Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

New Polls Shows How Muslims View United States; Should U.S. Lead Peacekeeping Force in Afghanistan?

Aired February 26, 2002 - 19:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: THE WAR ROOM: An unprecedented poll with startling results. How Muslims from around the world see the U.S., its president and the war against terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't care anything about America. We are brothers to the Taliban.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll have a report from Christiane Amanpour.

Should the U.S. take the lead in keeping the peace in Afghanistan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SECRETARY: I don't think I ever said I was philosophically opposed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll have a debate between former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former Pentagon official Ken Adelman, as we go into the WAR ROOM.

Good evening, I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington.

Since September 11, Americans have spent a great deal of time trying to understand the Islamic world. That's in part because all 19 terrorist hijackers were Muslims. We've wondered how many of the nearly 1 billion fellow Muslims around the world shared their anti- American hatred.

Well, the results are in, at least in part. The Gallup organization conducted a poll asking people in majority Muslim countries their views on the events of September 11 and the U.S. response to those events. The answers, at least for many Americans, are shocking.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour has more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Gallup Poll was conducted in nine predominantly Muslim nations: Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Nearly 10,000 face-to-face interviews in both cities and rural areas revealed a strong negative view in those countries of the United States, President George Bush and the war on terrorism.

Incredibly, after months of evidence filtering into the public, including the widely distributed videotape of Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for the September 11 attacks on America, 61 percent of those asked said Arabs did not do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Osama bin Laden might have been used, but this is not something he could not (sic) have done himself. America has such a big intelligence network like CIA and FBI. Someone will come up and blow up the twins and the Pentagon? That's impossible.

AMANPOUR: Despite that skepticism, 67 percent of those asked said the attacks on the United States were morally unjustifiable. Just 15 percent said they were morally justifiable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I'm really sorry. I think it was an inhuman act, whatever the reason might be behind it. It is condemned, as far as I am concerned.

AMANPOUR: But an even higher majority, 77 percent of those interviewed, said the U.S. war in Afghanistan was morally unjustifiable.

This, despite the scenes of Afghanistan's Muslims rejoicing after the Taliban and al Qaeda were defeated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I think the American reaction, so far as Afghanistan was concerned, wasn't very logical because many people suffered in Afghanistan, lost their homes and lost their lives, and none of them had anything to do with bin Laden.

AMANPOUR: When asked more specific questions about the United States, 58 percent of those contacted say they do not like President George W. Bush, while 53 percent say they have an unfavorable view of the United States itself.

But there were significant differences depending on the country. For instance, in Lebanon only 40 percent had a negative view of the U.S.; whereas in America's long-time ally, Saudi Arabia, 64 percent say they have an unfavorable view. And in Pakistan that figure rises to 68 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't care anything about America. We are brothers to the Taliban, and feel sorrow about them. AMANPOUR: When feelings about America are further explored, most of those interviewed say they like its principles of freedom and equality, its economic prosperity and technological prowess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I think for Indonesians, America is a developed, democratic nation. I think for many Indonesians, there are many positive things about America, and many of us want to go there.

AMANPOUR: But people in Indonesia and other Muslim countries surveyed accuse of America of neither caring about nor sharing its good qualities with them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Technologically America is the best in the world. But personally I think America has a kind of arrogance in dominating the rest of the world in every way, whether technologically or politically.

AMANPOUR: In effect, this poll surveyed only half the Muslim world. Many countries simply refused to allow, or severely restricted Gallup Poll questions.

Gallup says Egypt, one of America's main allies, refused to allow its poll to be conducted there. Gallup also says that Saudi Arabia would not allow questions about President Bush, the September 11 attacks, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia.

In addition, Gallup says, it's difficult to compare these results to feelings before September 11, since no similar surveys have ever been done before.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And as the poll shows, many Muslims have very strong opinions about the war in Afghanistan. But what happens after the military campaign? The United States has pledged not to abandon Afghanistan; but will it take the lead in a peacekeeping operation ?

Let's go live to our military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre. He's over at the Pentagon -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, the Pentagon simply has no appetite for taking on another open-ended peacekeeping mission like the ones that currently has U.S. troops tied down both in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The U.S. military believes it has bigger fish to fry in the war on terrorism, and the force is already stretched thin by the war effort, with tens of thousands of reserve troops having been called up to active duty.

Today Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made a point of noting the contributions of other countries to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, and he said that even though the U.S. is not interested in peacekeeping, it has done its share.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUMSFELD: We are making a contribution, philosophical or non- philosophical, as it may be, to the interim assistance force there in Afghanistan by providing some logistics, some airlifts, some intelligence. We are also providing a quick reaction force availability in the event that the ISAF has some difficulties, which I hope they don't.

