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American Morning
U.S. Pushes For Vote on Second Resolution on Iraq
Aired March 10, 2003 - 07:32 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: And as the U.S. pushes for a vote on a second resolution on Iraq, France is heavily lobbying against it, attempting to persuade other Council members to oppose military action. And today French President Jacques Chirac plans to go on television to address his country about the crisis.
For more now, let's go to Paris.
Jim Bittermann standing by with the very latest.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, that television appearance of Jacques Chirac is expected about seven hours from now, kind of an unusual thing for the president to do. We don't see that happen very often here. He's going to be on both major channels, interviewed by the top anchormen here in France. And we're not quite sure what he's going to say. The Lissez Palace (ph) says that they're not going to say anything more until the president has had a chance to speak.
There's a lot of speculation, however. He, after all, has called for this summit meeting of Security Council members, a meeting of all the heads of state from the Security Council in New York in the next few days, and there's a suggestion that he may be ready to go to the United Nations to cast the votes in the Security Council himself.
There were also some reports out of Germany just a little bit ago that Gerhardt Schroeder, the chancellor of Germany, is also prepared to go to the United Nations to cast a vote in the Security Council when the vote comes up on that British-American resolution.
Now, Dominique de Villepin, as you recall, on Friday mentioned this possibility in his speech before the United Nations. He suggested that all members of the U.N. Security Council should get together at the heads of state level. He, meantime, has flown off to Africa, where he is trying to arm twist some of the countries in Africa which sit on the Security Council -- Angola, Cameroon and Guinea. He's in Angola right now, will go to the other two countries before the day is out and is expected to return back here by tomorrow -- Paula.
ZAHN: A final question for you this morning, Jim, on what Mr. Chirac and his people think their actions will ultimately have on relations with the United States, Colin Powell saying in the short- term obviously it is not very helpful at all.
BITTERMAN: Well, those threats were certainly heard over the weekend here in France, but I think the French are quite positive about the way they're going. They've said from the very beginning that they are opposed to this showdown with Iraq, the way it's being constituted. I think there's grave doubts in many quarters here about the intelligence information that the United States has been presenting. After all, on Friday it was reported that some of the documents used in the nuclear question were forgeries. There have been questions raised about some of the proofs that the British used in their defense, Tony Blair's defense. The head of counterintelligence here in France says there's nothing that the French know of that links al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein.
So, in fact, there's a lot of questions about this move by the United States and I think the French just think it's a bad idea -- Paula.
ZAHN: Jim Bittermann in Paris this morning.
Thanks so much for that report -- Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Paula, if a U.S.-led coalition launches an attack against Iraq, how might Saddam Hussein respond? There are some nightmarish scenarios laid out and outlined in a cover story by "Newsweek" magazine. Among them, it includes an attempt to infect U.S. food and water supplies by the incoming troops.
From Washington now to talk about Saddam's strategy of survival, Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor of "Newsweek" magazine.
Good to see you, Evan.
Good morning to you.
EVAN THOMAS, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Bill.
HEMMER: You lay out a number of scenarios here, including botulinin toxin to pollute the water and food supply of U.S. troops. You talk about a report about thousands of Iraqi agents being equipped with army uniforms by the U.S. to go in and essentially kill Iraqi people, have a television camera standing by to record it and feed out the image.
How serious is the U.S. right now taking some of these reports?
THOMAS: Very seriously. You know, the trend of the press coverage in the last couple of weeks has been while this military part is going to be a piece of cake, we'll knock him off quickly, and then comes the hard part, the reconstruction. The military part is going to be hard. I mean maybe it will go quickly, but there is a lot that Saddam can do to slow things up. He thinks he can survive. He thinks he can live through this just by slowing the process down, making it ugly enough that the world will call on the United States to stop. And he thinks that President Bush will stop.
I don't think he will, but I think Saddam thinks he will.
HEMMER: There's a twist in logic here, though. If he uses chemical or biological weapons, essentially he's telling the world that he had them all along, right?
THOMAS: Right. He has a real dilemma here, a real choice. The best way to slow us down is to use chem-bio weapons. But the minute he does that, he justifies the American invasion.
So the thinking in some quarters is that he will wait until we get to Baghdad. He'll try to slow us down other ways by flooding the Euphrates River plain or using terrorists to attack us, but not use chem-bio weapons until we're actually knocking on the gates of Baghdad and he's an extremist. Then he would.
HEMMER: So you're suggesting this would be a last resort, based on your reporting?
THOMAS: Yes. I mean the military, actually, the U.S. intelligence is divided about this. Some people think he'll do it right away to shock us, scare us and slow us down. Other folks think that it's -- psychologically he would lose the moral high ground. It's sort of hard to think of Saddam as having moral high ground, but that he would lose whatever moral high ground he has if he uses them right away.
HEMMER: Evan, you also talk about some lessons that Saddam Hussein, going back to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. What did he learn then that he wishes he would have implemented or would have done that he may do this time?
THOMAS: Well, hold onto his hostages, to his human shields. As you may recall, he let the Westerners go in '91. He has told his own lieutenants that he regrets that. This is ominous because it's ominous for journalists, for one thing. It means that Saddam may try to hang onto his human shields to just complicate life for the American military.
