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Connect the World
International Community Hopeful For Diplomatic Solution In Syria; Chileans Remember 40th Anniversary of Military Coup; Hostages Taken By Separatists In Philippines
Aired September 11, 2013 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: Tonight, giving diplomacy a chance. President Obama hits the pause button on striking Syria, but at the UN the devil is in the details. This as the U.S. remembers the victims of 9/11.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joseph Amatuccio (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paul W. Ambrose (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christopher...
ANDERSON: 12 years on, we'll debate how U.S. foreign policy has evolved with one of the world's top global thinkers, Joseph Nye, and an architect of America's policy in Iraq Paul Wolfowitz.
Plus, later in the show, a closer look at free health apps that may be violating our online privacy.
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN London, this is Connect the World with Becky Anderson.
ANDERSON: Well, agreeing on diplomacy to rid Syria of chemical weapons was the easy part. Now world powers are trying to work out the details. The five permanent members of the United Nations security council are meeting today behind closed doors. France, Britain and the U.S. want tough consequences if Syria fails to hand over its chemical weapons.
But Russia has other ideas. It's showing its own plan for securing the weapons stockpiles with the United States.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will begin hashing out specifics tomorrow at what will be a critical meeting in Geneva.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Russia has stepped forward and put this proposal on the table. Russian -- a Russian delegation is going to work with an American delegation in Geneva on some of the technical details of it. There are discussions in New York at the United Nations around what a security council resolution would look like. We are very interested in having a UN security council resolution.
And I think this whole process will test the seriousness of all participants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Yes, it will.
Let's get the latest from the United Nations. Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is standing by.
Nick, just how far apart are those who are as it were diametrically opposed. How far apart are the U.S. and Russia for example?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they do seem to have this one thing in common, the general belief that Syria should put its weapons under international control.
But of course how that happens, and if there is a security council resolution binding Syria to that and threatening some sort of consequences if a timeline or product is actually delivered fast enough, that's the big issue of contention. Just in the last few minutes, Becky, we've seen the French, British and American UN ambassadors leaving the French mission here in New York heading off -- I can understand from a UN diplomat for this permanent five security council member meeting at the Russian delegation's mission here in New York this week.
That's where Russia, China, France, the U.S. and UK will look at the French text. I understand from a UN diplomat it is constantly evolving. We've seen harsh version, the threat and serious consequences. And condemn the regime for the attack and say the perpetrators should be on trial for the chemical attacks of the 21st of August around Damascus.
We've seen softer versions leaked to Reuters.
It's not clear what the final draft will be. But what's interesting right now is that ahead of this meeting in Geneva, there is this heightened activity, presumably to get some sort of text together. And that may be, in fact, informing the Geneva meeting rather than being something that's put on hold for ahead of -- that results of Kerry and Lavrov discussing matters.
People were thinking perhaps they were there to try and get a resolution together. It may actually be they're looking more at the technical aspects of how could Syria put its weapons under international control, Becky.
ANDERSON: So the idea being is that it seems to me that whereas two weeks ago you and I were talking and we were suggesting that there will never be a text for a resolution that the U.S., for example, in Russia would agree on -- and this is way back when we were talking about sort of possibly boots on the ground at that point.
Now it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that all of this sort of back room diplomacy is about getting a text that we can expect to get agreement on, right -- all five permanent members.
WALSH: That surely must be what the thrust of these talks are. I mean, you're right, two weeks ago it was all about military intervention, because a Russian veto would prevent anything happening here at the UN, which would push Syria towards something.
There is this common ground about getting Syria to give up its chemical weapons. They're miles apart in terms of what threats are there if they don't and how fast it should happen. And then you've got to park all that and actually deal with the real world.
But if the diplomacy does succeed, and we do get a document through the UN security council, that's still a pretty big ask, you have to be honest, given the history of votes here over Syria. How does that practically apply itself?
And then you've got to get an inspections team ready. They've got to be happy with the security on the ground. The Russians have got to be happy with how they're behaving. The Syrians have got to be happy with how they're behaving.
And bear in mind, the Syrians want their weapons under control. They're a little hazy about whether they should be destroyed. The Russians are clear on that at this point.
And then there's the actual task of taking the weapons out of a war zone. There's brutal battle raging. Putting them in storage and then dismantling them. There are a lot of hurdles ahead. And many are saying this is just stalling for time -- Becky.
ANDERSON: Nick Paton Walsh is at the United Nations for you.
