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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

U.N. Weapons Inspectors Saying Iraq Has Yet to Come Clean

Aired December 20, 2002 - 05:02   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And let's get right to our top story now, the hunt for Iraq's deadly weapons. Material breach, those are fighting words, and the U.S. is using them to say Baghdad has failed to prove it no longer has weapons of mass destruction. U.N. weapons inspectors also are saying Iraq has yet to come clean.
We want to get reaction now from Iraq.

Our Rym Brahimi joins us live from Baghdad -- so is Iraq worried or are they still talking tough, Rym.

RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, in fact, that's a very good word you're mentioning, the word worried. We had a briefing yesterday, as you may know, by President Saddam Hussein's top scientific adviser. And he told us he wasn't worried at all. He seemed very relaxed, very confident. He said that everything the U.S. has been saying are just allegations, there is no evidence.

Now, just to clarify, Carol, he was talking to us just as the Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix was briefing the United Nations Security Council and just telling us how he saw things. He said he fully expected Hans Blix to say that there was nothing new in the declaration because there were 500 or 600 pages still that had to be translated in Arabic that, as far as he knew, hadn't yet been done.

Now, as far as reaction here today, well, we have a newspaper here, the newspaper called "Revolution," "Al Thwarwa (ph) in Arabic. It's the main ruling Baath Party's newspaper. And there's an editorial in there, Carol, that says that the U.S. is just trying to find a pretext for war against Iraq. And it says this for many reasons. It says the U.S. has failed with the economy. It says the U.S. administration has also failed in Afghanistan, not only to catch the al Qaeda leaders, but also to rebuild the country as it has promised and it needs to bring some sort of sense of victory at one point, and this is why President Bush, in the aim of being reelected two years from now, is doing all this -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Rym Brahimi reporting live for us from Baghdad this morning.

Of course, there has been no call to war yet, but clearly U.N. weapons chiefs want more evidence from Iraq about its weapons program.

Our chief U.N. correspondent Richard Roth has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The international weapons inspectors just don't have any confidence in what Iraq provided in the 12,000 page delivery of documents. Despite the length, the United Nations inspectors say there's no confidence because they need clarifications and Iraq just hasn't accounted for weapons of mass destruction in the chemical, biological or nuclear field.

Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, and Mohamed al- Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, briefed the Security Council for several hours behind closed doors.

And Blix and al-Baradei afterwards says there are unanswered questions from Iraq. The U.S. didn't wait long here to declare Iraq again in material breach, jargon on an international basis, diplomatically and legally, for war. However, the U.S. says it's not rushing into that. It certainly didn't ask the Security Council for support on a breach.

Russia said it asked the United States inside the Council for evidence of its accusations. Iraq denied before reporters that it was in breach, despite what the U.S. ambassador said. Countries such as France and Norway supported the U.S. in believing that Iraq still has to do more.

Richard Roth, CNN, United Nations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And U.N. weapons chief Hans Blix says he's steadily beefing up his army of inspectors in Iraq to help in the hunt for Saddam's weapons.

Blix spoke last night on the PBS program "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "NEWS HOUR WITH JIM LEHRER")

HANS BLIX, CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: We are rapidly building up our forces there. We have, actually, the Security Council would have allowed us to start the inspections next week. We have already been in operation for quite some time. We have 90 inspectors in the country. Very soon we will have seven helicopters there and we have drones there. And we're building it up very, very rapidly.

So I'm rather confident on that score. But it's a fairly big and difficult operation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It certainly is. Blix also says rather than trying to get information from defectors, he'd rather have member states give the U.N. whatever evidence they have of where Iraq may be hiding its weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, the U.S. is compiling its own evidence against Iraq. Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel explains the strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a step closer to possible war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the Iraqi declaration was "in material breach of U.N. Resolution 1441."

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Resolution 1441 calls for serious consequences for Iraq if it does not comply with the terms of the resolution. Iraq's non-compliance, in defiance of the international community, has brought it closer to the day when it will have to face these consequences.

KOPPEL: Nevertheless, Secretary Powell also made clear that in and of itself, this material breach would not be a trigger for war, but rather Secretary Powell said the U.S. would be looking to put together a body of evidence, a series of examples of Iraqi non- compliance which it may, in the very near future, present to the international community as a cause for war.

POWELL: It is still up to Iraq to determine how its disarmament will happen. Unfortunately, this declaration fails totally to move us in the direction of a peaceful solution.

KOPPEL: In coming weeks, Secretary Powell said that the U.S. had the following strategy. It would continue to examine the Iraqi declaration, push for interviews with Iraqi scientists to be held outside Iraq, it would intensify inspections and it would continue to consult with allies in preparing for a possible war with Iraq.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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