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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Interview With King of Jordan; Authorities Believe Mailbox Bombs are Domestic Terrorism

Aired May 06, 2002 - 22:00   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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening again everyone. We are in Washington tonight where late this afternoon we talked with King Abdullah II of Jordan.

When we met the young king, and he is young, he's just 40, he had just returned from a meeting with Secretary of State Powell. The king will meet with the President on Wednesday, all in an ongoing effort to find a way out of the mess that is the Middle East.

Much of the program tonight is devoted to the interview. We didn't start the day thinking that way. We thought we'd do a segment, but when the interview was over, we knew we had to throw out a lot of other ideas. There was just too much there, so that's what we're going to do.

And while we are really loathe to hype anything on the program, we really are, I will tell you it is worth staying through to the end. He is good on policy, really interesting on Yasser Arafat, and downright touching when we talked about his father, the late King Hussein.

What he was not was especially regal, at least in the way I imagined. As we were setting the lights, we talked of kids, his and mine. We talked about the United states. He lived in New England when he was a boy, sent to boarding school. We gently debated the East Coast versus the Midwest and the West.

But he is a king, not the one many in Jordan expected. His father was surprising that way, and he is a head of state, and now he is a player in one of the most complex problems the world faces. He doesn't speak with that all-knowing certainty you come to expect from a head of state, but more like a man who is thinking through complicated questions that are too often reduced to slogans instead of solutions.

And yes, I came away liking him and I suspect you will too. It is most of the back end of the program tonight, and he is not the only head of state in the country this evening dealing with the Middle East. We begin our whip with state Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel. Andrea, the Mid East and a headline from you please.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, only a few weeks after Ariel Sharon had an angry conversation with George W. Bush in which the President ordered him to withdraw immediately from the West Bank, Ariel Sharon is back in town and he's not the only Arab leader. among some of the competing pressures on the Bush Administration as it tries to navigate its way through a Middle East peace.

BROWN: Andrea, back to you shortly. Also today outrage from a Family Court judge in the case of a little girl missing for more than a year, Susan Candiotti is in Miami working that story. Susan a headline please.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. A judge unleashes a tirade at the state for losing track of little five-year- old Rilya Wilson and the caseworker is now under investigation for possible perjury, yet no one can yet answer the question, where is Rilya? More twists and turns in this very sad and disturbing story -- Aaron.

BROWN: Susan, thank you. A short whip but a full hour, besides the Middle East and this maddening story of Florida or out of Florida, also tonight more pipe bombs found. We'll update you on that and the hunt for whoever is responsible, lay out some clues tonight with profiler Clint Van Zandt. He's been involved in a lot of high profile cases including the Unibomber, all of that as we forge ahead on this Monday.

Perhaps someday we'll look back on this week in Washington as critical for the search for peace in the Middle East, first among them in town, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Above all is the survivor disgraced after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He bided his time, took government jobs with little power or authority, stayed in the game until his hard line policies came back into vogue, and they did after the collapse of the peace process 19 months ago. He is one tough cookie.

After all, when the President virtually told him to get out of the West Bank, he bided his sweet time, not wanting to pick a fight with the President to be sure, but not willing to allow anyone to tell him what was best for his country as he saw it.

And now at this critical time, he's in Washington and he will be pressed to be a serious peacemaker. Here again, CNN's Andrea Koppel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL (voice over): Israel's Prime Minister arrived in Washington, armed with fresh ammunition in his campaign to further discredit Yasser Arafat and end any talk of the Palestinian leader as Israel's partner for peace.

LIMOR LIVNAT, ISRAELI MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Arafat is not only the Palestinian Authority leader that has been initiated, financed, and terror attacks against the state of Israel in the last 19 months, but he is always - also a liar.

KOPPEL: In a 100-page report widely distributed to the American media, even before it reached the White House, Israeli officials offered what they say is new evidence gathered during recent raids of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, linking not only Arafat but also the Saudi government to terrorist activity.

LIVNAT: If indeed the Saudi Arabia policy is to finance and fund suicide bombers then they can probably not be part of the peace coalition.

KOPPEL: But at the same time Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister was also in Washington, pushing Secretary Powell to keep up the pressure on Israel.