Well, the world may be rallying around Russia's proposal to secure Syria's chemical weapons, but making that a reality won't be easy, nor will it will be quick. Syria is thought to have 1,000 tons of chemical agents stored in dozens of sites around the country, accumulated over decades. That is according at least to a new report from Israel's International Institute for Counterterrorism.
Weapons inspectors would face a number of hurdles. The biggest, of course, is that the country is at war. Many of the storage sites are believed to be dual use and access may be difficult.
Even once inspectors get into Syria, experts say it would take years to destroy the weapons.
Well, our next guest knows well the challenges involved. Tim Trevan is a former UN weapons inspector. He was a senior adviser to the UN special commission for Iraq joining us tonight out of Washington.
Just walk me through the logistical nightmare, as I assume you will see it, of actually clearing Syria of its weapons if indeed that is what is agreed will happen going forward.
TIM TREVAN, FRM. UN WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well, the first stage will be that Syria will have to make a full declaration of its holdings of chemical weapons, that is the agents, whether in bulk storage or whether in munitions, what type of munitions and where they're located.
Then the second stage would be that the organization for the prevention of chemical warfare should put together teams which would then go in and verify those declarations.
Obviously the more sites there are to be inspected, the longer that takes. And also you have to factor in how safe in terms of the civil war those sites are, how safe it is to get to them.
ANDERSON: So let's talk about this. So you've got a number of sites. You don't know how many at this point. A number of teams, one doesn't know how many will be needed at this point. Teams that will need to be, one assumes, protected as they do their work. And as you suggest this is a civil war situation.
So would you expect there to need to be boots on the ground, soldiers to support any weapons inspectors who were there to disarm the country?
TREVAN: There are certainly different ways this can be done. Clearly, if we believe reports Syria itself has moved some of these chemical weapons during the course of the civil war. So one option might be to require the Syrians to consolidate the storage of these chemical weapons in one site which is in a relatively safe part of the country. That would be one way to proceed, rather than have the inspectors go to multiple sites of differing safety.
It -- there is that fundamental question of what do you mean by putting it under the control of the inspectors? The normal procedure under the chemical weapons convention, which of course is envisaged to be -- take place during peace time with state's voluntarily giving up their arsenals with -- in good faith. The normal procedure would be for the state to actually keep physical control of the weapons, but to allow the inspectors to put tags on them...
ANDERSON: To be secured. All right...
TREVAN: ...and to secure them.
ANDERSON: Hold on, Tim. Let me just stop you there, because I get what you're going on this. But I want our viewers to get a really personal sense from you of what happens on the ground. So let's move from Syria to Iraq and use Iraq as an example, if you will, of how you cleared a country of unconventional weapons, if indeed that was what happened. And how long it took.
TREVAN: We had very different experiences across the different types of weapons that were in Iraq.
For the most part, on the chemical site the Iraqis were very, very cooperative. There was a huge complex called Nathana (ph) where -- when I say huge, I mean, probably a total of 100 square miles -- where they had produced most of their chemical weapons and where most of them were stored. So the facilities that were existing there for the production of chemical weapons were turned in to destruction facilities. And we were able to destroy the vast bulk of their arsenal actually in one place in situ without moving chemicals around.
We had to destroy some of the other, more dangerous munitions down in the south in Nasiriyah because they were too dangerous to move. So we had to destroy those in situ.
But that may not be an option in Syria. It may not be possible to destroy some of these things in situ, because the locations may be too dangerous.
ANDERSON: Obama in his speech last night was emphatic about not putting boots on the ground. But if -- to your mind, if weapons inspectors were in Syria to decommission their chemical weapons caches, do you expect that they will need support? And if so, do you envisage there being military support for that sort of exercise?
TREVAN: It comes back to this question of what is control of the munitions. If we are taking them away from the Syrian forces so that they cannot possibly use them again, they cannot in the absence of inspection -- inspectors go to the sites and take them out of inventory and use them, then that requires either the chemicals to be removed from Syria itself, which is a huge undertaking, or that there should be some form of international ability which does imply boots on the ground to consolidate the stock holdings into one location and then defend that location against either the Syrian regime or anyone else who would want to come and take those munitions from stocks.
ANDERSON: Lots of questions still to be answered. Tim, thank you very much indeed for your analysis this evening.
