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Middle East Road Map in Tatters?

Aired August 21, 2003 - 15:00   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.


JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Even before the split-screen images this week of devastating bombings in Iraq and in Israel, President Bush had linked the two conflicts, contending regime change in Baghdad would help bring peace and stability elsewhere in the Middle East. Well, today, stability seems as elusive as ever on both fronts.
In Iraq, a portion of the bomb U.N. headquarters was destroyed, that to help investigators search for clues about Tuesday's terror attack there. The death toll is up to at least 23. And a previously unknown Islamic group has claimed responsibility for that attack.

Meantime, the president's road map to peace in the Middle East appears in tatters. The radical Palestinian group Hamas has called off its self-declared cease-fire, that after Israel assassinated one of its senior leaders today.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel has more on the developments all set in motion by a suicide bombing earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Hamas official's car took a series of missile hits from Israeli helicopters overhead, but it was not exactly a bolt from the blue. Israel had been contemplating a response after the deadly Hamas suicide bombing killed 20 people in a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday tonight.

Other Hamas spokesmen proclaimed their two-month cease-fire now dead, promised vengeance. "Let Sharon, this criminal murderer," he says, "know that he will be the reason for more killings of his people." Outside Abu Shanab's house, mourning for the 53-year-old U.S.-educated father of 11, considered by many one of the least strident voices in the ideologically radical Islamic group. But Israel argues, public officials of the militant group are involved in planning attacks.

GIDEON MEIR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTRY: Terrorist organizations are acting freely. The instructions to kill the 20 Israelis came out of the top leadership of the Hamas in Gaza, in conjunction with their headquarters in Syria and in other places.

KESSEL: The attack preempts the promise of action by the Palestinian Authority. Only hours earlier, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas won backing for his declared intention to crack down on the militant groups, an ugly crime, he called the Gaza assassination.

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This action does not serve peace. Such operations affect negatively all the plans that the Palestinian Authority is undertaking.

KESSEL: The anger on Gaza's streets will clearly greatly complicate the Palestinian leader's situation. Even at Israeli Security Cabinet, some ministers proposed that attacks such as that in Gaza be held back for a few days as a final test of the Palestinian leadership's resolve to take on their radicals.

But after this week's bus bomb, the majority in the Israeli government seem to believe Israel could no longer afford to wait for the Palestinians to act.

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Secretary of State Colin Powell is urging both Palestinian and Israeli leaders to stick to the road map and to try to keep moving forward. Secretary Powell was at the United Nations today meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Powell offered his condolences for the deaths of U.N. personnel in that terror attack in Baghdad, including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. And Powell said the Bush administration is looking into a new U.N. resolution that would urge member states to help the United States bolster security in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We now have 30 nations, as I said, that have contributed 22,000 troops under coalition control. You have to have competent control of a large military organization. That's what the coalition brings. And that's what U.S. leadership brings to the coalition.

Five other nations are in the process of making their final decisions to send troops. And we're talking 14 others. So that is close to 45 or 50 or something like that. And so that is an international presence. There is an international presence. And we will continue to work with other nations who might be willing to make contributions. And I don't think there is a problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As those negotiations continue at the United Nations, back here in Washington, Pentagon officials responded to the growing chorus, Democrats and even some Republicans, who think one answer would be, send more U.S. troops into Iraq.

Among those asking the questions today, our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hello, John.

Well, two days after the bombing attack on the U.N. compound in Baghdad, the top U.S. military commander now says that terrorism is the No. 1 security threat in Iraq, General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command here at a news conference just a little while ago making it very clear that more troops are not the answer. He said the U.S. and the coalition will focus on continuing to try and put an Iraqi face on the security situation in Iraq, training more Iraqi police, more Iraqi civil defense forces, more Iraqis to guard some of those key facilities.

He kept emphasizing today that troops are not the answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: The question always comes up after a major incident, do we need more troops? And I think, before, I've answered the question by saying, there's a lot of things that we need. Sometimes, you have to change the way that you're using your troops. So you do tactics, techniques and procedures differently. We've made some adjustments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Now, the general said that, as more coalition forces come in, forces from other countries than the United States, the U.S. forces may be able to shift a bit, John, that they might be able to get out of some of the internal security issues in Baghdad, move to the borders, perform more aggressive border patrols. But he insisted, again, that this all may not mean more U.S. troops going to Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABIZAID: It depends upon the security situation. So it doesn't necessarily mean that additional foreign troops would cause a corresponding drawdown of American forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: And, of course, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also weighing in, saying, if General Abizaid was to come and ask for more troops, he would get them, but, so far, nobody sees the need for more U.S. combat forces in Iraq -- John.

