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Eagleburger Discusses Mideast, U.S. Role Around the Globe; Falwell,Martin, Forbes Talk About Religion's Post-9/11 Role

Aired March 30, 2002 - 10:00   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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not going to let murderers disrupt a march to peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREA KOPPEL, HOST: The complicated calculus of fighting the war against terrorism, pushing peace in the Mideast and seeking support for the battles ahead. We'll talk to former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger about the Mideast, the war, and the role the U.S. plays in the world.

Plus, religion in a post-9/11 world, as millions of Americans plan to attend church tomorrow, Easter Sunday. Has organized religion served its flock since the terror attacks of 9/11? Is the war on terrorism a religious war? We'll talk to church leaders, including televangelist Jerry Falwell and a Jesuit priest, whose book is titled "The Search for God at Ground Zero."

All just ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Good morning, California, the rest of the West, and to all of our viewers in North America. I'm Andrea Koppel in Washington.

We're just a few minutes away from the president's weekly radio address. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger will be here with us.

We are looking for your questions, especially as we talk about religion on this Easter Saturday. Our e-mail address is saturday.edition@cnn.com.

War and peace, religion, a reporters roundtable, all just ahead, but first, a news alert.

(NEWSBREAK)

Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is joining me now in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Good morning, Mr. Secretary.

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning. How are you?

KOPPEL: Very well, thank you.

EAGLEBURGER: Good.

KOPPEL: Sir, I'd like to begin with the Middle East, obviously. You have been a diplomat for -- had been for three decades. Just how bad is it now compared to what it was during your tenure?

EAGLEBURGER: It's very bad. It's -- you know, how you compare this situation with, say, the '73 war or anything like that is difficult, because in those earlier times it was war, but it was -- and it was murderous and it was tough. But this time may be even worse because you see no end to it.

I don't see and I don't think anybody else sees any clear way of getting out of this mess we're in now. And it could go on for a very long time. And the worst part of it, I think, probably is that nobody knows when the next bomb is going to blow up next to them sometime.

KOPPEL: So, should the U.S. get more involved, and if so, how?

EAGLEBURGER: That's a terribly difficult question. I guess, Andrea, I've got to say something here. It's time we faced up to some facts, and those facts include the following: that we've been at this effort for 40-some years and largely without success. Secondly -- and that's not blaming anybody, it's just so much a problem that it goes beyond the imagination of man, that nobody has been able to solve it, particularly given the hatred on both sides.

But the fact of the matter also is, it seems to me, that the Israelis are much more being sinned against than sinning. And our constant, apparently, now, our constant mattering (ph) at them about balance and so forth -- how can you balance an effort when you're having children and people killed every weekend by some terror bomber?

I must tell you I think, frankly, that this call for a more balanced view on our part from the Arabs and everybody else is wrong- footed. I do believe, in this case, we need to make it very clear to everybody that fundamentally we are on the side of the Israelis and that they are being attacked and they have a right to defend themselves.

KOPPEL: Secretary Eagleburger, we're about 40 seconds away from the president's radio address, but I wanted to ask you, President Bush has said he doesn't want to jump in until he feels the time is right. What does that mean?

EAGLEBURGER: Well, I think probably what he means is until he thinks there's some possibility that by becoming involved he can have some impact on events. And I, again, it's a view I share, in the sense that it is useless to try to get into the middle of this thing if, in fact, all that's going to do is show that we, like everybody else, don't have any particular solution to the problem.

I think when and if things get difficult enough that the parties really need us, then, in fact, is when I think it would be proper for us to get involved.

KOPPEL: Secretary Eagleburger, we're now about eight seconds away from the president's Saturday radio address, so I'm going to ask our viewers to listen in, and we'll be right back.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

Almost seven months have passed since the attack on our country, and the shock and sadness of that day are still with us. For many, the grief and sense of loss will never fully pass, and they are in our thoughts, especially in this holy season.

The entire world is reminded again this week of the hope that lives and endures forever. For Jews and Christians, this is a time of joy and renewal. Passover celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from oppression by the hand of a faithful God. And tomorrow, Easter Sunday, many Christians will celebrate a hope that overcomes even death.