Some in the west questioning Russia's motives for pushing what is this diplomatic initiative, suggesting it's a way of rescuing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Well, CNN's Christiane Amanpour asked Russia's ambassador to the European Union about that very issue today. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR CHIZKHOV, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO EU: I'm sure many people in my own country and here in the European Union think that President Putin and Minister Lavrov are actually coming to the rescue of President Obama who was facing a possible defeat in the U.S. congress.
So it's not an issue of who is rescuing whom, but it's an issue to rescue a political settlement, which in the case of military strikes would have become hardly possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: And you can watch more of Christiane's interview with the ambassador right after this show that is 10:00 in London, 11:00 in Berlin and at the times I'm sure you can work out wherever you are watching in the world here on CNN.
You are watching Connect the World live from London.
14 minutes past 9:00. Still to come tonight. A powerful explosion ripped through buildings in Benghazi on the anniversary of the U.S. consulate attack there. We'll get a live report from Washington for you.
Also an anniversary of a different kind. Survivors remember the day a brutal dictatorship came to power 40 years ago.
And I'll examine the evolution of U.S. foreign policy 12 years to the day after 9/11 with leading neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz and the architect of soft power theory Joseph Nye. That all coming up. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: Welcome back. This is CNN. Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson in London for you.
Now a car bomb has exploded outside a Libyan foreign ministry building in Benghazi. That comes on the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. consulate that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. For more, we're joined by CNN's World Affairs reporter Elise Labott at the U.S. State Department. What do we know of this incident at this point?
ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Becky, no casualties as far as we know, but it just goes to show -- and I think this is still a concern of the U.S. -- that the Libyan government still doesn't have a lot of security control over the country. There are still a lot of extremist groups, including the group Ansar al-Sharia which is believed to be responsible for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last year. And no statements of responsibility at that point. But I do think it underscores the fact that Libya is still a very insecure place years after the revolution there.
ANDERSON: And how does U.S. State Department perceive Libya at this point? You say that you can see it as a fairly insecure place. Will this, for example, surprise those at State tonight?
LABOTT: I don't think it surprises anybody. I think that everyone has been necessarily -- certainly on high alert as you approach this anniversary of 9/11. I think that, you know, they think that Libya still has a long way to go. It's consolidating its democracy. It's been a rocky road. And I think there is a lot of progress in terms of trying to build democratic institutions in Libya, which the U.S. and the United Nations have been working with the Libyans.
But, you know, it's still a very insecure place. Warlords run a lot of the country, certainly outside of Tripoli as well. And I think that the U.S. really wants the Libyans to kind of get better handle on security and the rule of law in the country.
ANDERSON: Elise Labott in Washington for you this evening.
In other news, six Egyptian soldiers were killed after explosions near a military intelligence base in the Sinai peninsula town of Rafa (ph) on Wednesday. The area has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the ouster of President Morsy in July. There is no word yet on the identity of the attackers.
Well, an estimated 180 hostages are still being held by Muslim rebels on the Philippine Island of Mindanao as clashes with police and armed forces continued. The standoff began Monday when armed rebels raided several villages.
Isha Sisay has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ISHA SISAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Machine gunfire rings out on the street as a standoff between government soldiers and Muslim rebels intensifies. Several hundred armed guerrillas launched a deadly assault in the southern Philippine Island of Mindanao. In the city of Zamboanga on Monday, they took control of several villages.
About 100 civilians had been taken hostage by the rebels. Some have been spotted being used as human shields, roped together waving white cloths and shouting for the military to stop firing while gunmen behind them shot at soldiers.
Wednesday, local officials made a public plea.
ISABELLE CLIMACO-SALAZAR, ZAMBOANGA MAYOR: We call on the hostage taker to please release all hostages safely.
SISAY: The clashes have forced some 13,000 residents to flee their homes. They're now using a local sports stadium as a makeshift shelter.
Authorities say the gunmen belong to a Muslim separatist group called the Morrow National Liberation Front (ph), or MNLF.
They signed a peace deal with the Philippine government in 1996, but some of its members later broke away to continue their violent campaign.
ASAMIN HUSSIN, MNLF COMMANDER: Our mission is to establish our own flag. But we want to -- the conclusion of that, we want to establish our own (inaudible) government, not a (inaudible) government, but we want to independent Mindenao (inaudible) nation.
SISAY: Government officials say they're continuing to negotiate with the rebels and have ordered troops to show restraint.
But for now, there's no end in sight to the siege.
