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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Interview with Robin Wright
Aired December 10, 2002 - 12:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to bring in Robin Wright, the diplomatic correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times," the author of "Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam," who has covered this part of the world for a long time -- Robin, thanks for joining us.
Why is the U.S. military especially so mistrusted by so many Muslims?
ROBIN WRIGHT, AUTHOR, "SACRED RAGE": It's a simple question, but it involves a complex answer. This does go back a half century, and it involves a lot of suspicion about why the United States has gotten involved in helping Muslims, and why it has selectively also not gotten involved in a lot of the major challenges in the Islamic world.
The fundamental answer, really, is that Muslims are very aware of what's happened elsewhere in the world over the past two decades, the wave of democracy, and they see the United States, symbolized by its military, as one of the major props in supporting some of the world's most autocratic regimes in the Islamic world, in the Persian Gulf notably, where the U.S. has its largest military presence.
BLITZER: Yet, in almost all of these countries, in Qatar where I am right now, but in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Turkey, they all want a U.S. military presence, even Egypt wants a U.S. military presence. You remember, about a year or so ago, when the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, thought about removing those 800 or so, 900 U.S. soldiers from Sinai who have been there almost 20 or 30 years, there was a big uproar from the Egyptians. How do they explain that paradox, if you will?
WRIGHT: Well, remember, you're also talking about the governments, which in fact do rely on the United States for its military power.
Whether it was in 1991 to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, or its threat to Saudi Arabia, or to -- as an ally for Egypt to keep a regime that has now ruled for more than 20 years in power.
So there's, I think, a difference, and I think there's also a suspicion about what it is that the United States military is out to do. Is it out, really, to sweep aside a tyrannical regime in Baghdad, or as many Muslims on the streets fear, is it because the United States wants control of Iraq oil flow.
The United States would argue, obviously, that's not the reason, but there are many who suspect because of U.S. past actions in the Islamic world that its motives are not to really help Muslims, but to help American interests.
BLITZER: Robin, you've been doing some excellent reporting on the possibility that those those U.N. weapons inspectors might seek some defectors from Iraq, get them to leave the country, and be questioned with their families outside of Iraq. Obviously, an extremely sensitive issue. How likely is that scenario?
WRIGHT: I suspect you will see, over the next few weeks, the focus shift from the weapons inspections on the ground where the United States has concluded it is not likely to get a lot of cooperation, find a lot of hard evidence, the so-called smoking gun.
The focus is going to be increasingly on the human resources inside Iraq, trying to get the scientists, who have been involved in all four major weapons programs, to tell the United States and the United Nations, you know, give them the corroborating evidence to build the body of evidence to be able to say to the world, you see, He really is -- Saddam Hussein really is engaged in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction because the human resources can tell what's happened, particularly since 1998, when the former weapons inspectors were forced to leave, and Saddam Hussein was able, after that really, to hide so many of his programs.
BLITZER: Robin Wright of the "Los Angeles Times," thanks for joining us. Always good to have you on our program.
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