KING: Barbara, another thing General Abizaid said is that the key is not more troops, but better intelligence. The coalition has been in charge on the ground inside Iraq for better than three months now. Is that not an admission that, with all that time, they run the country, that they're having a problem getting help from Iraqis?

STARR: Well, when General Abizaid was talking about intelligence, one view is that he is referring to this growing terrorism problem.

Their major concern at the moment are these outside foreign fighters coming in across the border from Syria, from Iran, even possibly foreign fighters coming in from Saudi Arabia. They want to get intelligence on who these people are, what they're up to, whether they are responsible for some of these latest terrorist attacks. That's a big goal for them right now.

KING: Barbara Starr live for us at the Pentagon -- thank you, Barbara. Let's talk more now about Iraqi troop levels and the administration's tough diplomatic challenges when it comes to not only the Iraq, but the Middle East, with Richard Holbrooke. He is the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He joins us now live from New York.

Ambassador, thank you for joining us.

Let's start with the discussions under way in the Security Council. Some are saying this is somewhat cynical, if you will, of the Bush administration. It does not want to give the United Nations any more power, but some are saying it wants this new resolution to try to, if you will, take advantage of the mourning over the U.N. personnel killed in Iraq to try to get some sort of U.N. blessing that convinces India, other countries, to send troops in and help out.

Is it cynical, in your view?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: John, I was over at the U.N. for other reasons today, and that is the overwhelming view of every country, that the U.S. is, at this point, putting forward a resolution that changes nothing and simply invites other countries to come in under their command.

There is, however, another way to do this. And if you will allow me to, I'd like to lay out what I think is the solution to this critical issue. The issue here is, how do the U.N. personnel stay in Iraq and get protection? Now, we have to start with the obvious and critical fact. Those people who were attacked in Baghdad two days ago, that was an attack on the United States, as well as the United Nations.

And the U.S. cannot spend a lot of its resources defending the U.N. And the other countries don't want to come in to defend the U.N. under the American command. The solution was outlined today by Kofi Annan in that press conference you just showed a clip of with Colin Powell. He mentioned a multinational force that would be authorized by the U.N.

What I believe he meant, although he was cut off in his answer -- what I believe he meant was that you have a multinational force of people in their national uniforms, not in U.N. blue berets, that is approved by the Security Council, that operates in Iraq in a separate but closely-related capacity to the U.S. forces. If he can do that, he can get many other countries to come in.

And I would urge him and the United States and the French to get together and work out a simple solution, so the U.N. can protect its own personnel without dispersing Americans, and the U.S. can retain overall command on the ground. This can be done if the U.S. and the French will sit down and work out a compromise.

KING: And, Ambassador, as those conversations continue, the debate here in Washington is, send in more troops in the short term. Is it the view of your friends representing the other countries, are more troops needed on the ground? Do they see a security vacuum in Iraq?

HOLBROOKE: John, they don't know. These are diplomats in New York. They know less about what's happening in Iraq than you do.

But they do know the politics of getting a multinational force in. And other nations, India, Germany, France, Bangladesh, Pakistan, are ready to send troops in if it is under a command which is somewhat different from, but closely related to, the U.S. command. You already have this situation, as you well know, in Afghanistan.

So what I would suggest, based on what I've heard today, is that the secretary-general of the U.N., with U.S. approval, call up a country -- I'll tell you which one in a moment -- and ask them to form the core of a force specifically mandated to protect the U.N. And the country I think we ought to call is Norway. The Norwegians are a great member of NATO. The U.S. has close relations with them. Their defense minister, she is a terrifically strong defense minister, has close personal ties to Secretary Rumsfeld.

The Norwegians are also big supporters of the U.N. And they love Kofi Annan, whom they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to. If the Norwegians supplied a battalion and other countries supplied three or four or five more battalions, with the sole mission of protecting the U.N., and then they worked within an overall American umbrella, I think it would satisfy the Pentagon's principle about unity of command, which Barbara has talked about, and it would also allow the other nations to protect the U.N. And the U.N. could go forward with its mark, which is vital to our national interests.

KING: OK, Ambassador, quickly, on another issue, the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Bush administration says Mahmoud Abbas must prove it, must prove he can dismantle terror groups, take away their bombs and their weapons. Can Prime Minister Abbas do that and survive?

HOLBROOKE: I don't know the answer, any more than you or Prime Minister Sharon or President Bush knows it.

But I will say this. It's been my conviction for many years that, as long as Yasser Arafat has even a title of chairman, or whatever his title is, you have a complicity with terrorists. And until Abbas has full power, we're asking him to do things which may be impossible for him to achieve, even if he wants to do them. He doesn't control Hamas. And Arafat has a very bad track record.

However, you put your finger on the key issue. If it can't be done, then the so-called peace process is nothing more than another dead end.

KING: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, we thank you for your thoughts today live from New York. Thank you, sir.