PRINCE SAUD AL-FAISAL, SAUDI FOREIGN MINISTER: We hope that the efforts that are being expended to complete the Israeli withdrawal are finalized so that we can move towards the next steps.

KOPPEL: At almost every turn, the Bush Administration finds itself pushed and pulled, as it navigates a complicated maze of competing Middle East agendas, from Arab leaders worried the U.S. may give up on Arafat, to Prime Minister Sharon who worries the U.S. will pressure him to accept a final political settlement before he's ready.

ROB MALLEY, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: He wants to slow things down and bring things back to what he's more comfortable with, which is a very long-term interim plan, which doesn't threaten what he sees as his redlines in terms of control of the territory, control of the borders, basically control over the Palestinians.

KOPPEL (on camera): When Prime Minister Sharon sits down with President Bush Tuesday, it will be the first time the two leaders will have met since Sharon ignored the President's demand to withdraw immediately from West Bank towns and cities.

Israel's prime minister won't likely be in the mood for compromise this time either, considering last week's vote of support in Israel, for Israel in the U.S. Congress, and confident of the support of many in the President's own cabinet -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, there is an expectations game at play here, I think on all fronts. The administration worried that people are going to expect too much from these meetings and everything that presumably will follow in the summer.

KOPPEL: Well, they've already sort of lowered the bar, and believe me since Secretary Powell came out last Friday and made the grand announcement with the United Nations, the European Union, and the Russian Federation standing there saying there was going to be an international conference, and those were his words, in early June.

Since then, they've been walking it back, saying this is the first of many meetings. Don't expect there to be any great breakthrough. This is a process, but having said that, there is an expectation within the Arab world that something will happen and needs to happen soon, Aaron, and certainly the Israeli prime minister wants peace, as he has said over and over again, but on his terms.

BROWN: On his terms. Andrea, thank you. Andrea Koppel. You'll have a busy week keeping track of the comings and goings. It will be good to be able to say that that long 35-day impasse at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is over, but we can't say that tonight, at least not yet.

But there does seem to be a formula now for how to end the standoff. It's a matter of numbers. Some of those inside the church that Israel considers senior terrorists will be sent into exile, perhaps to Italy. That seems settled.

What remains to be worked out is how many men that actually means, whether it's six, which was an early number, or as many as 13. It's a negotiation and it isn't over yet.

One further note from the Middle East now, two American citizens of Arab extraction were arrested in Israel today. One of those detained is a doctor from Los Angeles, who had been touring and writing e-mails about the situation as he saw it in Jenin. He is also the chairman of a charity organized to provide aid to Palestinian children.

The other American detained today by the Israelis is the president of that charity. It's not precisely clear yet why they are being held, what crimes they are suspected of.

Here's the way King Abdullah or Jordan summed it up. The tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, and American support. In this case, I don't mean the current King Abdullah. I mean his great-grandfather Abdullah I, who wrote those words about American support in 1948.

Fifty-four years later, four kings of Jordan later, four wars later, 11 prime ministers of Israel later, the terms of discussion seem not to have changed very much. The tragic problem of Palestine, as Abdullah I called it, remains a kind of booby-trap Rubik's cube, frustrating at best, fatal at worst, and the fourth kind of Jordan since 1948 finds himself still with a role to play. Here is a first taste of a longer conversation we had in Washington today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: What the Israelis want to know is whether or not they are accepted in the neighborhood, whether they'll be able to live in peace and security. That has been addressed by the Arabs. What needs to be addressed by the international community and Israel now is that there's going to be a future viable state for the Palestinians.

Now if you put those on the front, that those are the goals that we want to achieve very quickly, obviously concurrently you're going to have to go through some process on the security issues as well as the economic.

BROWN: Does that mean that you would like to see specific, a map laid out that says here are the borders, and these are the borders and these settlements are no longer here or this is there, and right of return is dealt with in this way? Do you want something that is that specific?

ABDULLAH: Well, no I think what we want to go beyond that. We want to say that we all agree that as the Arabs have articulated in Beirut, that there will be peace for the Israelis with their Arab neighbors and the Arab region as a whole, that there will be a viable Palestinian state within an acceptable time frame.

The problem that we've had with all of these discussions is they're left somewhat open-ended. So is there going to be a Palestinian state? Well if it's going to take the next ten, 15 years to talk about it, then we're never going to be able to move forward.

