U.S. pressures, to not be tools of the United States and then to not allow the U.S. to pressure them in to allowing a war -- Paula.

ZAHN: Rym Brahimi, reporting from Baghdad for us this morning, thanks so much.

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 10, 2003 - 07:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to our top story of the morning, the U.N.'s top inspectors say they are hopeful that Baghdad will cooperate more with weapons inspectors in Iraq. But chief inspector Hans Blix says weekend talks were not as productive as he had hoped they would be.
Let's catch up with Rym Brahimi who joins us live from Baghdad with Iraq's reaction to all this.

Good morning -- Rym.

RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, so far Iraq's reaction has been asking the inspectors to be fair. So far we also know from the president's top scientific advisor, General Amir al-Saadi, that he says there's been a lot of cooperation. He says they've put forward a lot of suggestions in addition to those 24 documents that they gave the chief U.N. weapons inspectors in their two-day talks here. He also said that on the issue of the U-2 high altitude surveillance planes, well he seemed to -- he seemed to suggest that they were leaning toward a positive response, they were looking at it from a different angle. A response is going to be presented to the U.N. inspectors before Friday when Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei go to the U.N. Security Council. They also suggested ways of verifying what Iraq says about not having any weapons of mass destruction.

Now Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who also met with the two men, called on them to be fair but said that Iraq was prepared to cooperate further.

And something you might be interested in, "Babil," which is the newspaper that's run by the president's son, an editorial here, Paula, calling on both chief U.N. weapons inspectors to resist what they say are U.S. pressures, to not be tools of the United States and then to not allow the U.S. to pressure them in to allowing a war -- Paula.

ZAHN: Rym Brahimi, reporting from Baghdad for us this morning, thanks so much.

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