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American Morning
Does Administration Have Single Mideast Policy?
Aired April 02, 2002 - 07:30 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And just minutes ago on our show, Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Bush administration -- or says the Bush administration already is fully engaged in trying to find a solution to the Middle East conflict. But in recent days, the messages coming from the White House and those coming from the State Department have not actually sounded the same tone.
Does the administration have a single Mideast policy? For that, we go to CNN's Major Garrett, who joins us this morning from the White House.
Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state took it even further last night when she said the Bush administration policy at this point is incoherent. There's got to be reaction from the White House to that this morning What's going on -- good morning.
MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Of course, White House officials say their policy is coherent, but it is developing. And the message does change a bit from day to day, and there's a reason for that. It's not a split on policy or goals. Certainly the goal is the same: cease-fire, then a political settlement. but there is a split on how to achieve that goal, and it has to do with to what degree does the Bush administration holed up Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, as the person who represents best the aspirations of the Palestinians and is someone with whom the administration and the Israeli government, for that matter, can negotiate. That is certainly the position held by the State Department.
Many in the State Department, including the Secretary of State Powell see no credible alternative to Yasser Arafat. There are factions within the West Wing represented, I would say, most dominantly by Condoleeza Rice, the national security adviser, and Vice President Cheney; and, to a lesser extent, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who are very skeptical about Arafat's ability to sign on to a final political solution that would provide a Palestinian state and also provide security for Israel.
It is that faction within the West Wing that looked at the Clinton administration's processes with Yasser Arafat that came very close but never quite achieved a political settlement that tells them that Yasser Arafat simply, when everything comes to a head, can't deliver his constituency to sign on the dotted line for a political solution.
So in the West Wing there's a sense that Arafat simply can't deliver. The State Department wants to keep trying because they see no credible alternative. And that's why you see -- tend to see this shift, as the administration talks about whether or not Yasser Arafat is or is not the central figure representing Palestinian aspirations.
ZAHN: The president was also criticized over the weekend for essentially saying he understood Israel's need to defend itself. That, shortly after a U.N. security resolution, which the U.S. signed on to, actually called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank. Is there some hypocrisy here?
GARRETT: Well, of course the administration would say no hypocrisy. but there was clearly a determined effort on the part of the president and his senior advisers to shine this little public light on that Security Council resolution as can possibly be shown. The president said nothing about it on Saturday in his remarks in Crawford, when I think it's fair to say much of the world was waiting to hear why the United States, in fact, supported the Security Council resolution.
Privately, the explanation here at the White House is the White House felt it had no choice but to support some type of resolution. They only signed on after striking language from that resolution that a, condemned Israel, and, b, set a date certain for its withdrawal. Once those two things were eliminated, the White House believed it could support the resolution, because it said so many other things about the overall crisis in the Middle East. That there should be a cease-fire, that eventually Israel should withdraw from all occupied territories in pursuit of a political settlement.
The administration says, "Well that's always been a part of our larger goal." But the context clearly was the Ramallah incursion, where the White House did not want to amplify or in any way shine a light on the fact that it was telling Israel to withdraw -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right. Major Garrett, we're going to leave it there at this hour. Thanks so much for the update. Appreciate it.
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