Isha Sisay, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERONSON: Well, hundreds of thousands of Catalans have created a human chain stretching hundreds of kilometers to call for independence from Spain. The demonstration marks the autonomous region's nation day.
Catalan politicians are calling for a referendum on independence by the end of 2014, a move the Spanish government has rejected.
The European Commission's president says economic recovery is, and I quote, within sight, but warns that could be threatened over delays to a banking union. Jose Manuel Barroso urged EU governments to push ahead with efforts to end financial turmoil.
He made the appeal at his state of the union address to European lawmakers in Strasbourg in France.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSE MANUEL BARROSO, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: None of this is easy. I think that everybody recognizes that we have been living extremely challenging times, a real stress test to the European Union. (inaudible) so that the pass of permanent and (inaudible) reform is as demanding as it is unavoidable.
Let's make no mistake, there is no way back to business as usual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Jose Manuel Barroso there.
Live from London, this is Connect the World. 21 minutes past 9:00 out of London for you.
Coming up, they are free to download, but you could be parting with some very personal details. You might be surprised about what information fitness apps collect and where that information can end up. That story still to come.
And Chile remembers the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power 40 years ago and the atrocities that followed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: Chilean activists rallied outside the presidential palace in Santiago marking the anniversary of the coup that brought the dictator, General Augusto Pinochet to power 40 years ago today.
The current president Sebastian Pinera attended a religious service in the capital afterwards. He called on citizens to come together in national reconciliation.
Well, 40 years after that coup and 23 years since the country's return to democracy, Chile is still recovering from the effects of Pinochet's rule. But survivors say their experiences need not be in vain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: When General Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973, it was quick and brutal. Many supporters of the socialist government suddenly found they were enemies of the state, including Carlos Reyes-Manzo.
CARLOS REYES-MANZO, TORTURE SURVIVOR: They came to my house and just -- they was -- they almost ransacked the place and they took every that was (inaudible) and take it away.
ANDERSON: In total, Chile has officially acknowledged that nearly 38,000 people were subjected to political imprisonment and torture. For Carlos, the torment remains vivid.
REYES-MANZO: They feel completely in control. It is yes it was impossible for them to believe that what they were doing was wrong. You know, this is the kind of ideology where you're convinced that the people is right to torture, right to kill, right to the women, right to whatever they did was (inaudible). And that it was incredible.
ANDERSON: Pinochet died in 2006. And to date, the Chilean government has brought successful prosecutions against more than 250 people for human rights violations while in excess of 1,100 cases remain open.
Amnesty International says that Chile serves as a reminder that perpetrators of atrocities can still be held to account decades after the fact.
JAVIER ZUNIGA, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Even in very difficult circumstances, it's very important to document violations. Human rights is something that we all are responsible for. When there is a disappearance in Chile or in Argentina, where other countries. No, Sri Lanka, Philippines, it's the whole of humanity that is aggressed.
I am aggressed. I am also a victim of these violations even if it's not in my country, because I am a human being.
ANDERSON: He points to Syria as an example of why it's so important to document human rights violations. He says that Amnesty and others will be ready when the dust settles.
ZUNIGA: It takes time. But, you know, there will be justice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: The latest world news headlines are just ahead.
Plus, 12 years after 9/11 how has U.S. foreign policy evolved? Well, we're going to ask Harvard professor Joseph Nye and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz.
And buried beneath the English Channel is that tunnel that carries millions of passengers every year. We're going to look at one of the world's busiest railway routes.
That is coming up on the latest addition of the Gateway Series for you.
Your headlines follow this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: Half past 9:00 in London. This is Connect the World. The top stories for you this hour here on CNN. And the permanent members of the UN security council are meeting on Syria today behind closed doors. France has drafted a resolution requiring Syria to give up its chemical weapons. Western powers want it to spell out consequences for non- compliance, but Russia disagrees.
Well, police in Baghdad say a suicide bomber targeting Shiite worshippers at a mosque has killed at least 30 people. More than 50 others were wounded in that attack. The UN says more than 800 Iraqis were killed in sectarian violence and acts of terrorism in the last month alone.
More than 100 hostages are still being held by Muslim rebels on the Philippine island of Mindanao as standoff with armed forces continues. The rebels belong to a Muslim separatist movement that signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996, but tensions have recently surfaced and -- resurfaced there.
US president Barack Obama has led tributes marking the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(BELL RINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: At Ground Zero in New York, a bell tolled, and then thousands bowed their heads in a moment of silence, remembering when the World Trade Center was hit by consecutive attacks.
