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Transcript of Robert Fisk interview,
February 05, 2003

Robert Fisk Interview

Delegates from Islamic nations representing 1.2 billion Muslims have
gathered in the Gulf state of Qatar ñ home of Al-Jazeera. The principal
concern of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is the possibility
that the US-led coalition now waging war against terrorism, may turn its
focus to Arab states. Robert Fisk is a writer for London's 'Independent'
newspaper and a long-time observer of the Middle East. I spoke with him
from Beirut.

MARK DAVIS: Robert Fisk, the position of Western nations for or against war
is becoming clear, but we're not hearing much from the Arab states. Is this
because we're not listening or is it because they don't really have much to
say?

ROBERT FISK, THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER: They don't want war, but they are
completely powerless and most of the leaders don't want to appear powerless
in front of their own people. The Arabs are petrified, by which I mean the
Arab leaders, that th e war in Iraq will break apart their own totally
false regimes with their false frontiers and their, n most cases, very
tortuous and tortured relationships with their wn people. Most of these
Arab leaders, of course, were appointed by us and supported by us. So was
Saddam originally.  Many of them fear this is part of an American-Israeli
idea and operation and project to change the entire face of the Middle East
in a way it hasn't been changed since the British and French drew the
frontiers and borders of the Middle East in the aftermath of the First
World War.

MARK DAVIS: Is there any cohesive voice in the Arab states or even any
particularly strong individual one?

ROBERT FISK: The only individual one we're listening to at the moment of
course is Saddam Hussein. No, there never has been a cohesive oice in the
Arab states. That's what's wrong. They always say, "We must have a special
committee of the Arab League" - the Arab league of Arab nations, all 22 .
And of course, they're doing it again now. Foreign ministers will meet.
There will be committees set up to discuss the dangers. But the Arab League
has always been a get-out clause for Arab dictators, a way of saying,
"We're dealing with it." But at the end of the day, if you read each
statement coming out of the Arab world from the various potentates and
emirs and presidents nd kings, they are all saying, "We can do nothing."
King Abdullah of Jordan actually said the other day, in English and in
Arabic - his English is still better than his Arabic, actually - he said,
"We can't stop it now. We think it's too late." In other words, the Arab
states, which of course pontificate and strut their way upon the world
stage or think they do, most of the time turn out to be as impotent as most
of us thought they were.

MARK DAVIS: We've just heard Arab League Ambassador to the UN, Yahya
Mahmassani, claim that the Arab world would not be silenced, the whole Arab
world would b e engulfed with anti-US and anti-Australian hostility. Is
this a likely scenario?

ROBERT FISK: Yes - what he means is that the Arab leaders are frightened
that the Arab people will express that rage by toppling them off their
perches and that may be possible, it may happen. There's no doubt there is
a great deal of anger right now against the West.

I feel it in Lebanon where I spend most of the time. I have a Lebanese
friend of mine who has an English wife - she was spat at in the street the
other day. I had a stone thrown at my balcony. Not that long ago, a young
American woman missionary was murdered in Sidon in Lebanon. Of course, we
had the murder of the American diplomat in Jordan. Westerners are
increasingly being hated. As I move around the Middle East I can tell it -
the way people talk to me, they look at me. It's a very dangerous situation
for all Westerners in the Middle East and it will be extremely dangerous if
and when the war begins.

MA RK DAVIS: But the West can quite comfortably say, "Let them make noise,
there are no nation states opposing us "and, so what, it will blow over."

ROBERT FISK: Yes, but Lawrence of Arabia once described making war as
trying to drink soup off a knife. The moment you start a war it very rarely
works out exactly as you expect it to. This, I think, is the real problem.
We don't know, for example, what happens if the Americans get to Baghdad. I
think if the Americans want to invade they can reach Baghdad in three or
four days. If I'm going to be in Baghdad I hope they do, not for the
Iraqis, but to save everyone's life, on the basis that a long war will kill
a lot of people. However, what happens afterwards? What happens in the Arab
states? You say the Americans can invade who they want.

The Arabs can also invade who they want and claim it's a pre-emptive
strike. What happens if, for example, in Iraq after the Americans occupy
the ountry the imams of the Shia mosqu es, the Kurds in the north, set up
their own secret administrations, demand an American withdrawal? Are the
Americans just going to say, "Oh, these are Saddamite remnants." I don't
think they'll be able to do that. Iraq is a very tough ountry. I don't
think it will settle for an occupation by the Americans. It didn't settle
for an occupation by the British. Forget Saddam for a moment - let's assume
he's gone. Iraq is a very tough, ruthless country and the people there are
very tough. I don't think they want to be governed by General Franks.

That's right, but similar predictions were made about Afghanistan - some of
those predictions made by yourself - prior to the fall of the Taliban that
the war would drag on, that America would be entrapped in a long struggle.
Now none of that really happened. The Islamic world wasn't particularly...

