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American Morning
Blair in the Hot Seat
Aired February 26, 2003 - 08:34 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: As the parliament in London debates the Iraq issue, our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is there with more.
Good morning, Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, Tony Blair has really been in the hotseat all week. Yesterday, he was also taking questions, and, today, there will be a vote later this evening on his Iraq policy.
Now he will win that vote because there are enough votes in the parliament to put him over the top, but it is a tense moment for him. Because a considerable number of MVs (ph) in his own party plan to vote against him. So this is not a great moment for him, even though he will win the vote.
Now, what he's basically saying is that he does not buy the argument that one should give interminable time to Saddam Hussein to disarm, that to needs to be now, that he's had 12 years, that he's violated all of the U.N. resolutions that have come up, and that it needs to be now that he understands that he needs to do it if has any hope of doing this peacefully.
The British parliament, the House of Common members will, he said, get another chance to vote again as well. And the vote before them today is not as specific vote on war or peace, but rather, on his strategy of pursuing the U.N. option.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I have no doubt that the house will have an opportunity to vote on this issue many times if we come to military action, and certainly in relation, if there is a second resolution, in relation to that second resolution. So I can assure him, as we're voting tonight, that we're not voting actually on the issue of war tonight; we're voting on the issue of the government's strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, what you're seeing now is a live picture of the House of Commons debate. It's actually the opposition Tory Party that's talking about the motion that is being considered. They support Blair. They support the government in his position. So Blair will have certainly the overwhelming majority of the opposition with him.
Blair, himself, is not conducting this debate, although he did take some questions earlier. But it's Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, the British foreign secretary, who's conducting the debate, and now, at the same time, the French National Assembly is also debating this, and also debating Jacques Chirac's hardline policy against any military action. What we have, of course, right now is the focus of U.S. and U.K. on one side of this political argument, and France leading the antiwar people on the other side of the argument, and there's talks between Schroeder and Putin of Germany and Russia tonight. President Chirac himself will be talking to the Spanish prime minister. So there is a lot of diplomatic wrangling going on right now ahead of another U.N. resolution -- Paula.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Christiane. Christiane Amanpour, reporting from London this morning.
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 26, 2003 - 08:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As the parliament in London debates the Iraq issue, our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is there with more.
Good morning, Christiane.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Well, Tony Blair has really been in the hotseat all week. Yesterday, he was also taking questions, and, today, there will be a vote later this evening on his Iraq policy.
Now he will win that vote because there are enough votes in the parliament to put him over the top, but it is a tense moment for him. Because a considerable number of MVs (ph) in his own party plan to vote against him. So this is not a great moment for him, even though he will win the vote.
Now, what he's basically saying is that he does not buy the argument that one should give interminable time to Saddam Hussein to disarm, that to needs to be now, that he's had 12 years, that he's violated all of the U.N. resolutions that have come up, and that it needs to be now that he understands that he needs to do it if has any hope of doing this peacefully.
The British parliament, the House of Common members will, he said, get another chance to vote again as well. And the vote before them today is not as specific vote on war or peace, but rather, on his strategy of pursuing the U.N. option.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I have no doubt that the house will have an opportunity to vote on this issue many times if we come to military action, and certainly in relation, if there is a second resolution, in relation to that second resolution. So I can assure him, as we're voting tonight, that we're not voting actually on the issue of war tonight; we're voting on the issue of the government's strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, what you're seeing now is a live picture of the House of Commons debate. It's actually the opposition Tory Party that's talking about the motion that is being considered. They support Blair. They support the government in his position. So Blair will have certainly the overwhelming majority of the opposition with him.
Blair, himself, is not conducting this debate, although he did take some questions earlier. But it's Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, the British foreign secretary, who's conducting the debate, and now, at the same time, the French National Assembly is also debating this, and also debating Jacques Chirac's hardline policy against any military action. What we have, of course, right now is the focus of U.S. and U.K. on one side of this political argument, and France leading the antiwar people on the other side of the argument, and there's talks between Schroeder and Putin of Germany and Russia tonight. President Chirac himself will be talking to the Spanish prime minister. So there is a lot of diplomatic wrangling going on right now ahead of another U.N. resolution -- Paula.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Christiane. Christiane Amanpour, reporting from London this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
.