In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, people gathered in a field to honor the passengers of Flight 93, who stormed the cockpit of the fourth hijacked plane, and at the Pentagon, Mr. Obama laid a wreath to remember the victims who died when Flight 77 hit that building.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They left this Earth, they slipped from our grasp, but it was written, "What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose." Where your family's lost in the temporal, in the here and now is now eternal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Nearly 3,000 people died in those attacks, their names listed at the 9/11 Memorial in New York.
Well, the attacks of 9/11 have also had a lasting impact on US foreign policy. Immediately after the attacks, the Bush administration launched its global war on terror. It attacked Afghanistan to go after the al Qaeda terrorists who had attacked the American homeland.
Then came Iraq, where a US-led campaign toppled Saddam Hussein in a bid to spread democracy in the Middle East. But by 2008, the American public had lost its appetite for wars in the region. The call for change helped Barack Obama become the first African-American president of the United States.
By the end of 2011, all US forces had pulled out of Iraq and Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in an operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. Bin Laden's death hasn't brought any closure to the post-11 era, as uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa pose new challenges for US policymakers.
Well now, 12 years since the attacks and the wars that followed, the events in Syria have triggered a new debate about the scale and nature of America's role in the world.
To discuss the evolution of US foreign policy since 9/11 and its -- the challenges it faces now, I'm joined by Professor Joseph Nye from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Gentlemen, thank you for joining us tonight. Let me start with you, Mr. Wolfowitz. Obama mentioning the specter of Iraq and Afghanistan several times during his speech last night, there is no doubt his approach in seeking congressional approval and his emphatic "no boots on the ground" line reflects his wariness over those wars.
You were one if not the architect of those wars. Do you accept public opinion has been clouded by your decisions?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ, FORMER US DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: No, public opinion in this country never likes wars, even after victorious ones, like the first Persian Gulf War. We were very war weary after Korea, but that didn't lead President Eisenhower to demonstrate the sort of weakness that this president is demonstrating, constantly talking about Iraq and Afghanistan, instead of emphasizing that Syria is very different from Iraq or Afghanistan.
We're not talking about putting American lives at risk, and to the contrary, by sitting back and doing nothing for two and a half years, I believe President Obama has greatly increased the danger that five or ten years from now we will have to put troops into Syria to secure vital American interests.
ANDERSON: Joseph Nye, do you agree?
WOLFOWITZ: Fortunately, right now, we have allies in Syria, but we're abandoning them.
ANDERSON: All right, thank you. Joseph?
JOSEPH NYE, PROFESSOR, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD: I disagree with Paul. I've just written a book on presidential leadership and the creation of the American era and what in fact is the case is that after Harry Truman got us into Korea, he became wildly unpopular. Eisenhower pulled us out, really, with a stalemate.
And then when the -- it looked like France was going to lose Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu and asked for Eisenhower to bail him out, he said no. So in fact, you fear -- you see a period in the 50s where the Americans pulled back from the over-exuberance, if you want, of the late 40s.
I don't think -- in fact, I think what Obama's policy is is much more similar to Eisenhower's than Paul gives credit for. I think the big mistake was the invasion of Iraq. It's amazing if you look at how American opinion changed from the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to a situation where the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, would not vote for a resolution in terms of using a limited strike against Syria.
ANDERSON: Paul --
NYE: That's not Obama's fault, that's a larger change.
ANDERSON: Paul, we're talking here about wars when we should -- to a certain extent, I wanted to talk about the evolution of foreign policy since 2011 (sic), but I guess the fact that the last decade has been sort of, to a certain extent, shaped by foreign policy decisions about putting boots on the ground is an important one.
Would you accept that foreign policy decision-making is evolving, at least, since 9/11? And how would you suggest it should be shaped going forward?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, I think the example -- there's no question --
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: Well, I think the -- yes.
WOLFOWITZ: Eisenhower was careful --
ANDERSON: Hold on, Joseph. Go on.
WOLFOWITZ: -- he understood the mood of the country. Reagan was careful, he understood the mood of the country, but nevertheless, both of those presidents demonstrated strong leadership. Part of the reason Congress isn't willing to follow Obama on Syria is because for two and a half years, there's been nothing but weakness.
And even now, there's a failure to explain number one, what our interests are, but number two, the differences between what is needed in Syria or what would have been needed in Syria, which is not active American involvement in a war, but rather, supporting our allies. Under Reagan, it was called the Reagan doctrine, and it was very successful.