HEMMER: Go back to the issue of Baghdad quickly. Some are suggesting this would be a modern day Stalingrad, essentially the battle that took place in western Russia during WWII in which about a million forces on the side of the German and the Russians were killed. Do you see right now the Iraqi desire on behalf of the army and the Republican Guard to fight to the death for Saddam Hussein at any cost to defend that city until the end?
THOMAS: Not by the citizens of Baghdad. I think they're going to hide or throw down their guns. But he does have, Saddam does have these security services, his special security organization that's about 5,000 men. And he's got his special Republican Guard. That's maybe another 15,000. They have an incentive to fight for the end because if they're caught by the Iraqi people, they're going to swing from lamp posts. So they have nothing to gain by surrendering.
So there is a hard core that will fight and in urban fighting, a small group can make life pretty miserable for the attacker.
HEMMER: Evan Thomas, "Newsweek" magazine, great story.
THOMAS: Thank you. HEMMER: Really interesting reading. We'll all wait and see now.
Evan, thanks.
THOMAS: Thank you.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Bill.
At a secret air base near Iraq, U.S. troops are arriving faster than the tents to house them are going up.
Our Alex Quade (ph) now takes a look at what it's like for these soldiers hastily putting up housing and living in very close quarters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They can't build these tents fast enough at a secret air base in the Persian Gulf.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as they're being set up, there's people standing next to them literally that have just got off a plane with their bags waiting for their tent to be built so they can have a place to sleep for the night.
QUADE: These tents are built for 10, but as many as 16 are cramming inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have our sleeping bags. We have an old cot. This one's a little bit broken right now, so it makes a lot of creaky noises on it. And we've taken nails that we've found laying around to pound things into the walls just so we can hang some things up. Otherwise, it tends to just pile up on top of itself. A nice thing to have in here would be a broom or some people have got some of this green indoor/outdoor carpet so at least when you get out of the bed in the morning you're not going to get dust and dirt all over your feet.
QUADE: People come and go from the flight line 24 hours a day at this air base. Sleep is a hot commodity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You really hope that you don't have a loud snorer in your tent if you're not one of those people that sleeps heavy.
QUADE (on camera): Any advice, hints for if you do have somebody who snores loud?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a lot of pile of clothes, a big pile of clothes next to you, you can throw at him or wear your ear plugs. Other than that, we try to banish him to a tent of all snoring people.
QUADE (voice-over): At an air base in the Persian Gulf, Alex Quade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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 March 10, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And as the U.S. pushes for a vote on a second resolution on Iraq, France is heavily lobbying against it, attempting to persuade other Council members to oppose military action. And today French President Jacques Chirac plans to go on television to address his country about the crisis.
For more now, let's go to Paris.
Jim Bittermann standing by with the very latest.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, that television appearance of Jacques Chirac is expected about seven hours from now, kind of an unusual thing for the president to do. We don't see that happen very often here. He's going to be on both major channels, interviewed by the top anchormen here in France. And we're not quite sure what he's going to say. The Lissez Palace (ph) says that they're not going to say anything more until the president has had a chance to speak.
There's a lot of speculation, however. He, after all, has called for this summit meeting of Security Council members, a meeting of all the heads of state from the Security Council in New York in the next few days, and there's a suggestion that he may be ready to go to the United Nations to cast the votes in the Security Council himself.
There were also some reports out of Germany just a little bit ago that Gerhardt Schroeder, the chancellor of Germany, is also prepared to go to the United Nations to cast a vote in the Security Council when the vote comes up on that British-American resolution.
Now, Dominique de Villepin, as you recall, on Friday mentioned this possibility in his speech before the United Nations. He suggested that all members of the U.N. Security Council should get together at the heads of state level. He, meantime, has flown off to Africa, where he is trying to arm twist some of the countries in Africa which sit on the Security Council -- Angola, Cameroon and Guinea. He's in Angola right now, will go to the other two countries before the day is out and is expected to return back here by tomorrow -- Paula.
ZAHN: A final question for you this morning, Jim, on what Mr. Chirac and his people think their actions will ultimately have on relations with the United States, Colin Powell saying in the short- term obviously it is not very helpful at all.
BITTERMAN: Well, those threats were certainly heard over the weekend here in France, but I think the French are quite positive about the way they're going. They've said from the very beginning that they are opposed to this showdown with Iraq, the way it's being constituted. I think there's grave doubts in many quarters here about the intelligence information that the United States has been presenting. After all, on Friday it was reported that some of the documents used in the nuclear question were forgeries. There have been questions raised about some of the proofs that the British used in their defense, Tony Blair's defense. The head of counterintelligence here in France says there's nothing that the French know of that links al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein.
So, in fact, there's a lot of questions about this move by the United States and I think the French just think it's a bad idea -- Paula.
ZAHN: Jim Bittermann in Paris this morning.
