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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

View From Syria; Interview with Jamie Rubin, Former Secretary of State

Aired April 15, 2003 - 23:19   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: To Damascus now, a city now increasingly on the radar screen, for a number of reasons. For most of the day, the Bush administration seemed to throttle back the rhetoric where Syria is concerned, but then tonight came another potentially inflammatory development.
CNN's Sheila MacVicar has been working on the story, and she joins us from Damascus -- Sheila.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Aaron.

Well, U.S. administration officials are saying that a senior -- a former senior Iraqi intelligence chief, a man named Farouk Hijazi, may in fact be in Syria. Now, Farouk Hijazi most recently served as Iraq's ambassador to Tunisia. Before that, he was Iraqi ambassador to Turkey.

He was also believed by U.S. administration officials to perhaps have been involved in the plots of the early 1990's plot to assassinate the first President George Bush.

He was also Saddam Hussein's point man with Osama bin Laden in the late 1980's, a contact which began at the instigation of bin Laden at a time when the United States was making nice with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bin Laden thought he might get kicked out. He was looking for some place else to go. And it was Hijazi who Saddam Hussein designated as the person for bin Laden to talk to. Those contacts are believed to have foundered on grounds of mutual suspicion and distrust.

But the story this morning is that, according to U.S. administration officials, he may be somewhere here in Syria, traveling apparently on a diplomatic passport. As I said, he was Iraq's ambassador to Tunisia. The question, of course, is whether or not he is here, whether or not the U.S. has any interest in him. One would presume if they suspect him of involvement in that assassination plot they might, though he has been a public figure elsewhere for a number of years.

And, of course, we will have to wait and see what the Syrians have to say, who have so far consistently denied any knowledge of any senior Iraqi officials here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, that answers that question of whether the Syrian government has commented on that. We'll let that go through the day and see where we end up tomorrow.

Did the government today have anything to say about this beating it's been taking over the last four days, five days, by the American government?

MACVICAR: It's been going on longer than that. It's just the tempo has stepped up over the course of the last five days. I mean, you might call it megaphone diplomacy. They're hearing all of these messages, multiple messages about multiple subjects, whether it's, you know, the pipeline, weapons, fighters, people who might be here, you know, support for terrorist organizations. There's a welter of messages out there, most of them -- many of them delivered in fairly strong, fairly clear language.

And the Syrian position on this is, whoa, wait a second. How about some dialogue here? We don't want to have a problem with the United States. We know that there are issues, but we would like to be able to sit down and talk to the United States.

And from the Syrian perspective, Syria has been an ally of the United States in the war on terror, an important ally, with whom it had basically achieved some important successes in the war on terror. Syria has also in the past been an ally with the United States against Iraq.

So Syria is hearing all of these messages and wondering, what is the United States really asking for? What is this really all about? And I think the confusion is growing.

Their sense of how to respond to this is also sort of sliding a little bit all over the map. They don't know whether to be defensive, to go on the offensive, to go on a charm offensive or to sit back and sort of take it until it becomes a little bit more clear.

To go back on the subject of Hijazi for just half-a-sec, what's important about the Hijazi thing is the question of intelligence, which is one of the things that the U.S. has been beating up the Syrians on over the course of the last number of days. There has been a sense, certainly in the community here, the diplomatic community here, that there has been very fragmentary intelligence.

The question now is whether the U.S. has got something solid -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you -- Sheila MacVicar who is in Damascus.

Jamie Rubin is here with us in New York, former assistant secretary of state.

I have a mechanical question. If you're carrying a diplomatic passport from a government that no longer is, is the passport itself valid?

JAMIE RUBIN, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF STATE: Well, until the new government is chosen, there is -- that passport is probably accepted by most people, yes. BROWN: OK. Do you get the feeling the administration is playing sort of tough cop with Syria? There's a new sheriff in town in the Middle East, and you better shape up, is that the game?

RUBIN: Yes, I think megaphone diplomacy is probably the right word. We've had a lot of trouble with Syria over the years, whether it's terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, operations in Lebanon, and now we have this new set of issues related to the collapse of Saddam Hussein. Traditionally, these issues have been dealt with through intelligence channels, as Sheila was mentioning, where we've had cooperation, or through diplomatic channels with high-level meetings with the top Syrian officials in which we get them to do something we want them to do.

So here, we have the United States succeeding in liberating Iraq, sending this powerful message to the Arab world. And I think some people in the government, our government, think that now is the right time to flex our muscles, and they are not adopting the famous adage of Teddy Roosevelt, which is, "talk softly and carry a big stick."

The big stick is there. The Syrians know we can do this. The question is: What's the best way to achieve our objectives? If Colin Powell is right and we have no plan to use military force in Syria, why are we saying they're committing hostile acts and letting the rhetoric getting away with it?

