Colin Powell Heads to U.N. Today
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: More on our top story, the intensifying diplomatic efforts surrounding the U.N. resolution that would authorize war against Iraq. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell heads to the U.N. today and reports say Britain is now working on a compromise plan that would give Iraq a little more time to comply with weapons inspections. Richard Roth standing by at the United Nations with more -- good morning, Richard.</s>RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. There have been a lot of compromise talk around here in the last few days and weeks. Canada has a proposal. And they all center on giving Iraq a little bit more time with a deadline for complying with disarmament provisions. Nothing really has borne fruit yet. Now there are reports that Britain and the United States, as one U.S. official told CNN, are noodling around with some ideas, one that would give Saddam Hussein a very short deadline. Meanwhile, intense lobbying going on on that. Powell is going to meet with inspector, with all members of the Security Council, either with the foreign minister level or at the ambassadorial level. The U.S. has been pushing hard to rally the votes. That man in the pool outside your office there reminded me of a U.S. diplomat fishing for votes. They need nine without any vetoes. China even today, though, saying the second resolution is not needed. China wants to see more inspections. Meanwhile, delegations from the Arab world come here to the U.N. to look for peace efforts. They meet with Secretary General Kofi Annan, foreign ministers from Syria, Bahrain and the Arab League. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix tomorrow goes before the Security Council, before Powell and the others talk behind closed doors. The United Nations chief weapons inspector is expected to say that Iraq has disarmed Al Samoud missiles and it's a positive development. Yesterday he called it real disarmament. But he is expected probably to note gaps still in biological and chemical weaponry complying -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: Is there anything else we learned from Hans Blix yesterday that may give us a sense of what exactly he might lay out tomorrow?</s>ROTH: He may explain so-called outstanding issues, 29 outstanding issues that, under existing resolutions, he is supposed to do 60 days after the inspectors got back to work in Iraq. And those issues may form the basis for this compromise deadline where the Council would say to Iraq, you've got to do this, this and this by this day. It's all an attempt to get France, Russia and China to approve a second, a new resolution -- the U.S. says the 18th -- and a bid to give Saddam Hussein one last chance.</s>ZAHN: Richard Roth, thanks so much. We'll be back to you in our next hour. Meanwhile, can Secretary of State Colin Powell sway any votes at the United Nations? Let's catch up with former charge d'affairs to Iraq, Joseph Wilson, one of the last American diplomats to meet face to face with Saddam Hussein. He joins us now from Washington. Good to see you, Mr. Ambassador. Welcome back. How do you think this is going to play out in the U.N.?</s>AMB. JOSEPH WILSON, FORMER U.S. CHARGE D'AFFAIRS: Well, I think it's going to be very difficult to find the nine votes. It looks to me like the French, the Russians, the Germans and now the Chinese are very concerned about the sort of war that is being anticipated and whether it's consistent with the parameters of 1441. In other words, is this a disarmament war or not? The president's speech to the American Enterprise Institute the other night made it very clear it's not a disarmament war, it's a war to redraw the political map of the Middle East. That's not something that these other countries are enthusiastic about and may not sign up to.</s>ZAHN: What about the U.S. responding to what the Brits might have to offer here in terms of very carefully calculated deadlines that the Iraqis have to meet or then war?</s>WILSON: Well, I think the war has already begun. When we changed the rules of engagement to go after surface to surface missile batteries instead of air defense batteries, we basically took an offensive action against Iraq. But to get to the question of the resolution, Tony Blair, I think, had better get it done quickly if he's going to get it done at all. Otherwise, I think that the administration is prepared to go forward rather swiftly. They've got Tony Blair in a position where he can't back out now and, you know, Tony Blair should have learned the lessons of the midterm elections when the Democrats supported the president on homeland security and he still beat them like a drum with it.</s>ZAHN: Well, let's move on to what Secretary of State Powell had to say about what he thought was the lack of integrity in the inspections. He came out swinging yesterday. Let's listen.</s>COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: From recent intelligence, we know that the Iraqi regime intends to declare and destroy only a portion of its banned Al Samoud inventory and that it has, in fact, ordered the continued production of the missiles that you see being destroyed.</s>ZAHN: How troubled are you by that fact?