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CNN Live Today
White House Lowers Expectations for Powell Visit
Aired April 11, 2002 - 13:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The White House has made no secret of its expectations from both sides in the Middle East conflict, but so far it hasn't seemed to make much difference. CNN's Major Garrett joins us now with the administration's stake in Colin Powell's mission.
Major, we already heard from the White House there. Ari Fleischer said -- reiterated -- this struggle involves three parties, doesn't it?
MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. That is the White House position. It involves Israel, of course, and the administration says that the withdrawals are continuing. What it describes as a neutral value judgment on the pace of those withdraws, but it also says to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, has a responsibility to, among other things, in Arabic, to denounce suicide bombing, denounce terrorism as a means of achieving political ends.
And also Arab nations in the general neighborhood, specifically Jordan and Egypt, Saudi Arabia as well, also need to join that general call against martyrdom, using suicide bombings, for example, to achieve political ends. So far, what the administration has seen is that Israel has begun to withdraw, but those other two parts of the equation simply have not manifested themselves.
Ari Fleischer is continuing his briefing with White House reporters right now, and he has said repeatedly through the briefing, all three things must happen, the president believes all three of these factions have responsibilities in order to create an environment for peace.
There's another part of the story here, Daryn (sic) , and that's the determined effort on the part of the Bush White House to lower expectations for Secretary of State Powell's visit. Ari Fleischer was asked today what the mission statement essentially is, what are the marching orders for Secretary of State Powell once he gets to Jerusalem and also to Ramallah. Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president hopes that the secretary and his visits with Arab nations, Israel and the Palestinian authority will be able to create an environment that reduces the violence and hopefully leads to cease-fire, that hopefully leads to a beginning of the political process once again in the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARRETT: Now when you saw "create an environment of peace" and then too "hopefully's," Daryn in Ari Fleischer's assessment of what he hopes Secretary of State Powell will achieve, that means the White House simply is not going to lay out concrete and specific goals for the secretary of state's mission.
They're not trying to even that he will come back with a cease- fire. And that, of course, was one of the things at the top of his agenda -- we have pictures now of Secretary of State Powell arriving in Amman, Jordan. He will be meeting shortly with the Jordanian king, King Abdullah, a key player in all of this. As the White House tries to minimize expectations which sort of goes back to the conversation that Leon was having with John Vause.
In fact it is, in all likelihood now, pretty clear that this is where the Israeli military operation will continue in the West Bank even as secretary of state Powell is there in the region. There's been some interesting shifts in language today here at the White House too, Daryn.
The White House is no longer calling the Palestinian acts of terror suicide bombings but murder or homicide bombings. Why does that matter? Suicide puts the emphasis on the bomber, the Palestinian, murder or homicide puts the emphasis on the victims, in this case Israeli civilians -- I'm sorry, Fredricka. Forgive me, Fredricka...
WHITFIELD: It's OK, you are forgiven. It's not a big deal. We are all friends here. Major, let me ask you real quick. You talk about how Ari Fleischer wanted to make it very clear that the U.S. position is not been undermined by Israel. But it is hard to believe those words when you see that Israel has been very defiant. Foreign Minister Shimon Perez said this morning that he doesn't see the operation ending for at least another two to three weeks.
GARRETT: That's right. When you talk to senior administration officials and this was true even last week when the president on Thursday for the first time in his own words said Israel should withdraw, they said then and they say now, look, when Secretary of State Powell gets there one of the things likely to happen is that the Israeli withdrawals would happen sooner than they would have had he never made the trip. And this military operation began with Israeli defense forces, at the time the Israeli government said they could last 6, 8, maybe 10, weeks.
Well, two weeks in the White House view, or maybe three or four weeks is certainly shorter than 8-10 weeks, so that is at least marginally better from the White House' position. What is also true, Fredricka, is this White House is coming under increasing pressure within own ranks, Republican in Congress, and even some Democrats being more openly critical of the pressure that the White House has placed on the Sharon government to withdraw. Many Republicans, conservative Republicans, believe that is undermining what the president has spoken of in the overall war on terror which is moral clarity. And the president is very sensitive to those kinds of criticism. And I think what you are beginning to see in the last couple of days is a response to that, being a little bit more tolerant of Israeli military activity and less insistent on withdraws immediately -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Thanks very much. Major Garrett from the White House.
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