Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Undecided Votes

Aired March 12, 2003 - 09:01   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: Now, what kinds of deals might be -- the administration be trying to make with countries to win votes? For more on that, let's go now to the State Department, where our correspondent Andrea Koppel is standing by.
Good morning, Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

It does seem as if the Bush, Blair and Aznar administrations seem to be making progress on the diplomatic front. According to both British and senior U.S. officials, as things stand right now the U.S., and Britain and Spain are confident that they have the support of three of the six undecideds, those African countries, Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, in addition to the support of Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, which means the diplomatic focus today is going to continue to be on Chile and Mexico, two poor Latin American countries.

In fact, today Mexico's President Vincente Fox is going in for back surgery. Last night, we know President Bush spoke with Chile's president. The U.S. only needs one out of those two countries to support it to get those nine out of 15 votes needed to pass a resolution.

But as you pointed out, Paula, we know already from the French government, Jacques Chirac has made it pretty clear, no matter what, he intends to veto it. So the resolution itself would die, but the Bush administration believes it would still have gained a moral victory. And it also believes, Paula, it has the legal authority under existing U.N. resolutions dating back to after the Gulf War to go forward with military action -- Paula.

ZAHN: Tell us more about how the Bush administration would perceive that if they get to the nine and win what you're calling a moral victory and it ends up being vetoed by France or Russia.

KOPPEL: They would proceed forward. We have no idea yet as to when President Bush would come out and declare war on Iraq. But the Bush administration has made again very clear that's something they intend to do, perhaps before the month runs out. We know that some of the undecided states had really wanted things to move into April. That was a nonstarter for the U.S.

And so what we have right now are Tony Blair laying out these benchmarks that the undecideds have wanted to be reflected in there. Why are they important? Well, because when it comes to the end of the day, if they support a resolution with these benchmarks, the onus would be on Saddam Hussein to comply, and it would only be by default it would be authorized in war -- Paula.

ZAHN: Yesterday former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richardson told us the cost of friendship on the Security Council can be very expensive. I wonder if you can give our viewers any idea this morning what it might cost the U.S. to have gained the support of Cameroon and Guinea, for example.

KOPPEL: A lot of this is much more subtle than just as one official told me, sticking their hands in their pockets and pulling out fistfuls of cash. A lot of this has to do with being treated as a nation worthy to be reckoned with. Most of the countries that we're talking about, in fact, all of those six undecided, are poor countries that rely on the international community for aid and whatnot. So what you might see is, for instance, in the case of Chile, they want this free trade agreement to go forward. That's something the bush administration could try to accelerate. In the case of Mexico, it's a little stickier. As you know, they want to have immigration reform, and that's something that has not been getting a lot of support within the U.S. Congress. So what you're going to see sometimes is perhaps a visit to the White House, you'll see perhaps some kind of trade agreement. It won't necessarily be just hard, cold cash.

ZAHN: Andrea, thank you so much for that update from the State Department. I think we were the first ones that had news of Cameroon and Angola.

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 12, 2003 - 09:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, what kinds of deals might be -- the administration be trying to make with countries to win votes? For more on that, let's go now to the State Department, where our correspondent Andrea Koppel is standing by.
Good morning, Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

It does seem as if the Bush, Blair and Aznar administrations seem to be making progress on the diplomatic front. According to both British and senior U.S. officials, as things stand right now the U.S., and Britain and Spain are confident that they have the support of three of the six undecideds, those African countries, Angola, Cameroon and Guinea, in addition to the support of Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, which means the diplomatic focus today is going to continue to be on Chile and Mexico, two poor Latin American countries.

In fact, today Mexico's President Vincente Fox is going in for back surgery. Last night, we know President Bush spoke with Chile's president. The U.S. only needs one out of those two countries to support it to get those nine out of 15 votes needed to pass a resolution.

But as you pointed out, Paula, we know already from the French government, Jacques Chirac has made it pretty clear, no matter what, he intends to veto it. So the resolution itself would die, but the Bush administration believes it would still have gained a moral victory. And it also believes, Paula, it has the legal authority under existing U.N. resolutions dating back to after the Gulf War to go forward with military action -- Paula.

ZAHN: Tell us more about how the Bush administration would perceive that if they get to the nine and win what you're calling a moral victory and it ends up being vetoed by France or Russia.

KOPPEL: They would proceed forward. We have no idea yet as to when President Bush would come out and declare war on Iraq. But the Bush administration has made again very clear that's something they intend to do, perhaps before the month runs out. We know that some of the undecided states had really wanted things to move into April. That was a nonstarter for the U.S.

And so what we have right now are Tony Blair laying out these benchmarks that the undecideds have wanted to be reflected in there. Why are they important? Well, because when it comes to the end of the day, if they support a resolution with these benchmarks, the onus would be on Saddam Hussein to comply, and it would only be by default it would be authorized in war -- Paula.

ZAHN: Yesterday former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richardson told us the cost of friendship on the Security Council can be very expensive. I wonder if you can give our viewers any idea this morning what it might cost the U.S. to have gained the support of Cameroon and Guinea, for example.

KOPPEL: A lot of this is much more subtle than just as one official told me, sticking their hands in their pockets and pulling out fistfuls of cash. A lot of this has to do with being treated as a nation worthy to be reckoned with. Most of the countries that we're talking about, in fact, all of those six undecided, are poor countries that rely on the international community for aid and whatnot. So what you might see is, for instance, in the case of Chile, they want this free trade agreement to go forward. That's something the bush administration could try to accelerate. In the case of Mexico, it's a little stickier. As you know, they want to have immigration reform, and that's something that has not been getting a lot of support within the U.S. Congress. So what you're going to see sometimes is perhaps a visit to the White House, you'll see perhaps some kind of trade agreement. It won't necessarily be just hard, cold cash.

ZAHN: Andrea, thank you so much for that update from the State Department. I think we were the first ones that had news of Cameroon and Angola.

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