These holy days represent some of the most profound hopes of humanity, which are shared in many traditions. We fuel (ph) our reliance on the creator who made us. We place our sorrows and cares before him, seeking God's mercy. We ask forgiveness for our failures, seeking the renewal he can bring.

Americans practice different faiths in churches, synagogues, mosques and temples, and many good people practice no faith at all. For those who observe Easter and Passover, faith brings confidence that failure is never final and suffering is temporary and the pains of the earth will be overcome. We can be confident, too, that evil may be present and it may be strong, but it will not prevail.

On September the 11th, a terrible evil was done to our country. America and the civilized world are now joined together in a great struggle against enemies who have no regard for innocent life. Grave challenges and dangers face us in this war. We cannot predict every turn ahead of this. Yet, in this season, we are assured that history is of moral design.

Justice and cruelty have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. His purposes are often defied but never defeated.

I hope that this holy season will bring renewal of faith to those who seek it and comfort to those who need it. And to all who observe these special days, I wish you a joyful Easter and a blessed Passover.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

KOPPEL: Some inspirational words there.

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger joining me again now.

Secretary Eagleburger, the president has been noticeably silent during the last several days of the Middle East crisis. Why do you think that is?

EAGLEBURGER: Again, I think, first of all, he's let some of his subordinates do the heavy hauling here lately, like the secretary of state making comments and so forth.

But I think in part -- and, you know, I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I suspect that the reason is that, again, he's recognized that simply to insert himself into this mess without any real possibility of achieving any success is, in fact, in and of itself, dangerous because it would demonstrate that, in fact, we don't have any ability right now to control or affect events.

And I don't think we do. I think it's time we all faced up to that fact and stop acting as if, say, when Vice President Cheney goes off to the Middle East and comes back without what is described as a success, that that is some sort of diplomatic failure. That's nonsense. Anybody who expected that the vice president could persuade these Arab states to abstain from pushing us on the Palestinian issues and would corporate with us on the terrorism issues, I think was wrong to begin with.

KOPPEL: We will have more questions and answers with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Has the crisis in the Middle East frozen U.S. plans to broaden the war against terrorist?

We'll continue our conversation and take your e-mail questions when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We cannot allow the nations that have got a history of totalitarianism, dictatorship, a nation, for example, like Iraq that poisoned her own people, to develop a weapon of mass destruction and made up with terrorist organizations who hate freedom-loving countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: President Bush, this week, returning to his axis of evil theme in the war against terrorism.

We are continuing our conversation now with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.

We haven't been hearing much about going after Iraq, at least from the administration in recent days.

EAGLEBURGER: I think there is good reason for that, Andrea, and that it is it's very difficult to try to figure out just how you do that unless you are prepared to put a lot of troops on the ground, as we did the first time around.

You know, if you try to analyze any other way in which we may be able to affect what Saddam Hussein does, it seems to me air power by itself isn't enough. Diplomacy by itself certainly hasn't worked. So it gets to be a very tough problem to think this one through, particularly if you have got the Arab world saying, "Don't you do anything to Iraq."

So I can understand why the administration is remaining relatively quiet on the subject today.

KOPPEL: You took the words out of my mouth. I just was going to ask you about that, that Arab declaration of -- that show of unity saying, "The U.S. better not think about going after Iraq because the Arab world won't support it."

Was that empty rhetoric, do you think, or was there something more to it?

EAGLEBURGER: No, I think there's more to it than that. Mind you, I think a great many -- not a great many, but some of the Arab states that signed on to that probably, in their heart of hearts, would hope that Saddam Hussein would step on a land mine tomorrow morning or something. So there is at least a hidden view on the part of some of them that they would like to get rid of him.

But Arab solidarity is something that must be maintained by them, they believe. And therefore, what we were faced with, and will be faced with if we decide to do something with regard to Iraq, is a fairly hard line on the part of the Arabs, which will be even strengthened more.

And where the administration really has a problem now, is that they're going to link it to the whole struggle against terrorism. And in effect, they are already saying that, "You know, you're going to have to do something about the way Israel has been treating the Palestinians, et cetera, before we're even going to consider what we would do with you on the terrorist front."

So they have linked the two now, as I think we should have expected they would. But it's not an easy equation now to figure out how to deal with.

