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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Yasser Arafat Calls for Cease-fire; Arab League Voices Opposition Against Attack on Iraq

Aired March 28, 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.
ANDREA KOPPEL, GUEST HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: Yasser Arafat says he's ready to stop the bloodshed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YASSER ARAFAT, PRESIDENT, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: I would like to request our readiness to work for an immediate cease-fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Israel says his words are like a broken record, adding he must take action to end the violence.

Hands off Iraq. The Arab League wraps up its summit and opposes any move against Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, Iraq reaches out to two former enemies. Going through the motions or something more?

Iraq and ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East. We'll talk live with former assistant of secretary state Edward Walker, Iraq expert Amatzia Baram and former CIA chief James Woolsey as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Andrea Koppel reporting tonight from Washington. Wolf Blitzer is off. We'll get to our guests shortly.

But first, a day of diplomacy, declarations and more death in the Middle East. Yasser Arafat today announced he's ready to try a U.S. plan that calls for an immediate cease-fire. The Israeli government is skeptical, saying it's heard it all before. And the nation is still mourning yesterday's Passover massacre.

And just today, four Jewish settlers were shot to death in the West Bank. All of this while the Arab League ends its summit with an endorsement of a Saudi peace plan. A lot to cover, so we start by going to our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, in Netanya, Israel -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest here, Andrea, is, as you mentioned, not only that cease-fire call from Yasser Arafat, but also the fight that the Israeli cabinet, the full Israeli cabinet, is meeting as we speak, and it could go on for many hours, meeting to discuss its next move, its possible response, what it's going to do in the wake of that suicide bombing just over 24 hours ago, in which 21 people were killed.

Now, what Yasser Arafat has done is called, in his own language, as the U.S. and Israel demanded, for an immediate cease-fire, rather saying that he is ready to implement an unconditional and immediate cease-fire based on the Tenet agreement. This appears to be what the U.S. has been asking him to do, calling for a cease-fire, while not at the same time talking about a political horizon. So it remains to be seen just how Israel will respond after Arafat has called for this cease-fire, despite the fact the Israel government spokesman has already poured cold water over it, saying that they want more than just words. They want action -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Christiane, you've just come from Beirut. What do you think the chances are in this current climate in Israel that the Israeli government will embrace that declaration from the Arab world?

AMANPOUR: Well, I think everybody, including the leaders at the Arab Summit, do not believe that the Sharon government will embrace this declaration. The Sharon government is on record as saying that it is not interested in the current moves towards peace and it has its own plans in this conflict.

But, the significant part of what happened in Beirut was that for the first time in more than half a century of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Arab nations collectively, as a whole, offered Israel the possibility of normalization, normal relations, an end to the conflict, the right of Israel to exist in return for withdrawal from all the occupied territories. This is a first, and it is significant.

And the Arab leaders were very quick to point out that they specifically were reaching out to the Israeli people to try to convince Israel that they want peace, that they want to recognize Israel, give all normal relations to Israel, and that Israel needs to understand that it must withdraw from those territories and also that only politics, a political solution, will end the kinds of violence that we've be seeing not only in the last day or so, but over the last 18 months -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Christiane Amanpour in Netanya, Israel, thank you so much. For more on the unfolding situation in the Middle East, Christiane will be back at the top of the hour. That's tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, LIVE FROM ISRAEL with Christiane Amanpour.

President Bush is in Texas for the Easter holiday and has been monitoring the developments in the Middle East from there. Also in Crawford, Texas, CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett. Major, good evening.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Andrea. As for the Arafat declaration of seeking, or seeking to implement a cease-fire, the White House essentially had three options in reacting. One, it could say it was a step forward, describe it as progress. Two, it could be dismissive of it, say it wasn't enough. Or third, it could be ambiguous about what it all means. And the Bush White House, at least for now, has chosen option No. 3, saying it is reviewing Mr. Arafat's words, not offering any commentary one way or the other as to whether it's a net positive or a net negative.

