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CNN Sunday Morning

Bush Continues to Drum Up Support for Military Action Against Iraq

Aired September 08, 2002 - 08:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush continues to drum up support for possible military action against Saddam Hussein. For more, we go to Washington and our White House correspondent Kelly Wallace.
Good morning, Kelly, good to see you.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. Well, the Bush administration has been facing pressure to reveal any intelligence information it has to prove that the threat posed by the Iraqi leader is urgent and imminent -- well, some of that information starting to come out.

Sources tell CNN that over the past 14 months, the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been stepping up efforts to try and build an atomic bomb. These sources say that Saddam has been trying to buy the special aluminum tubes -- tubes which have the technical specifications that U.S. officials believe could only be used for one thing, and that is to process uranium to build an atomic bomb. Sources also say that over the past several months, Saddam Hussein has been stepping up efforts to meet with his nuclear scientists, again to pursue nuclear weapons.

Now, President Bush did not discuss any of this intelligence information yesterday, when he was meeting at Camp David with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the two men huddling together to plot strategy to deal with the Iraqi leader.

The U.S. president though saying, the international community really should have all the evidence it needs to prove that Saddam Hussein must go.

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GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq, and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the atomic -- the IAEA (ph) that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.

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WALLACE: Now, Britain is so far the only U.S. ally supporting Mr. Bush's call for regime change and the possibility of military action. British Prime Minister Ton Blair, though, facing a very skeptical British public. The British people very much against any military action. For the British leader, though, yesterday, his message the same as President Bush's -- he says, doing nothing is not an option when it comes to Saddam Hussein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER, BRITAIN: It's not something that people should fear. What they should fear is if the international community, having made it absolutely clear that weapons of mass destruction, the chemical, the biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the world -- what people should fear is that faced with that threat, we do nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And that is the message the president, President Bush, is expected to deliver to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He will tell the international community, it must deal with Saddam Hussein. He is also expected, although the details still being worked out, the speech still being written -- he is expected to issue another challenge, though, Miles, for Saddam Hussein to allow weapons inspectors back inside the country.

Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, CNN's Kelly Wallace. We appreciate it as always.

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