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







Aired August 21, 2003 - 15:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Even before the split-screen images this week of devastating bombings in Iraq and in Israel, President Bush had linked the two conflicts, contending regime change in Baghdad would help bring peace and stability elsewhere in the Middle East. Well, today, stability seems as elusive as ever on both fronts.
In Iraq, a portion of the bomb U.N. headquarters was destroyed, that to help investigators search for clues about Tuesday's terror attack there. The death toll is up to at least 23. And a previously unknown Islamic group has claimed responsibility for that attack.

Meantime, the president's road map to peace in the Middle East appears in tatters. The radical Palestinian group Hamas has called off its self-declared cease-fire, that after Israel assassinated one of its senior leaders today.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel has more on the developments all set in motion by a suicide bombing earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Hamas official's car took a series of missile hits from Israeli helicopters overhead, but it was not exactly a bolt from the blue. Israel had been contemplating a response after the deadly Hamas suicide bombing killed 20 people in a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday tonight.

Other Hamas spokesmen proclaimed their two-month cease-fire now dead, promised vengeance. "Let Sharon, this criminal murderer," he says, "know that he will be the reason for more killings of his people." Outside Abu Shanab's house, mourning for the 53-year-old U.S.-educated father of 11, considered by many one of the least strident voices in the ideologically radical Islamic group. But Israel argues, public officials of the militant group are involved in planning attacks.

GIDEON MEIR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTRY: Terrorist organizations are acting freely. The instructions to kill the 20 Israelis came out of the top leadership of the Hamas in Gaza, in conjunction with their headquarters in Syria and in other places.

KESSEL: The attack preempts the promise of action by the Palestinian Authority. Only hours earlier, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas won backing for his declared intention to crack down on the militant groups, an ugly crime, he called the Gaza assassination.

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This action does not serve peace. Such operations affect negatively all the plans that the Palestinian Authority is undertaking.

KESSEL: The anger on Gaza's streets will clearly greatly complicate the Palestinian leader's situation. Even at Israeli Security Cabinet, some ministers proposed that attacks such as that in Gaza be held back for a few days as a final test of the Palestinian leadership's resolve to take on their radicals.

But after this week's bus bomb, the majority in the Israeli government seem to believe Israel could no longer afford to wait for the Palestinians to act.

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Secretary of State Colin Powell is urging both Palestinian and Israeli leaders to stick to the road map and to try to keep moving forward. Secretary Powell was at the United Nations today meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Powell offered his condolences for the deaths of U.N. personnel in that terror attack in Baghdad, including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. And Powell said the Bush administration is looking into a new U.N. resolution that would urge member states to help the United States bolster security in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We now have 30 nations, as I said, that have contributed 22,000 troops under coalition control. You have to have competent control of a large military organization. That's what the coalition brings. And that's what U.S. leadership brings to the coalition.

Five other nations are in the process of making their final decisions to send troops. And we're talking 14 others. So that is close to 45 or 50 or something like that. And so that is an international presence. There is an international presence. And we will continue to work with other nations who might be willing to make contributions. And I don't think there is a problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As those negotiations continue at the United Nations, back here in Washington, Pentagon officials responded to the growing chorus, Democrats and even some Republicans, who think one answer would be, send more U.S. troops into Iraq.

Among those asking the questions today, our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hello, John.

Well, two days after the bombing attack on the U.N. compound in Baghdad, the top U.S. military commander now says that terrorism is the No. 1 security threat in Iraq, General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command here at a news conference just a little while ago making it very clear that more troops are not the answer. He said the U.S. and the coalition will focus on continuing to try and put an Iraqi face on the security situation in Iraq, training more Iraqi police, more Iraqi civil defense forces, more Iraqis to guard some of those key facilities.

He kept emphasizing today that troops are not the answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: The question always comes up after a major incident, do we need more troops? And I think, before, I've answered the question by saying, there's a lot of things that we need. Sometimes, you have to change the way that you're using your troops. So you do tactics, techniques and procedures differently. We've made some adjustments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Now, the general said that, as more coalition forces come in, forces from other countries than the United States, the U.S. forces may be able to shift a bit, John, that they might be able to get out of some of the internal security issues in Baghdad, move to the borders, perform more aggressive border patrols. But he insisted, again, that this all may not mean more U.S. troops going to Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABIZAID: It depends upon the security situation. So it doesn't necessarily mean that additional foreign troops would cause a corresponding drawdown of American forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: And, of course, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also weighing in, saying, if General Abizaid was to come and ask for more troops, he would get them, but, so far, nobody sees the need for more U.S. combat forces in Iraq -- John.