The reason for that is because right now, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, senior state department officials are on the phone talking with Anthony Zinni, the president's personal envoy in the Middle East, to try to find out what other textures and nuance he can give to them about what this may or may not mean as to the underlying cease-fire negotiations, sponsored by the United States, between the Israelis and the Palestinians. With that information in hand, at some point in the future, the Bush administration might be a little bit more emphatic about what Mr. Arafat's declaration actually means. But right now, they're standing in the middle, trying not to say it's -- trying not to describe it in a dismissive way, but not trying to embrace it, trying to find out if the facts on the ground actually warrant a more positive assessment -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Major, you mention an embrace. I want to ask you about the embrace that we saw take place today in Beirut between the Saudi Crown Prince and one of Saddam Hussein's emissaries. Any reaction from the White House on that?

GARRETT: Well, you can bet the Bush White House paid careful attention to it. And the word that I'm getting in a lot of conversations with Bush administration officials today is, look, that actually is less than met the eye. They are also to symbolic embraces. Yes, it's been a long time since the Iraqis and the Saudis have treated each other this way in public.

But the Bush administration's very strong sentiment is that throughout the Arab world, there's a very clear understanding of the dangers posed by the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein. Several administration officials say they are under no illusions about what Saddam Hussein means in that region, the destabilizing force that he is. From the Bush administration's perspective, Iraq was a menace before 9/11, remains a menace now. All options are on the table, which the administration promises to consult with leaders of the Arab world and the rest of the U.S. coalition partners, but remains very adamant that there is a problem in Iraq and the United States government, led by President Bush, intends to deal with it -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Major Garrett in Crawford, Texas, thank you so much.

Joining me here in THE WAR ROOM to look at the latest developments in the Middle East: James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Edward Walker, president of the Middle East Institute and former assistant secretary of state and former U.S. ambassador to three nations in the Middle East; and Amatzia Baram, professor of Middle East studies at the University of Haifa.

Gentlemen, we are going to get into Iraq. I want to start with you, Mr. Woolsey. I'm going to read the -- this declaration from the Arab Summit that we heard Christiane mention. Let's put it on the screen. It says: "We reject the threat of attacking Arab countries, especially Iraq. We reaffirm our complete rejection of any attack on Iraq. We demand the respect of Iraq's independence, sovereignty, security and unity."

James Woolsey, it sound like a nail in the coffin about going after Saddam.

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I don't think so. I think the only Arab country that we really need to be concerned about in moving against Iraq is Kuwait. That is a serious concern because we need access from the south as well as the north. I think Turkey is absolutely vital here, but it's not an Arab country and wasn't at the summit, is a NATO ally. So I don't think this is a popularity vote for the move against Iraq that needs to be taken at the Arab Summit. I'm sure all of the small businessmen in Chicago in the 1920s who have gotten together and said we love Al Capone too and please don't go after him, FBI.

KOPPEL: Edward Walker, you've been across the negotiating table from both Arabs and Israelis. How do you think the U.S. can get around that declaration from the Arab Summit and still go after Iraq?

EDWARD WALKER, PRESIDENT, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: There's nobody out there that thinks much of Saddam Hussein. They are all really quite happy, they'd be quite happy to see the end of Saddam Hussein. And I agree with Jim that, you know, this is something that was done now, but when the answers to questions that many of the Arab states have can be made by the administration, how are you going to do it, what are you going to follow it up with, and so on, I think the attitude will change.

KOPPEL: OK. So, publicly, they are showing unity together, but privately...

WALKER: Right. And by the way, I don't agree with Jim. You know, in 1990, when we were putting together the fight against Saddam Hussein, you needed more than just Kuwait. You need to have a logistics backup and so on. You need to have gutter (ph) with the preposition equipment. You need to have ways of getting your tanks up there and so on. And he's absolutely right. You need to have Turkey.

KOPPEL: Amatzia Baram, you're one of the world's premier experts on the Iraqi military. You're here in Washington to talk about something that is just hitting the radar screens in Washington, and that is who will replace Saddam Hussein? How do you prepare for that? Who do you see in Iraq?

AMATZIA BARAM, UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA: Well, you have a lot of contenders and a lot of social and political forces inside Iraq and you have the opposition outside of Iraq. The question is, of course, who is going to come on top? You have to ask yourself how they are going to come on top? Who is going to be behind it and how it is going to happen, but and I won't even go into the list...

KOPPEL: You don't have to give names, but who are the type of people that you think the U.S. should be making contact with?

