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Iraqi Officials Gave Media Tour of Warehouse Yesterday

Aired August 21, 2002 - 05:07   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: You may recall recent U.S. intelligence claims of a convoy of trucks outside of a suspected Iraqi weapons site. Iraqi officials gave the media a tour of that warehouse yesterday.
And CNN's Jane Arraf was there and she joins us now from Baghdad -- Jane, did you see anything?

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we saw a lot of food, food that the Iraqi government says actually went into those trucks that were picked up by that spy satellite, the U.S. satellite. Now, the original allegation had been there was suspicious activity outside this factory, which is a major warehouse, al-Taji, the south side of Baghdad.

Now, that would have been suspicious, according to the United States, because in the 1980s there had been equipment there that was thought to have been used for biological weapons. The plant was completely destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War and weapons inspectors went back in the '90s and found nothing there. Then these allegations that there was suspicious convoys of trucks moving in and out.

But Iraq, of course, has an explanation. It says that the trucks were increased activity to move the food rations out. And, in fact, Iraq has doubled food rations recently in preparation for any sort of U.S. attack. That, it says, is the explanation for the number of trucks that were seen. It provided facts and figures. It even gave us samples of the infant formula and milk and other food that was in the warehouse to show that there's nothing in there but food -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Should we be skeptical, though?

ARRAF: Probably not about this warehouse. It does seem as if there was a lot of ambiguity about the original allegations. The satellite photos were just that, satellite photos. And U.S. officials made clear at the time that they couldn't tell what was inside those trucks.

Now, it's pretty irrefutable that there were increased numbers of, increased truck activity going out of their warehouse because the warehouse is, in fact, observed by U.N. food monitors.

In terms of an overall skepticism, that's a pretty tough question because there are, of course, still holes in Iraq's secret biological weapons program. Iraq says that it has no biological weapons or any other kind of banned weapons anymore. But a lot of people think, on the outside and in the U.N., that we won't know that for certain unless U.N. weapons inspectors come back in here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I understand.

Before I let you go, I want to ask you about the terrorist Abu Nidal and how he died. Do we have definitive evidence that he did, indeed, commit suicide?

ARRAF: An amazing story. Definitive evidence is really hard to come by in Iraq, but what we do have are some photographs that were displayed at a remarkable press event this morning by the head of the Iraqi secret police, someone who understandably doesn't appear very much in public.

He told the story of Abu Nidal, one of the world's most wanted men, sneaking, he says, into Iraq in 1999 under a fake passport. He was apparently confronted recently, according to the story, by Iraqi agents because he was said to be working against Iraq. He went into a room and asked to change his clothes and the next thing they knew, according to this official, was he had shot himself.

And the photographs are probably too gruesome to show on television, but they did display a body that looked very much like Abu Nidal lying prone and bloodied on the ground. The officials here say he was taken to a hospital and died eight hours later.

Again, no solid, firm evidence, but certainly a very compelling story from Iraqi intelligence officials today -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That it is.

Thank you, Jane Arraf, reporting live from Baghdad this morning.

Thank you.

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