So what you want to do is address the public to say a Palestinian state in a reasonable amount of time that we can all agree on, Israeli acceptance by the Arab countries in a reasonable amount of time. If we can agree on the principles, then I think you can work yourself backwards, talk about borders, talk about problems of refugees, et cetera, et cetera.

BROWN: Do you agree with the President that the Arab states have not done enough?

ABDULLAH: Well, I think the Arabs have done as much as they can given the parameters that they've had to work with. I think this is why we're saying you have to throw the prizes out there. I think that when you offer the Arabs and the Palestinians a future for the Palestinians, which is obviously a tremendous concern, then there's a lot more that they can do on the political, economic, social level.

And at the same time, it gives us moderate countries the ammunition that we need to be able to fight terrorism even more, because at that point when peace and a future Palestinian state is within the grasp of Palestinians and Arabs, it allows us the ability to talk to our peoples, that we have to fight terrorism, because they are going to be the ones who are going to sidetrack the issue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have much more with the king a little bit later in the program. We'll talk about Yasser Arafat and terrorism. We'll talk about his father and the future, all that as we continue on a Monday.

Also coming up a judge's outrage over how the state of Florida lost a little girl in its care. And up next, a continuing series of pipe bombs in the Midwest and what kind of person might be doing it. This is NEWSNIGHT tonight from Washington.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The number is now 16, two more mailbox bombs found today, one in Salida (ph) in West Central Colorado, the other in Clay County, Nebraska, both devices safely removed by law enforcement officials who called their construction consistent with others found around Nebraska and Iowa over the last several days.

This is a homegrown threat by all appearances against a very humble target, very far from the kind of thing we've been forced to think about since September 11th. But the mailbox is the heart of the heartland. If there is a single symbol of rural American, it surely is that covered wagon shaped metal box set atop a post in which come the cards and letters home and the catalogs that keep the countryside connected to the world.

And now country people are being advised to keep their mailbox doors open for their own protection and so letter carriers will know it's safe to make a delivery. We're joined tonight by Clint Van Zandt, a long time FBI special agent who worked the bureau's Behavioral Science Unit, was the hostage negotiator, criminal psychologist, and profiler, currently a consultant running his own international crisis management team and it's nice to see you again.

CLINT VAN ZANDT, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: So I know you can't put a name on this, but do you in a sense think you know who is doing this?

VAN ZANDT: Well, let me preface it like I always do that whenever we teach police and FBI agents profiling, we always say, don't give a profile unless you know everything there is to know, and of course, you and I don't. We like to believe the police and FBI know more than we do.

That being said, I think this is a little Kaczinski-like, the Unibomber, where we have benefit of his writings. You know we can look at the bombs and think and talk about it but once you've got someone's writings and if you assume that they're not dissimilating, if you assume this is who they truly are, it doesn't necessarily give you a key to their soul, but it let's you kind of crack their head a little bit and take a look inside.

BROWN: What do the writings tell you? Is it - first of all, are we talking about one person or more than one person?

VAN ZANDT: Well, at most I think we're probably talking about two people.

BROWN: And why do you think that?

VAN ZANDT: You see him referring to himself in the singular. Bombings are also something that by and large are not done by a very large group. IRA maybe can do that, but in the United states, this is not basically a group activity, and when you look at where he placed the bombs, when you look at the time it would have taken, one man with a carload of bombs and a couple of cups of coffee could have done this in one night.

BROWN: And when you say man, are you speaking literally here? It's a man?

VAN ZANDT: Yes, and again you know, I don't want to teach profiling. Obviously you've seen it for years, but our default position is a White male, unless there is something that suggests another race, another gender. I don't see that here. Where I'm challenged, Aaron, and what challenges me is this guy, he appears to write like he talks. In essence, this is someone who has not had a whole lot of experience writing, and when he takes all of these thoughts that he has that mean a lot to him and he has to put them on paper, now if you realize this is a guy who built what, 17 or so bombs. It took some time.

It would have taken the same time to construct this letter, but there are mistakes. There are mistakes in punctuation, in sentence structure. This guy is stretching to write this letter. This is as good as he can do and it's not that great.

BROWN: What does he want, do you know?