BARAM: That's very clear. The opposition of course, which lives today basically outside of Iraq. But in Iraq, you need representatives of all of the important ethnic and denominational communities. You need representatives of the very important tribal groups. You need people, in other words, you are not going to have elections tomorrow morning, even if today you already have a new regime in Iraq, so you need a government which is not elected, which is basically nominated, but which is representative.

People have to look up and say, I find someone from my own community there and he can represent me, which is a most important principal, and yes, I think people in America start thinking about it now.

KOPPEL: Gentlemen, I want to get to that embrace that we just saw earlier between the Saudi crown prince and the Iraqi emissary. But first Jim Woolsey, I want to ask you about the Iraqi opposition the that Amatzia was just referring to there. Do you think there's still hope for the Iraqi opposition?

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Surly.

KOPPEL: I mean in a military campaign.

WOOLSEY: Well, it depends on what part. I think the Kurds in the north need to be brought within the American operation and we need the Turks to understand that Iraq will stay within its borders. And the Kurds and the turks and we, once we can work that all out, I think the Kurdish Kashmir group would be extremely effective.

There's some 70,000 of them, really much more effective than the Northern Alliance was in Afghanistan. In the south I think it's a somewhat different matter. They don't have a refuge the way they do in the north. So I think American troops might far more likely need to be involved in the south.

But air power in this operation will make a huge difference; 60 percent smart weapons instead of the 3 percent smart weapons we had in the Gulf War made the Afghanistan war a very different thing. And I think Saddam's Republican Guard will be sitting ducks to smart weapons.

KOPPEL: Amatzia, you as I said, are one of the world's premiere experts on the Iraqi military. What size force do you think will be necessary for the U.S. to mount to oust Saddam?

BARAM: I really don't want to say how much, but certainly, I'm sure Mr. Woolsey agrees, air power alone won't do the job. You need ground forces. And you need sizable ground force. It can be I don't know what, any where between one division, three divisions, one army group, two -- I don't want to go into that. What is important to know is this: The Iraqi regular army, about 380,000 people will fold immediately. They will fight very little and then go home to mama.

The Republican guards, 60,000 to 70,000 people with about 8-900 tanks, reasonably good thanks, will fight. They will fight until they -- some of them will fight and die, will stay in the tanks, fight and die. But when they realize that things are really going in a very bad fashion for them, and that all is lost or almost all, then they'll fall. And then you have very small forces. A few, maybe 20, 30,000 people, Saddam's bodyguards of various kinds. They will fight more, but it's not an enemy that requires the whole American army to be brought to battle. That's for sure.

EDWARD WALKER, FMR. ASST. SECY. OF STATE FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS: Yes, but let's keep in mind we are talking about a city and fighting in a city context, where they have been training to deal house to house assault and we've seen even with Israelis, as strong as they are, the problem they've had going into refugee camps.

So it's not -- I agree with you. We will win. And I agree with you that it's the not going to be all that difficult, but we have to be -- we have to be prepared to take casualties.

KOPPEL: Gentlemen, we're going to pause it here. We're going to come back and we are going to come back and we are going to get to that embrace, the kiss, whatever you want to call it when we come back when the WAR ROOM continues. Saddam's Hussein's emissary at the Arab summit plants a kiss on the cheek of a bitter enemy. What does it mean? Stay tuned. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back. I'm joined here by former CIA director James Woolsey, Edward Walker, president of the Middle East Institute and Professor Amatzia Baram. Gentlemen, I've always wanted to say this. Let's go to the videotape. What you are seeing here, about to see here is footage from today at the Arab summit of the Saudi crown prince and he's being embraced by the deputy foreign minister, Saddam Hussein's emissary there, to the summit. Is this the beginning of a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) moment? Ed Walker.

WALKER: No. This is politeness, Arab diplomacy, and if you will notice, it was Saddam Hussein's emissary who is kissing Crown Prince.

KOPPEL: But it hasn't happened since the Gulf War, isn't that right, Amatzia?

BARAM: No, it hasn't happened. It is new. It's very new. It's very important. It is etiquette. But you should have looked at their body language.

KOPPEL: What was the body language?