KOPPEL: Well, here is another equation for you. Some in the Arab world in recent days are now accusing the U.S. of giving a green light to Israel in this latest incursion into Ramallah, saying that the U.S. is tacitly approving Israel going after the Palestinian Authority and isolating Arafat.

EAGLEBURGER: Well, you know, according to these people -- I have had years of watching this one -- they have more green lights out there when something happens that they don't like and they can blame it on the U.S.

I don't believe for one minute that we have given the Israelis a green light to do what they're doing. I will tell you, in my personal view, that the Israelis probably don't have much choice to do anything other than what they are doing. But I cannot believe and I do not believe that the administration has given any indication that we would support this.

KOPPEL: As a seasoned diplomat, I want you to help us out with some translating here of some diplo-speak. This was yesterday, Secretary of State Powell saying, "We call on Prime Minister Sharon and his government to carefully consider the consequences of those actions."

On a scale of one to 10, how tough was he being with the Israelis?

EAGLEBURGER: Seven, six or seven. The reason being -- the reason I would rate it that tough is because when the U.S. says that sort of thing to the Israelis, the Israelis have to listen.

The general view around here is that the Israelis don't pay any attention to us. That's nonsense. And when we say something like that, there is no question that Sharon et al have to pay attention to it. And they know what Powell was saying to them. They may in the end ignore it, but it will not be that they will ignore it easily.

KOPPEL: OK, here's another one for you. Secretary of State Powell again, yesterday: "Let's be clear about what brought it all to a halt -- terrorism, terrorism on the part of those who would target innocent civilians." And he's referring there to the progress that the U.S. believed Anthony Zinni was making in reaching a cease-fire.

KOPPEL: Who was Secretary Powell speaking to?

EAGLEBURGER: Basically, the Palestinians, I think. And the Palestinians are going to be too dunderheaded to understand that. But it was so delicate that I suppose it could be read as a caution to both sides, but in this one, it's fairly clear, it seems to me, that if you parse that language, it basically has to apply to the Palestinians. But again, you have to work to get there.

KOPPEL: Yesterday, Russia's foreign minister called for international intervention. This is Igor Ivanov. And he said that the only way to halt the conflict is obviously for the international community to get more involved. He said, otherwise, it's going to spill over into other parts of the region. Do you agree?

EAGLEBURGER: I think there is real danger that it will spill over. I think there is real danger, as well, that it will have a chilling effect on our ability to pursue our war against terrorism.

The problem with talking about international intervention is, I don't know what that means. Are we are going to put in some sort of an international force to step between the two contending parties? Now, that's tough in the present circumstances because they're all mixed up, there's no clear line of demarcation.

And secondly, who's going to run this international force? And this is a critical question, particularly for the Israelis, because, by in large, their view, and I think rightly, is that most of the rest of the world will favor the Palestinian cause, not their own.

KOPPEL: Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, I only wish we had more time today, but, sir, we have run out. And I thank you for joining us.

EAGLEBURGER: You've been wonderful. Thank you very much.

KOPPEL: Coming up next, as Christians across America and around the world prepare to observe Easter, we'll talk with three clergyman, including televangelist Jerry Falwell, about the role of religion after September 11.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Spring has arrived in Washington. Those are cherry blossoms blooming not far from where we are coming to you live this morning here in Washington, D.C.

How important is religion in America? A big majority will be in church tomorrow. The Gallup organization says 64 percent of Americans say they will attend Easter services; only 31 percent say they will not attend.

Joining us with some perspective on religion and its impact on people's lives since September 11 are three guests: In Lynchburg, Virginia, is the Reverend Jerry Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University. In New York, James Martin, a Jesuit priest. He's also the associate editor of "America" magazine and author of a new book, "The Search for God at Ground Zero." Also joining us in New York is the Reverend James Forbes. He is the senior minister of New York's interdenominational Riverside Church.

Good morning to all of you.

REV. JERRY FALWELL, TELEVANGELIST: Good morning.

JAMES MARTIN, JESUIT PRIEST, AUTHOR: Good morning.

REV. JAMES FORBES, SENIOR MINISTER, RIVERSIDE CHURCH, NYC: Good morning.

