|
CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS
President Bush Will Meet With Prime Ministers of Britain, Spain
Aired March 15, 2003 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And now other major developments in the showdown with Saddam Hussein and related stories.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair continues to face disapproval at home. Britons oppose any war without U.N. backing. Now this week Washington gave Blair an out, saying America could and would go it alone.
Compromise proposals by both Britain and Chile went nowhere at the Security Council. France rejected the ideas even before Iraq did.
And then yesterday an announcement on the crisis in the Middle East. President Bush unveiled a road map to Middle East peace. The plan calls for an eventual Palestinian state.
And once again, President Bush will meet his two biggest backers of war with Iraq, the prime ministers of Britain and Spain. They're going to be in the Azores.
CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash is in Washington now with the latest word on the high powered huddle -- Dana, what are they going to talk about?
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Arthel, the word from the White House is that this emergency summit is being called so that President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar can explore diplomatic options. Now, what does that mean? They have some big decisions to make. First, the leaders will discuss whether there is any chance at all of finding compromise language that could bring on board a majority of the U.N. Security Council for a second resolution this week. And since all signs are that that could be impossible at this point, the leaders will be deciding what to do from here, will they call for a vote anyway so, as President Bush said last week, all nations can show their cards? Or will they pull the resolution altogether and not call for a vote if defeat at the U.N., even the inability to get a majority vote seems certain?
And in a sign of their pessimism on that, only the president and his allies will be meeting at this summit in the Azores. Leaders of the member nations that they have been lobbying for weeks, the six undecided countries at the Security Council, were not invited.
Now, what is certain is that administration officials are making clear that the time for diplomacy is coming to a close, perhaps only days left for that, and that a decision on military action could be imminent.
In a move that heartened the president's allies in Europe and the Arab world, the president did announce yesterday he would give conditional support to a so-called road map for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The White House has come under criticism from Europe and some key allies in the Arab world for not doing so. So this was a little bit of an olive branch to them -- Arthel.
NEVILLE: Hey, Dana, at this point will anything change the course to war?
BASH: That is a very good question. You know, the White House has made clear that what they're doing in going to this summit and what they're doing in really trying very hard over the last week to try to get a U.N. resolution is trying to help President Bush's allies like Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar, who really feel that they need to go through the United Nations to get approval for military action. But they have made it pretty clear that the president doesn't feel he needs that authority, he already has the authority.
So I think in that, those kinds of statements, you can get your answer.
NEVILLE: OK, Dana Bash, thank you so much for that report -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Voices of the world, this is yet another day of anti-war demonstrations around the world. "Bush, Bush, we all love Saddam Hussein!" The chant is in Arabic, as thousands of Baghdad residents took part in government organized marches. War protests also across Europe. In London, Britain's Muslim community organized a protest march with up to 5,000 demonstrators expected. And in Tokyo, as many as 10,000 protested a possible war. In Washington, anti-war crowds are expected to surround the White House later in the day.
Now, to the center of the building storm. There are protests underway in Baghdad, as we just mentioned.
CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is there -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a very interesting mix at these government organized demonstrations today, not just in Baghdad, where tens of thousands turned out to demonstrate, many of them bussed into the city, but all over Iraq. We were in a demonstration about an hour's drive south of Baghdad in a city called Kiblah (ph). About 5,000 people came out there.
What was interesting, it wasn't just a mixture of people saying that we want peace and that we think the United States is wrong in all of this, but as we have heard at so many demonstrations, people saying they're out there in support of President Saddam Hussein, but the message behind all of this was that people very much expect a war soon and saying that they are completely prepared. Even the women at some demonstrations saying they're completely prepared to come out and fight the United States and fight the soldiers when and if they arrive in Iraq.
But nobody really that we talked to seemed in any doubt that war might be about to happen.
Now, the U.N. inspectors here mulling over, in the early stages of mulling over a V.X. report that's just been delivered to them by Iraqi officials. This report from Iraq detailing how the U.N. can quantify the amount of V.X. nerve agent that Iraq says it unilaterally destroyed back in 1991. The 25 page document was delivered to the U.N. in New York. Half of it was in English, half in Arabic, so it is being translated at this time.
And one other interesting thing to note with the weapons inspectors here. Their numbers just slowly, slowly coming down. There are about 160 inspection staff in total here. About 60 of them are the actual inspectors here. Now, about a month, a month and a half ago, that might have been at just over 100 inspectors with 250 staff total. The U.N. saying they're not pulling out at this time, that they have people out on rotation in Cyprus. But the numbers inside Iraq just keep ever so slowly going down -- Anderson.
COOPER: Well, Nic, you know, it's interesting in looking at those pictures of the protests, I think a lot of Americans will see those and say, you know, well there are signs in English. It would seem it was sort of an orchestrated event. How would the Iraqis respond?
ROBERTSON: Well, I don't think there is any doubt that this is an orchestrated event. The particular rally we went to, there were about 5,000 people and as they came by where the local ruling Baath Party officials were standing outside their Baath Party headquarters, the Baath Party officials there were sort of whipping the crowd up and getting them to chant louder and louder. And they were dancing and chanting in circles.
So I don't think there's any doubt about that. What Iraqis would argue is that the passion that's put on display here is all for real. That's their point, that they do support their president. They say we know that the American people are with us, we know that the American people want peace, but the administration doesn't and therefore we support our leader and if there's an invasion, we'll fight to support him. And that's the overriding message and that's the message clearly the government here wants delivered, not only to the international community, but to the people in Iraq, as well, so they can see that the government is able to bring out big rallies in support of them -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Nic Robertson live in Baghdad.
Always good to talk to you.
Thanks, Nic.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Spain>
|
