Exclusive: Ted Koppel Inside Iraq

B A G H D A D, Iraq, Dec. 4 -- Ted Koppel sat down with Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz today to discuss U.N. weapons inspections and the possibility of war with the United States. Following is a transcript of their conversation.

TED KOPPEL: We're in the offices of the Council of Ministers here in Baghdad, and I'm joined here by the deputy prime minister of Iraq, Dr. Tariq Aziz.

The declaration will be delivered on Saturday?

TARIQ AZIZ: Yeah, on the 7th of December, yeah.

KOPPEL: And it will be comprehensive?

AZIZ: It will, according to, you know, Mr. Blix and Dr. Baradei were here in Baghdad, and they specify what they wanted to know from Iraq, and our Iraqi staff are ready to put it on the paper and send it, deliver it to UNMOVIC and to the IAEA on Saturday.

KOPPEL: I'm told that it contains lots of information about dual-use facilities and chemical, biological and nuclear.

AZIZ: You know, the fact is that we don't have weapons of mass destruction. We don't have chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry, but we have equipment which were defined as dual use. That equipment were under inspection and monitoring before the inspectors left. Of course, they are used for civilian purposes, and we have to declare how they were used during the last four years to UNMOVIC and to the IAEA.

KOPPEL: So you're saying there were, there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

AZIZ: Yes. Absolutely, yes.

KOPPEL: Because only today one of the UNMOVIC teams, as you probably know, found some mustard gas.

AZIZ: Where?

KOPPEL: At the site that they visited today.

AZIZ: I don't think so. I don't have such information.

KOPPEL: They found numerous shells that were left over from the last inspection.

AZIZ: No, this is an old, this is an old story, you see. There were some shells which belonged to the '80s and …

KOPPEL: [Inaudible.]

AZIZ: They belonged to the '80s, you see.

KOPPEL: Oh, the '80s.

AZIZ: Yeah, and there are not weapons there no more. There are not weapons. They are no more dangerous, you see, and they know, they know about them because the inspectors knew about them at that time, and they are not weapons, you see.

KOPPEL: We've heard reports that some of your scientists have been told to take crucial papers into their homes so that they won't be found.