KOPPEL: You have seen -- I don't know if you were listening to our previews segment, but you've seen those horrible pictures coming out of the Middle East. And I'm just wondering if any of you has some words of wisdom or comfort to offer Israelis and Palestinians, as to how they are supposed to turn the other cheek?

Reverend Falwell?

FALWELL: Well, obviously, we are admonished, all believers are, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. On that, I think we all agree. Prayer is our most important contribution.

But at the present moment, as I listened to Secretary Eagleburger, there's no question America is just about powerless right now to demand anything from the Israelis or the Arabs. It is a terrible picture.

I've traveled there 31 times with two groups, up to 1,500 persons. I would not dare take a tour group there right now.

And I think that unless something happens very radically and very quickly, Israel and most of that part of the Middle East is in for a bloodbath.

KOPPEL: Reverend James Forbes, I'd like to ask you also for a bit of wisdom here. But it has more to do with, how do you forgive those terrorists behind the September 11 attacks?

FORBES: The truth is, a prophet once said, "Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord." This means we at least have to decide that the use of violence against us should suggest also we have to decide, can violence solve that problem?

Clearly, nations have to have defense. But it is clear now that we will not solve the problem, with respect to terrorism, or the problems in the Middle East primarily by military means. That means that all religious groups need to dig deep into their traditions to find answers to the question, if not violence, then what leads us in the direction of restoration of peace amongst the nations?

KOPPEL: Father James Martin, we read in the Bible about a loving God. How could a loving God let so many innocent people die as they did September 11?

MARTIN: Well, that's very difficult question. That's the question of evil in the world. And I think the more important question is, what is the believer's response to a situation like September 11?

I worked down at Ground Zero for a few weeks afterwards, and what I saw was not only the presence of evil, as evidenced by the destruction of the World Trade Center, but also the presence of good and the presence of God's grace, which brought together so many people in works of charity.

KOPPEL: Has 9/11 made us more spiritual?

FALWELL: I think it has, at least it has brought us together. When I saw Democrats, Republicans in the Congress praying together, singing God Bless America hours after the tragedy, it was something I had not seen since World War II. I'm probably the senior of this group of three here, and I remember World War II quite well.

Sadly, crises and tragedies do tend to draw us to God, to one another.

Six months later, are more people attending church now than ever? I'm not sure that's true. But tomorrow, 2 billion -- B like boy -- 2 billion persons around the world will gather somewhere to celebrate the death, burial and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And that, the first Easter since 9/11, I think will be a significant time wherever we are, as we ask the Lord, the risen Christ, the only hope for peace in the world, to intervene.

KOPPEL: Gentlemen, I'm going to read to you an excerpt from James Martin's book. He describes this simple religious service at Ground Zero. This was the first Sunday after the terror attacks.

And he writes, "A small group of people gathers around the table, all visibly tired, all covered sweat, all blanketed in ash. We moved quickly through the mass. These are busy people. The gospel reading today from Luke is heartbreakingly appropriate: The shepherd who rescues his lost sheep and the woman who searches for her lost coin. We speak of searching, rescuing, hoping and loving."

James Martin, it really -- it feels to me, just reading your words there, that you saw the Bible come to life.

MARTIN: That's true. I saw not only the Bible come to life in some of those gospel readings, which were, as I said in America Magazine, almost painfully appropriate, but the gospel come to life in terms of, as Reverend Falwell was saying, the mystery of the resurrection in a place of great suffering.

I used to tell people, if you doubt the mystery of evil in the world, come to the World Trade Center. But also, if you doubt the power of good and the power of God's grace, come to the World Trade Center and see how God's grace is working itself out in the works of charity from the firefighters, the police officers and the rescue workers.

KOPPEL: Father Martin, we are going to take a quick break, but we'll be back with all of you in just a moment.

How has September 11 transformed spirituality in America? Our panel of clergymen will take your questions, and we'll have a news update when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: The source of information about the news of the day, the terrorism war and the Mideast can be found online at CNN.com; AOL, the keyword is CNN.

It's time to check the hour's top stories. Here is Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta now with a news alert.

(NEWSBREAK)

KOPPEL: We're continuing our conversation about the role of religion as America wages the war against terrorism, with the Reverend Jerry Falwell of Liberty University, Jesuit Priest James Martin and the Reverend James Forbes of New York's Riverside Church.

