'Meet the Press' transcript for April 26, 2009

MR. GREGORY:  But, but isn't--doesn't that suggest, and he seems to be suggesting that that's not the case; that if you just solve this problem that somehow al-Qaeda goes away, isn't that fantasy?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, well, but what, what is al-Qaeda's platform is, is, is the, the plight of the Palestinians in Jerusalem under occupation.

MR. GREGORY:  That's what they say.  Is that what they really believe?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, I mean, you're always going to have extremist elements that are going to be there to, to find a, a, a platform for recruiting.  But you can't really take them that seriously when the core issue, the major grievance in the Arab and Muslim world is solved.  And so in Arab and Muslim minds, the most emotional aspect is the Palestinian cause and that of Jerusalem.  And from there leads all the other problems.

MR. GREGORY:  As you know, the president is expected to speak to the world, to the Muslim world, to the Arab world from an Arab capital some time during the first 100 days.  It may slip and go beyond the first 100 days.  What do you think his message should be?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, his message has been consistent in that he is showing that America has an outreach to the Muslim and Arab world.  We in, in Jordan initiated the, the Amman Message, which is an outreach of--well, actually inter-Islam to begin with, but also to Christians, Muslims and other--Jews and other faiths in the world.  But I think it's never done at the level--it never has been done at the level of the president of the United States.  You have the most powerful, most capable country in the world, and the message of outreach from Obama has resonated extremely well in the Arab world.  But again, that's only delaying the, the, the confrontation or the, the conflict unless we solve the core issue.

MR. GREGORY:  Hm.

KING ABDULLAH II:  And I--every time you come up and show me an example of a, of a problem, I'm going to point you back towards the Palestinians and Jerusalem.

MR. GREGORY:  What's the image of the United States in the Middle East today?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Fantastic.

MR. GREGORY:  Really?

KING ABDULLAH II:  I, I, I, I, I want to say that I have been following, by chance, President Obama around the world.  I was in England a, a day or two behind him, I was in the Czech Republic.  I just come from Japan on the way here to Washington.  Wherever you go, and all the leaders that I've spoken to the--in the Middle East, this president provides hope.  Now, there was tremendous sympathy internationally for the United States and anger after 9/11, but today there's a collective hope that there's a new America.  And a new America means new values for, for the world.  What everybody believed America to stand for is what I think Obama encompasses.  But how long is that goodwill going to last?  And that's some of the challenges that you have.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me turn to an issue that has really gripped this country this week, and that is the issue of how the United States government and its interrogators treated September 11th prisoners after those attacks.  You were sitting next to President Obama this week when this question came up about the release of those memos about how to treat prisoners, the, the--and the torture issue, and this is what he had to say.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

PRES. OBAMA:  We rely on some very courageous people not just in our military, but also in the Central Intelligence Agency, to help protect the American people.  Having said that, the, the OLC memos that were released reflected, in my view, us losing our moral bearings.  That's why I've discontinued those enhanced interrogation programs.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think the United States lost its moral bearings?

KING ABDULLAH II:  I, I think that the view of America was negatively affected by, by this issue.  This--look, I mean, the questions that have been asked of the president, me as a non-American, it's, it's in a way none of my business. But all I will say is that when you want to go down that path that you're opening sort of Pandora's box of where, where does it end.  We...

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think the United States engaged in torture?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, from what we've seen and what we've heard, that--there are enough accounts to show that that is the case.  But there is still a major battle out there, and I think that America--and I think this is what President Obama is trying to do, is make sure that the, the legal system that America is known for is, is, is transparent to make sure that...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

KING ABDULLAH II:  ...illegal activities aren't taking place.

MR. GREGORY:  That's an important point.  You actually do believe that the United States engaged in torture.

KING ABDULLAH II:  From what I see on, on, on, on the press, that shows that there were illegal ways of, of dealing with detainees.

MR. GREGORY:  Does torture work?

KING ABDULLAH II:  I...

MR. GREGORY:  Does it produce valuable intelligence?

KING ABDULLAH II:  I'm not an expert to be able to say one way or another if it does.  Again, it's such a gray area when it comes to, to a country at war. I think there, there are smarter ways of being able to deal with getting information.

MR. GREGORY:  But yet Jordan is one of the most stalwart U.S. allies in the Middle East.  There's a lot of business that's done between the two countries and a very tight relationship.  Did Jordan engage in torture in concert with the United States?

KING ABDULLAH II:  No.  And I, I, I have been told by my people that I've asked on, on many occasions, as these international issues came up, I think that we have been very smart in, in, in being intelligent of convincing operatives that we have come across to, to end up working for us.  And you can't do that when it comes to torture.

