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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Richard Murphy

Aired March 09, 2002 - 07:51   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to talk more now on the Mideast conflict and the effort to bring the two sides to the table. We turn to former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy -- Ambassador Murphy, good to see you this morning.

RICHARD MURPHY, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Now, Vice President Dick Cheney is supposed to be discussing Iraq, this trip to the Middle East, but it seems nearly impossible -- I don't know. You tell me your impression that this could even come up, when you have the situation with the Israelis and Palestinians so intense at this point.

MURPHY: Well, there is no way of his escaping discussing the Palestinian and Israeli situation. A year ago when Secretary Powell made his first trip for the administration to the area, the expectation was that he would be able to concentrate heavily on Iraq, and it turned out that the -- if there ever were barriers between those two problems, Iraq and Arab-Israel, they had pretty much disappeared. It's even more true this year with the heightened violence between the two parties. He will have to deal with that situation, and he seems to be giving it priority, judging by the statements over the last couple of days.

PHILLIPS: And Americans really want to know about Iraq. They want to know what's going to happen. The talk is that's the next target for this war on terrorism.

MURPHY: Well, it may be. Of course, the Americans are also engaged with the United Nations in discussing what procedures must be followed by the Iraqis in readmitting inspectors, so that's got center stage with the Iraqi discussions at this point in time.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about the Saudi initiative. Will you sort of lay out your impressions and the pros and cons?

MURPHY: Well, I think the Saudi initiative is, as they themselves call it, a vision. It's a vision, which uses words that the Israelis have been wanting to hear for many, many years. The prime one being normalization. If you Israelis withdraw from 100 percent of the land you occupied in 1967, the Arab world will normalize relations with you. Now, some have laughed, pushed this aside and said, well, those are just words. That's easily said. What are they really going to do? They have not been specific, and that's probably the strength of the initiative at this point in time. Give a vision. Give a goal to both sides, to the Palestinians and the Israelis. You will get your state. You will get a state called Palestine for the Palestinians. Israel, you will get normal relations with the entire Arab world or a great number of those states at any rate.

Now, that's going to be put to the test in about two weeks' time, a little more than two weeks in Beirut, when the Arab chiefs of state meet there for a summit conference.

PHILLIPS: How have the Israelis reacted to this Saudi initiative? And I am curious, what is so different about this initiative than the crown prince's brother, Mohd I believe it was, in '81 that had a similar type of initiative?

MURPHY: Twenty years ago, there was a similar initiative. We kind of disregarded it at that time, and it passed into history. I think the fact is that since then, there has been progress in terms of normal relations between Israel and Jordan. The Fahd plan that was produced in the summer of '81 was just on the heels of the Egyptian- Israeli peace treaty. The Israelis have criticized the conduct of Egypt since then, saying it was a cold peace, but it was peace and peace has held.

So there has been a platform built, despite all of the misery and the violence of the last years. There has been a platform steadily built for getting Israel accepted as a nation subject to the condition that it get back off the territories it occupied back in '67. And let's not forget, that was the original Israeli intention. Use those territories as a bargaining chip to get to peace.

PHILLIPS: Ambassador Richard Murphy, thank you, sir, for your insight this morning.

MURPHY: Thank you.

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