And, Reverend Forbes, I would like to begin with you, sir, and ask you, do you think the war on terrorism is a religious war?

FORBES: I believe that war is always a matter of religious perspective, because when you -- in war, when you're in war, you're going to kill people. And you're going to kill them hopefully for a cause. So you always have to ask in a war, is this something that God affirms? So the terrorism, I believe, is against godly principles. And it is possible that even the way we respond can be against God.

And so in the present situation, clearly, we have to ask, "Oh, God, speak to us, not simply out of self-interest or nationalist policy, but speak to us regarding your plans for humanity." And if we listen to God, we may discover that, in addition to all of our traditional ways of resolving conflict, there will be a spiritual perspective that gets us beyond simply tit for tat, that gets us beyond escalating our violence in response to other people's violence.

So we must hear from all of our traditions, what does the faith say about the path to peace?

KOPPEL: Gentlemen, we have a caller from Florida.

Caller, go ahead, please.

CALLER: Yes. Just like to ask the reverends there the most important question concerning who -- about God -- being the -- where was God when they had the destruction of September 11? Why don't they ever...

KOPPEL: Gentlemen, I believe we answered that question earlier in the show, but if you one of you has a quick comment. If not, I'll move ahead.

Reverend Falwell, I'd like to ask you, sir, about some comments that you made in the wake of September 11. This was during a 700 Club broadcast. And you said -- you said you were quoted out of context, so please help me here. You said, "I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

FALWELL: I didn't say that that was taken out of context. I said that I misspoke, and I apologized for it.

I meant to add, as well, a sleeping church, because judgment must always begin at the house of God. And if we, as the believing church in America, had been claiming II Chronicles 7:14, "pray, walking with God, spiritually alert," I believe that we could have expected God to build a hedge of protection around us.

So I did not finish my statement in that one interview, and I acknowledged it and said so and said I was sorry.

I believe that II Chronicles 7:14 is the only hope for our nation and the world, for that matter, which says, "If my people who are called by name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land." Tomorrow here in Lynchburg, Virginia, like in thousands of other locations, we'll have our Easter sunrise service, and thousands will attend here on the campus of Liberty University.

FALWELL: And we'll talk not about the terrible things that are happening in the world, though we'll make reference to them, but that we have the message, the message of the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, namely the gospel, by which men can have their hearts changed, they can be born again, become believers and followers of Christ.

And really, the only hope -- and I suspect all the gentlemen here will agree with this -- the only hope for the world is a spiritual awakening centered around the Lord Jesus Christ that changes the hearts of people.

KOPPEL: Father Martin, I'd like to turn to you and ask you, with Easter tomorrow, some say that this pedophilia matter is the greatest crisis that has been facing the Catholic Church in its history.

In fact, there's a CNN-USA Today Gallup poll among U.S. Catholics. The question was, the Catholic Church is more concerned with: Protecting the image, 74 percent say that. Solving the problem, 17 percent. With a sampling error of plus or minus 5.

Father Martin?

MARTIN: Well, I would say that it certainly is an enormous crisis. I think it is certainly the biggest crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. It's a very, very painful time to be a Catholic. American Catholics are facing a welter of emotions, from anger to sadness and frustration.

And I think it's very difficult to find signs of hope, but as Catholics and as Christians, we have to look to this crisis as a way of bringing new life to the church in some way. I think that's the Easter message, the ability of God to bring new life out of a situation that looks totally hopeless. And I think if we didn't admit that possibility of hope, we would hardly be Christians.

FALWELL: Andrea, I think I can better, as a Protestant, speak for Reverend Martin and the Catholic Church than maybe a Roman Catholic would want to.

Yes, there's great publicity over the relatively very few persons involved in a bad thing. We went through that about 15 years ago with the television, the televangelist scandals and so forth, and the tendencies to generalize and say everybody's bad. We all know that is not true. We're talking about a fraction of 1 percent of persons who have done bad things, and it gives opportunity to the rest of the world to slam everybody.

KOPPEL: Reverend Falwell, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, sir. We have about 20 seconds left...