ANDERSON: You talk about soft power, Joseph, as sort of US policy dictates. Just explain what you mean by that and how that might work going forward.
NYE: Well, soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion and payment. And it's been an important part of American foreign policy, it helps to explain why we won the Cold War.
We did enormous damage to American soft power with the invasion of Iraq. If you look at public opinion polls, we lost about 30 points on average in ever Western European country and more than that in Muslim countries. So, we suffered a great blow to soft power in the first decade of this 21st century.
I think the important thing that Obama's done, going to your point about foreign policy overall, has been the re-focus or re-balance toward Asia. That's the growing and vibrant part of the world economy, and the idea that we're going to put more of our focus on East Asia and Asia generally, I think is an important foreign policy shift.
ANDERSON: Paul, post-World War II, US foreign policy pivoted on geography until the point at which the States was defined to a certain period by its unrivaled power in global affairs. I think most people would suggest now that unrivaled power is lessening, to a certain extent.
And as Joseph suggests, there is a pivot towards the East, there is no doubt about that, so far as US foreign policy is concerned. If you were shaping foreign policy for America today, what would you suggest?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, I think soft power is incredibly important, I agree with Joe about that, and I think, again, to pick, Reagan, Reagan understood that soft power was a very important part of America's strength and exercised it.
When I was assistant secretary for East Asia in the Philippines, in Korea, he obviously did it in Poland. It's a very, very important dimension. But I think pivoting to Asia -- look. I believe Asia is the future, it's an incredibly important region.
But when you talk about pivoting, the message to the Middle East is you're giving up on the Middle East, you're giving up, even, on these hard- fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've been largely missing in the Arab Spring, completely missing in Syria.
The president had a chance -- I actually thought because he wasn't George W. Bush that he really could rebuild American soft power in the Middle East, but actually, our reputation in the Middle East is even lower now than it was before. Our friends who want strength don't see it, and our enemies see weakness. That is not good.
ANDERSON: A weak America going forward? Is this the end of US sort of global dominance in world affairs, Joseph? And if so, to a certain extent, are you quite pleased to see that? Do you think it's a better America going forward with this sort of sense of soft power?
NYE: No, I actually think the United States is going to be and remain the dominant power in the world for the next 20, 30 years. The National Intelligence Council, which does intelligence estimates for the president, a body I once headed, did an estimate of what the world would look like in 2030, and saw the United States as the preeminent country. China's not about to pass us in that sense.
So, I don't think America's in decline. I think that's -- nor do I think that this is a real isolationism. This isn't like the 1930s.
What it is is a choice which is saying if the Middle East is going through a series of revolutions, which we are not able to control, instead of getting ourselves mired and bogged down in those revolutions, we should be looking to shape, nudge, cajole, what we can at the margins, but we also ought to be focusing on Asia, which is going to be --
ANDERSON: Sure. OK.
NYE: -- the dominate part of the world economy.
ANDERSON: Paul, last word. Do you regret the decisions that you and the administration back in 2001 made on the Middle East, given that they -- there was no doubt that those decisions are now shaping US foreign policy and will do going forward?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, both of those wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were unpopular, and particularly unpopular with Muslims. And there's no getting around that. Today is September 11th. September 11th is the reason that we had to use a great deal of hard power. It wasn't always used in the best way.
But I think the important thing is that we still have -- and this I agree with Joe 100 percent -- we still have enormous strength, and the most significant strength we have, which is why I'm not crazy about that word "dominant," is not our dominance over others, but the fact that so many people look to us for help.
We have we have so many allies and potential allies, and I think what we're in danger of losing now, particularly in the Middle East, which I'd love to be able to forget the Middle East. I share that sentiment. But unfortunately, the Middle East doesn't forget us, and we are losing the friends that we could have there, and our enemies are chortling, I'm afraid.
ANDERSON: To both of you, we thank you very much, indeed, for joining us on what is an important day for the States. Thank you.
Live from London, you are watching CONNECT THE WORLD, I'm Becky Anderson. It's 42 minutes past 9:00 here. They may help you track your morning jog, but do help apps also share sensitive information with others? Details on that coming up.
And it's the first land link between Britain and continental Europe since the last ice age. Up next, we travel the Channel Tunnel on the Gateway. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: It's at the heart of Europe's high-speed rail service, carrying millions of passengers each year. All this month on the Gateway, we are looking at the English Channel, and this week, we are deep underground, traveling through what is the world's longest undersea tunnel. Have a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A handshake a hundred meters below the English Channel, an historic moment between Britain and France.
