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CNN Sunday Morning

Reporter's Notebook

Aired April 14, 2002 - 10:42   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: People are very interested in the Middle East, the ongoing controversy, and our coverage of it. And once again, I have infuriated people by saying we're getting an equal number of criticisms from both sides, therefore we must be doing something right. But some people are even taking me to task on that. Nevertheless...

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I'll tell you four people that are doing things right, our guests.

O'BRIEN: Yes. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), shall we?

PHILLIPS: Tony Karon, world editor for Time.com; Richard Roth, our U.N. correspondent, Michael Holmes, who is in Ramallah, and also Major Garrett, our White House correspondent.

O'BRIEN: Did you mention Richard?

PHILLIPS: I sure did.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, I missed that.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. Gentlemen, hello.

O'BRIEN: We've got lots of e-mails now. As a matter of fact, Richard will be taking this first one. So listen up. It's actually a pair of questions and we will broaden it out after this. From Richard Wells in Mt. Morris, Michigan: "If the Arab and European worlds are not happy with the way the USA is handling the crisis, why don't just tell them we will just pull out and let them settle it?" And somewhat related, and which brings us to Mr. Roth: "Simply put, why hasn't a U.N. peacekeeping force been put in place in both Israel and the Palestinian territories? If my two children acted like this, they both would be grounded, so let the world parent take control" -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Well, maybe I can take part two and let some of the other children on the panel handle number one.

O'BRIEN: Fair enough.

ROTH: Number one. Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, on Friday has once again raised to new heights the idea of peacekeepers or some sort of military force to go in. He says the situation can no longer be deferred to moving to this point, that some type of peacekeeping force should be created.

The big problem, as we heard earlier on CNN just now from Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, Israel does not want such a force in until there is a peacekeeping agreement. He says, otherwise what are they going to do? And of course there are great risks for the United States, putting soldiers and troops into a situation where there are suicide bombings and outbreaks of violence at anytime, it's still a volatile situation.

Secretary General Annan will probably be talking in person early in the week to the Security Council. He is putting this plan forth, he is trying to raise the debate, trying to get things going, kick- start it.

There are some observers from the European nations there. They don't really do that much. It still could be a non starter at this point.

As for number two, I'll just offer a brief comment here, I guess. The U.S. is still the global policeman, the global power when it wants to be, and the Europeans and others have proven, I don't think, that they are really capable of doing such a thing, and there isn't as much trust in them. We've seen European peacekeepers -- Indians were -- Indian peacekeepers were there when Hezbollah took three Israeli soldiers away and kidnapped them (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: And Tony, that does sort of make the point, but if you want to elaborate on that -- as far as I've understood in the past, the Israelis would not accept a multinational force. They would U.S. peacekeepers and U.S. peacekeepers alone, correct?

TONY KARON, TIME.COM: Correct. And I think the other point perhaps the viewer who sent that question is not getting is the extent to which the U.S. is actually protecting its own interests by getting involved here. Really, the extent to which the U.S.' overall set of foreign policy objectives in the Middle East is threatened by this has been made abundantly clear in the past couple of weeks. And really, in terms of the war on terrorism, in terms of going after Saddam Hussein, and in terms of preventing the region sliding back 30 years, into a situation where U.S. interests are as imperiled as Israel's. It's really imperative for the U.S. to take the lead.

PHILLIPS: We got a phone call. Joseph on the line from Florida. Joseph, what's your question?

JOSEPH: My question is this: I hear everybody talking on CNN today, but I just want to figure out how anybody would figure out how the PLO police being disabled by the Israeli occupation could ever consider, you know, watching over Hamas and those other guys there -- it doesn't seem like it's going to be a fair table for the Palestinians in order to, you know, maintain their own people, the bad ones and the good ones, if you know what I mean?

PHILLIPS: Michael Holmes, you might want to take that one. Interesting, the thought of one Palestinian army, one security force has been raised as a possible part of negotiations.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kyra -- first of all, our apologies for the very attractive blue background, but it's an example of how things continue here. There's been a fair bit of firing about 100 feet from where we are, there's a couple of APCs troops on the ground and a tank just down below us, and there has been firing into and we think out of a house just around the corner. So we've moved away from our usual vista of Ramallah.

The question is a good one, and it's one that the Palestinians have been saying for some time now. The problem that's facing them in the short term, in terms of enforcing some sort of cease-fire, is they now have very little with which to do that. The security headquarters, which was partially built with American money and was quite a facility, included a hospital, a jail, administrative offices, it's pretty much rendered useless. I walked around there after a very severe battle that took place there. It's no use to anyone anymore. Palestinian police stations have been destroyed.

And that if there were to be some sort of cease-fire, and a commitment from the Palestinians to crack down on terrorists who go into Israel and create these sorts of suicide bombings, particularly a group like Hamas, which doesn't recognize these current negotiations -- they're saying that we don't have anything to do that with, that it's very hard to crack down when you don't have a security force to do that with.