FALWELL: Give that to Reverend Forbes.

KOPPEL: ... and I was hoping that Reverend Forbes could send us out on a final thought.

FORBES: Yes. Tomorrow, Easter, is a time of hope. It is a time that, after death, we can anticipate life, and in the little deaths we experience in life, there is still hope.

What we're going to be looking for is what was said in "The Beautiful Mind," that in our time we desperately need to believe that extraordinary things are possible. And if Easter does nothing else, it ought to help people be alert. Something new, something positive is possible, no matter how many negative events happen.

FALWELL: Amen.

FORBES: So may we share that hope around the world.

FALWELL: Amen.

KOPPEL: Some inspirational words. Reverend Forbes in New York, Father James Martin also in New York, and the Reverend Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia. I wish all of you a very happy and peaceful Easter.

FALWELL: Thank you.

MARTIN: Thank you.

FORBES: Thank you.

KOPPEL: Is the meltdown in the Middle East forcing President Bush to reassess the war against terrorism? We'll talk with two White House reporters when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Mideast upheaval fired up the political cartoonists this week.

Darryl Kagel (ph), who hosts the Web site politicalcartoons.com, shows a couple clicking through the channels. "Israel retaliates," says one newscast. "Suicide bombers," says another. And "Palestinians vow revenge." "What's on," she asks. "Reruns," he answers.

Steve Vreen (ph) of the San Diego Union Tribune portrayed the Mideast standoff as a family fight. Israeli leader Ariel Sharon is downstairs, while Arafat, holding papers on the Arab summit, is upstairs on the phone. Says Arafat, "No, I can't go. I'm grounded. My old man is totally hassling me."

And Michael Ramirez (ph) of the "Los Angeles Times" has a family visiting Washington's Lincoln Memorial. The father says, "I think they're taking this terrorist surveillance stuff to far." And honest Abe is watching the homeland through a pair of binoculars.

Not far from where Honest Abe sits, we're here in Washington. Keeping watch also over the news stories of the week are our members of our reporting roundtable: CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace and "Newsweek's" White House correspondent Martha Brandt.

Ladies, thanks so much for joining me this morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you.

KOPPEL: Martha, I would like to ask you first about President Bush's silence. He hasn't been making any phone calls. It's been Secretary Powell. Why?

MARTHA BRANDT, "NEWSWEEK" WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I just got back from Crawford, and I was amazed. Yesterday, when all of this was blowing up, he went running. He did have a National Security Council meeting through his video-conferencing facility set up there on the ranch.

But when he became president, he was the anti-Clinton. He didn't want to emote. He didn't want to be the broker-in-chief. And so he specifically stayed out of staking his presidency on the Middle East peace process, and so he's letting Powell and others do the bulk of the diplomacy. Doesn't mean he doesn't care about it, but he's letting them really be the front guys.

WALLACE: And it's interesting, because he is a president, as we all know, who is some one who just doesn't like to get out and speak just for the sake of speaking. And that is also sort of very different from President Clinton. So while we were all sort of speculating, "Is the president going to come out? Of course we are going to see him," well, not necessarily this president.

And so the sense I'm getting from people is that he very much is sort of delegating to Secretary Powell and the others to work the phones and whatnot.

The strategy is that the president will get involved when he sees that the time is right. But clearly, the strategy right now is letting the others do the work.

BRANDT: Wait and see.

WALLACE: Exactly.

KOPPEL: How much do you guys think mid-term elections, six, eight months away, down the road, are influencing the president's reluctance to speak out against Israel?

BRANDT: Well, certainly he doesn't want to stake his credibility in 2002 on there being a peace solution there. And then obviously, an interesting thing here is, what does this mean for Iraq? Is going after Iraq contingent on what happens in the Middle East?

I think that Vice President Cheney was surprised when he got back from his trip to the Middle East, how much resistance there was. And out of the Arab summit this week, obviously Arab leaders were saying, "Don't touch Iraq."

So that's another factor in the big picture for 2002.

KOPPEL: Kelly, of course...

WALLACE: I was just going to say the White House will say that politics never drives anything.

KOPPEL: It's not...

