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CNN Live Sunday

U.N. Inspectors Discuss Logistics of Getting Back to Iraq

Aired September 29, 2002 - 17:05   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More talk now, specifically about Iraq. Even as the threat of war against Iraq looms large, U.N. inspectors are gathering in Vienna to discuss the logistics of getting back on the ground in Baghdad. CNN's Sheila MacVicar says a lot of preliminary work needs to be done before U.N. inspectors resume their duties there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their vehicles sit where they were left four years ago in a dusty parking lot in Baghdad. Their offices locked. Communications systems destroyed. Before U.N. weapons inspectors can even begin looking for Iraq's illegal weapons, they have to do a little housekeeping.

MARK GWOZDECKY, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: There is no way of knowing the state of repair of those offices, our vehicles, our helicopters.

MACVICAR: Getting up and running will be the first and probably easiest test of Iraq's cooperation. Former U.N. weapons inspectors say the long history of attempting to disarm Iraq has been marked by what they call "cheat and retreat." And warn that may be still be Iraq's strategy now.

TIM TREVAN, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They cheat. They would lie about what they held. They'd retreat when the evidence -- they were confronted with the evidence, and come up with a new lie.

MACVICAR: After his experience as an inspector, Tim Trevan wrote a book on Iraq's strategy of concealment.

TREVAN: They never told the full truth. And unless they told the full truth, you couldn't say they were genuinely cooperating.

MACVICAR: It does turn out that Iraq was right about one thing.

The inspectors, Tariq Aziz frequently charged, were spying. The United Nations has admitted some did share information with their own governments. That trafficking in intelligence, we're now told, has been stopped. But in the decade of the 90s, say critics, the U.N. inspection regime was gradually eroded by Iraqi refusals that led to parking lot standoffs.

TARIQ AZIZ, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, IRAQ: Our refusal for that inspection led to a fury of the Security Council. MACVICAR: But all too often, the Security Council talked tough and did little.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: If the Security Council is not willing to enforce its own resolutions, then they shouldn't send in the inspectors. Because the last thing we need is another cat and mouse game, that was -- such as what was played out in the mid- and late 1990s with the inspectors.

MACVICAR: Or another crisis caused by the many palaces of Saddam Hussein. It's not yet clear if they will be open to inspectors and under what rules, or what happens if they are not.

At the International Atomic Energy Agency, where a team of inspectors is prepared to leave within days, the plan of actions is ready.

GWOZDECKY: We're operating on the assumption that we're returning on the basis of those mandates, which give us basically anytime, anywhere, anyone kind of powers.

MACVICAR: There have been no inspections for four years, but as the British dossier on Iraq showed, a lot of intelligence has been collected, from satellite images, spies and the tales of defectors. A lot of places to look. A lot of things to look for.

(on camera): And the biggest question, how fast could the inspectors find it all? That all depends, they say, on Iraq's cooperation, and right now Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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 September 29, 2002 - 17:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More talk now, specifically about Iraq. Even as the threat of war against Iraq looms large, U.N. inspectors are gathering in Vienna to discuss the logistics of getting back on the ground in Baghdad. CNN's Sheila MacVicar says a lot of preliminary work needs to be done before U.N. inspectors resume their duties there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their vehicles sit where they were left four years ago in a dusty parking lot in Baghdad. Their offices locked. Communications systems destroyed. Before U.N. weapons inspectors can even begin looking for Iraq's illegal weapons, they have to do a little housekeeping.

MARK GWOZDECKY, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: There is no way of knowing the state of repair of those offices, our vehicles, our helicopters.

MACVICAR: Getting up and running will be the first and probably easiest test of Iraq's cooperation. Former U.N. weapons inspectors say the long history of attempting to disarm Iraq has been marked by what they call "cheat and retreat." And warn that may be still be Iraq's strategy now.

TIM TREVAN, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: They cheat. They would lie about what they held. They'd retreat when the evidence -- they were confronted with the evidence, and come up with a new lie.

MACVICAR: After his experience as an inspector, Tim Trevan wrote a book on Iraq's strategy of concealment.

TREVAN: They never told the full truth. And unless they told the full truth, you couldn't say they were genuinely cooperating.

MACVICAR: It does turn out that Iraq was right about one thing.

The inspectors, Tariq Aziz frequently charged, were spying. The United Nations has admitted some did share information with their own governments. That trafficking in intelligence, we're now told, has been stopped. But in the decade of the 90s, say critics, the U.N. inspection regime was gradually eroded by Iraqi refusals that led to parking lot standoffs.

TARIQ AZIZ, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, IRAQ: Our refusal for that inspection led to a fury of the Security Council. MACVICAR: But all too often, the Security Council talked tough and did little.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: If the Security Council is not willing to enforce its own resolutions, then they shouldn't send in the inspectors. Because the last thing we need is another cat and mouse game, that was -- such as what was played out in the mid- and late 1990s with the inspectors.

MACVICAR: Or another crisis caused by the many palaces of Saddam Hussein. It's not yet clear if they will be open to inspectors and under what rules, or what happens if they are not.

At the International Atomic Energy Agency, where a team of inspectors is prepared to leave within days, the plan of actions is ready.

GWOZDECKY: We're operating on the assumption that we're returning on the basis of those mandates, which give us basically anytime, anywhere, anyone kind of powers.

MACVICAR: There have been no inspections for four years, but as the British dossier on Iraq showed, a lot of intelligence has been collected, from satellite images, spies and the tales of defectors. A lot of places to look. A lot of things to look for.

(on camera): And the biggest question, how fast could the inspectors find it all? That all depends, they say, on Iraq's cooperation, and right now Iraq says it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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