VAN ZANDT: We don't know yet. You know that's the rest of the story. It's like you read his letter, it's like there's two pages and you go through it real quickly and you want to get to the end of the chapter. It's not there. It's an extortion without saying, and this is what I want, but he tells us there's more to come and I kind of believe the rest of the story is still to come too.

BROWN: Why do you think - do you think there's something symbolic about mailboxes or it's a target of opportunity?

VAN ZANDT: Well, there's a couple of reasons. Number one, there's a very utilitarian purpose in a rural mailbox. Obviously you or I can drive down a rural road at night. It's dark. Nobody sees this. The box is a long way away from the house. We've got enough time to put the device in, close it, drive away and nobody else sees this. So that's got a good purpose.

Number two, though, I think as you led into this, it is something that is so symbolic for America and if we look at post 9/11, where were we attacked, anthrax, through the mail again. See this guy is not an original thinker, Aaron. He's taken a little bit from the Unibomber. He's taken a little bit from Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and he's taken a little bit from the anthrax letter writer, put them all together and this is who he is.

BROWN: About a half a minute. It took an extraordinary break in the Unibomber.

VAN ZANDT: Absolutely.

BROWN: His brother -

VAN ZANDT: Bravest man, brave man to do that.

BROWN: Absolutely. Is it likely that it will take an extraordinary break or can you know this? You probably can't know this.

VAN ZANDT: No.

BROWN: Just good police work here? VAN ZANDT: This is going to be a combination of good police work and an easy break. Somebody's going to know this guy. They're going to recognize the multiple themes that he talks about. They're going to recognize his writing, the way he writes. They're going to say, "I know that guy" and if they pick up the phone, post 11, you are your brother's keeper. Pick up that phone, call the FBI.

BROWN: I hope they do it soon.

VAN ZANDT: Me too.

BROWN: Nice to see you bud.

VAN ZANDT: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you. Later on NEWSNIGHT, more on our interview with the key power player now in the Middle East, Jordan's King Abdullah. Up next, a Florida judge expresses her outrage and perhaps yours too, over state workers who lost a child. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well this is not surprising but it's nonetheless remarkable. On Wednesday, Cardinal Law of Boston will be deposed in the city's priest abuse scandal. It's not surprising, because ever since the archdiocese backed out of a settlement with victims of Father John Geoghan, a deposition was a virtual certainty.

Dozens of plaintiffs accuse Geoghan of abuse and on Friday, the archdiocese pulled out of the deal, saying in effect it could not afford it, that there are an ever-growing number of victims and limited knowledge to pay their claims.

The move infuriated some Catholics, who were already angry about how the church has handled the scandal. Yesterday some protesters chased the cardinal's car as it sped away from the cathedral of the Holy Cross.

And, an American Airlines jet arrived this evening in Boston and with it, the man at the center of another case rocking the Archdiocese of Boston. Paul Shanley returned from San Diego to face child rape charges. He's accused of repeatedly raping a boy in the 1980s, sometimes in a church confessional. He will be arraigned in Boston tomorrow.

We first brought you this story last week, the kind of story that makes you shake your head in wonder and yes, horror, that something like it could ever happen. A five-year-old girl named Rilya Wilson, missing for more than a year. Her grandmother thought she was in the hands of the state. The state thought the grandmother had her. Both were wrong.

Today, Florida Governor Jeb Bush appointed a panel to investigate how it happened, and a judge expressed outrage, the same outrage you might well have felt when the story first came to light. As to the most important question, where is this child? Police at this point have no answers; once again, CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice over): Judge Cindy Lederman furious, calling the mishandling of Rilya Wilson's case despicable. Equally angry, the state removed Rilya's little sister from her legal guardian last week, without first telling the court.

JUDEG CINDY LEDERMAN, FLORIDA DISTRICT COURT: After I have been kept in the dark about the status and well-being and placement of this child for one year, why would you think I would allow the department to remove this child's sibling without my consent? Why would you even think that and why would you try? What is the department hiding?

CANDIOTTI: The head of Florida's Child Welfare Agency, herself a former judge, not making excuses about Rilya, but at a loss for answers.

KATHLEEN KEARNEY, SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF FAMILIES AND CHILDREN: She has every right to be angry that a caseworker would imply that she had seen a child when she had not.

