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American Morning

Target: Terrorism: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Opening Overseas Trip in Middle East

Aired October 03, 2001 - 09:51   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is opening his overseas trip in the Middle East. He'll visit Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt before heading on to Uzbekistan. His trip is an effort to shore up support for the war on terrorism.

Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel joins us to talk about the trip.

Andrea, Saudi Arabia obviously crucial to all of this. How crucial?

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Well, it's extremely important. Most of us know Saudi Arabia is one of the world largest oil producers, but here's some other facts that folks may not be aware of. It is a country of 22 million people, including five million non-nationals. The terrain is mostly uninhabited sandy desert, and the religion of course 100 percent Muslim. It's also home to two of Islam's holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and for that reason, Saudi support calling it a war against terrorism, and not as the supporters of bin Laden are calling it, a war against Islam, is extremely important as a way to legitimize this campaign.

There's also another important factor to Saudi Arabia, and that is the Prince Sultan Airbase. This is a U.S. that's been in Saudi Arabia for a number of years, and it's these planes that you're looking at right here that fly and patrol the southern no-fly zone in Iraq. So you can bet the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will talking about not only this airbase, Miles, but also about the need for Saudi Arabia to shutdown some Al Qaeda terrorist cells, which are operating as well on Saudi soil -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Andrea, the amir of Qatar, the nation just east of Saudi Arabia, in Washington meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell. Tell us about these meeting and how crucial that country might be.

KOPPEL: Again, extremely important meeting today. In about an hour, Secretary Powell will meet with the amir of Qatar. It is a country that borders Saudi Arabia, just to the east. It's much smaller. It's just slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. It only has three quarters of a million people, 95 percent of whom are Muslim. But Qatar's role, like Saudi Arabia, will be extremely important from a religious standpoint. It is right now the president of an organization known as the Organization of Islamic Conference. It's the largest Muslim organization in the world, and so Secretary Powell will be looking to the amir of Qatar to make positive statements about the fact that this is not a campaign against Islam, that it's a war against terrorism.

Qatar is also the home to a television station, a cable TV station known as Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera is known in the Arab world as the CNN of the Arab world. And it's become most notorious, Miles, in recent months, since it began broadcasting inflammatory video. Who can forget the picture of that young Palestinian boy and his father, this was last year, cowering on the side of building and later killed by Israeli troops. Al-Jazeera played this video over and over and over again. And for that reason, the State Department, again, will look toward amir of Qatar to use his influence -- they, after all, are the main funders of Al-Jazeera -- to try to get them from broadcasting inflammatory video -- Miles.

CNN's Andrea Koppel at the State Department, thank you very much.

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