So it's not like we're not making a contribution to the security in the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: And Rumsfeld is well aware of how these peacekeeping missions, once they get started, can be very difficult to end. He cites as an example U.S. military forces still on vigil in the Sinai more than 25 years after they started that duty -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie, what about this report that you reported within the past half hour that the United States is now prepared to send some troops to the former Soviet republic of Georgia? What's all that about?

MCINTYRE: Well, a senior Pentagon official tells me that the decision has not yet been made, but it's getting some very serious consideration that the former Soviet republic of Georgia may be the next front in the war on terrorism, just like -- in an operation similar to the Philippines.

There the U.S. is on what it calls a military training exercise in which it has sent up to 600 troops to help the government of the Philippines go after rebels that are believed to have links to al Qaeda.

In Georgia it's suspected that some Chechen rebels are also linked to al Qaeda, and there may be some al Qaeda members there as well. Again, as in the Philippines, the U.S. says those troops would not be going into combat; they would be providing training and logistical support.

But, again, a Pentagon official cautioned me this evening that the decision has not yet been made to send those troops to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

So should the United States take a leadership role in an Afghanistan peacekeeping force? Is the U.S. military already stretched too thin?

Joining me here in the CNN WAR ROOM: Richard Holbrooke, he's a former United States ambassador to the United Nations. He was a top diplomatic troubleshooter in several world hot spots, including Bosnia and Kosovo. And Ken Adelman, he's host of defensecentral.com. He serves on the Pentagon's defense policy board as a former director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to us right now. Go to CNN.com/wolf and click -- that's also where you can read my daily online column.

Ambassador Holbrooke: Why is the Bush administration, in your opinion, wrong not to take the leadership in an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: The military part of this operation in Afghanistan has done brilliantly, and the military -- the men and women who've fought it deserve our praise, our support, our appreciation.

But a military campaign is only as good as the non-military part that follows it. We've had troops -- Jamie McIntyre mentioned our troops in the Sinai, and that the Pentagon is concerned about that.

I don't see anything wrong with that. We've had 600 troops in the Sinai for over 20 years. They've helped prevent an outbreak of war, as you well know; you covered that whole scene.

And I see -- it's inexplicable to me, Wolf, why we have restricted the peacekeepers to the city of Kabul and limited them in number. I want to stress for your viewers what we're talking about. We're not talking about American troops and peacekeeping. We're talking about an American decision, which General Franks reaffirmed yesterday, against the expansion of a non-American force out of Kabul and into the other cities.

If we don't do that, Afghanistan is going to remain in a chaotic state, a sanctuary for terrorists, drug dealers, warlords, and it will be very dangerous.

BLITZER: Ken Adelman why is Ambassador Holbrooke wrong?

KEN ADELMAN, DEFENSECENTRAL.COM: Well, we agree on many things, and have in the past. But let me say, I think that the United States should do what it does best, which is -- and what it only can do, like chase the Taliban out.

Other people can provide the peacekeepers in this operation. When I was ambassador at the U.N. we had Fiji being one of the big contributors to peacekeeping.

American troops there are radioactive, in a way. They provide targets, in a way, for assassins and others in a way that somebody from Fiji, even somebody from Britain or Turkey. And so I believe others can do this operation.

Plus, it would be nice if the British handed it off, as planned, to the Turks, who are an Islamic country and have done a wonderful job in the past. So I think that's a good idea.

HOLBROOKE: Wolf, aside from my enormous disadvantage, because I have an ordinary tie on and ken has an American flag... ADELMAN: You can get an American flag tie.

HOLBROOKE: I want to be very clear on this. We are not here arguing about the number of Americans in the peacekeeping force. I have a view on that, but that's not the decision.

BLITZER: You believe Americans should be part of that peacekeeping force?

HOLBROOKE: Rumsfeld himself just said they're providing logistics. The U.S. should support the force.

But what we are discussing is an absolutely dangerous decision imposed by General Franks and the Pentagon on the British, the Germans. the Turks and others. And your viewers may be confused by this: Those -- we have 5,000 peacekeepers, none Americans, in all of Afghanistan. They are restricted to the city of Kabul. The rest of the country is falling apart in front of us.

BLITZER: Well, those are two separate issues.

HOLBROOKE: Let me finish. No, they're not two separate issues. No they're not, because the American position, reaffirmed yesterday in a press conference you carried live by the secretary of defense and General Franks, is that the peacekeepers should stay in Kabul and they should build a national army.

