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American Morning

Nuclear Revelation

Aired June 26, 2003 - 08:57   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Whether it's castor beans or parts of a centrifuge which could be used to enrich uranium, thus making it possible to use in a weapon. There's a lot of talk this morning about weapons of mass destruction, the possibility of such programs in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Let's turn to an expert and get some perspective. Joseph Cirincione is an expert on this subject. He's with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joins us from Washington.

Good to have you with us.

I don't know beans about this, all right. And let's talk about castor beans and try to get people a sense of what these so-called dual-use items mean, and whether -- what sort of conclusion can we reach if you find such item in a factory?

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, AUTHOR, "DEADLY ARSENALS": Well, castor beans can be found in many people's backyards across America. It's a very popular garden plant. The oil from castor beans has many industrial applications, including the production of brake fluid, as you just reported, although if you process it properly, it produces a deadly poison, ricin. So unfortunately, you can't conclude anything from the discovery of a few bags. Is it the beginning of a part of a weapons program? possibly. Could it be purely commercial? Yes.

O'BRIEN: This sort of points out how elusive that so-called smoking gun might and be, and that brings us to these centrifuge parts that we've been hearing about so much. First of all, put that finding into some perspective, if you could. As we look at the parts there, there are key parts, we are told, but in and of itself it would be any part of any sort of program that would build a bomb.

CIRINCIONE: Right. These aren't even parts of a particular machine. What you have is blueprints for how -- design specs, and sample parts of the kind that you want to produce for those machines, but you would need thousand of these machines to begin enriching uranium over a process that would take several years, anywhere from three to five years to produce it. Then you have the material, you have to shape it into a bomb component and then you have to build the bomb. So you're seeing a very embryonic stage of a bomb program. It's a long way from the rose bush to a bomb on a path.

O'BRIEN: Which bring us to point of how imminent the threat might have been prior to the invasion of Iraq. What are your thoughts at this point?

CIRINCIONE: This is a very key point that you actually report in your online story on this incident. At the very last paragraph you mention that the scientist, Mr. Al Badey (ph) said that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear program. There was not an active program. So here we have a scientist who's in a position to know, who is now in a safe place who can tell what he knows, is directly refuting one of the key administration charges, saying that Iraq had reconstituted the nuclear program. He said, no, it wasn't.

And I expect us to continue to make finds of this kind, and it is extremely important for CNN and other news media to put this in context. In other words, I expect in the chemical and biological field, we will find these embryonic elements of a program, a potential breakup, a potential possibility, certainly, but not an active weapons program, not weapons ready to go, not an imminent threat.

O'BRIEN: So you would suggest then that findings like these don't do much to buttress the theory that the intelligence prior to the war was correct. In fact, you would think it would refute what the intelligence told the administration.

CIRINCIONE: In this case, I think it is directly refuting what the intelligence estimates were. Remember, this is 12 years ago he was order to bury the parts. Never told to dig them up. Now telling us that there was not an active program. And he also refutes one of the key charges that David Kay makes. He's using this to grind one of his axes against the inspection process, but the scientist, as you reported just an hour ago, said that he would have given the information to the U.N. inspectors if he had been taken out of the country. The U.N. inspectors never got to that stage of their operations. The U.N. inspections could have led us to the same rose bush that David Kay and the CIA led us to. It's a direct evidence that the inspection process could have worked if allowed to continue.

O'BRIEN: Awful lot to ponder there. Joseph Cirincione, thank you very much. Always a pleasure to have you with us.

CIRINCIONE: My pleasure.

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 26, 2003 - 08:57   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Whether it's castor beans or parts of a centrifuge which could be used to enrich uranium, thus making it possible to use in a weapon. There's a lot of talk this morning about weapons of mass destruction, the possibility of such programs in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Let's turn to an expert and get some perspective. Joseph Cirincione is an expert on this subject. He's with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joins us from Washington.

Good to have you with us.

I don't know beans about this, all right. And let's talk about castor beans and try to get people a sense of what these so-called dual-use items mean, and whether -- what sort of conclusion can we reach if you find such item in a factory?

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, AUTHOR, "DEADLY ARSENALS": Well, castor beans can be found in many people's backyards across America. It's a very popular garden plant. The oil from castor beans has many industrial applications, including the production of brake fluid, as you just reported, although if you process it properly, it produces a deadly poison, ricin. So unfortunately, you can't conclude anything from the discovery of a few bags. Is it the beginning of a part of a weapons program? possibly. Could it be purely commercial? Yes.

O'BRIEN: This sort of points out how elusive that so-called smoking gun might and be, and that brings us to these centrifuge parts that we've been hearing about so much. First of all, put that finding into some perspective, if you could. As we look at the parts there, there are key parts, we are told, but in and of itself it would be any part of any sort of program that would build a bomb.

CIRINCIONE: Right. These aren't even parts of a particular machine. What you have is blueprints for how -- design specs, and sample parts of the kind that you want to produce for those machines, but you would need thousand of these machines to begin enriching uranium over a process that would take several years, anywhere from three to five years to produce it. Then you have the material, you have to shape it into a bomb component and then you have to build the bomb. So you're seeing a very embryonic stage of a bomb program. It's a long way from the rose bush to a bomb on a path.

O'BRIEN: Which bring us to point of how imminent the threat might have been prior to the invasion of Iraq. What are your thoughts at this point?

CIRINCIONE: This is a very key point that you actually report in your online story on this incident. At the very last paragraph you mention that the scientist, Mr. Al Badey (ph) said that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear program. There was not an active program. So here we have a scientist who's in a position to know, who is now in a safe place who can tell what he knows, is directly refuting one of the key administration charges, saying that Iraq had reconstituted the nuclear program. He said, no, it wasn't.

And I expect us to continue to make finds of this kind, and it is extremely important for CNN and other news media to put this in context. In other words, I expect in the chemical and biological field, we will find these embryonic elements of a program, a potential breakup, a potential possibility, certainly, but not an active weapons program, not weapons ready to go, not an imminent threat.

O'BRIEN: So you would suggest then that findings like these don't do much to buttress the theory that the intelligence prior to the war was correct. In fact, you would think it would refute what the intelligence told the administration.

CIRINCIONE: In this case, I think it is directly refuting what the intelligence estimates were. Remember, this is 12 years ago he was order to bury the parts. Never told to dig them up. Now telling us that there was not an active program. And he also refutes one of the key charges that David Kay makes. He's using this to grind one of his axes against the inspection process, but the scientist, as you reported just an hour ago, said that he would have given the information to the U.N. inspectors if he had been taken out of the country. The U.N. inspectors never got to that stage of their operations. The U.N. inspections could have led us to the same rose bush that David Kay and the CIA led us to. It's a direct evidence that the inspection process could have worked if allowed to continue.

O'BRIEN: Awful lot to ponder there. Joseph Cirincione, thank you very much. Always a pleasure to have you with us.

CIRINCIONE: My pleasure.

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