CANDIOTTI: Rilya's caseworker, now under investigation for possibly perjury. Last August, the judge says the caseworker filed paperwork that all was well, Rilya living "in a family-like setting."

LEDERMAN: I don't even know how to respond to what has been done in this case by this caseworker, but she also defrauded the court.

CANDIOTTI: Among other twists and turns, the caseworker, it turns out, held a second job teaching English for the school district apparently without informing the Child Welfare Agency as required.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sadly, this is not an instance where the department can be in the least proud of this caseworker.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Of course, the caseworker's supervisor also apparently fell down on the job and resigned last month, and their bosses admit poor oversight as well.

And then there's this new twist in the case, a man in Miami in jail now claims that he is Rilya's father, though he doesn't have a blood test to prove it, and that the grandmother may not be the grandmother after all. Of course none of this answers the central question, where is Rilya? Aaron.

BROWN: Susan, that's exactly right. For all the messing around here, this all comes back to where is this child? Thank you very much, Susan Candiotti in Miami tonight. Still ahead, the King of Jordan, this is NEWSNIGHT.

LOU DOBBS, MONEYLINE ANCHOR: NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown will continue in just a moment but first a brutal session on Wall Street, the Dow falling nearly 200 points, the NASDAQ dropping almost 35. Falling oil prices contributing to the sell off after Iraq said it would end its embargo. Watch MONEYLINE weeknights 6:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. Now back to NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown.

BROWN: Thank you, sir. In our second half hour tonight, our exclusive interview with Jordan's King Abdullah, a key player in any Mid East peace settlement. We'll talk to him about his meetings with Secretary Powell about an international peace conference, a fascinating part of the conversation on Yasser Arafat and some touching personal reflections from him about his late father, King Hussein, all that in the second half hour of NEWSNIGHT on this Monday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's worth remembering that there is danger enough to go around in the Middle East, even for royalty. King Abdullah's great grandfather, the first king Abdullah, was assassinated in 1951 by a Palestinian who also shot and wounded the current king's father, Hussein. Hussein survived, of course, and ascended the throne and was there after King of Jordan for more than four decades.

Among the things his son will talk to President Bush about is a proposed international conference on the Middle East some time this summer. It's not a summit. The president said that the other day. It's just a meeting, an exchange of ideas. But of course, no matter how many times that is said, people on the ground will want more, expect more, hope for more. And expectations are very dangerous, if not met.

We talked with the king about the conference and more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Your, majesty, you have just come from meeting with the Secretary of state. So why don't we start there. Can your talk substantively about what that meeting was about?

ABDULLAH: Well, again, I think that the main discussion is going to be with the president on Wednesday, but what we talked about is how to visualize a series of steps that make sense in bringing the Israelis and Palestinians closer together. But at the same time, building on the Saudi initiative, i.e. the Arab olive branch to the Israelis to be part of the neighborhood. And so, how do we develop the two tracks simultaneously in a way that makes sense to everyone?

BROWN: When the Saudis were here, almost two weeks ago now, much was made of the blunt message that the Saudi government and the Crown Prince was going deliver to the president. They certainly put that word out. Do you envision a blunt message to the president, a clear message to the president? And what will that message be?

ABDULLAH: Well, we've always been, luckily with all administrations going back as late as his majesty King Hussein, we've always had an honest and straightforward discussion. So we've always been blunt and straightforward.

I think there's been confidence in relationship. When we're going to be blunt, if we can put it that way, is to say that, you know, there is a slight easing of tension in the Middle East, but that should not be interpreted that things are OK. There's still a lot of anger, frustration, desperation in the Arab street. The presence of Colin Powell in the area took the edge off, because people feel that there's hope. But if there's no hope in the next couple weeks of finding a vision for the future of the Palestinians, then the rage will be back to an all time high.

BROWN: A couple of weeks isn't a very long time. What, realistically, in a couple of weeks can any of the players do to affect that need for hope?

ABDULLAH: What we're saying is, in the next couple weeks, we should articulate a vision so that there is, as Secretary of state has said, that the president has endorsed 2442338, U.N. Resolution Council 1397, and the Arab proposal as a sort of an umbrella, to be able to use that as a stepping stone really to get on one side, the Israelis and Palestinians moving forward. On the other side, Arabs and Israelis.

