Mods, the below article is my own so there's no need to truncate it to four paragraphs. ;)
An Audience with Seymour Hersh On Thursday, March 3, 2005, Seymour Hersh spoke at Bellarmine University as a guest of the Wyatt Lecture Series. Hersh is an accomplished investigative journalist. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and is a multiple recipient of the Polk award. Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, where American soldiers partook in a massive, cold-blooded execution of the citizens of the village of My Lai. Hersh also publicly broke the story of the prison abuses occurring in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and 2004. His appearance was on the heels of the release of his eighth book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. What follows is my review of his speech based upon notes and a portion of the audio I was able to record from his speech. In some places, I interjected some of my own opinion and conclusions but the bulk of what follows is straight from the mouth of Seymour Hersh.The Washington Times wrote that Bush credits his faith in God for the “accomplishments” of his foreign policy. Bush feels that he is on a mission to do God’s work to spread democracy. What the Washington Times failed to mention was that the mission of Bush/God to spread democracy meant only a certain few countries that happened to be vital to U.S. oil interests. Why aren’t we spreading democracy to North Korea, Pakistan, or Cuba?
One reason mentioned by Hersh, near the end of the question-and-answer session, is that Pakistan is obliging the Bush administration. The Pakistani generals are distrustful of Gen. Musharraf but they keep quiet. Why? Because if they move to oust Musharraf, Pakistan would likely be put on the list of evil-doers and risk U.S. action to attack Pakistan or work to eliminate its nuclear weapons and programs (and put Pakistan at a decided disadvantage to its nuclear neighbor, India.)
Bush has also been recently claiming credit for recent developments in Lebanon and Libya. Libya’s Qhadafi tried for years to engage in talks to handover his weapons programs in return for economic relations. Hersh has spoken with European leaders and, in those discussions, their distaste of the American president is obvious. According to Hersh, they hate Bush (or, at least, his foreign policy decisions.) Ignoring the Iraqi invasion or working with Bush to repair Iraq is a “lose-lose” situation to them. The European leaders lose support from their citizens who want no involvement in Iraq and they lose by not participating in making Iraq a stable country working toward a democratic government.
Speaking of the new Iraqi government, Hersh brought up an interesting point: it’s been five weeks since the Iraqi elections and there has yet to be any sort of decision for the formation of an independent (non-American puppet) government. Hersh questioned why that was. His answer came in form of the current Prime Minister, American puppet Iyad Allawi. The convenient 48% “majority” obtained by the Shi’a in the recent Iraqi election is evidence of the American push to install Allawi in a position of power in the new government. Bush’s foreign policy all but demands a pro-American figurehead leading Iraq in order to obtain a formal request to keep American troops in Iraq. This means the new Iraqi government will, indeed, not be a democratic government but, rather, another in a string of American interventionist results.
So, how did we end up in Iraq in the first place? Intelligence was inconclusive and was based upon dubious and non-credible sources, much of it from Ahmed Chalabi and exiled members of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who had their own axes to grind against Saddam. The Bush administration had to go into heavy spin mode, spreading propaganda that intimated that Saddam and Iraq were linked to the 9/11 attacks. This is evidenced by the large number of people that still believe Saddam was tied to the 9/11 attacks, some polls showing as many as 40% still believing this. Within the administration, critics of the plan to invade Iraq were ostracized while those following inline with the administration’s plans received promotions. Hersh also mentioned that, aside from the typical PNAC neocons that were dead-set for invading Iraq, Newt Gingrich and Doug Wormser (from Cheney’s office), were key members in fomenting the U.S. plans to invade Iraq and spreading the propaganda to garner enough public support for the war.
The British were also involved in the biggest sales pitch of all-time. Hersh labeled Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, Bush’s puppy. In 2002, a British JIC memo was uncovered that revealed that the British were tasked with helping Bush to convince the American public of the need to invade Iraq. Part of this involved the now-famous forged documents that were faked to show an Iraqi interest in purchasing yellowcake from Niger. It is this piece of propaganda that is the basis for an investigation by Fitzpatrick into the leaking of then-covert CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press. Robert Novak printed her name in a column and that started a long-lasting and controversial scandal that has failed to come to fruition two years after-the-fact. Many people, including myself, have labeled Novak with disparaging names for his part in this. However, Hersh stated that Novak is a good conservative writer and has the utmost in integrity. Perhaps Hersh’s assessment is the most accurate in light of recent reports that Novak did name, during his grand jury testimony, the person who leaked Plame’s name to him. Hersh is of the opinion that Fitzpatrick is on to something bigger than just the leaking of a CIA agent’s name (which is a difficult thing to prove was a malicious act and knowingly in violation of Federal law.) Only time will tell, in this case. How much time is needed, though, is unknown.