BROWN: In the meantime, all around us, reading a series of comments today from around the world, there are a lot of governments -- governments in the Persian Gulf, governments in Europe -- who are at least befuddled and perhaps appalled by the tone of the American comments.

RUBIN: Well, I was in England when this started in London when Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, first raised the Syrian issue. And I think the British were taken aback. The top generals and the top diplomats there were stunned, because they feel that they signed up for Iraq, but they didn't sign up for, you know, broader regime change.

I think what's happened between then and now over the last six, seven days is the British and others have been told that this is not really a military operation they're considering.

The only military operation I could imagine is one where some of these scientists, some of the weapons of mass destruction might actually cross the border to try to get away. And I could envision just using force without Syria's permission in a sort of a hot pursuit kind of situation.

BROWN: In your view, is the situation more fertile today to negotiate peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians than it was three weeks ago?

RUBIN: Well, there have always been two great theories about the Arab world, and one is that they respect power, and that the other is that they believe the Western world is there to humiliate them or to commit imperialist acts or that sort of logic.

If you believe in the power theory, now is a real good time to get the Palestinians and the Syrians to make the kind of concessions towards the Israelis that they've been unwilling to make. The Syrians, you may recall several years ago, were on the verge of getting all of the Golan Heights back, but they insisted on getting every single inch.

BROWN: Yes.

RUBIN: And there was a dispute about that. The Palestinians had a very good deal put before them, and they refused.

The problem is, if we're going to be honest about it, the current Israeli leader...

BROWN: I'm not sure the old deal is in play.

RUBIN: Right.

BROWN: Yes.

RUBIN: It's not interested in those kinds of deals. So we may have a more cooperative Syrian government. We may. We may have more cooperative Palestinians. I think we're actually likely to have more cooperative Palestinians. But whether Ariel Sharon is prepared to do what his predecessors are doing, I wouldn't bet on it.

BROWN: And, in 20 seconds, throw in the fact that we're a year- and-a-half away from a presidential election. How big a domestic political issue does that become for any candidate?

RUBIN: Well, whenever the secretary of state is in the region, he's always getting messages, or she, from the White House, and the White House is very attune to not pressing the Israelis during an election season. So the political calendar is not going to be kind to this effort.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Good to see you again.

RUBIN: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie Rubin.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.





Secretary of State>


Aired April 15, 2003 - 23:19   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: To Damascus now, a city now increasingly on the radar screen, for a number of reasons. For most of the day, the Bush administration seemed to throttle back the rhetoric where Syria is concerned, but then tonight came another potentially inflammatory development.
CNN's Sheila MacVicar has been working on the story, and she joins us from Damascus -- Sheila.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Aaron.

Well, U.S. administration officials are saying that a senior -- a former senior Iraqi intelligence chief, a man named Farouk Hijazi, may in fact be in Syria. Now, Farouk Hijazi most recently served as Iraq's ambassador to Tunisia. Before that, he was Iraqi ambassador to Turkey.

He was also believed by U.S. administration officials to perhaps have been involved in the plots of the early 1990's plot to assassinate the first President George Bush.

He was also Saddam Hussein's point man with Osama bin Laden in the late 1980's, a contact which began at the instigation of bin Laden at a time when the United States was making nice with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bin Laden thought he might get kicked out. He was looking for some place else to go. And it was Hijazi who Saddam Hussein designated as the person for bin Laden to talk to. Those contacts are believed to have foundered on grounds of mutual suspicion and distrust.

But the story this morning is that, according to U.S. administration officials, he may be somewhere here in Syria, traveling apparently on a diplomatic passport. As I said, he was Iraq's ambassador to Tunisia. The question, of course, is whether or not he is here, whether or not the U.S. has any interest in him. One would presume if they suspect him of involvement in that assassination plot they might, though he has been a public figure elsewhere for a number of years.

And, of course, we will have to wait and see what the Syrians have to say, who have so far consistently denied any knowledge of any senior Iraqi officials here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, that answers that question of whether the Syrian government has commented on that. We'll let that go through the day and see where we end up tomorrow.

Did the government today have anything to say about this beating it's been taking over the last four days, five days, by the American government?

MACVICAR: It's been going on longer than that. It's just the tempo has stepped up over the course of the last five days. I mean, you might call it megaphone diplomacy. They're hearing all of these messages, multiple messages about multiple subjects, whether it's, you know, the pipeline, weapons, fighters, people who might be here, you know, support for terrorist organizations. There's a welter of messages out there, most of them -- many of them delivered in fairly strong, fairly clear language.