So I think it's articulating that there is the end games. In other words, a Palestinian viable state in 2442338 and peace for the Israelis with the Arabs. I mean, that needs to be put on the front burner. And that's what needs to be articulated over there.

BROWN: I think if you -- in all of the conversations we've had in the last two months with Israelis, certainly, they have said that Oslo, the spirit of Oslo is dead. That whatever has gone on in the last several months now, or the last 19 months, has within Israeli society pretty much killed off the spirit of Oslo. Is it your view that Oslo is dead?

ABDULLAH: I don't think that you can say any of these initiatives are dead. Because if it means dead, we're back to to the starting line, which I think would be catastrophic for the Middle East. I think that the problem that Oslo has presented to Israelis and Arabs alike is that we have seen over the past nine years, an incremental step by step approach to the peace process, which has not met the expectations of people living in the neighborhood. And therefore, what I think we're saying now is we need to go straight to the final prizes, as I just alluded to, a future viable Palestinian state for the Palestinians and Israeli security.

I am concerned that if we're going to take a step by step Oslo approach to things, although Oslo had its merit, because it got us very far, but if we're going to continue this confidence building, slow procedure, then we're never going to get anywhere.

BROWN: So this whole notion of first let's get through the Tenet plan and get security in place, let's start incrementally building confidence or rebuilding confidence again, if I understand what you're saying, I hear you saying that's not nearly going to get it done?

ABDULLAH: Well, in a way, I mean, to make it simply -- I think we need more peace, as opposed to process. In other words, you need to identify to the peoples. And this is, I mean, although there will be a tactical need to go in a way through George Tenet and George Mitchell, what you need to be able to address to people, what is really translatable in their terms.

They don't know what 242338, George Tenet, George Mitchell means. What the Israelis want to know is whether or not they're accepted in the neighborhood, whether they'll be able to live in peace and security. That has being addressed by the Arabs.

What needs to be addressed by the international community in Israel now is that there's going to be a future viable state for the Palestinians. Now if you put those on the front, that those are the goals that we want to achieve very quickly, obviously concurrently, you're going to have to go through some process on the security issues, as well as the economic.

BROWN: Sir, just one more question on this. Does that mean that would you like to see specific -- a map laid out that says here are the borders, and these are the borders, and these settlements are no longer here, or this is there, and right of return is dealt with in this way. Do you want something that is that specific?

ABDULLAH: Well, no. I think what we want to go beyond that. We want to say that we all agree that as the Arabs have articulated in Beruit, that there will be peace for the Israelis with their Arab neighbors and the Arab region as a whole. That there will be a viable Palestinian state within an acceptable time frame.

The problem we've had with all of these discussions is they're left somewhat open-ended. So is there going to be a Palestinian state? Well, you know, if it's going to take the next 10 or 15 years to talk about it, then we're never going to be able to move forward. So what you want to do is address the public to say Palestinian state in a reasonable amount of time, that we can all agree on. Israeli acceptance by the Arab countries in a reason amount of time. If we can agree on the principles, then I think you can work yourself backwards, talk about bordersm talk about problems with refugees, etcetera, etcetera.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: King of Jordan on the peace process. Up next, the king talks about what the Israelis at least believe is the principal obstacle to peace, Yasser Arafat. This is NEWSNIGHT in Washington.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There is sometimes a certain predictability to interviews. Certain questions must be asked. Certain and expected answers given. It its a game, of sorts. What we liked about this interview is that the answers often surprised. And that was especially true in the part where we talked about Yasser Arafat. And there is one especially nice human moment, which says volumes about how hard it is going to be for President Bush to get moderate Arab countries to pressure Arafat on terror or anything else.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Where in that does this international conference fit? Can you give me your view on the expectations and where you'd like to see that conference go?

ABDULLAH: Well, we have to be very careful how we articulate the conference. I think, realistically, an initial conference of bringing the international community together would be to be able to identify the parameters that we need to work on. There's still not only there's the political process, which is very important, i.e. the future of a Palestinian state and as I said, the future of Israeli security, but also there's a tremendous economic suffering of the Palestinian people at the moment. So you're going to have to address social, economic, and political needs all in one.