BARAM: First of all, everything was orchestrated and planned, and they kissed, presumably amicably, and then the crown prince was sort of saying something intimate to Ezzat Ibrahim. Ezzat Ibraim is not Saddam's emissary. He's Saddam's No. 2. He is a deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Counsel. He's a deputy general commander of the armed forces. That is important, even though I agree with you, they still hate each other.

KOPPEL: Jim Woolsey, you were nodding your head.

WOOLSEY: I would say that if I were the Saudi crown prince embraced by Saddam's No. 2, I'd feel very much like a fly being embraced by a spider.

KOPPEL: OK. There is apparently an old Arab adage that somebody told me today. And it says that you give the tightest hug to your enemy so that he can't slip away when you stab him with a dagger. Have you heard this before?

BARAM: Yes, but I would say this is not exactly the case. These guys didn't hug for 11 years. For the first time they hugged now. The Saudis know that the moment that the Iraqis could, they would stab them in the back again. There is no question about it.

KOPPEL: Why did the Saudi crown prince allow this to happen?

BARAM: Because the Saudi's are folding.

KOPPEL: They are folding?

BARAM: They are folding. That's all I can say. The Saudis feel pressure from the Arab brothers and perhaps a little bit here from the Islamists, the radical Islamists and they feel right now...

WALKER: Here you have the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, for the first time saying something that no crown prince, no king of Saudi Arabia has ever said: We are willing and ready to recognize Israel and have normal relations. That's incredible. I mean King Fisle (ph) said every Arab country can have relations with Israel, we never will. So, I don't see that as a man who is folding. I see that as a man who is trying to do something to bring this process and this conflict forward.

KOPPEL: But it doesn't seem to bold well, Mr. Woolsey, for any kind of a U.S. military action using the air bases at Prin Sil Tan (ph) to attack Iraq.

WOOLSEY: I think the Saudis will help us against Iraq precisely to the degree that we convince them they are unnecessary. I think the worst way to get Saudi assistance is to go to them hat in hand. I think if we show determination that with the support of Kuwait, perhaps someone else in the Gulf, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) but certainly Turkey, we are going to do this, I think the Saudis will at some point be of assistance.

But the main thing that is important is since we are not going to have to have half a million men there, like we did 1991, we can do it with considerably less than that. I don't think we absolutely have to have the Saudi bases. Would be helpful, but not essential.

WALKER: Jim's right in the sense that they all have seen us fold too many times when it comes down to questioning Saddam Hussein's role. We have never done it. We've never shown...

KOPPEL: Since the Gulf War.

WALKER: Since the Gulf War. We've never gone far enough to do anything. So, they do have a doubt. And you're absolutely right. You're going to have to show determination. KOPPEL: Ned Walker, I want to thank you for coming in this evening, Jim Woolsey and Amatzia Baram all the way from Israel. Thank you all for joining us this evening.

Remember we want to hear from you. Go to our Web page at cnn.com/wolf and click on the designation for comments to Wolf and his producers.

We'll be back in just a moment with a look the at today's other top stories, including a check on the latest from the Middle East. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back. Let's check the latest headlines in our news alert. A U.S. Navy S.E.A.L. was killed today in Afghanistan and another wounded when one of the men stepped on a land mine. It happened near the U.S. military base at Kandahar Airport. The man who lost his life was identified as 35-year-old chief petty officer Matthew J. Borugois (ph) from Tallahassee, Florida. A total of 31 U.S. troops have now died in direct or in accidents in and around Afghanistan.

The Justice Department today said it will seek the death penalty for the man suspected of being the so-called the 20th hijacker. Zacarias Moussaoui is the first man charged in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks. The government believes he was supposed to have been on the United Airlines flight that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Moussaoui's trial is set to begin in September.

Yasser Arafat says he's willing to declare a unilateral truce with Israel. In response, Israel said Arafat needs to take action, instead of making more declarations.

And this programming note: starting Monday, April 1, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, CROSSFIRE expands to one hour. For our WAR ROOM viewers, you can, of course, catch -- continue to catch Wolf Blitzer's reporting on the war on terrorism and the other news of the day on weekdays, 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

But for us right now, that is all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern for the last installment of the War Room. You won't want to miss that. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Andrea Koppel in for Wolf Blitzer in Washington. CROSSFIRE begins right now.

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