Eason Jordan: Iraq ready for war

CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan

(CNN) -- After a weekend meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss strategy on Iraq, President Bush is preparing this week to present his case to the United Nations for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The president may have a tough sell, however, as Britain and Israel are the only countries to have come out firmly in support of a pre-emptive strike on Iraq to remove Saddam from power.

Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive who recently returned from Iraq, talked Sunday with CNN's Miles O'Brien and Catherine Callaway about the situation and the complexities that could arise if the United States takes military action.

O'BRIEN: First of all, on your last trip, your 12th trip to Iraq, what struck you as being different about it? Has the country changed dramatically? What hit you?

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JORDAN: Well, the country's ready for war. The people are ready for war; the leadership is ready for war, and they all expect conflict. They would hope for peace, but I think they've come to terms with what they believe is the reality that war is inevitable.

O'BRIEN: That, of course, changes dynamics somewhat when you start dealing with Saddam Hussein and his regime, if inevitability comes into the equation, doesn't it?

JORDAN: Well, it does. And there's a lot of fear, not just within Iraq, but in other parts of the region -- in Kuwait, in Israel, in Turkey -- a lot of concern about what could happen, what Saddam Hussein might do before the U.S. strike, if it happens, even takes place.

CALLAWAY: I'm sure you heard [former U.N. weapons inspector] Scott Ritter on our air, as Miles interviewed him, saying that he believes that there's really no threat of nuclear weapons of any type, according to him. What is your reaction to his comments?

JORDAN: Well, Scott Ritter's chameleonlike behavior has really bewildered a lot of people around the world, in the United States, in Iraq.

I thought it was interesting; we asked the Iraqi government for permission to televise live Scott Ritter's remarks, but they were so skittish about these remarks, they refused to let us provide a live transmission of what he had to say. And so, in Washington, in Baghdad, I think people are equally stunned, really, as to his position on these matters.

CALLAWAY: And what does that do to the U.S. position with his presence there?

JORDAN: Well, U.S. officials no longer give Scott Ritter much credibility. At one time, he was one of the favorites of the leadership in Washington because he was so tough on Iraq, and when Scott Ritter quit UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] in 1998, he did it saying that the U.S. actually was impeding his efforts to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

So now four years later without any inspections going on, Scott Ritter has made the independent determination that somehow Iraq is no longer in possession of any weapons of mass destruction. (Full story) (CNN Access)

O'BRIEN: Let's get an e-mail in, if we could. Here's a good one -- "If the Bush administration is so certain Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, why don't they present the evidence to the American public? We are not anxious for an obviously cruel dictator to build up an arsenal, but we're also not ready to go to war for a mere possibility. If you're afraid your neighbor will kill you, you go to the police, you don't shoot him and claim self-defense."

JORDAN: Well, fair enough. I think when it comes to Iraq, there are a few things we have to point out. First of all, Saddam Hussein has used weapons of mass destruction before, not just on his neighbors -- in this case, Iran -- but even on his own people in Iraq, the Kurdish people, and also in southern Iraq, against the Shi'a.

There is no evidence in the last four years from the ground that we know of that's been presented that Saddam Hussein has or is making weapons of mass destruction.

However, there's a lot of information leaking out, uncorroborated reports, and there's a lot of intelligence coming from the skies, satellite imagery that has people concerned in a lot of places, and as we have seen in The New York Times [on Sunday], there are reports out there that Saddam Hussein's leadership is trying to import material that would make it possible for him to build a nuclear weapon.

And he certainly in the past has not only possessed biological and used biological and chemical weapons, but he has tried, according to many officials, to obtain parts for nuclear weapons.

CALLAWAY: We now have a phone call on our toll-free line. ... This is Logan from Tennessee. ...

CALLER: ... I just had a question. Is it -- I mean, I personally don't think that Bush has brought enough evidence against Iraq to support that kind of claim, that he is holding nuclear weapons. Do you think that he will come out to Congress with more information -- or more information about his thinking of why or how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has these weapons, or how he plans to get them?

CALLAWAY: Would the administration be forthcoming with what they do now?

JORDAN: Well, I think you're going to see in the president's speech on Thursday, from New York, at the United Nations, he will present some evidence, or so we're being led to believe, on the claims that Saddam Hussein still possesses weapons of mass destruction and would like to have a nuclear weapon.

Now, I don't think anyone out there right now with credibility is claiming that Saddam Hussein presently possesses a nuclear weapon. But without a doubt, in the past, he has tried to put the pieces together for a nuclear weapon, and that really would change the dynamic, not just in the region but in the world.