MR. GREGORY:  The Human Rights Watch issued a report about Jordan which contradicts that, and it said the following.  I'll put it on the screen and allow you to react to it.  "From 2001 until at least 2004, Jordan's General Intelligence Department served as a proxy jailer for the U.S. CIA, holding prisoners that the CIA apparently wanted kept out of circulation, and later handing some of them back to the CIA.  More than just warehousing these men, the GID interrogated them using methods that were even more brutal than those in which the CIA has been implicated to date.  ...  If the Jordanians did indeed promise the U.S. authorities that prisoners rendered there would not be tortured, it was a promise that neither the U.S. nor Jordan believed."

KING ABDULLAH II:  I--when that report came out, or when I was asked that question I think by one of your colleagues several years ago, I went straight back to my director of intelligence at the time and I said, "Is there any foundations to this?" And he said categorically no.  And I made it quite clear to him and all the colleagues that have come up the ranks since then that we don't tolerate that.  So I'd like to think that my people were telling me the truth.

MR. GREGORY:  Bottom line on this, do you think you can defeat an enemy like al-Qaeda without resorting to what some people would consider torture?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, again, if we look at how Jordanians have been successful in the past in being able to get people to work for us back against terrorist organizations, I think using your intelligence and, and a good, sound argument have, for us, has shown a way of extreme success.  And obviously I can't go into any, any operations in the past or ongoing operations.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

KING ABDULLAH II:  But I think that your intelligence would probably tell you that our method works.

MR. GREGORY:  Will the release of photographs of detained prisoners who are apparently abused, being released in the United States this week, will that inflame the situation even more?  Will it hurt the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, it, it will--obviously any pictures or any cases like that will have a negative attitude internationally.  But again, I think President Obama has been very clear in, in his campaign and very clear from, from the start that that is not tolerated.  America is providing a new image of what and how things should be done.  And I think that the world has a belief in the president, a lot of faith in what he has to say.  Obviously the pressure on the president is to deliver.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

KING ABDULLAH II:  But the carte blanche that you've started with is actually a pretty good one and I hope one that is not, not used properly.

MR. GREGORY:  I want to get to a couple of important matters, both Iran and the question of Israeli-Palestinian peace.  First with Iran.  What are Iran's intentions in the Middle East?

KING ABDULLAH II:  I, I think as in previous decades, it would like to be the policeman of the gulf.  It wants to have its presence felt in, in the region. And having said that, I think that President Obama's gesture of, of, of a dialogue is one that Iran shouldn't take for granted, and let's see where dialogue will take us.

MR. GREGORY:  The new prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been very clear, and he agrees with the United States in this regard, and that is that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program, they believe.  And this is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said to Jeff Goldberg in an interview of The Atlantic magazine.  He said:  "The Iranian nuclear challenge represents a `hinge of history' and added that `Western civilization' will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.  ...  `You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult,'" he said, "`controlling atomic bombs.  When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.'" Do you see it that way?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Well, again, let me go back to saying I think that the challenge we have here in America of connecting the dots.  If you have an issue that the threat that Iran poses to Israel, which is what Netanyahu was saying, the best way of solving that problem is solving the core issue, which is the Palestinian problem and that of Jerusalem.  Because that regime goes to their people to say that the reason why we have nuclear weapons, the reason that we need to, to challenge Israel is, is because of the suffering of the Palestinians and the occupation of Jerusalem.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

KING ABDULLAH II:  I go back to--if we, if we start solving this Israeli-Palestinian problem, it allows us to get Arabs and Muslims to the, to the negotiating table with the, with the Israelis, then there's not a problem anymore.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think a nuclear program in Iran is inevitable?

KING ABDULLAH II:  There's more of an incentive for the Iranians to continue down that path when there's an argument that they want to use in front of their people that Palestinians are under occupation.  I would imagine that when it comes to an economy that is suffering, like many economies are suffering around the world, a nuclear military program is extremely expensive. And if you've solved the core issue in the Middle East, I think a lot of leaders will be sort of checking their calculators to see whether it's worth to go down the military nuclear road.

MR. GREGORY:  And what do you think is the best way for the United States to pursue or to persuade Iran to back away from a nuclear program?

KING ABDULLAH II:  Solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

MR. GREGORY:  That's it.

KING ABDULLAH II:  That allows us to then solve the Israeli-Arab-Muslim problem.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

KING ABDULLAH II:  There's 57 nations in the world, a third of the United Nations, that don't recognize Israeli today.  So what we're doing is saying 57 nations, Iran has signed this document, believe it or not, that is saying, "Look, Israel, if you solve the Palestinian problem, if you allow us to solve the problems of Jerusalem, we all want to have peace with you."

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