</s>WILSON: Well, you know, I listened to that speech pretty carefully yesterday. I must say Colin Powell is a man who I admire enormously. But I thought his speech yesterday was out of sync in three material respects. One, he basically said that Saddam has not made the strategic decision to destroy those horrible weapons of mass destruction and that's what he was reiterating there. Clearly he hasn't. We've known since December that he was not in compliance, since he filed that first document. The question is not compliance, the question is disarmament and how do you best disarm Saddam. Do you have to engage in the dropping of 3,000 bombs on Baghdad, the invasion, conquest and occupation to achieve disarmament? And, secondly, you know, again, as I said earlier, he says there's still time to disarm. I think the president has made it very clear both by his speech and his actions that for all intents and purposes, the war has begun. And then thirdly, the idea that this is still all about disarmament is disingenuous, again, based on the president's own words that it's, this is all about redrawing the political map of the Middle East. So I don't know what Secretary Powell was trying to say yesterday, but to a discerning audience, and the Europeans and the others who are at the U.N. Security Council are very discerning, this is going to be more eye wash.</s>ZAHN: Yes, but you're a discerning man. Just a quiet, a quick final thought on this very narrow issue of disarmament he was talking about. The Iraqis are destroying the Al Samoud missiles and then he said fresh intelligence shows at the same time they're rebuilding some of the equipment to create the same kind of missiles.</s>WILSON: You know, the fact that we have that intelligence just underscores the extent to which we are now in a position to disrupt all of Saddam's programs. The secretary and the president have spoken to that. We are watching. We are listening. We are all around. We've got inspectors in there. We can ratchet up the inspections. The question before the world...</s>ZAHN: But it's not stopping it, is it? It's not stopping the...</s>WILSON: Disruption, disruption is considered to be, by most people who look at this issue, to be a significant measure of success. The question really is whether or not you want to, if you have the patience to deal with this much as we dealt with the cold war or if you really want to deal with this the way we dealt with the Second World War, through the firebombing of Dresden or the dropping of a couple of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And that's really what it comes down to, because everybody says you've got inspectors or you've got scientists who have been moved out of the country, you've got an entire Iraqi bureaucracy that is sanitizing areas, you've got intelligence everywhere. There has been disruption in his weapons of mass destruction programs. The next step, the question, the question really is is the next step total war or are there other things we can do before we have to resort to the total war, which involves the invasion, conquest and decade long occupation of a country in a hostile part of the world.</s>ZAHN: I guess we'll start to learn more about that tomorrow as Hans Blix takes to the U.N. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, always good to see you. Thanks for your time this morning.</s>WILSON: Please tell Jack to read my e-mail. I sent him an e- mail yesterday and I waited for him to read it on the air, but he didn't do it.</s>ZAHN: I'm not sure he's that technically savvy, Joe. Even he admits he's not like a computer geek kind of guy. But we'll check on that and see if he received it or not. Thanks. I hope it was a nice message to him. Take care.</s>WILSON: No.</s>ZAHN: No?</s>BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Joe. He's getting about a thousand a day so Jack will be pretty busy to get to all of them.</s>ZAHN: Right. He can't read them all.</s>HEMMER: Let's get away from the diplomatic wrangling here for a moment. Let's talk about the military front. Tommy Franks, head of the Central Command, yesterday at the Pentagon says the military is ready to go, is in position now, if given the order from the White House. To the Pentagon from yesterday, back again today, Barbara Starr for more on this -- Barbara, good morning to you. Turkey, we know, not granting that permission to stage about 60,000 troops on its territory, which has the Pentagon scrambling right now. We are hearing that some movement, some aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean could be on the move. What are we learning about this?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, that's exactly what's on the table right now. Two aircraft carriers in the eastern Med slated to do bombing runs using over flight rights over Turkey if Turkey were to give permission. That doesn't look likely now. So the Roosevelt and the Truman may move through the eastern Med, down the Suez Canal and around to, into the Red Sea so they can launch their missions over Saudi Arabia. But we now also know there is another option on the table, leave them in the Mediterranean and have them over fly Israel and Jordan. We should begin to see some movement on this in the next few days. This is going to be one of the very last decisions before any war would begin, final moving into place of U.S. military assets -- Bill.</s>HEMMER: Barbara, on the no fly zone, let's talk about this. There were some indications in some reporting that the number of sorties in this part of Iraq has increased maybe double, possibly even three times in the past week. What are you learning about that?</s>STARR: Indeed, Bill. Sorties over southern Iraq and in support of Operation Southern Watch have now just about tripled, about 700, 750 missions a day. That's both fighters, bombers and support missions. And it's being done for several reasons. Of course, one is to give the air cress, the new air crews a training opportunity over Iraq, to have a look at the terrain before any war begins. But there is also a lot of concern the Iraqis increasingly are moving missile launchers, early warning radars, other systems into this restricted southern no fly, no drive area. And the U.S. is striking these targets as soon as they find them because, of course, now those targets would be within striking range of coalition forces in Kuwait. So as they move them in, the U.S. is trying to take them out as quickly as they can find them.</s>HEMMER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thanks, Barbara.