(CROWD CHEERING)
SHUBERT: Twenty years ago, a fragile friendship was cemented in the form of a tunnel. Today, St. Pancras International is London's gateway to Europe. One million people flock here every week. From this station, the Eurostar high-speed train heads south under the sea and onto the continent.
SHUBERT (on camera): Now, the idea for a tunnel connecting Britain to mainland Europe was first conceived more than 200 years ago, but today, these Eurostar trains carry 10 million passengers a year between London to Paris, Brussels, and beyond.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This train is now about to depart.
SHUBERT (voice-over): For 18 minutes, we plunge into darkness, traveling over 50 kilometers in the world's longest undersea tunnel. One of three, two for rail traffic and one for service and maintenance. Changer de Besagne (ph) on the French side is a junction where all three tunnels emerge.
SHUBERT (on camera): And at peak times, a train comes through here every two minutes.
SHUBERT (voice-over): In a dark control room at the UK terminal, staff watch over the Eurostar shuttle and freight trains all traveling through the tunnel.
KIRSTEN MCCALLUM, RAIL CONTROL CENTRE: Here is the full board. It shows every single train that's in the tunnel at any one time. We know within a hundred meters exactly where any train is, how fast it's going, and where it's supposed to be going.
SHUBERT: Every day, officials say the tunnels plays host to 400 train journeys, 50,000 people, and 550,000 tons of goods, and will soon become even busier.
Eurostar has invested heavily to expand its fleet, and by 2015, German operator Deutsche Bahn will commence its service through the tunnel, increasing passenger numbers by a further 3 to 4 million a year.
JACQUES GOUNON, CEO, EUROTUNNEL: We have the capability to manage all this additional traffic. This is our responsibility to give to either British citizens and continent people more possibility to cross easily and very quickly through the Channel. We are the heart of the European high- speed network.
SHUBERT (on camera): It's taken me just two and a half hours to go from the streets of London to the boulevards of Paris, and there are now even more ambitious plans to expand the railway network on both sides of the Channel Tunnel. That means connecting more people and more businesses across Europe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: The latest in the Gateway series for you. Coming up after this short break on CONNECT THE WORLD, health apps collect data like the distance that you and I run or how many calories we've lost, but does this information remain confidential? Well, we're going to fill you in a little bit more on that. You may be surprised and slightly alarmed, after this.
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ANDERSON: They are meant to track your fitness and exercise, but some apps may be sending information about your health to advertisers or data companies. Well, new research shows that 20 of the most popular apps transmit personal data to dozens of other firms. Surprised? Well, let's find out what's going on. Samuel Burke tells us which ones are to blame.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each time Kristy Ingram takes a run, her apps are up and running before she even takes off.
KRISTY INGRAM, APP-USING RUNNER: I use technology every time I run, because I track my runs, and it keeps track of how far I ran, how many calories I burned, and what the time was, where I ran, what time of day.
BURKE: Like so many exercise enthusiasts carrying a smartphone --
INGRAM: It has my total amount of runs that I've ever ran.
BURKE: -- she likes to keep a close eye on the progress she's making. But when the run is finished, the data remains stored on the app, and a study just released by data intelligence firm Evidon shows that 20 of the most-used health apps are sharing information with third-party companies.
ANDY KAHL, DIRECTOR OF EVIDON STUDY: Mobile applications are using third-party data collection and advertising tools in order to monetize those applications. It happens across all types of apps, including ones that users may find fairly sensitive, like health and fitness, wellness applications
BURKE: The apps in this study cover everything from running apps to apps that let women track their menstrual cycles. Many of the companies behind the apps insist they're only sharing analytics about app's functionality and use, not any identifiable information about users' identity or health. And they say that's no different from the tracking that many popular websites engage in.
KAHL: An advertiser might be interested in your location if they sell energy drinks or smoothies, and so they may look for where is this person, where did he complete his run, and how close is the nearest smoothie place so that I can advertise a special on a smoothie to him.
BURKE: Sports psychologist Melinda Nicci says it's only natural that we would be more concerned about a device storing data related to our bodies and health.
MELINDA NICCI, SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST: When you go on a social networking site, you can be a certain person or you can create a persona for yourself. But with health tracking, it's real metrics and real sensors tracking things that are completely real and in real time a lot of the time as well. So, I think there's a kind of vulnerability about giving that much away that we can't control.
