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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporters Notebook

Aired August 03, 2002 - 09:33   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.
LARRY SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: We've been talking this morning about the possibility of the U.S. launching an attack to try to topple Saddam Hussein. Now, there are many military, political, and economic issues to consider while we're looking at this.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. We've been taking your e-mail, and you can always call us too at 404-221-1855. This segment is all about having your questions answered, everyone, so take advantage of it.

Former NATO commander General. Wesley Clark is back with us. He's in Little Rock this morning. Thanks for being back with us, general.

And also in Washington is Jane Arraf, CNN's former Baghdad bureau chief, who's now a bureau chief in Istanbul. She's all over the globe. She knows all about this issue, and she's with us this morning to help answer your questions.

Thank you both for being with us.

JANE ARRAF, CNN ISTANBUL BUREAU CHIEF: Thank you.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Nice to be with you.

CALLAWAY: All right, we're going to go right to e-mail questions, because we really have been getting quite a few. I think this is a subject everyone is concerned about.

Here is the first one. It is from Dave in Chicago. And he says, "General, I can't think of a stronger provocation to the al Qaeda cells that our government asserts are in the U.S. now greater than invading Iraq. What terrorist reprisals would you reasonably suppose will occur here immediately after our apparently decided military action in Iraq?"

General.

CLARK: Well, there's no question that the al Qaeda cells would use an attack on Iraq as a provocation. They would use it as further fuel for their recruiting efforts.

But it's impossible to predict what a specific attack would be. I think if they had a great plan, they would have already tried to employ it. We've broken up a number of attacks. There's a lot more going on than we're reading about in the press on this.

And if there were a great plan out there that they had on the shelf ready to go, waiting for us, I think they would have already used it.

So I think you'd get some low-level terrorist attempts, but I don't foresee a great plan from al Qaeda at this point.

CALLAWAY: All right. Jane, do you want to weigh in on that?

ARRAF: You know, I would say that just one of the big concerns, obviously, is not only al Qaeda but that overall feeling in the Middle East and Iraq and in countries like it that any attack by the United States could increase anti-American sentiment to the extent that you will have more, so to say, freelance terrorism.

Now, that's always been a concern, and it's a particular concern now. And something that people are starting to look at, I think. The fact that this is much, much different than fighting state-sponsored terrorism, the probability that this actually will increase that sort of sentiment.

SMITH: Let's go to the phones now. Heather in Canada, welcome to CNN SATURDAY MORNING. What is your question?

CALLER: Hi. I'd like to know how dangerous it is right now in the Persian Gulf. My husband's there at the moment, and there's a lot of countries surrounding that area that all could get involved in something much more serious.

CALLAWAY: I guess either one of you can respond to that. Jane...

CLARK: Well...

CALLAWAY: ... general, you go ahead.

CLARK: ... if your husband is an American, he's at risk anywhere in that region. If he's Canadian and taken for an American, he's at risk. He may be at risk as a Canadian.

But there is no war right now. My guess is we're several months away from that. But there's always the danger that a terrorist group will take action against individual Americans or Westerners in that region.

SMITH: Jane?

ARRAF: I just want to add, if I could, that it's obviously a really complex region. And one of the surprising things is that generally Americans and Canadians and Westerners in general are treated actually really well in Iraq, which you would think would have a lot of reasons to hate Americans. Americans walking around there, Canadians, anyone at all who's Western and linked with this possible invasion.

They're still extremely welcoming to them, and it's often a surprise to people. And it's the same way in other countries where politically they perhaps may hate the United States and the U.S. government, but they don't necessarily hate the people that they meet in the streets, they don't connect them with those governments.

CALLAWAY: Let's go now to another e-mail question, this one is from Dale. And this is probably the question everyone wants to know. I know certainly the inspectors want to know. So I don't know if you can exactly answer the question, but you could go about what is known so far.

The question is, "What is the approximate size of the group of scientists working in Iraq's nuclear program in terms of numbers?" Of course, as we said, that's the question of the day, isn't it, general?

CLARK: It really is the question. And I don't have an answer for it. Probably our intelligence agencies have some estimates. We know there's a -- there are deep roots to the Iraqi nuclear program. It started in the 1970s. It was derailed when Israel attacked their reactors. We know they've kept going. There have been reports they were quite close in 1990 to having a nuclear weapon.

There are scientists there. The real question is, have -- how much expertise have they brought in from countries like Russia?

CALLAWAY: Jane, I know you've been in that region for quite some time. The other half of that question was, How close are they to having a working device?

ARRAF: Well, that is, obviously, the huge, important, almost unanswerable question. With no weapons inspectors there, there haven't been any since 1998, just before the U.S. bombed. They were pulled out, and they haven't been allowed back in.

So the United States and its allies are going on intelligence that at times isn't particularly solid and isn't particular comforting to Iraq's -- other countries that would have to get involved in this.

The bottom line is, it's really difficult to tell. There is no smoking gun by all accounts. Any intelligence the U.S. has, it's unwilling to share for fear of jeopardizing its sources. So it's really unclear at this point, and that's the big problem.