KING: Barbara, another thing General Abizaid said is that the key is not more troops, but better intelligence. The coalition has been in charge on the ground inside Iraq for better than three months now. Is that not an admission that, with all that time, they run the country, that they're having a problem getting help from Iraqis?

STARR: Well, when General Abizaid was talking about intelligence, one view is that he is referring to this growing terrorism problem.

Their major concern at the moment are these outside foreign fighters coming in across the border from Syria, from Iran, even possibly foreign fighters coming in from Saudi Arabia. They want to get intelligence on who these people are, what they're up to, whether they are responsible for some of these latest terrorist attacks. That's a big goal for them right now.

KING: Barbara Starr live for us at the Pentagon -- thank you, Barbara. Let's talk more now about Iraqi troop levels and the administration's tough diplomatic challenges when it comes to not only the Iraq, but the Middle East, with Richard Holbrooke. He is the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He joins us now live from New York.

Ambassador, thank you for joining us.

Let's start with the discussions under way in the Security Council. Some are saying this is somewhat cynical, if you will, of the Bush administration. It does not want to give the United Nations any more power, but some are saying it wants this new resolution to try to, if you will, take advantage of the mourning over the U.N. personnel killed in Iraq to try to get some sort of U.N. blessing that convinces India, other countries, to send troops in and help out.

Is it cynical, in your view?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: John, I was over at the U.N. for other reasons today, and that is the overwhelming view of every country, that the U.S. is, at this point, putting forward a resolution that changes nothing and simply invites other countries to come in under their command.

There is, however, another way to do this. And if you will allow me to, I'd like to lay out what I think is the solution to this critical issue. The issue here is, how do the U.N. personnel stay in Iraq and get protection? Now, we have to start with the obvious and critical fact. Those people who were attacked in Baghdad two days ago, that was an attack on the United States, as well as the United Nations.

And the U.S. cannot spend a lot of its resources defending the U.N. And the other countries don't want to come in to defend the U.N. under the American command. The solution was outlined today by Kofi Annan in that press conference you just showed a clip of with Colin Powell. He mentioned a multinational force that would be authorized by the U.N.

What I believe he meant, although he was cut off in his answer -- what I believe he meant was that you have a multinational force of people in their national uniforms, not in U.N. blue berets, that is approved by the Security Council, that operates in Iraq in a separate but closely-related capacity to the U.S. forces. If he can do that, he can get many other countries to come in.

And I would urge him and the United States and the French to get together and work out a simple solution, so the U.N. can protect its own personnel without dispersing Americans, and the U.S. can retain overall command on the ground. This can be done if the U.S. and the French will sit down and work out a compromise.

KING: And, Ambassador, as those conversations continue, the debate here in Washington is, send in more troops in the short term. Is it the view of your friends representing the other countries, are more troops needed on the ground? Do they see a security vacuum in Iraq?

HOLBROOKE: John, they don't know. These are diplomats in New York. They know less about what's happening in Iraq than you do.

But they do know the politics of getting a multinational force in. And other nations, India, Germany, France, Bangladesh, Pakistan, are ready to send troops in if it is under a command which is somewhat different from, but closely related to, the U.S. command. You already have this situation, as you well know, in Afghanistan.

So what I would suggest, based on what I've heard today, is that the secretary-general of the U.N., with U.S. approval, call up a country -- I'll tell you which one in a moment -- and ask them to form the core of a force specifically mandated to protect the U.N. And the country I think we ought to call is Norway. The Norwegians are a great member of NATO. The U.S. has close relations with them. Their defense minister, she is a terrifically strong defense minister, has close personal ties to Secretary Rumsfeld.

The Norwegians are also big supporters of the U.N. And they love Kofi Annan, whom they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to. If the Norwegians supplied a battalion and other countries supplied three or four or five more battalions, with the sole mission of protecting the U.N., and then they worked within an overall American umbrella, I think it would satisfy the Pentagon's principle about unity of command, which Barbara has talked about, and it would also allow the other nations to protect the U.N. And the U.N. could go forward with its mark, which is vital to our national interests.

KING: OK, Ambassador, quickly, on another issue, the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Bush administration says Mahmoud Abbas must prove it, must prove he can dismantle terror groups, take away their bombs and their weapons. Can Prime Minister Abbas do that and survive?

HOLBROOKE: I don't know the answer, any more than you or Prime Minister Sharon or President Bush knows it.

But I will say this. It's been my conviction for many years that, as long as Yasser Arafat has even a title of chairman, or whatever his title is, you have a complicity with terrorists. And until Abbas has full power, we're asking him to do things which may be impossible for him to achieve, even if he wants to do them. He doesn't control Hamas. And Arafat has a very bad track record.

However, you put your finger on the key issue. If it can't be done, then the so-called peace process is nothing more than another dead end.

KING: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, we thank you for your thoughts today live from New York. Thank you, sir.

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