Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

White House Concerned About Humanitarian Crisis in Jenin

Aired April 21, 2002 - 18:04   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, while many Ramallah residents still have their homes, many people in Jenin are just staring at rubble. The desperate situation there is certainly getting the White House's attention. CNN's John King has more on President Bush's response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Add the humanitarian crisis in the Jenin Refugee Camp to the list of urgent White House priorities in the Middle East.

The administration is rushing supplies to the Palestinian camp. Eight hundred family-sized tents, medicine, and disease prevention kits, water purification equipment and working with allies on teams to dismantle explosives leftover from the battle.

The Israeli troops are gone from Jenin now, and the United Nations team will look into Palestinian claims of widespread abuses.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm pleases that the Israeli government is accepting a team to come in and find out the facts, and we will support that team in every way possible.

KING: Former President Jimmy Carter said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is trying to "deny Palestinians a cohesive political existence." And in this New York Times essay, says the Bush Administration should consider freezing economic and military aid to Israel.

But Secretary Powell says there are no such plans, and most of the criticism is from those who believe the Bush White House is too forgiving of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: Yasser Arafat has and continues to use or certainly acquiesce in the use of acts of terrorism, particularly these homicide bombings as a means of achieving his goals.

KING: Secretary Powell says he told Mr. Arafat the administration is losing patience.

POWELL: He has said the right thing recently. Now we have to look for him to do the right thing by speaking out as the leader and by taking action. KING: As for Prime Minister Sharon, Powell says he's pleased but not completely satisfied by Israeli troop pullbacks. U.S. diplomacy now is aimed at ending the last two standoffs at the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah and Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.

Secretary Powell says he will return to the region soon and the president himself gets directly involved in the week ahead, meeting with Morocco's King Mohammed and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. Mr. Bush wants to focus on ways to somehow get the Israeli-Palestinian peace process back on track.

KING (on camera): But those Arab leaders will carry complaints that the Bush White House favors Israel, and make the case that there can be no progress on the political front as long as Israeli troops surround the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah.

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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