Thanks so much for that report -- Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Paula, if a U.S.-led coalition launches an attack against Iraq, how might Saddam Hussein respond? There are some nightmarish scenarios laid out and outlined in a cover story by "Newsweek" magazine. Among them, it includes an attempt to infect U.S. food and water supplies by the incoming troops.
From Washington now to talk about Saddam's strategy of survival, Evan Thomas is the assistant managing editor of "Newsweek" magazine.
Good to see you, Evan.
Good morning to you.
EVAN THOMAS, "NEWSWEEK": Hi, Bill.
HEMMER: You lay out a number of scenarios here, including botulinin toxin to pollute the water and food supply of U.S. troops. You talk about a report about thousands of Iraqi agents being equipped with army uniforms by the U.S. to go in and essentially kill Iraqi people, have a television camera standing by to record it and feed out the image.
How serious is the U.S. right now taking some of these reports?
THOMAS: Very seriously. You know, the trend of the press coverage in the last couple of weeks has been while this military part is going to be a piece of cake, we'll knock him off quickly, and then comes the hard part, the reconstruction. The military part is going to be hard. I mean maybe it will go quickly, but there is a lot that Saddam can do to slow things up. He thinks he can survive. He thinks he can live through this just by slowing the process down, making it ugly enough that the world will call on the United States to stop. And he thinks that President Bush will stop.
I don't think he will, but I think Saddam thinks he will.
HEMMER: There's a twist in logic here, though. If he uses chemical or biological weapons, essentially he's telling the world that he had them all along, right?
THOMAS: Right. He has a real dilemma here, a real choice. The best way to slow us down is to use chem-bio weapons. But the minute he does that, he justifies the American invasion.
So the thinking in some quarters is that he will wait until we get to Baghdad. He'll try to slow us down other ways by flooding the Euphrates River plain or using terrorists to attack us, but not use chem-bio weapons until we're actually knocking on the gates of Baghdad and he's an extremist. Then he would.
HEMMER: So you're suggesting this would be a last resort, based on your reporting?
THOMAS: Yes. I mean the military, actually, the U.S. intelligence is divided about this. Some people think he'll do it right away to shock us, scare us and slow us down. Other folks think that it's -- psychologically he would lose the moral high ground. It's sort of hard to think of Saddam as having moral high ground, but that he would lose whatever moral high ground he has if he uses them right away.
HEMMER: Evan, you also talk about some lessons that Saddam Hussein, going back to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. What did he learn then that he wishes he would have implemented or would have done that he may do this time?
THOMAS: Well, hold onto his hostages, to his human shields. As you may recall, he let the Westerners go in '91. He has told his own lieutenants that he regrets that. This is ominous because it's ominous for journalists, for one thing. It means that Saddam may try to hang onto his human shields to just complicate life for the American military.
HEMMER: Go back to the issue of Baghdad quickly. Some are suggesting this would be a modern day Stalingrad, essentially the battle that took place in western Russia during WWII in which about a million forces on the side of the German and the Russians were killed. Do you see right now the Iraqi desire on behalf of the army and the Republican Guard to fight to the death for Saddam Hussein at any cost to defend that city until the end?
THOMAS: Not by the citizens of Baghdad. I think they're going to hide or throw down their guns. But he does have, Saddam does have these security services, his special security organization that's about 5,000 men. And he's got his special Republican Guard. That's maybe another 15,000. They have an incentive to fight for the end because if they're caught by the Iraqi people, they're going to swing from lamp posts. So they have nothing to gain by surrendering.
So there is a hard core that will fight and in urban fighting, a small group can make life pretty miserable for the attacker.
HEMMER: Evan Thomas, "Newsweek" magazine, great story.
THOMAS: Thank you. HEMMER: Really interesting reading. We'll all wait and see now.
Evan, thanks.
THOMAS: Thank you.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Bill.
At a secret air base near Iraq, U.S. troops are arriving faster than the tents to house them are going up.
Our Alex Quade (ph) now takes a look at what it's like for these soldiers hastily putting up housing and living in very close quarters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They can't build these tents fast enough at a secret air base in the Persian Gulf.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as they're being set up, there's people standing next to them literally that have just got off a plane with their bags waiting for their tent to be built so they can have a place to sleep for the night.
QUADE: These tents are built for 10, but as many as 16 are cramming inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have our sleeping bags. We have an old cot. This one's a little bit broken right now, so it makes a lot of creaky noises on it. And we've taken nails that we've found laying around to pound things into the walls just so we can hang some things up. Otherwise, it tends to just pile up on top of itself. A nice thing to have in here would be a broom or some people have got some of this green indoor/outdoor carpet so at least when you get out of the bed in the morning you're not going to get dust and dirt all over your feet.
QUADE: People come and go from the flight line 24 hours a day at this air base. Sleep is a hot commodity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You really hope that you don't have a loud snorer in your tent if you're not one of those people that sleeps heavy.
QUADE (on camera): Any advice, hints for if you do have somebody who snores loud?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a lot of pile of clothes, a big pile of clothes next to you, you can throw at him or wear your ear plugs. Other than that, we try to banish him to a tent of all snoring people.
QUADE (voice-over): At an air base in the Persian Gulf, Alex Quade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