WALLACE: This is not a White House...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: But I do think it's fair, in this case, just like Martha is saying, I don't know how much necessarily the 2002 elections factoring in, more so in the sense that the events on the ground and the factor of Iraq, that, you know, this administration very much wants to deal with Saddam Hussein.

As you all know, President Bush and his aides don't want to link the two. They don't like to link the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Iraq.

KOPPEL: Even though the Arab world is definitely doing that.

WALLACE: But the Arab world sees that completely differently.

KOPPEL: We're going to jump around here, move on to campaign finance reform, which President Bush signed in a very quiet way .

BRANDT: Very quiet way. I mean, as Kelly knows, there is a certain pecking order within the White House for events and ceremonies. The East Room is very fancy, Rose Garden probably second tier. But what he did was sign it in the Oval Office without a photo op. And we joke in the press corps, if there no photo op, did it really happen? So that tells you what he thought about the bill.

KOPPEL: And then he went off to campaign -- were you about to say this -- for another Republican congressman in Texas. What message is the president sending, Kelly?

WALLACE: Well, it was -- actually, he actually went to South Carolina, Georgia and then Texas, raising about as much as $4 million.

The president was asked this very question. Our colleagues in the press corps said, "Mr. President, don't you find it ironic that after signing into the law the most sweeping campaign finance reform in decades, you are out raising money that this law might prevent?" The president said, "You know, I'm not going to lay down my arms. I'm going to do what I can to help Republicans."

BRANDT: A lot of the money he was raising was hard money. It wouldn't fall under...

WALLACE: That is true.

BRANDT: But I thought it was a very "in your face" move. He was kind of saying, you know -- he was very blustery as he gets -- as Kelly said, "I'm not going to lay down my arms." He was almost saying, "Look, take that. I'm going to raise hard money and I'm good at raising hard money," as he always has been.

WALLACE: And one other thing too, which is how angry -- or how much this angered certain people like Senator John McCain. I think I saw him quoted as saying, you know, "The president never promised me a Rose Garden," which I thought was great. And everybody publicly is saying, "Oh, no, no, no, this wasn't done to hurt any feelings." But clearly, the president didn't want to embarrass the congressional leadership, and McCain certainly though would have liked this salute.

KOPPEL: Ladies, we have about a minute left. I don't want to go without asking you about the Department of Energy, that massive release of documents. What did we find out?

BRANDT: Not as much as we'd like to find out because, while 11,000 pages were released, many were held back. And of those pages, many were blank. There were lots of things blanked out within the pages. And so, I -- you know, the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, is thrilled by this, because this is a sticking issue for them for 2002.

WALLACE: Well, one thing we did see is that Secretary Abraham, the energy secretary, did have a range of meetings; met with, you know, more than three dozen officials from energy companies, business executives, lobbies -- no environmental groups. Now, the environmentalists really sort of latched on to that. Environmentalists did get a meeting with the EPA administrator, but a lot of people saying, "Look, energy policy should take into account other views, and the secretary wasn't talking to the environmentalists."

KOPPEL: OK, we're going to take a quick break. More with our reporters roundtable when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: An emotional homecoming in Norfolk, Virginia, this week, for the crew of the USS Roosevelt. The carrier was the first to be deployed in the war against terrorism after September 11.

And we're continuing our reporters roundtable with CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace, who I rarely get to see in person, and Martha Brandt, who is the White House correspondent for "Newsweek."

Martha, you said you wanted to pick up on the energy documents.

BRANDT: I did, yes. I wanted to make a comment about what the DNC is doing these days. We both get these e-mails every day called "White House stonewall, Day" -- I think we're on 35 today. And they're obviously latching on to the secrecy issue and how tightly held things are, the fact that many of these documents were blank, and then of course the Government Accounting Office suit against the vice president's task force. And I think that's going to become a 2002 issue.

KOPPEL: Do you think when they released that huge amount of documents, they actually expect you to go through them?

WALLACE: Well, they do. But if you see when the documents were released, they were released very late on that Monday night, just sort of moments, I think, before that court-ordered deadline.

BRANDT: Right.

WALLACE: So any reporter -- I mean, we all work hard, but who can really get through more than 11,000 pages...

KOPPEL: Such a thing as being a speed reader...

WALLACE: Right, for the Tuesday appears and for the reporting that's done the next morning.

