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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With 'Newsweek's' Christopher Dickey

Aired April 27, 2002 - 12:07   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: Getting a handle on the death count and the destruction in the West Bank town of Jenin is the primary objective of the U.N. investigators. What are they up against when they arrive? Joining us from New York to talk about the Jenin fact-finding mission is Christopher Dickey. He is the Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for "Newsweek." Thanks for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, "NEWSWEEK": My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: Well, Jerrold made it very clear that still the Israeli Cabinet has to approve the U.N. investigators. We have already heard from Prime Minister Sharon that he didn't like the first group of investigators that were picked. What more do we know, if anything, about the new group of investigators that would be making their way into Jenin as early as tomorrow?

DICKEY: Well, first of all, the Israelis are not going to allow them to be called investigators. That's why they keep insisting on it being a fact-finding commission. They want to present facts. These people would be able to look for other facts, but it's not supposed to lead to any conclusions of any kind, especially any that would be prejudicial to Israel. That's one of the big issues.

The other problem, of course, is that they want to bring in more military onto the team, because the Israelis feel that only soldiers who know what house-to-house fighting, house-to-house combat is all about can really appreciate what was going on there in Jenin.

WHITFIELD: Well, how can they not be called investigators, if they are going -- a fact-finding mission, it really seems like a battle of semantics here. They're going in there because of the complaints from Palestinian civilians who say hundreds were killed.

DICKEY: Well, diplomacy is often an issue of semantics, and this is just one of those questions.

I think that the Israelis are pretty confident that whether it's investigators or fact finders, they are not going to confirm that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were simply massacred on the spot, but there are a lot of other questions that I think will come up with any kind of investigation, any kind of fact-finding, and they're trying to control the environment in which that happens as much as possible. WHITFIELD: And one of those questions that has arisen as a result of Israel delaying, or asking the U.N. to delay this fact- finding mission is that some believe that Israel has something to hide and that they were trying to buy time by not approving of the first group of fact-finding U.N. members.

DICKEY: Sure. Part of the problem here is that Israel from the beginning during the operation itself has been acting as if it has something to hide, and that's played right into the hands of those people who say there was a big massacre.

Israel would not let any kind of relief workers in, they wouldn't let the press in, they kept the whole area sealed off, day after day, more than 10 days at the height of the fighting, and as a result there's been a lot of suspicion that there's something to hide. And it isn't clear what that is, although one issue that is coming up is perhaps the use of human shields as they were going through the camp.

WHITFIELD: What kind of role might the Israeli military personnel play if they do indeed accompany these U.N. fact finders once they go in?

DICKEY: Well, what they're going to be saying is, look, you have got to remember, this is a bomb factory, these people were ready to fight us. They fought very ferociously. After all, if we take the Israeli statistics, their own numbers -- there were 50 Palestinians killed as against 23 Israeli soldiers. This is a powerful army that seems to have gone up against a powerfully committed group of fighters.

They want to make that picture clear, and they want to make it clear that they did not go in and bulldoze houses until well into the battle when they had exhausted every other possibility.

WHITFIELD: And the Israelis are also alleging that some of the destruction, some of the homes there in Jenin might be booby-trapped, and therefore that justifies their presence.

DICKEY: Well, some of them probably have been booby-trapped, but it's a good guess that they've gone through that pretty thoroughly and have done everything they can to eliminate that sort of risk.

They want to control the environment in which this takes place. They do not trust the humanitarian organizational voices on this committee. They don't trust the United Nations, to tell you the truth. So they're doing this very reluctantly and they want to control it as much as they possibly can, because they think that at the end of the day, almost no matter what happens, they're going to get a bum rap out of this.

WHITFIELD: And Christopher, is there a timetable on how long these fact finders will be on the ground there?

DICKEY: Not that I know of, but I would guess that they will be there for a week or 10 days. WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you very much, Christopher Dickey, Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor of "Newsweek." Thanks for joining us from New York.

DICKEY: Thank you.

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