Hersh also spoke of an impending civil war in Iraq between Shi’a and Sunni. The minority Sunni ruled Iraq (in its various forms throughout history) for centuries. Certain elements of the Sunni will not voluntarily give up that power to the Shi’a easily. The Iraqi National Guard is largely comprised of Shi’a. The Shi’a civilians, in turn, are becoming increasingly upset with the current security structure over the inability to prevent repeated attacks from the resistance, now focusing on Iraqis working with the occupying forces.
Before continuing, I want to point out something that has been discussed by some in the past and was specifically mentioned by Hersh. The Bush administration and the American media keep referring to the source of the fighting in Iraq as coming from insurgents. That is incorrect. An insurgency implies a period of peace has been in place and then an organized resistance forms against the occupiers. That is not the case with the current situation in Iraq. We are fighting the same group of people as on day one of the invasion. Saddam knew Bush was serious and was going to invade. Groups of the Baathists and other Saddam supporters disappeared before U.S. troops reached Baghdad. They created caches of weapons and ammunition so that they could be easily recovered later for use in guerilla warfare against the American troops. (See this article for some detail on the plans Saddam had for a resistance:
http://brownwatch.squarespace.com/to-the-present/2004/10/17/chain-of-command-what-geneva-conventions.html)
The renewed resistance started in earnest in August 2003. At that point, Iraqi infrastructure, such as water pipelines, was being attacked in far more serious ways than was being reported in the American media. American intelligence was working off of the assumption that the resistance was comprised of three-man cells, perhaps even 10- to 15-man cells. The American intelligence had no solid information as to the true size of the Iraqi resistance. Some thought a couple thousand while others said as many as 20,000. At one point, several thousand detainees were held in Abu Ghraib alone. That would have been half the resistance if everyone detained were part of the resistance. That was, sadly, very far from the truth.
The Pentagon began inventing facts to cover for the attacks and the massive roundup of “insurgents” that made their way to prisons, such as Abu Ghraib. Hersh pointed out that the U.S. was incapable of obtaining decent intelligence on the Iraqi resistance but is apparently very adept at picking up on “sensitive communications” between bin Laden and Zarqawi that happen to make it to FOX News broadcasts.
The Iraqi resistance has the government wired. They have people in various key areas of the government. Hersh made a point of emphasizing that. In the meantime, American intelligence about the resistance remains at about the same level as it did eighteen months ago, scattered and incomplete. This lack of intelligence is what led to wholesale roundups of suspected members of the resistance (for a prime example of how house-to-house searches were conducted, see the Extra Features on the Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD. Specifically, the interview with the Swedish journalist who went along with American troops on house-to-house searches in Samarra.) Most of the detainees were kept in Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib has a notorious reputation amongst Iraqis. It is the site of the most heinous acts against prisoners by Saddam Hussein and his supporters during his reign. The Americans at Abu Ghraib, however, took things even further. Aside from the heinous actions involving beatings, using dogs trained to bite the groin areas, and even outright murder, one aspect that has raised the ire amongst Iraqis, Muslims, and others around the world, is the sexual abuse levied against the prisoners. Hersh prefaced this segment of his speech by stating that those involved in the actual application of abuse and torture in Abu Ghraib were not just acting out of ignorance or out of being victims of circumstance (understaffing an over-crowded prison.) On the contrary, the specific actions taken had to only be at the behest of people in charge of the intelligence gathering in Iraq. This goes all the way to the White House.
Hersh went into a bit of detail in the drafting of the so-called Torture Memo by Jay Bybee approved by now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and consulted by now-Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. This Torture Memo was written with one goal in mind, creating a narrowly defined term of torture that would allow the Bush administration a great amount of latitude in its techniques for obtaining information. This all began with abuse and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some of the detainees at Guantanamo were elderly men, as old as being in their 80s, who were in no way a part of Al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan. When these innocent people were finally released, some released more than two years after being captured, Hersh opined, if they were not enemies of America before, they were now. U.S. techniques were creating more enemies and were resulting in useless information as detainees were confessing to anything in order to stop the torture and abuse.
At Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration orchestrated policies that were focused on humiliating detainees through sexual means. In the Muslim world, sex is an incredibly taboo subject. Men are not allowed to touch women in certain situations, being seen naked or forced to perform certain sexual acts brings shame upon a family that, in Muslim society, is a sentence worse than death. This was surely known by members of the Bush administration that recruited people to setup and train officers and interrogators at the prisons. We now know that five key men all had severe human rights abuses in their past careers in running prisons here in America. This was surely known by Ashcroft, despite the statements otherwise by the DOJ Inspector General. Hersh was also made aware of first-hand stories from former detainees of Abu Ghraib. He found that some woman at Abu Ghraib were so ashamed of the sexual abuse to which they were submitted that they sent messages to their family and friends to kill them when they came to visit them in the prison or when they were released. They were so ashamed of what was done to them or what they saw that they preferred to be killed than to live with the shame. Other prisoners were intimidated by the taking of photos of them in various sexual positions. These photos were used as carrots to get the prisoners to join the resistance report back to the officers with intelligence on the resistance. Failure to do so meant that the photos would be disseminated around their village and they would forever be shamed. The actual group in charge of Abu Ghraib was previously involved in traffic control and could not have known of the extreme taboo surrounding Muslims and sexual abuses. These orders had to have come from above.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib are also leaving an indelible mark in the psyche of the “worker-bee” soldiers ordered to take the photos and carry out some of the abuses. An example is the case of a female soldier who returned to the States, Indiana, specifically, from Iraq. Her mother noticed a marked change in her daughter’s attitude. The soldier’s condition worsened and wouldn’t even talk or meet with her mother. The mother, however, did come across a CD during a visit to her daughter’s home. On that CD was a folder named “Iraq” and it contained many photos of the abuses that occurred in Abu Ghraib. As a reaction to the stress, this female soldier had been consistently going to a tattoo parlor and had been having her body covered in black tattoos.
But, still, the resistance raged on and even intensified. U.S. troop deaths have surpassed the 1,500 mark. The last 500 were killed more quickly than the previous 500 that were, in turn, killed more quickly than the first 500 before them. American intelligence is still very lacking in terms of the structure and operation of the resistance. American forces are relying more and more on renditions (the process of abducting a suspect and flying them to a country where human rights are not as recognized as here in the U.S., for example: Egypt or Jordan.) In fact, the CBS News program 60 Minutes on March 6, 2005 had a segment covering renditions and tracked down two particular planes used for the process. The Bush administration has made changes to the rules regarding renditions so that Congress is no longer needed for authorization. The Bush administration is becoming an authoritarian one that has worked to remove the checks and balances that are part and parcel of a democracy. This administration preaches about its mission to spread democracy abroad while it works to dismantle it here at home.
Hersh also discussed, briefly, the situation that arose in Falluja when the U.S. laid siege to the city. Hersh spoke of an article in the British paper, The Guardian, in which Adnan Chaichan was interviewed (see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1387460,00.html - scroll down to ‘December 27’). The article mentioned that doctors were locked in a hospital and then tied up. The wounded were not allowed to be transported to the hospital. A curfew was in place such that any traffic was considered to be part of the resistance and would be fired upon. The U.S. forces seized mobile and satellite phones. That meant the doctors were unable to communicate with citizens of Falluja other than by a few hard-line telephones, which were used by doctors to direct people with how to treat the wounded.
The destruction of Falluja was but one of many actions by the U.S. military that has been met with harsh emotions from Iraqi citizens who are frustrated with the U.S. occupation and the continued lack of security and the lack of reconstruction. Hersh is all but convinced that a civil war will breakout in Iraq leading to further unrest throughout the Middle East, including Iran.
In regards to Iran, Hersh stated that his contacts and research points to four different groups of U.S. Special Forces being in place in Iran. A member of the audience questioned Hersh’s credibility and accused him of harboring an anti-Bush bias. Hersh replied to the written question that the articles he writes are based upon information from his contacts, many of which are very high up in the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the government and his information usually shows up a few weeks later in the mainstream media as accepted fact. He hasn’t been wrong yet. Hersh only reveals the names of his sources when allowed to do so. Most of his contacts, however, work in intelligence and revealing their names would compromise their safety and their jobs. Hersh did say that some high-ranking Pentagon officials are very critical and upset with the Bush administration but are unable to make public comments to that effect. As far as Hersh’s comments that fighting with Iran is imminent, he was told that if he wrote the piece correctly, there wouldn’t be a fight (meaning, if he uncovered enough information and enough people read it and criticized the Bush administration, an invasion or an attack on Iran would not happen.) Hersh also tossed aside talk of a draft stating the Pentagon doesn’t want to see an influx of people who do not want to fight and, also, getting a draft through Congress would be very difficult right now.
The general sentiment coming out of Hersh’s speech and the question-and-answer segment was that the Bush administration was selling fear in the name of a mission to do God’s work, on a very selective basis. Hersh is genuinely frightened of this administration and its penchant to do anything and say anything with almost total impunity. Hersh also was of the belief that our media is all but complicit in the fear mongering coming from the Bush administration, failing to be objective and critical of the government, as its job should be. The mega-media companies that have resulted in the wake of the FCC deregulation have harmed the credibility of our media and the American public is not protesting as effectively as the anti-war demonstrators during the Vietnam era.
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