So we do know officials were a little nervous, obviously, were going through those papers to see exactly what was there. But they feel that there is nothing there, that there is no surprise, that the energy secretary met with energy officials. And it's all out there for the public to see how they came up with what they say is a balanced plan.

BRANDT: We even had Ari Fleischer with his prop at the briefing the other day, the National Energy Report, saying, "It's all here, it's all in the results."

WALLACE: Perfectly timed.

(LAUGHTER)

BRANDT: "I just happen to have it right here."

(LAUGHTER)

But, you know, there's another round of lawsuits to try to now get the unedited version. So this is going to go on and on.

KOPPEL: Dissension in the ranks. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was saying basically -- he kind of sounded a little bit like he was whining, that "Come on, guys, we're not coordinating between the Hill and the White House." Why is that?

BRANDT: And this is one of their guys. You know, imagine what Daschle is saying. And you certainly hear it from the Democrats, they're getting nothing.

Look, ever -- especially since the war, things are so tightly held but to the point where they're not bringing Congress on board, they're not notifying them of things like the campaign finance bill that they were going to sign. They tracked down McCain somewhere random to tell him it was actually coming up.

And so they're just so -- I don't want to say secretive. They prize loyalty, and there have been so many leaks on the Hill, that they just clamped down. And they're just not giving guys like Hastert the information they think they need to promote the president's own program.

WALLACE: And they were very, very upset obviously with campaign finance. They felt like if President Bush stepped in and really lobbied hard for what he wanted, that he could have helped defeat the bill that ultimately passed the House and Senate. So there is a lot of anger that the president really wasn't pulling his weight there.

But on the presidential side, from the political advisers, once again, the White House -- not very political, OK? They are clearly sort of looking at, you know, the issues they want to focus on. This was not really a big one for them to focus on, so they're really going to put their weight and their political capital on issues they think the public is really concerned about.

KOPPEL: OK, you have perfectly teed up by next question. Thank you. You ladies were both on the president's most recent trip through Latin America. Before they left, they said they weren't going to raise foreign aid. Suddenly it's going to be raised 50 percent over three years. What happened?

WALLACE: Clarification of course.

(LAUGHTER)

It's all the numbers. We all don't know baseline budgeting. One minute it was a $5 billion increase, but then once it all kind of put together -- is put together, it's a $10 billion increase.

Condi Rice, the national security adviser, said, really, it was not communicated well by the White House, that it was not a change, that they really didn't communicate it, that it always was this. But a lot of people think they were responding to critics saying, you're being stingy, you're not being generous.

BRANDT: I mean, they brought out four advisers for the briefing and they went over the numbers over and over. And so, you know, call us cynics, but you sit there going, "Wait, we had four top officials explain this to us in the nitty gritty, and now you're saying we didn't get it right." So -- and they had -- it was five days between the first stories and then the second stories.

But they couldn't come empty-handed to that summit in Monterrey. There's no way .

KOPPEL: And it was certainly well received.

WALLACE: It was well received. And what was interesting though, too, is not only -- in a way, the president was sort of doing it both ways. On the one hand giving more money, OK, but calling for some conditions. And that's the way to appease conservatives in the House.

BRANDT: And I was just going to add that he also talked about trade and not aid, which I think would have been his strategy if not for the steel tariffs which he raised. So he couldn't go down there being a total free trader because, of course, he reversed himself on steel.

KOPPEL: You guys are great.

WALLACE: Great to see you in person.

KOPPEL: Great to see you. Thank you so much, Martha Brandt with "Newsweek," Kelly Wallace with CNN. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Just ahead, my turn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: I have a confession to make. I love driving cars with a stick shift, and I hate driving slow. The other day, that caught up with me.

Remember George Orwell's book, "1984," when the ubiquitous Big Brother was watching? Well, not far from where I live, local authorities have installed a couple of hidden cameras.

How'd I find out? I opened my mail this week, and much to my dismay, there, along with black and white photographs of my car and license place, were two speeding tickets for driving 39 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone.

There won't be any points on my license, but the fine was $150. My question is, is this really about safety or making money for the D.C. government?

Thank you for watching CNN's SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Andrea Koppel in Washington.

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