BURKE: The information these health apps track may be a goldmine for advertisers, but it could be even more valuable to health insurance companies. And they are, indeed, moving into the apps business and making partnerships with companies like Map My Fitness. But that app's policy explicitly states that users must opt in before any data is shared is shared with an insurance company.
BURKE (on camera): Many of the companies behind the most popular health apps go to great strides to try and keep their users' information private, but apps are businesses, too, so they have to look for innovate and creative ways to make money, which could make information about us and our bodies more and more valuable.
Samuel Burke, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: Looking like that, Samuel should be pleased to share his fitness regime and information, I think. He looks great, doesn't he? Let's bring in Bridget Carey. She's the senior editor of CNET, the tech media website, joining me now from New York.
Very important point, here, about privacy, isn't there? I've got a little fob here that tracks the amount of steps that I walk, calories I'm using. I just sit it on my belt during the day. But I know this is being tracked by the site that I've logged into. How much of that information is being shared by -- or to other organizations? And should I be concerned?
BRIDGET CAREY, SENIOR EDITOR, CNET: These fitness apps, like those devices you have, are just growing in popularity right now. So, this is an important concern to think about because the apps are collecting lots of data on you, whether it's something as simple ad your gender or age, or something as really personal about some serious health issues that might be recording that you have or even your weight.
So, these companies are saying -- that make the apps, they're saying, well, we're not tying your name to the information, but not everyone is saying that. You don't know. There's no way to really be sure sometimes.
So, it's just important to be smart on how much you're sharing. Use common sense. Would you tell someone on the street everything about you? Why would you tell an app?
ANDERSON: Yes.
CAREY: A lot of these apps are used as like a little diary to keep track of what you're eating, but what you're eating is now being sent to advertisers to serve new ads on your phone.
ANDERSON: You're making a really good point here. There's two points I think we should make. One is the sort of wider question of privacy and data, but when we log onto Google and we get our searches for free, should we really not be considering that that data that we are -- that they are collecting on us is being used? And I think that's pretty obvious that it is.
Tools like Facebook, Google, Instagram, sharing our data, of course. Do you think we are likely to see at any point a consumer backlash to this? Because there is a real issue of privacy, isn't there?
CAREY: Oh, yes. Free comes with a cost, and that cost is your data, whether you're on Facebook or Google. Everyone wants to know at least what kind of person you are so they can send the right ads to you.
If Nike is sending information about you to Amazon, which the study showed, maybe it's just about to show that you need a woman's running show than a men's. Well, then, how far does that go? So, people are getting more sensitive now. It is a bigger topic. And I think you are seeing some push back from feeling a little creeped out when more of this information comes to light.
ANDERSON: So, should apps be more transparent?
CAREY: Oh, absolutely. I think there's a call to make more transparency on at least what we're saying. You see a lot of people pushing back against sites like Google saying, wait, what information in my e-mail are you sending to advertisers? Small things like that that are going to court right now will open the gateway to other things like fitness.
ANDERSON: Fascinating. Thank you for that. Your expert on the subject tonight. Do you use these fitness and health fobs or apps? Are you surprised that your information, if you do, is being passed on to other companies?
The team here at CONNECT THE WORLD wants to hear from you. Have your say. You can tweet me @BeckyCNN of course, that is @BeckyCNN, there's Facebook and the blog as well.
And in tonight's Parting Shots, every married couple remembers that first spark of falling in love, don't they? Well, one man in the United States was able to experience that all over again when he woke up after surgery.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CANDICE MORTENSEN, WIFE OF JASON MORTENSEN: I'm going to be right here with you. You eat the cracker.
JASON MORTENSEN, RECOVERING FROM SURGERY: Who are you? What's your name?
C. MORTENSEN: My name's Candice. I'm your wife.
J. MORTENSEN: You're my wife?
C. MORTENSEN: Yes.
J. MORTENSEN: Holy (expletive deleted)!
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Jason Mortensen says he didn't recognize his wife of six years as his anesthetic wore off. In the heartwarming video that has now gone viral, Mortensen calls her the prettiest woman he has ever seen. The couple have taken to national television to deny that the video was a hoax.
I'm Becky Anderson, that was CONNECT THE WORLD. Sweet. Thanks for watching. The team here bids you a very good evening. CNN continues, of course, after this.
END