So it's a fair question. Were there to be a cease-fire announcement, a withdrawal even of Israeli troops from these areas, it leaves in many ways a security vacuum. And those who want to carry out things like suicide bombings, no matter what the Palestinian Authority says or thinks, it's going to be very difficult to stop them, Kyra.

O'BRIEN: All right. I'll take it back here, Michael. Thank you very much. And we certainly do understand the need for that blue background.

Let's go back to the e-mail, shall we? This one comes from Helen Caplette in Toronto, Canada, and we'll send this one to Major Garrett. "Now that Powell is the envoy," although I don't think he has been officially dubbed as such until this moment, "we have heard nothing of Zinni. What's up with that?" And I should point out that Ambassador Zinni was seated right beside Mr. Powell at the table there in Ramallah, but give us a sense, Major, of where Mr. Zinni's mission stands. It really didn't bear any fruit; however, perhaps some groundwork was laid to allow this meeting we saw this morning here, Eastern time.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, let's get some of the terminology straight. Of course Secretary of State Powell is now the president's chief representative. But Anthony Zinni was, until Secretary of State Powell arrived in the region, the number one go-to guy for the Bush administration. And as many here at the White House would say to you, before the Passover massacre, which initiated this latest and most horrific round of violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Anthony Zinni was very close, people at the White House continue to say, to achieving a cease-fire agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That agreement was undermined by that Passover massacre. Since then, we've seen this wave of violence.

It is a very good question, though, about exactly what role Anthony Zinni will play if, in fact, Secretary of State Powell leaves the region without a cease-fire. Can he be rehabilitated, can the Israelis and the Palestinians regard him as the kind of deal maker that can actually put them together and have a deal made without secretary of state being there to exactly basically bless that agreement, whatever it shall be.

So that's going to be an interesting conundrum for the Bush administration to work with, persuade both sides that when and if Secretary of State Powell leaves that Anthony Zinni still has the president's full faith and confidence, and can work something out.

One other point that Michael was addressing just a moment ago, about Palestinian security forces essentially being paralyzed by the siege in Ramallah. What White House officials say yes, that is true. We acknowledge they have on the ground limitation. But there's not a leadership limitation for Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to say in Arabic, out loud, unequivocally, on television, on radio, through any means possible that he condemns using suicide bombings as a means of obtaining political goals.

What the White House often says, and they say it rather sternly, privately here, is, look, if you can do all these media interviews, he can make himself accessible, why can't he say these basic, fundamental things that suicide bombings against Israeli civilians are wrong, he does not endorse them, he discourages them from happening, and creates at least a leadership impression for the Palestinian people that this is not a legitimate means of pursuing political goals.

The White House continues to press for that, and they say even if his security forces cannot clamp down in every way, he can send a signal that would help not only increase confidence among Israelis, but possibly deter other suicide bombings from occurring. Just wanted to throw that in.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Major. We're going to take another phone call. Greg on the line from Georgia. Go ahead, Greg.

GREG: Yes, was it not the Israeli occupancy of Palestinian territory that started all of this conflict?

PHILLIPS: Tony, you want to take that one?

KARON: I think it's certainly clear from what Secretary Powell is taking to the region, that the Bush administration is now looking at an approach that doesn't exactly focus on a cease-fire exclusively. What it's doing is saying is the problem of the occupation is central to the violence. And unless the problem of the occupation is resolved, any ebbing of the violence is going to be temporary. So this is why you suddenly have Powell in there pushing the political tract a lot more firmly than the Bush administration had done when it sent Zinni initially. And that's absolutely essentially to the process, because essentially what the Palestinians are saying is they have no incentive for creating a security environment with Israel as long as the occupation persists.

And I think you had President Bush saying very firmly Israel must end the occupation and withdraw to internationally recognizable and secure boundaries in line with U.N. resolutions 242 and 338. So I think what's in play here is not simply an attempt to get a cease- fire, because that is actually proving to be difficult. The Israelis are saying they're going to finish their mission, and the Palestinians are saying they are not going to do anything until the Israelis have withdrawn, and we can probably assume that there will be more attacks, as long as that situation persists.

So the Bush administration is bringing this new element into play, which is to say, look, we have to focus on what is the future here, the two states living side by side. And it's by focusing on the future and obtaining some broad level of agreement on that that makes the present more solvable.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's go back to the e-mail, shall we? Mary Jones has this one, and I think I'm going to try to send this to Michael Holmes. He's kind of locked down in Ramallah, but I think he might have some insights on this. "Why don't you report on the condition in Bethlehem and the starving people in the churches? How can the pro-Israel group you have there be productive?" Michael, what's going on in Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity?

HOLMES: Miles, well, very simply, I can tell you the difficulty there is the difficulty that exists here as well, but more so. Israel can go into areas like Bethlehem, as they have done, and then they can hold up a piece of paper saying this is a closed military area. Being unable to report on that is not something we like either. And we've, in fact, Ben Wedeman, my colleague, got very close to the Church of the Nativity, but he did so against Israeli instructions. You have to kind of sneak in.

