Transcript
MR. JEFFERSON BROWN: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. We're very pleased to have what we can, I think, now call a periodic series of partnership programs with the Brookings Institution, and the Shorenstein Center of Harvard University. I will just introduce the co-moderators, and then they will introduce you to our panel.
This is Stephen Hess, who is senior fellow at Brookings, and Marvin Kalb, who is the director of the Washington Office of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard.
Steve, please.
MR. STEPHEN HESS: Thank you very much. This is the 13th in a series called The Brookings/Harvard Forum on the Role of Information and the Media in the War on Terrorism. It is the second time we've had the pleasure of doing a program in conjunction with the Foreign Press Center here at the National Press Building. And we're most grateful to Jeff Brown, who is the director of this center, as well as Peter Kovich, the director of three foreign press centers in the United States. In fact, I saw Peter rushing out the door as we came in. He was going to the State Department to justify his budget. So, we can understand why he's not here.
The first time, which was about three months ago, we had the pleasure of meeting with correspondents from Tass, from the Soviet Union, excuse me, from Russia; from Turkey; from Mexico; and from Al-Jazeera in the Arab world.
Today, we turn our attention to another part of the world, and another three foreign correspondents here in the United States, where we were to have four, and we're very sorry that one of them, and that's Maurizio Molinari from La Stampa, who had come down from New York to be with us last night, sent me an email at 11:30, and sent me another at 7:30 this morning to say that his grandfather had died. He's so sorry not to be with us, and we're so sorry not to have him with us.
Our three Europeanists are, on my immediate left is Jean-Jacques Mevel. In the American tradition, we'll call him JJ.
MR. JEAN-JACQUES MEVEL: That's fine with me.
MR. HESS: And next to him, in the center is Toby Harnden of the Daily Telegraph in the UK. On his left is Rudy Lentz from Deutsche Welle in Germany.
My co-host, who is going to start this session is Marvin Kalb, who's already been introduced.
This is a program that we thought about as the president gave his State of the Union speech, and talked about an axis of evil, and immediately sent teeth chattering around the world at what even looked like a split among our best and favorite friends in the NATO alliance. So, we thought we would put together a panel to talk about the next phase. Strangely enough, the first phase hasn't yet ended, in a very dramatic way right now in Afghanistan, and, in fact, sadly you may know that yesterday the Germans lost two soldiers from our international peacekeeping force, the Danes three, while Americans were on the ground in Operation Anaconda, French planes overhead were doing it. So when we sound perhaps very divisive, which, of course, we don't mean to, we're all civilized. We should remember that there are still things that hold us together and that we are, indeed, good and long allies.
I think we'll just start. How about that, Marvin?
MR. MARVIN KALB: I think that anyone who has read an American newspaper over the past month or two has come upon one story after another about divisions, splits, within the NATO alliance, focused primarily on rumored, speculated about American action against Iraq. That has been the focus. Now, that has been in the American press.
Where I would like to start? Jean-Jacques, tell us whether that is a theme that you are writing about from here? Is that a theme that your own paper, Figaro, is dealing with in Paris?
MR. MEVEL: If we're talking about Iraq, obviously, there was a very strong demand from my story at the time of the State of the Union for two reasons. One is obvious, I mean, this axis of evil is not exactly the phraseology we're using back in Europe.
And the second, which was more a void, actually, and which was really hotly felt in Europe, was that there was no mention of any European countries in this State of the Union. There wasn't any positive appreciation of the role of good faith of the U.N. or NATO. The closest we get to this was the usual greetings to the British allies. But, the name of Germany was not given, the name of France was not given. There was much talk about Russia, India, China, but nothing, zero.
MR. KALB: Were your feelings hurt?
MR. MEVEL: I mean, I can understand that people back in Paris, Berlin and London felt somewhat disappointed by the State of the Union.
MR. HESS: Specifically, they responded to you. The next day you had a bulletin in response to them.
MR. MEVEL: Yes. And beyond that, that was, what, three or four weeks ago, what you can feel in the past week, the past days, is a real improvement. You had those criticisms by the French Foreign Ministry, those criticisms in Germany, the criticisms by the British external relation commissar. But that was a couple of weeks ago. Actually, if you listen carefully to what's been said by Mr. Blair, by Mr. Schroeder and even by the French President Chirac, it's much more subdued, and it's much more supportive of what's going on now.
MR. KALB: Subdued or supportive, you're using both.
MR. MEVEL: Yes, because, I mean, there are nuances between the positions of the three countries. But even Chirac went out yesterday saying, the French people, or the French government, or the French presidency does share the concern of the U.S. regarding the whole area. So there is a change going on.
MR. KALB: Do you find that same change, and would you agree with Jean-Jacques that at the very beginning the German press was worked up on this issue, and that has eased off?
MR. RUDY LENTZ: I'm very happy to be able to say that so far we have an axis here between Paris and Berlin, because we both have the feeling that there's a certain unilateralism in the action, at least the perception of unilateral