And so, we have to be careful when we go into a conference that is not sort of a magical solution, you're not going to have a conference if it's the summer and all of a sudden, Israel is going to have peace with all its neighbors and it's going to be a Palestinian state, because there's going to be a procedure. But I think what the Americans will articulate is let's get a conference starting, that starts the process of being in the international community, and all the players involved in the peace process together.

BROWN: Do you then share, to a certain extent, the president's concern that the mere fact that there is going to be a conference will, in and of itself, raise expectations to a level on the street that are going to make it hard to meet?

ABDULLAH: Well, again, one has to be careful. I think that when you articulate the first levels of meetings of the extent of the capability of those meetings, I would imagine that if there is a conference in the near future, it would be done at a sort of a ministerial level initially. And then from there, building forward. But I think at the same time, building up expectations. Expectations are being built up already in the Middle East. And so, I think you have to reach out to the street that there is going to be hope. And so by having a conference, the end game at the end of the day, is to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the Israeli-Arab one. So in other words, you have to, we need hope in the Middle East. We desperately need hope. Israelis, Arabs, Palestinians, all of us need hope. At the same time, trying to get a series of processes that makes sense over the next couple of months.

BROWN: The president has said a number of times, in a number of different ways, that he expects or hopes that the Arab states will take a more active role in a number of areas in helping get to a final resolution in reforming the Palestinian Authority, and in doing something about terrorism. And I'd like to deal with all three of those. Implicit is that the Arab states have not done enough. Do you agree with the president that the Arab states have not done enough?

ABDULLAH: Well, I think the Arabs have done as much as they can, given the parameters that they've had to work with. I think this is why we're saying you have to throw the prizes out there. I think that when you offer the Arabs and the Palestinians a future for the Palestinians, which is obviously a tremendous Arab concern, then there's a lot more that they can do on the political, economic social level.

And at the same time, it gives us moderate countries, the ammunition we need to be able to fight terrorism even more, because at that point, when peace and a future Palestinian state is within the grasp of Palestinians and Arabs, it allows us the ability to talk to our peoples, that we have to fight terrorism because they're going to be the ones that are going to sidetrack the issue.

BROWN: And so you acknowledge in that, it seems to me, that there are people on both sides. Certainly on the Palestinian side, for whom no settlement short of the Israel disappearing would be acceptable, and that somehow, that has to be dealt with?

ABDULLAH: There's extremists on either side. And this is rhetoric that we have had to listen to from both sides, from as far back as I can remember as a small child. And that is always going to be there unless we get to a final settlement. And as we get closer and closer to a Palestinian state, and the closer we get to Israel security achieved, or recognized by all the Arabs, we're going to expect extremists on either side to develop the process. But why give them the time of day? It's going to be something that we're going to have to put up with. The closer we come to a final solution, the more the extremists are going to try and mess it up. We're going to have to take that as it comes along, and move beyond that.

BROWN: The Israeli government over the weekend, and this is sure to come up in the next several days, has been passing out a dossier or a file, which it says, proves conclusively that Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority backed terror, financed terror, are aware of all of these, not all attacks, but are aware of attacks. I understand you probably have not seen all of these documents. If they prove to be true, would that in any way change your view of Mr. Arafat or the Palestinian Authority?

ABDULLAH: Well, again, we don't have the papers. We haven't seen any of it, so we don't know whether they're true or not. It would obviously make the situation more difficult. But at the end of the day, Arafat, whether people like it or not, is the symbol and the man who represents the Palestinian people.

But again, I think at the same time, we have to move away from the blame game, which is what has held us back in the past year and a half. I mean, who has the higher moral ground is a very difficult argument to tackle at this point. Everybody's so caught up into the security aspect of things. And this is not a security problem. It's a political problem.

And we need to get the political initiative moved over. In other words, as a people who have been under occupation for 34 years, and they need to have their questions answered. And unfortunately, it's very easy to fall in the cycle of blaming each other. I mean, in other words, we shouldn't award these problems. We should move beyond them to dealing with the political solution as quickly as possible.

BROWN: But it seems to me, even as recently as yesterday when Secretary Powell and also National Security Advisor Rice, were on the Sunday talk shows, they talked about the need for Chairman Arafat to do something about terror. So while it may be so that this becomes the only conversation, these questions of security, become the only conversation, it is a conversation the American government seems to want to have right now.

