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CNN Live Today

World Reaction to Bush Speech; Interview with Azizah Al-Hibri

Aired September 12, 2002 - 12:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush today come -- or combined, rather, his call for a united front against Iraq with a blunt reminder that the U.S. will act if the U.N. doesn't. So, how is it going over?
CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris, Jill Dougherty is in Moscow, and Jaime FlorCruz is in Beijing -- Jill, we'll begin with you. Russia could be the last hold out here, yes?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: It is an important player, certainly, in this, at least in the reaction. There hasn't been any official reaction, Kyra but Russia did hear a lot of what it already agrees with from President George W. Bush.

Russia agrees with the United States and with the United Nations that those international weapons inspectors should be allowed to go back into Iraq, and there is also a growing sense of frustration with the intransigence of Saddam Hussein. But question for Russia has always been the use of force. It so far has said, No, we do not believe force should be used, and it has made it very clear that it does not want the United States to take any unilateral action.

But what it hasn't said publicly, is what it would do if, at this stage, Saddam Hussein were to not allow those inspectors to come back, or try to interfere with them if they did.

And, what then? So in the view point of many people here, if the U.N. Security Council actually votes for taking military action, then many here believe that Russia would either stand aside or, some believe, it actually might cast its vote for military action.

What they say is, Russia wants a guarantee of its economy interest in Iraq, and it is not willing to risk the partnership with the United States for the sake of Baghdad.

PHILLIPS: Jill Dougherty, thank you.

Now to Jamie FlorCruz in Beijing -- Jaime, still, leaders there not convinced that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction.

JAMIE FLORCRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, it is past midnight here in Beijing, so we are not able to get official Chinese reaction to this speech, but if the Chinese policymakers were expecting President Bush to unveil a smoking gun or hard evidence that Iraq, indeed, possesses weapons of mass destruction, they would have been disappointed. But President Bush made a convincing argument that Iraq has been defying United Nations resolutions for a decade, and that will resonate along the leaders here.

Meanwhile, observers think that Beijing would still prefer to give Iraq, perhaps, a last chance to implement U.N. resolutions, and to allow the return of inspectors, U.N. inspectors. In the meantime, if this vote is -- if the issue is put to a vote in the Security Council, observers here think that Beijing will probably abstain, instead of exercising its veto power -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jamie FlorCruz in Beijing, thank you.

Similar thoughts in Paris with our Jim Bittermann. President Chirac made it very clear he is in big support of weapons inspectors -- yes, Jim?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is absolutely correct, and while there hasn't been any official reaction yet, we're supposed to get some in just a few minutes from Dominique de Villepin, the foreign minister who is going to be delivering a news conference in New York, where he is right now.

I think there was -- some of the people we talked to were close to governmental thinking, said that they were both impressed and relieved with what the president had to say. I think because the fact that he said that the United States is going to act in a multilateral fashion, not a unilateral one. President Chirac just a few days ago said that acting unilaterally would be very dangerous.

There was something else in the president's speech that impressed an awful lot of people here. It was probably so subtle it may have been missed in the United States, but the president said the United States is going to rejoin UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, an organization the United States hasn't been part of for 20 years. That has great symbolic value, particularly in the underdeveloped world, because it indicates the United States is going to act with its world partners -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jim Bittermann, Jaime FlorCruz, and Jill Dougherty, all of you, thank you very much.

If Saddam Hussein is ousted from power in any military action, much will be needed to sustain a democracy in Iraq.

With more on this, we are joined by a Azizah Al-Hibri, she has written extensively on issues of Islam and democracy, and is a law professor at the University of Richmond -- professor, I first want to ask you, I know you did meet with the president earlier this week. Do you feel that he does have a strong understanding about the American Muslim community?

AZIZAH AL-HIBRI, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND: I feel that the president is trying to strengthen his bridges with the American Muslim community. He was quite open in the discussion, was really interested in hearing our points of views, and there were many views that were expressed and he took notes, sometimes, as we were speaking, promising to look further into some of the issues that we raised.

PHILLIPS: And what would a U.S. war in Iraq mean for this community, and I am talking about the American Muslim community?

AL-HIBRI: Well, I really cannot speak for all the community, but I could say that some people do come from that country, and others don't. But in any case, Muslim Americans, like other Americans, are quite concerned any time there is a war on the horizon. In my case, my organization is quite interested in conflict resolution, peaceful conflict resolution, mediation. We believe that our religion calls for peace and not war if at all possible, and the president had mentioned that war is not his first option, and we hope it does not become that.

PHILLIPS: Professor, you wrote a piece that appeared in yesterday's "Boston Globe" entitled "The Burden of the Muslim- Americans." Talk to me about this burden.

AL-HIBRI: Well, I think the American Muslims are going through a very rough period. First because, it is not necessarily a well-known fact that more percentage-wise of the Muslim community was victimized by the attacks of 9/11, than perhaps other communities. We had quite a bit of human loss in those attacks, but then, secondly, as the U.S. tried to protect its borders and to secure itself against further attacks, and find a delicate balance between liberty and security, sometimes that delicate balance was not achieved, and there was sometimes over-broad action was taken that the Muslim community has felt the burden of. We support acts to preserve the security of the country, but we would hope that the decisions would be narrowly tailored, and not over-broad in order to preserve our civil liberties.

Further -- one further frustration we have is that we keep getting, like other Americans, information that there will be further attacks and we feel helpless. We will carry the burden of those attacks, double burden I just mentioned, but there is no way for us to do anything more about it than other Americans. We've never been asked as to our opinion on the matter by those people who conducted those attacks.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Azizah Al-Hibri, I can tell you this is a subject matter we will continue to keep up on. We appreciate your time.

AL-HIBRI: Thank you.

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