SMITH: Jane, another question coming in, would you like to answer this one first, if you would. Elizabeth wants to know, "Why does Bush think he has the authority to force Iraq to change leadership?"

ARRAF: That's what a lot of people in the Middle East would like to know. Over here, one does get the sense that it's a foregone conclusion that a country like the United States can go in and, if it feels it's its responsibility and feels that it will be better for the world, go in and topple a government and kill a foreign leader. Over there, it's not quite so clear-cut. And that is the big question that everyone's asking, and something that is probably going to come back to haunt the United States over there in the Middle East.

And in most of the rest of the world, the thought that a government would go in and just topple another government and kill its leader, no matter how horrible that government, just is very problematic.

SMITH: General Clark, your thoughts?

CLARK: Well, I think that there's an assumption that Saddam Hussein poses a threat, and therefore the United States has a right to react to the threat. But when you get right down into the particulars of it, going after someone's -- another country's leader is an act of war, and the United States normally doesn't do that.

And when we've done that in the past, in the case of Vietnam and Iraq in 1953 and so forth, the results in the near term or the midterm haven't been good.

CALLAWAY: Ladies and gentlemen, I have a question here from a very young viewer, and we very seldom get questions from children. But I do want to pass this one on. This is Thomas. He is 9 years old. He says, "I am aware of the debate on whether to attack Iraq. I'm aware that Crown Prince Abdullah says not to attack Iraq or Saddam Hussein. And I'm wondering if the reason for this is because of relations with Iraq or any kind of relations."

And Jane, we'll start with you.

ARRAF: If relations with Iraq or any kind of relations. I suppose the question that that asks really is, is there a future for relations between Iraq and the rest of the world? King Abdullah, for instance, talking about the fact that his country, obviously, would be very, very affected.

Now, that's what everyone there, including King Abdullah, are trying to get at, that maybe this isn't the only solution, going to war, that maybe there is a diplomatic solution.

CALLAWAY: Right. But general, isn't it all about relationships? I mean, if you're -- if they're not going with what the Security Council has asked, isn't the only option, if diplomatic efforts are not going to work, to invade or to attack? And the reason why, perhaps, this isn't being done is because they don't want to spoil relations?

CLARK: Well, I think the -- all of the countries in the region want good relations. They were concerned about Iraq, and privately they continue to tell American leaders that they don't trust Saddam Hussein. But Saddam is on a charm offensive, and he's doing everything he can to make relations look good, including relations with Jordan.

And so this is going to be a real obstacle for the United States as we move ahead.

SMITH: Let's go to the phones now, Barry in Ohio. I apologize to Elizabeth, I stepped on (ph) to answer your question for you. Please call back another time.

Barry has a question about Saddam Hussein. Barry? Are you on the line?

CALLER: Yes, I'm right here.

SMITH: OK.

CALLAWAY: Go ahead, and turn your television off.

SMITH: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) turn your TV down, there's a slight delay. Go and answer your, ask your question, please.

CALLER: OK. Yes, general, my question is, why didn't we remove Saddam Hussein from power the first time we went into Iraq during Desert Storm?

CALLAWAY: General, you are definitely the person to answer that.

CLARK: Well, I'll tell you, it's a question that has been asked so many times by so many people, and it's such an important question.

But the honest truth is that we didn't set that as the objective. President Bush in 1990, right after the invasion, said that this aggression will not stand, meaning the aggression of Iraq against Kuwait. The objective was to liberate Kuwait, and that objective was accomplished.

At the time, after four days of fighting, it looked like the Iraqi army was going to be destroyed, and that was the end of the mission. There really were no military plans to go on. And had they suddenly switched gears, it would have required a military planning process, it would have meant much greater turmoil in the region.

And by all reports, Saudi Arabia and other countries were concerned about the stability in the region after the war. They didn't want to see Saddam thrown -- overthrown, because they didn't want the Iranians to come in and pose a greater threat to regional stability.

CALLAWAY: Last word to you, Jane.

ARRAF: That's, again, another really good question that a lot of people in Iraq have been asking, and there really is a feeling in Iraq and in surrounding countries that if the United States had been so keen to do this, if Iraq had been so much of a threat, they would have done it the first time, that perhaps -- and this is the way the -- one of many conspiracy theories go, but it's very widely believed that maybe the U.S. really doesn't want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, that it's willing to live with a contained Iraq and that it likes things just the way they are, and the rest of that theory goes that all of this talk of impending war is just that, just talk, meant to scare people.

SMITH: OK. Well, thanks so much to both of you for taking part in this morning's discussion. Jane Arraf, our former Baghdad bureau chief, who's now bureau chief in Istanbul, and General Wesley Clark, former NATO commander. Thank you both for your time.

CLARK: Thank you.

ARRAF: Thank you.

CALLAWAY: It's very difficult to do these Reporter's Notebooks, you never know what kind of questions you're going to get...

SMITH: And they hand...

CALLAWAY: ... even from a 9-year-old, and no matter what it is...

SMITH: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

CALLAWAY: ... they always (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

SMITH: And they handle it so well, absolutely.

CALLAWAY: ... great, that's right.

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