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CNN Live Sunday
Iraq Continues Dismantling Al Samoud 2 Missiles
Aired March 09, 2003 - 15:05 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: While President Bush has said he has not yet decided whether to invade Iraq, Iraqi officials today said otherwise; this as Iraq continues dismantling missiles and the United Nations says they are illegal. Nic Robertson joins understand now from Baghdad -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, General Houssam Amin, the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, that's the group that deals with the U.N. inspectors on a day-to-day basis here, said that Iraq at this time was preparing for war.
He also said, however, that they were cooperating with the U.N. weapons inspectors, but he gave no indication that Iraq was prepared to speed up that cooperation to meet the March 17 deadline. Indeed, he said that Iraq's assessment at this time is that the U.N. resolution proposed by United States, Britain and Spain will not win support at the U.N. Security Council, and he said the reason, the only reason Iraq was destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles was so that it could get political support at the U.N. Security Council.
When asked could Iraq speed up its destruction of the Al Samoud 2 missiles, he said that Iraq was not going to succumb to the United States pressure on that issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. HOUSSAM AMIN, IRAQI NATIONAL MONITORING DIRECTORATE: Mr. Bush cannot -- cannot say this is slow or fast. This is a technical thing. And I think Mr. Bush as a president of a superpower should not put himself in this position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: It very much appears, at this time at least, if Iraq is counting on division at the U.N. possibly to slow war, that realizing at the same time, they say that whatever they do, war appears to be inevitable. But not ruling that out completely, they say that they are considering -- considering at this time inviting Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the two U.N. weapons chiefs, to come to Baghdad on March the 17th, that deadline -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: But Nic, Amin made that issue a little bit confusing, because it appears that that formal invitation has not really been extended yet, according to Hans Blix's office. ROBERTSON: That's correct. That was something we tried to clear up after the press conference today with Houssam Amin. He was very sort of unclear about specifics of whether or not it had happened, and we're not sure why he was a little bit vague on it. We do know there are other officials who are above him and who are the ones who would generally send out the formal letters to Hans Blix. However, we confirmed afterwards that Iraq definitely was considering such a proposal at such a deadline as well.
WHITFIELD: All right. Nic, thank you very much from Baghdad.
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 March 9, 2003 - 15:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: While President Bush has said he has not yet decided whether to invade Iraq, Iraqi officials today said otherwise; this as Iraq continues dismantling missiles and the United Nations says they are illegal. Nic Robertson joins understand now from Baghdad -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, General Houssam Amin, the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, that's the group that deals with the U.N. inspectors on a day-to-day basis here, said that Iraq at this time was preparing for war.
He also said, however, that they were cooperating with the U.N. weapons inspectors, but he gave no indication that Iraq was prepared to speed up that cooperation to meet the March 17 deadline. Indeed, he said that Iraq's assessment at this time is that the U.N. resolution proposed by United States, Britain and Spain will not win support at the U.N. Security Council, and he said the reason, the only reason Iraq was destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles was so that it could get political support at the U.N. Security Council.
When asked could Iraq speed up its destruction of the Al Samoud 2 missiles, he said that Iraq was not going to succumb to the United States pressure on that issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. HOUSSAM AMIN, IRAQI NATIONAL MONITORING DIRECTORATE: Mr. Bush cannot -- cannot say this is slow or fast. This is a technical thing. And I think Mr. Bush as a president of a superpower should not put himself in this position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: It very much appears, at this time at least, if Iraq is counting on division at the U.N. possibly to slow war, that realizing at the same time, they say that whatever they do, war appears to be inevitable. But not ruling that out completely, they say that they are considering -- considering at this time inviting Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the two U.N. weapons chiefs, to come to Baghdad on March the 17th, that deadline -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: But Nic, Amin made that issue a little bit confusing, because it appears that that formal invitation has not really been extended yet, according to Hans Blix's office. ROBERTSON: That's correct. That was something we tried to clear up after the press conference today with Houssam Amin. He was very sort of unclear about specifics of whether or not it had happened, and we're not sure why he was a little bit vague on it. We do know there are other officials who are above him and who are the ones who would generally send out the formal letters to Hans Blix. However, we confirmed afterwards that Iraq definitely was considering such a proposal at such a deadline as well.
WHITFIELD: All right. Nic, thank you very much from Baghdad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