Now, before you...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me just say, the two separate issues are: Should the U.S. allow the international peacekeeping force to go outside of the capital, Kabul; the second issue is should the U.S. participate in that peacekeeping force?

Let's talk about the first issue first. Why shouldn't that international peacekeeping force be allowed to spread out throughout the country?

We have a map. Let me put it up on the screen...

ADELMAN: I love your map.

BLITZER: ... show our viewers what's going on.

This is Afghanistan over here. There's a whole area in Herat, in the western part of Afghanistan near Iran...

HOLBROOKE: The Iranians are taking it over.

BLITZER: Should peacekeepers move from Kabul out to this area, a very dangerous area? This whole area along the border with Pakistan is very dangerous.

Ambassador Holbrooke says the U.S. should allow a much-expanded peacekeeping force to take charge in those areas.

ADELMAN: No, I heard him say that, and he said it very well. I don't agree with that, because what I would like to see is some kind of institutionalization in Afghanistan having its own army to police. And once...

HOLBROOKE: It will take two years.

ADELMAN: Richard please, I was real quiet when you spoke.

Once you get the international peacekeepers in all these cities, you are there making sure that there's going to be a dependence created, and you are never going to have an army that is from Kabul, organized from Kabul to keep the peace in Afghanistan. You're dooming them to dependency.

HOLBROOKE: Ken, if you really believe that, God bless you. No history supports that.

Let's be very clear, and let's compare Afghanistan to Bosnia. Afghanistan is 12 times bigger than Bosnia, and more difficult, with more war. In Bosnia the United States sent in after the Dayton agreement five years ago 60,000 NATO troops, of which 20,000 were American. We flooded the place, pacified it. We have now withdrawn over 75 percent of the troops, and 85 percent of the Americans. There's never been a NATO casualty, and the place is on its way to recovery.

BLITZER: That's a fair point.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLBROOKE: Now, in Afghanistan...

ADELMAN: He did a wonderful job.

HOLBROOKE: Could you go back to your map a minute so I can play John Madden a minute? This is -- in Kabul we are restricted to that area. We -- not "we" -- we have restricted the peacekeepers to that area, while the U.S. military continues its very important war in the other places, at Kandahar, at Herat, at Mazar-e Sharif, at Jalalabad, at Konduz.

All over the map you have warlords out of the control. Along this border here you have terrorists and drug dealers moving back and forth. If we don't help -- if we don't allow the peacekeeping force to quadruple in size and to go out into these areas, we're running the risk that you'll have drug dealers.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLBROOKE: And one last point. The kind of people who killed Daniel Pearl will be able to slip back and forth from Pakistan across that border, and we will not have the -- we will have recreated the problem of the 1990s.

BLITZER: All right. Go ahead Ken Adelman.

ADELMAN: What I would say is, that this is not Bosnia, basically. That Afghanistan has shown itself over the years, for the last 150 years, to be very difficult for anybody else but the Afghans to assimilate and to control in the outer.

And I don't think we should make the mistakes that the British and the Soviets made before us. I think we've been brilliant so far. We've done a wonderful job. You did a wonderful job in Bosnia because that was Bosnia. You haven't been in Afghanistan.

HOLBROOKE: Yes I have.

ADELMAN: Not -- you have physically...

HOLBROOKE: I want to ask you a question.

ADELMAN: But the point is here, we don't want to get into the trap that the British and the Soviets did.

HOLBROOKE: Let me just clarify something. The people of Afghanistan want the force expanded. Karzai, our guy, the man who sat next to Mrs. Bush in the State of the Union, is desperate for it. Kofi Annan and the U.N. says it has to happen. The Indians and the Pakistanis, who disagree on everything else, all agree it needs to be expanded. The British want it expanded, even though they're going to turn it over to the Turks.

If we don't -- and this is not the 19th century. Why shouldn't it be expanded now?

BLITZER: Very briefly respond to that.

ADELMAN: I think I did. Because what you want to do is develop...

HOLBROOKE: No.

ADELMAN: Well, I did it.

What you want to do is develop...

BLITZER: What you're afraid of is a quagmire. Is that what you're saying?

ADELMAN: I wouldn't go -- A, a quagmire; but B, a dependence so that you're never going to have an Afghan army that is...

BLITZER: And we're going to pick up that thought, because...

ADELMAN: ... that is part of the government of Afghanistan.

BLITZER: It's a sensitive area. Yesterday General Tommy Franks bristled when our reporter Jamie McIntyre asked him about mission creep, which seems to be something that they're very concerned about.

We'll get to that. We're going take a break. We have a lot more to talk about.

