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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Handover of Iraq's Declaration of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Aired December 6, 2002 - 06:35   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go back to Iraq now and learn more about tomorrow's weapons declaration hand-over to the United Nations.
CNN's Nic Robertson is covering the story out of Baghdad, and he has some exclusive information for us -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we don't know what time this documentation, this declaration from Iraq is going to be handed over, but Iraqi officials are giving us an indication this is something that we'll be able to catch on camera, that we will see the top Iraqi official here that deals with the U.N., General Hasam Amin for the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, we will see him hand over this document to a U.N. official.

Now, again, this is early information, but Iraq has so far been really trying to give journalists a lot of access to everything the weapons inspectors are doing here, and this is an indication that we're being told today we will likely get access to that declaration being handed over.

Now, we're told by another senior Iraqi official this declaration will likely contain 4,000 pages of declaration, plus 7,000 to 8,000 pages of supporting documentation. We know that it's likely to be in English and in Arabic. We know that it's going to be hand carried from Baghdad by a U.N. official, first to Cyprus, one copy will then go to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, another copy then going to the U.N. in New York.

In New York, the copies are going to go to two places: One to the U.N. inspections team chief, Hans Blix, the other to the secretary-general, Kofi Annan. He will then likely distribute it to members of the U.N. Security Council. Those governments will then be able to make their own analysis.

But the U.N.'s analysis, we are told, is likely to take a long time. They have a million-page database in New York, and they're going to want to compare everything that comes from Baghdad with what they have, their previous records from all of the inspection missions back in the 1990s -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Understand. Nic Robertson, thanks. And needless to say, it will take them a long time to go through that massive document that the U.N. is expected to receive on Saturday.

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