ABDULLAH: Well, there is no doubt that Arafat is going to have to answer to the international community and to his own people. You know, he has to have the responsibility of leadership at this stage. This is really the golden and the last opportunity that I believe Arafat has, to create a future for his people. And are these out there that he has to deal with. And I hope that he does move with maturity and responsibility. Otherwise, he stands a chance to lose a tremendous opportunity for his people.

BROWN: who in the region has influence on him?

ABDULLAH: I don't think anybody does, honestly. I think that we, as Arab countries, have always stood by him. We've stood by the Palestinians to try and help them through their difficult crisis. But at the end of the day, although sometimes we are all blamed for letting the side down, I think at the end of the day, he's the leader of the Palestinian people. And he has to lead them. And this is the opportunity for him to be able to do that. And let's hope he gets it right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We ended the interview with some questions and answers about the king's father, the late King Hussein. This is NEWSNIGHT. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Final segment on the king of Jordan. It is the most personal segment, and in some ways, far more personal than we expected. You expect heads of state to comfortably discuss policy. You don't necessarily expect them, especially if they are royalty, to give you a window into their lives. But the king opened the window a bit today. And we looked in and saw a young man who seems to understand that by an accident of birth, he has been given a role in history, which can be at times lonely business.

This last segment includes the king's feelings on the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, some thoughts about his father, and his hopes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The president the other day described Mr. Sharon, Prime Minister Sharon, as a man of peace. Do you share that view?

ABDULLAH: Well, he is coming to Washington with a peace proposal. And I hope that it meets the expectations of the Arabs. I think if you look at Beirut again, and I think people don't understand the full significance of Beirut, 22 Arab countries offered a tremendous olive branch to the Israeli people, really addressing 100 percent of the concerns of the Israelis. In other words, security, prosperity, normalization, a future for them in the region.

I just hope that the peace process that Sharon has comes as close in emotion and from the heart as the Arab proposal came out of Beruit. So let's see what he has to offer to the president tomorrow.

My late father said to me, as he said to many people, you know, I work for peace for my children and their children's. Well, when he says my children, that's my generation. I want to benefit from the hard work that our fathers have put in. I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to sets the right set of circumstances, so that maybe my children can take advantage of it. We maybe selfishly want to have a future for our generations. And I think I can speak on behalf of Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs alike.

BROWN: I would not have brought your father up, but since you did, let me ask this. I hope this isn't improper. He worked so hard to see this conflict that's dominated both of our entire lives to end. Do you ever, in your quiet moments, wish you could talk to him now, ask him for help, ask him for advice?

ABDULLAH: Obviously. I mean, we in Jordan would not be in the position of being able to move forward as we are with our economic, political and social reform if it wasn't for all the hard work that he did. I mean, time will tell, I think, in Jordanian history what his late majesty did for our country and for the region. And, you know, he knew how to deal with these issues. He was a statesman and a man of peace. And I think the lack of his majesty and the lack of people such as Prime Minister Rabin are very sorely felt at this moment.

BROWN: OK, it might have been his last visit to the United states, where he stood with President Clinton and there was this very powerful talk that they both did. And I remember sitting in my office, and I'm getting goose bumps. He took so many risks. He seemed so profoundly to believe that there was a solution out there, when other people, long before other people believed there was a solution out there.

ABDULLAH: And you know we see it. We sense it. You know, it's there. And the sadness of having to deal with the situation now and listening to the rhetoric that we listen to on some of the Arab satellite stations, it's as if we're back living in the 60's and 70's. I mean, haven't we, as a Middle East learned? Violence is not going to bring a Palestinian state, nor is it going to bring Israeli security.

And you know, we need to sit down and talk to each other. And it's just, it's just so sad to hear, so extremist views that all they talk about violence on either side. And we have to get beyond that. They really do.

BROWN: Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: King Abdullah, the king of Jordan. And just in the last moments, the Associated Press began running a story that Palestinian leaders have agreed to exile 13 militants holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. That's a major development that will play out over the next several hours. It is not a sealed deal yet, but an important step in ending the 35 day siege there.

And that's our report for tonight. It's good to see you again. And we'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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