[Peace-discuss] Seymour Hersh interview

[Morton K. Brussel]

FYI

SPIEGEL ONLINE - September 28, 2007, 11:58 AM

URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,508394,00.html

INTERVIEW WITH INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST SEYMOUR HERSH

'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way  
in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran.  
SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam,  
and how the US press failed the First Amendment.

For now, American troops are on the Iraq side of the border with  
Iran. Might that change?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New  
York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said  
that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of  
atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear  
program in Iran?

Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the  
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what  
(IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei and the various reports have been  
saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher  
than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a  
peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are  
at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what  
they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that  
they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of  
course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the  
worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a  
bombing raid.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger  
in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to  
the Iraq War?

Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize  
people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them.  
Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while  
Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The  
reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like  
to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the  
missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the  
ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has  
with Iran come from?

Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us  
to the brink with Tehran?

Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for  
going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so  
many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing  
again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is  
no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to  
discover things for themselves.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for  
getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?

Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the  
mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and  
make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry  
Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and  
you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this  
time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the  
madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you  
see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?

Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out  
by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight  
tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence  
there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House  
listening?

Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The  
"Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional  
troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve  
security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But  
the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've  
basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis  
from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success,  
all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?

Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there  
are a couple more soldiers on the ground.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the lessons of the Surge?

Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has  
accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When  
he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to  
bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he  
now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen.  
You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area  
that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have  
the Shiites in the South.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is  
likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with  
Vietnam?

Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and  
doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain  
point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam  
War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it  
but they don't care.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US,  
will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?

Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic.  
How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front,  
though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again,  
there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready  
to fight another stupid war in another two decades.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of  
the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they  
did in the run-up to the Iraq War?

Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they  
blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the  
infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in  
jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and  
he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become  
more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press  
failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible  
failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old  
paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it.  
They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have  
to live with it.

Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith

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