http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline 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..