And the Syrian position on this is, whoa, wait a second. How about some dialogue here? We don't want to have a problem with the United States. We know that there are issues, but we would like to be able to sit down and talk to the United States.

And from the Syrian perspective, Syria has been an ally of the United States in the war on terror, an important ally, with whom it had basically achieved some important successes in the war on terror. Syria has also in the past been an ally with the United States against Iraq.

So Syria is hearing all of these messages and wondering, what is the United States really asking for? What is this really all about? And I think the confusion is growing.

Their sense of how to respond to this is also sort of sliding a little bit all over the map. They don't know whether to be defensive, to go on the offensive, to go on a charm offensive or to sit back and sort of take it until it becomes a little bit more clear.

To go back on the subject of Hijazi for just half-a-sec, what's important about the Hijazi thing is the question of intelligence, which is one of the things that the U.S. has been beating up the Syrians on over the course of the last number of days. There has been a sense, certainly in the community here, the diplomatic community here, that there has been very fragmentary intelligence.

The question now is whether the U.S. has got something solid -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you -- Sheila MacVicar who is in Damascus.

Jamie Rubin is here with us in New York, former assistant secretary of state.

I have a mechanical question. If you're carrying a diplomatic passport from a government that no longer is, is the passport itself valid?

JAMIE RUBIN, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF STATE: Well, until the new government is chosen, there is -- that passport is probably accepted by most people, yes. BROWN: OK. Do you get the feeling the administration is playing sort of tough cop with Syria? There's a new sheriff in town in the Middle East, and you better shape up, is that the game?

RUBIN: Yes, I think megaphone diplomacy is probably the right word. We've had a lot of trouble with Syria over the years, whether it's terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, operations in Lebanon, and now we have this new set of issues related to the collapse of Saddam Hussein. Traditionally, these issues have been dealt with through intelligence channels, as Sheila was mentioning, where we've had cooperation, or through diplomatic channels with high-level meetings with the top Syrian officials in which we get them to do something we want them to do.

So here, we have the United States succeeding in liberating Iraq, sending this powerful message to the Arab world. And I think some people in the government, our government, think that now is the right time to flex our muscles, and they are not adopting the famous adage of Teddy Roosevelt, which is, "talk softly and carry a big stick."

The big stick is there. The Syrians know we can do this. The question is: What's the best way to achieve our objectives? If Colin Powell is right and we have no plan to use military force in Syria, why are we saying they're committing hostile acts and letting the rhetoric getting away with it?

BROWN: In the meantime, all around us, reading a series of comments today from around the world, there are a lot of governments -- governments in the Persian Gulf, governments in Europe -- who are at least befuddled and perhaps appalled by the tone of the American comments.

RUBIN: Well, I was in England when this started in London when Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, first raised the Syrian issue. And I think the British were taken aback. The top generals and the top diplomats there were stunned, because they feel that they signed up for Iraq, but they didn't sign up for, you know, broader regime change.

I think what's happened between then and now over the last six, seven days is the British and others have been told that this is not really a military operation they're considering.

The only military operation I could imagine is one where some of these scientists, some of the weapons of mass destruction might actually cross the border to try to get away. And I could envision just using force without Syria's permission in a sort of a hot pursuit kind of situation.

BROWN: In your view, is the situation more fertile today to negotiate peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians than it was three weeks ago?

RUBIN: Well, there have always been two great theories about the Arab world, and one is that they respect power, and that the other is that they believe the Western world is there to humiliate them or to commit imperialist acts or that sort of logic.

If you believe in the power theory, now is a real good time to get the Palestinians and the Syrians to make the kind of concessions towards the Israelis that they've been unwilling to make. The Syrians, you may recall several years ago, were on the verge of getting all of the Golan Heights back, but they insisted on getting every single inch.

BROWN: Yes.

RUBIN: And there was a dispute about that. The Palestinians had a very good deal put before them, and they refused.

The problem is, if we're going to be honest about it, the current Israeli leader...

BROWN: I'm not sure the old deal is in play.

RUBIN: Right.

BROWN: Yes.

RUBIN: It's not interested in those kinds of deals. So we may have a more cooperative Syrian government. We may. We may have more cooperative Palestinians. I think we're actually likely to have more cooperative Palestinians. But whether Ariel Sharon is prepared to do what his predecessors are doing, I wouldn't bet on it.

BROWN: And, in 20 seconds, throw in the fact that we're a year- and-a-half away from a presidential election. How big a domestic political issue does that become for any candidate?

RUBIN: Well, whenever the secretary of state is in the region, he's always getting messages, or she, from the White House, and the White House is very attune to not pressing the Israelis during an election season. So the political calendar is not going to be kind to this effort.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Good to see you again.

RUBIN: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie Rubin.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.





Secretary of State>