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American Morning
Debate Over Iraqi WMD Heating Up
Aired June 03, 2003 - 09:32 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There is a big debate right now in Washington about weapons of mass destruction, what was known and not known prior to the war. Also, a substantial push underway in Iraq right now to find the WMD. Hundreds of additional searchers on their way to join that hunt, and step it up as well. Also, the U.S. sending a new man to head up the search and find mission.
Live to Baghdad and Jane Arraf for more on this there -- Jane, hello.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Bill. Well, that new man is going to be General Keith Dayton, and he says it's a new kind of search. In fact, turning the corner on years of weapons inspections by the U.N.
Now, essentially what this will be are intelligence experts of every kind coming here, about 1,200 of them. They'll begin to arrive on June 7, just at the end of the week, to try to begin work.
And essentially, what they will be doing is sifting through documents, interviewing and interrogating people, and basically trying to fill in some of those questions.
Now, when the U.N. weapons inspectors left, it wasn't so much material evidence that was being unearthed, it was documents that they were looking for, the records of how those weapons programs were compiled, and what might have happened to them, and to try to piece together what's missing. In essence, a lot of detective work.
Now, the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress, one of the main original opposition groups, held a press conference today in Baghdad. They were the controversial source of a lot of that information from defectors saying there were banned weapons here.
Now, the spokesman sidestepped questions, saying, It was enough we're finding mass graves, that the war was justified, even if we never find weapons of mass destruction -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, we were talking with a U.S. Senator just about 30 minutes ago, Saxby Chambliss out of Georgia. He says that it may be in the end that the U.S. was just too late for war. How is that argument now being suited, that perhaps they were destroyed, as you point out, prior to the war beginning?
ARRAF: There is a feeling that those weapons might have been destroyed a long time ago, and the feeling, also, that perhaps Saddam Hussein would have wanted to perpetuate the idea that he still hung on to them, that he still held them to create the perception of a threat. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
Certainly on the streets here, there is a lot of skepticism that Iraq did have banned weapons and certainly with the criticism we're seeing from capital, Washington and London, a deeper skepticism about the motives of this war.
Now the idea is that, no matter what the rationale was, this is what we have to deal with now, but U.S. officials here are making very clear that it is still a priority of theirs here in Baghdad to try to uncover if they exist, those banned weapons -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, thanks. Jane Arraf live in Baghdad. Colin Powell again stating yesterday, so too the British prime minister, urging patience again as that hunt continues on the ground in Iraq.
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 June 3, 2003 - 09:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: There is a big debate right now in Washington about weapons of mass destruction, what was known and not known prior to the war. Also, a substantial push underway in Iraq right now to find the WMD. Hundreds of additional searchers on their way to join that hunt, and step it up as well. Also, the U.S. sending a new man to head up the search and find mission.
Live to Baghdad and Jane Arraf for more on this there -- Jane, hello.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Bill. Well, that new man is going to be General Keith Dayton, and he says it's a new kind of search. In fact, turning the corner on years of weapons inspections by the U.N.
Now, essentially what this will be are intelligence experts of every kind coming here, about 1,200 of them. They'll begin to arrive on June 7, just at the end of the week, to try to begin work.
And essentially, what they will be doing is sifting through documents, interviewing and interrogating people, and basically trying to fill in some of those questions.
Now, when the U.N. weapons inspectors left, it wasn't so much material evidence that was being unearthed, it was documents that they were looking for, the records of how those weapons programs were compiled, and what might have happened to them, and to try to piece together what's missing. In essence, a lot of detective work.
Now, the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress, one of the main original opposition groups, held a press conference today in Baghdad. They were the controversial source of a lot of that information from defectors saying there were banned weapons here.
Now, the spokesman sidestepped questions, saying, It was enough we're finding mass graves, that the war was justified, even if we never find weapons of mass destruction -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, we were talking with a U.S. Senator just about 30 minutes ago, Saxby Chambliss out of Georgia. He says that it may be in the end that the U.S. was just too late for war. How is that argument now being suited, that perhaps they were destroyed, as you point out, prior to the war beginning?
ARRAF: There is a feeling that those weapons might have been destroyed a long time ago, and the feeling, also, that perhaps Saddam Hussein would have wanted to perpetuate the idea that he still hung on to them, that he still held them to create the perception of a threat. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
Certainly on the streets here, there is a lot of skepticism that Iraq did have banned weapons and certainly with the criticism we're seeing from capital, Washington and London, a deeper skepticism about the motives of this war.
Now the idea is that, no matter what the rationale was, this is what we have to deal with now, but U.S. officials here are making very clear that it is still a priority of theirs here in Baghdad to try to uncover if they exist, those banned weapons -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jane, thanks. Jane Arraf live in Baghdad. Colin Powell again stating yesterday, so too the British prime minister, urging patience again as that hunt continues on the ground in Iraq.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