CALLAWAY: But isn't the administration also saying that this would be more of a pre-emptive strike, or are they claiming that they actually do have evidence?

JORDAN: I believe they say they do have evidence that Saddam Hussein is trying to put together the pieces for a nuclear weapon, but I don't think they suggested he has one now.

But, yes, this is a very different type of scenario that would involve a pre-emptive strike if it happens.

O'BRIEN: All right, here's good e-mail for us. "Why is it that we don't hear more about the almost daily bombing of Iraq? Why aren't we hearing more about the recently released videos that disclose that Osama [bin Laden] does not like Saddam Hussein and that they are not allies?"

I'm not familiar with the videos, Eason, and maybe you would be, but certainly we should point out that the war really never ended. ...

JORDAN: Well, no doubt the war, in many ways, never ended. And in fact, the Iraqi people are so hard hit, they've really suffered terribly.

The Iraqi people, the Iraqi government has been at war for 20 of the last 22 years. In 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. That war lasted eight years, and there was a two-year break before we saw Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and then a conflict that really has never ended; it's an unfinished war.

The U.S. has no-fly zones, with Britain, in northern Iraq and in southern Iraq. And with some regularity, the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns open up on the U.S. and British airplanes, and therefore the U.S. and British air forces are bombing, and there have been several dozen such exchanges this year alone. So the war absolutely continues.

As far as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are concerned, they've had some ugly things to say about one another. Perhaps those things have not gotten as much publicity as they should.

CALLAWAY: We have a call now from Victor in New York. ... Do you have a question for Eason?

CALLER: Yes. I would like to know, once we attack Iraq, what makes you think that Iran will not come in on the side of Iraq and ... we are fighting two countries all of a sudden?

O'BRIEN: Good question.

JORDAN: Well, certainly that would be unfortunate if that happened. The Iranian leadership still considers Saddam Hussein an enemy. There was a war between Iran and Iraq in 1980 to 1988 that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. There is no love lost between these two countries.

One thing, I would hope, if it does come to war, is that the U.S. will be very precise in its targeting of downtown Baghdad because the Iranians have a humongous embassy in downtown Baghdad very near some Iraqi government ministries, and we certainly would hope that the U.S. government would go to extremes to avoid hitting that embassy after the tragedy we saw in Belgrade in the Yugoslavia conflict.

O'BRIEN: Mustn't forget. Martin Tauber has a good e-mail for us, Eason. "Why Iraq, when so much evidence points to substantial Saudi involvement with people financing, and the apparent cooperation of elements of the Saudi government, as shown by the refusal to grant U.S. investigators access to known conspirators held there?"

JORDAN: Well, the U.S. certainly has some issues with Saudi Arabia, although publicly the U.S. has been very complimentary of the support that's come from the Saudi leadership.

Iraq, on the other hand, has been very difficult, being obstinate, refusing to allow in U.N. weapons inspectors. And you have one government in Saudi Arabia that is cooperating at least on the surface with the United States, whereas Iraq has really been very tough with the United States and [is] not allowing back in those U.N. weapons inspectors without any conditions.

O'BRIEN: I've got to ask you -- just on a personal level, day-to-day level -- I know you met with the high and mighty while you were there, but you had an opportunity, I know, to talk to just everyday Iraqis. What is their view of the U.S., and did you ever get any even sort of whispered comments that would indicate to you one way or another how they really feel about Saddam Hussein?

JORDAN: Well, the Iraqi people are scared to speak freely, and when someone like me is in Iraq, I'm in the company, for the most part, of Iraqi officials at all times, even low-level minders, so to speak. And so it's tough to find people who will speak up and talk to you honestly about these things.

The reality is most of the people in Iraq are not Sunni Muslims, the sect that Saddam Hussein is part of, but they're Shi'a, and they're Kurds. And collectively, the Shi'a and the Kurds actually make up the vast majority of the people in Iraq, and they are natural enemies of Saddam Hussein with a few exceptions.

As far as the average person on the street is concerned, they're fed up. Unemployment is absolutely awful. Probably the majority of the Iraqi people who could be employed are not employed, and the people have gone through 20 years of war. They're exhausted, and the standard of living is a disaster. I mean, if you have a job, you're lucky to make $1 a week, and so people really struggle to get by.

O'BRIEN: So it could be the house of cards that the Bush administration had suggested.

JORDAN: Well, there's no doubt that if the U.S. administration goes into Iraq on a military campaign and on the ground that they would expect and probably would get support from a large number of people within Iraq.