Also this when we come back: Those startling poll results from countries in the Muslim world. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

We are continuing our debate on U.S. peacekeeping efforts. Should they begin in Afghanistan? Joining us now, Richard Holbrooke, the former U.N. ambassador, Ken Adelman, the former U.S. ambassador -- deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Two ambassadors here on our program.

Ambassador Holbrooke, you said the U.S. should support quadrupling the current 4,000 member or so peacekeeping force. That would be about 16,000. But you also said that the U.S. and the NATO allies had 60,000 in a much smaller area in the Balkans. Won't that 16,000 go up and up and up if the U.S. allows that to go on?

HOLBROOKE: The number that I've heard that is the best assessment of what's needed is about 20 to 25,000, not 16. And I was quadrupuling off the pace of 5,000.

But I think the real issue on mission creep is very interesting. The mission creep that the Pentagon most deeply fears is the very problem they're about to get lured into. But I stress to your viewers we are not talking about American troops. Ken and I are on the same wavelength on that one. The issue is if we don't expand this force, Afghanistan is going to fall back into the anarchy. President Bush correctly said in December we are not going to turn our backs on Afghanistan again. I know that the entire international community prays this will be the truth.

We need to change the mandate, and it will require a new U.N. resolution because the original resolution was limited by the United States and it needs to be done fast because the warlords are beginning to fight with each other and the heroin, the opium crop, is going to start coming in. Time is important.

BLITZER: Ken Adelman, I want to bring up those startling poll numbers in this extraordinary Gallup Poll that we just reported. You just heard our Christiane Amanpour report. One number in particular was startling to me and I'm sure to you, did Arab groups carry out the September 11 attacks? And look at this. We will put it up on the screen. Eighteen percent, only 18 percent, believe the United States, 61 percent don't believe what the U.S. has said.

How do you explain that?

ADELMAN: I explain it quite simply, that for 20 years, the Saudis have been funding these schools that have been teaching hatred against the United States, hatred against Christians and hatred against Jews and we are only now finding it. And it's true from Saudi Arabia. It's true in Cairo. It's true even in the United States. Saudis funded schools outside of Washington, D.C. -- and this was on front page of the "Washington Post" yesterday -- are teaching that we know that the day of judgment has come when Jesus comes back to earth, breaks the cross, becomes a Muslim and helps the Muslims kill all the Jews. We know that in the United States are Saudi-funded schools, Islamic parochial schools that have a world map on every wall and the world map has no place for Israel. Israel is not shown. So this kind of hatred produces those kinds of results, Wolf, and we better wake up and realize it.

BLITZER: You spent years at the United Nations dealing with all of these Muslim nations and you lived there. You served the United States around the world.

HOLBROOKE: This is a stunning poll. It's an important contribution to American foreign policy. I hope, going back to Christiane Amanpour's last point, that this was the first, I hope it's not the last poll. We need to track this issue.

It underscores two points, one Ken has already made. The other point is that American public diplomacy, our public information campaigns which have never focused on this issue, they've always been Cold War residue, need to be completely overhauled. The third point is that the leaders in the Arab world, who know the truth on this, need to help get the truth out through unbiased media from President Mubarak.

One of the things that really stunned me in this poll was Indonesia, a country which is not Arab, but which is the world's largest Muslim country where an incredible number of people oppose the American actions. And you've done a service to all of us by highlighting this with unambiguous data, but it should only be the beginning of a sustained effort to change this because, as Ken, said we can't live with this situation literally.

BLITZER: Unfortunately, Ken Adelman, Richard Holbrooke, we have to leave it right there. Thanks for joining us. We could go on and on and on. We just don't have the time.

HOLBROOKE: OK.

BLITZER: Thanks to both of you, two ambassadors.

Remember, I want to hear from you. Please go to my Web page at cnn.com/wolf. Click on the designation for comments to me and my producers. We read everything you send us.

He was killed by terrorists while doing his job. Now, Daniel Pearl's widow is determined to keep his legacy alive. We'll hear from Mariane Pearl when we check our top story in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. The courageous words of Mariane Pearl top this hour's "News Alert." During an interview with CNN, the widow of journalist Daniel Pearl said terrorists killed her husband, but his spirit will never be defeated, nor will his legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIANE PEARL, DANIEL PEARL'S WIDOW: If I can talk to my son, you know, yes, he was brutally and cowardly murdered, but the ultimate objective of these people never reached its goal, thanks to him, you know, and what he passed on to me and what he passed on to other people and hopefully other people to other people, then he's a hero, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And this note, Connie Chung will report tonight from Karachi about what Daniel Pearl was forced to say by his kidnappers on the videotape. That's tonight on "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown, 10:00 Eastern, 7:00 Pacific.

That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow twice at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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