ROBERT FISK: Oh, yes it did, excuse me. Excuse me. Afghanistan today -and
I've gone back there - is an utterly lawless countr y. You cannot travel
the roads by night. American troops are attacked every night in Kabul,
along the Pakistan frontier and in Kandahar. The Americans have now
withdrawn from five of their outposts on the frontier.

MARK DAVIS: This is not the nightmare scenario, though, and I think most
people would agree, Afghanistan today is better off than it was a year ago.

ROBERT FISK: No, absolutely not. Schools have been burnt down. There have
been rapes in the north of Afghanistan. I think you haven't been reading
the right newspaper. What's been happening with the Americans is they're
withdrawing from their outposts, they're under attack all the time by
al-Qa'ida now. There was a very interesting article in the 'Wall Street
Journal' that pulled the curtain apart on this.

MARK DAVIS: So they're worse than the Taliban, are they? Or are they on
equal status?

ROBERT FISK: No, the drug lords and the Taliban are as bad as each other.
We just chose our bunch of murderers to kill the other bunch of murderers.
That's what happens in Afghanistan.

MARK DAVIS: After this period, of what appears to be apparent weakness in
the Arab states, a fatalism as Iraq is about to be attacked, are we likely
to see them galvanise into a more solid and forceful power bloc in the wake
of this?

ROBERT FISK: No, no, it isn't a recent phenomenon. The impotence of the
Arab states is built into the system of government. We set up the Arab
states. We drew their frontiers. We decide who is going to be the various
presidents, we support them, most of them, like we supported Saddam. We
once supported Colonel Gaddafi. We don't want them to be powerful and we
won't let them be. We want them to do what we want, then we can get our oil
and our resources and our
communications that we need. There's never been the slightest attempt by
the West to introduce democracy into the Arab world and we want them to
remain impotent and they will.

MARK DAVIS: In a few hours time Colin Powell will be presenting evidence to
support US claims of Iraq's involvement with chemical weapons and, indeed,
reportedly their connection to al-Qa'ida. What
have you made of the evidence that's been presented to date by the
Americans and the British?

ROBERT FISK: Not a lot. The most important evidence came from Blix. He
pointed out clear discrepancies in the Iraqi report. He made it perfectly
clear that he didn't think the Iraqis were being proactive enough. Reading
the interview which Saddam had today with British former MP and minister
Tony Benn, I think that Saddam still doesn't realise how serious it is that
Iraq has to come forward itself with more information rather than have the
UN inspectors wandering around the country lifting up stones and trying to
look for it.

On the other hand, in the State of the Union address Mr Bush made a number
of statements, on of them for example, saying scientists were in fact
intelligence officers who had taken the place of the scientists. Now, Blix
of the UN says quite specifically that this is untrue. Now one of those two
men is lying and I don't actually think it's Mr Blix. The Americans have
yet to convince many of the Americans I've talked to here in the United
States that this is a real causus belli, that there really is a reason for
war.

Many people are saying here, "We're not looking for a smoking gun. You
better show us a loaded gun before we believe that there's something here."
I've talked to quite a lot of people in Amman who know Saddam reasonably
well. They think he may have a few things left over from the 1980s
somewhere buried away up n the desert, but they do not believe he was
continuing to try to develop weapons of mass destruction. That's the point.
There's an awful lot of countries in that region who have a lot of odd and
nasty weapons lying around. The question is was he actually trying to
continue to develop them. He may have been trying to do so in a theoretical
sense, but I don't think so in a physical sense. We could be wrong. We'll
have to wait till the invasion to find out but then of course it could be
too late.
MARK DAVIS: Can we afford to be wrong? This guy has had - not only had, but
used - the nastiest weapons in the world before. Can we afford to be wrong?

ROBERT FISK: I think the Iranians have also fired some gas shells and we're
not invading Iran and we know North Korea has got some nuclear weapons and
we're certainly not going to invade him. The point is quite clear here. If
the Americans believe a country like North Korea has got nuclear weapons,
they won't invade. The most recent thing we heard from the Bush
Administration, they were having excellent conversations with North Korean
officials. But when we think an Arab ictator, for example, might get
nuclear weapons or might be developing them, then we want to invade. The
lesson, the message here for dictators and tin-pot potentates, is if you're
thinking of getting nuclear weapons get them now before the Americans come.

MARK DAVIS: It's a little bit difficult to predict exactly what Colin
Powell will say or whether he'll be any more believable than Saddam
Hussein, but presumably the US is now about to...

ROBERT FISK: I hope he is more believable than Saddam Husse in.

MARK DAVIS: I hope so too. But presumably they're about to deal their trump
card after many months of silence or apparently little vidence. Are you
still open to persuasion?

ROBERT FISK: Before you say that, I'll quote to you what Colin Powell wrote
in a column in Monday's 'Wall Street Journal', which is normally a
mouthpiece of conservatism in the United States. He said there will be no
smoking gun in his presentation. He said, "We will, in sum, offer a
straightforward, sober and compelling demonstration that Saddam is
concealing the evidence of his weapons." I wonder if that means evidence or
just an argument.

MARK DAVIS: We'll have to wait and see. Thanks for joining us, Robert Fisk..