TIERNEY: What the IAEA could do is act on information I sent to both UNMOVIC and IAEA on the location of an underground chamber used to enrich uranium. I worked this when I was within the United States government. I continue to validate it.
And I believe, about six kilometers away from Tarmea (ph) Nuclear Research Facility, the Iraqis have put an underground chamber where they have calutrons used for the electromagnetic isotope separation method.
And all they have to do, hop in their cars, go up Canal Road, take a right at the Baghdad Mosul (ph) Road. Forty, 50 clicks up the road, take another right. Go down to the river. There it is. Bring your ground-penetrating radar team.
And all they have to do is go there. Prove me wrong.
BLITZER: Well, if they have this information, the U.N. inspectors, presumably they can go there, and the Iraqis probably would have no choice but to let them.
Joe Wilson, what's wrong with that recommendation?
WILSON: I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think that they probably should. They should be acting on that intelligence information, other good information that they have. They should be ratcheting up the pressure. They should be pressing ahead with disarmament.
If you have disarmament as the objective, then you have a broad international consensus. If you have regime change and redrawing the political map of the Middle East, you have no consensus whatsoever. We go in and do it alone.
BLITZER: All right, David, I know -- I see that you were shaking your head before. What do you have -- you disagree with Bill Tierney on his assessment?
ALBRIGHT: Well, I don't know. I don't know that specific case. I mean, I know the Iraqi -- past Iraqi gas centrifuge EMIS programs that he mentioned intimately, and I know efforts they've made to reconstitute those programs.
Unfortunately, when Bill mentions that information, if it's there, the Iraqis would have cleaned it out. And so, it's actually -- one of the problems is -- and I think, you know, if the inspectors can go there and look, I support that.
But one of the problems has been in the inspection process, particularly on the nuclear side, is a lot of the information that the inspectors have been provided by the U.S. and other governments has not been any good, and that it's been leading to a lot of negative results.
And it may be -- and I personally believe there probably is a nuclear weapons program in Iraq -- but the information, as some inspectors have been quoted saying, has been garbage.
BLITZER: Why do you think, Bill Tierney, that it hasn't been cleaned out a long time ago?
TIERNEY: Well, there's a particular reason why I chose to come out with this. An underground chamber can't be put on the back of a truck and moved out.
Now, if they act on it speedily, they should see some kind of residual radiation that they can pick up. And they'd also have to explain why there's this huge empty room under a power- generation station for a water-treatment plant.
Now, if you're the Iraqis, what better place to put a nuclear- weapons program than under a water-treatment plant, after all the flak we took from the Gulf War for striking this?
BLITZER: All right.
TIERNEY: There are other reasons I could get into...
BLITZER: Let me let David Albright...
ALBRIGHT: I would say, I think it's important to pursue any lead. And we could call inspectors, and the U.S. could do it, Bill could do it, and they could go to this site tomorrow. And I think that's worthwhile.
If they don't find something there, unfortunately it doesn't prove there is not a secret nuclear-weapons program. That's one of the real dilemmas that we're all having to face now, is that we're seeing no evidence of activity, and I think we shouldn't be too quick to assume that that's no activity.
BLITZER: We'll be getting that new report March 6th, this coming Friday, from Hans Blix, the chief inspector.
You have a provocative article in the new issue, the March 3rd issue, of "The Nation," and among other things, Joe, you write this, and I'll put it up on the screen: "The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and the installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations."
Those are strong words, but tell our viewers what you're driving at.
WILSON: Well, the underlying objective, as I see it, the more I look at this, is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists.
So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East...
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: But is there something fundamentally wrong with that notion?
WILSON: Well, it's not so much that it's fundamentally wrong. It's the way that you go about doing it. The idea of bringing democracy to the Arabian Peninsula is a noble idea, and I think that there are a lot of Arabs of our generation who would respond well to that.
The question is, can you really bring democracy at the point of a bayonet or at the point of a gun? And is it really America's military's responsibility to go in and occupy a country for 10 years, in the hopes that you're going to create a democracy, which probably will not be any more pro-American than what you've got in the region?
So, you know, you measure stability against instability, you measure our interests in the region, and it's not at all clear to me that you're going to get there by imposing democracy. You may get there by imposing vassal states.
BLITZER: On that provocative thought, we'll leave it right there. Joe Wilson, thanks very much.
David Albright, thank you very much.
ALBRIGHT: Thank you.
BLITZER: Bill Tierney, appreciate your joining us today.
TIERNEY: Sure.
BLITZER: We'll have all of you back to continue this conversation.