We're not being given access to areas like that, and of course, Jenin, to cover these sorts of things as closely as we would like. So the very simple answer to why we're not getting enough out of Bethlehem it's because we're not allowed to. Even here in Ramallah, we were told very early on, we've been here nearly three weeks, we were told very early on in this incursion that we had to leave. And we just choose not to. And we make our way around town in an armored vehicle, at a very slow pace. And if we see tanks, they send us away or we take another turn -- it's not an easy story to cover. Even when we are able to move around in a vehicle, we've been shot at more than once; we have two holes in the back windshield of the vehicle, we've had a flat tire from one bullet, and we've had stun grenades thrown as well.

So it's a very difficult story to cover, even when we are able to move around. When it comes to Bethlehem as a specific example, also Jenin, we're just simply not allowed in.

PHILLIPS: Another e-mail here. "We continually say that Arafat can't be trusted. How much do the Palestinians trust Sharon? Isn't this an unsurmountable problem?" Richard Roth, maybe you can add some insight there.

ROTH: The Palestinians do not trust Ariel Sharon. Obviously, the history there quite vivid. Twenty years ago, General Sharon drove toward Beirut and pushed out Yasser Arafat all the way to Tunis. Many say that these two men are not capable of moving forward and bringing the area to peace. That still remains to be proven in the next round of negotiations or discussions. Who knows?

But there's widespread distrust, especially after the killings in refugee camps, Sabra Shetila (ph), where Sharon, many say, turned a blind eye and let pro-Christian movements come in and slaughter Palestinians. And of course on the other side, the Israelis have deep distrust of Yasser Arafat.

I was listening to all of the other comments here. I mean, there are groups, besides the Palestinians and the Israelis, maybe some factions who do not want peace. I mean, if Zinni was that close to a cease-fire agreement, there is certainly Hezbollah and other movements, Hamas, that are going to do anything, whether it's the Passover massacre, to disrupt the process. It isn't just, despite what e-mailer Mary Jones says, it isn't just the Palestinians, the Israelis, or pro-media groups, whatever opinion you may have. I mean, there are people who are going to do something to disrupt the process no matter what the efforts of Secretary Powell, Secretary General Annan and others.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's try to get one more -- actually, a pair of e-mails in, and we're going to have to call it a day for "Reporter's Notebook." "The Israelis have compared themselves to the U.S. in every manner in this conflict, but U.S. forces will never massacre civilians in this modern era. The way the IDF -- Israeli Defense Forces -- have treated civilians should be condemned, and the U.S. should support an international investigation into what happened." And following up on that: "It's disgraceful and appalling that Bush and company have not publicly and loudly condemned Israel's denial of Red Cross or U.N. personnel into the Jenin refugee camp. It smells like a major cover-up by Israel, and our usual one-sided actions. I'm disgusted." That's Mary G. in Kitty Hawk.

Let's send that one to -- how about you, Tony Karon, you want to talk about the Jenin issue?

KARON: Well, I think this issue is going to be in play in the media in the coming weeks. Certainly there was quite a furor about it in Israel over the weekend when the Israeli Supreme Court issue an injunction initially against the Israeli Defense Forces removing bodies from Jenin, in response to a petition by a Palestinian NGO, saying that, you know, they were removing evidence of some sort of massacre. And then the Supreme Court today allowed that to go ahead.

But I think certainly the fact that Israel has kept the media out of there and kept international organizations out of there has not played very positively for it in international public opinion. And I think there will be mounting -- coming from both within Israel and internationally for some sort of investigation of what went on.

Unfortunately, the Israelis find themselves in the situation where the kind of war that they're engaging in in the West Bank inevitably sees them in battle situations in areas where a lot of civilians are still are trapped. It's not a convectional war, it's a war in which the enemy that the Israelis are fighting resides within the Palestinian population and has the support, by and large, of the Palestinian population.

And that's why a lot of Israeli military experts have actually insisted that this war is unwinnable for Israel, and it's going to take a toll on Israeli society to try and even fight this kind of war in the West Bank.

O'BRIEN: Unfortunately, our time has expired. I'd like to Major Garrett, but I'm afraid we don't have enough time. Major, can you give us a 15-second button on that?

GARRETT: Well, essentially, the Bush administration has been largely silent about the specifics in Jenin. Basically, the administration position has been, as long as Israeli Defense Forces are on the ground, it's not an indiscriminate air raid sort of bombing where anyone can die, all sorts of civilians can get mixed up, as long as it's house to house, block to block, block to block, the administration is simply not going to tell the Israeli Defense Forces what it can or cannot do. And they've been utterly silent on the question of media access to Jenin.

O'BRIEN: Well done. Thank you, Major, for getting that in in short order. We appreciate that. Major Garrett, Michael Holmes, Tony Karon, Richard Roth.

PHILLIPS: Gentlemen, thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much for all of your questions, as well, by telephone, by e-mail. We appreciate your input, both positive and negative. We like to hear from you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks for being with us.

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