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Date: 3-31-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
The prince of darkness resigns: A look at the controversial
businesses dealings of Pentagon adviser and war hawk Richard
Perle
Three Dominican nuns face 50 years in prison for conducting
citizens weapons inspections: Trial begins today in Colorado
What will a U.S. occupation of Iraq look like? A speech
by Asla Bali of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
8:01-8:10 Headlines
8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break
8:10-8:30 The prince of darkness resigns: A look at the
controversial businesses dealings of Pentagon adviser Richard
Perle
“Last week, Richard Perle, the influential Pentagon
adviser, was speaking on his mobile phone outside a Senate
office building when trouble came from an unlikely source:
the parking attendant.
"It's not about the oil," Mr Perle was heard to
shout at the attendant in apparent frustration before returning
to his call.
It was that sort of week for Mr Perle, one of the leading
architects of the US policy on Iraq, who has been embroiled
in a storm of controversy over his outside business interests.”
That was the opening of a piece in the Financial Times on
Saturday. The paper went on to report:
“Mr Perle was appointed chairman of the Defense Policy
Board in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary. Although
the board members are not paid government employees, they
have grown in stature because of Mr Perle's close ties to
the administration's hawks.
His role came under scrutiny after the New Yorker magazine
reported that Mr Perle had attended a lunch in January with
two Saudi businessmen to seek funding for his venture capital
group, Trireme Partners, which invests in defence and security
companies. One of the Saudis was alleged to be Adnan Kashoggi,
the arms dealer at the centre of the Iran-Contra scandal.
Mr Perle denied the allegations, and threatened to sue the
publication for libel in London. But the controversy did not
end.
He finally resigned his chairmanship on Thursday night after
his work for Global Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications
company, sparked calls in Congress for an ethics investigation.
Mr Perle was to be paid $750,000 by the company to help
win government approval to sell its assets to a Chinese-controlled
company. The deal has been blocked by the defense department
and the FBI, which object to a Chinese company controlling
the vital fiber-optic network that the government uses. Mr
Perle had bristled at the suggestion that he has done anything
improper, or should leave the board altogether. He said in
a letter to Mr Rumsfeld that he was resigning his post to
prevent a political distraction.
Asked about the controversy last week, he suggested it was
the work of a leftwing conspiracy.
He told the Financial Times, "I'm beginning to think
that people who've been saying on the internet that I am part
of a small neo-conservative cabal that runs the world actually
believe what they are saying."
Guest: Frida Berrigan, Senior Research Associate with the
Arms Trade Resource Center of the World Policy Instituteand
author of the piece “Richard Perle: It Pays To Be the
Prince of Darkness” which appeared recently in In These
Times.
Links:
www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=126_0_7_0_C
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:30 Perle Cont’d
8:30-8:40 Three Dominican nuns face 50 years in prison for
conducting citizens weapons inspections: Trial begins today
in Colorado
In Colorado, three Dominican nuns stand trial today for
staging a peaceful protest at a Minuteman III missile silo.
The cut through a fence at the site used their own blood to
paint a cross on the side of the silo and hammered away at
the military structure.
The women, Ardeth Platte, 66, Carol Gilbert, 55, and Jackie
Hudson, 68, could face 50 years in prison.
The nuns, jailed since their Oct. 6 protest near Greeley,
maintain they were a ``Citizens Weapons Inspections Team''
that was symbolically disarming the United States.
About 50 peace advocates are expected to attend the trial,
including Elizabeth McAlister, the widow of longtime peace
activist Philip Berrigan, and their daughter, Frida Berrigan
who joins us on the phone.
Gilbert and Platte both lived at Jonah House, the communal
residence Berrigan founded in Baltimore. Hudson belongs to
a similar group in Poulsbo, Wash.
Guest: Frida Berrigan, speaking to us from Colorado before
the trial begins
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 What will a U.S. occupation of Iraq look like?
A speech by Asla Bali of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee
Asli Bali recently spoke a Not in Our Name conference in
New York. Bali is an attorney in a private practice and a
Board member of the American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee’s
New York Chapter
Guest: Asla Bali, an attorney in private practice and a
Board member of the American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee’s
New York Chapter
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Six journalists still missing in Iraq including two from
Newsday: We talk to Newsday editor Les Payne and Pacifica’s
unembedded reporter Jerry Quickly who was expelled from Iraq
last week
War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly rejected advice
from top Pentagon planners on how to invade Iraq: Former Marine
& UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter explains why the U.S.
may lose the war
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:20 SIX JOURNALISTS STILL MISSING IN IRAQ INCLUDING
TWO FROM NEWSDAY: WE TALK TO NEWSDAY EDITOR LES PAYNE AND
PACIFICA’S UNEMBEDDED REPORTER JERRY QUICKLY WHO WAS
EXPELLED FROM IRAQ LAST WEEK
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists reports
there are now six international journalists missing in Iraq.
They are Matthew McAllester and Moises Saman of Newsday in
New York. Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer
with a Danish daily paper. U.S. Free lance photographer Molly
Bingham. And a pair of journalists from the British ITV News,
cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman.
The Committee reports that three journalists have died so
far.
On March 22, Terry Lloyd, a reporter for Britain's ITN,
was killed, perhaps by "friendly fire" from U.S.
or British troops, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
The same day, Paul Moran, a free-lance cameraman on assignment
for the Australian Broadcasting Corp., was killed in an apparent
suicide attack when a man detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint
in northeastern Iraq.
Another ITN reporter, Gaby Rado was found dead Sunday in
a parking lot of the Abu Sanaa hotel in Sulaimaniyah in northern
Iraq, where he and other reporters were staying.
The families of the two Newsday journalists missing in Baghdad
asked the Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday to help locate their
loved ones and secure their release.
In related news, the U.S. military has expelled at least
five journalists over the past week.
Two Israeli and two Portuguese journalists are charging
that U.S. forces detained them for 72 hours, denying them
food and water and making them stand overnight in the cold.
One of the Israeli reporters said, "They made us lie
on the ground with our face in the sand for hours before we
were given a thorough body search.”
One of the Portuguese journalists were reportedly beaten
by five U.S. soldiers.
And Christian Science Monitor stringer Philip Smucker was
also removed by the military from Iraq. He is now reporting
from Kuwait. Last week the U.S. military expelled him from
Iraq for disclosing what the Pentagon claimed to be sensitive
information.
Well today we are joined by Pacifica’s own unembedded
reporter, Jerry Quickly who left Baghdad last week after being
expelled by Iraqi officials.
- Les Payne, deputy managing editor of Newsday
- Jerry Quickly, reporter with Pacifica Radio who was recently
expelled from Baghdad by Iraqi officials
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:30 Reporters cont’d
9:30-9:58 War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly rejected
advice from top Pentagon planners on how to invade Iraq: Former
Marine & UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter explains why
the U.S. may lose the war
War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice
from top Pentagon planners that substantially more troops
would be needed to fight a war in Iraq. This according to
a report by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine.
Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the
invasion that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply
reduced and got his way.
He also miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance and
overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay
the invasion until troops who were denied access through Turkey
could find another route.
And the Washington Post is reporting that more than a dozen
officers interviewed, including a senior officer in Iraq,
said Rumsfeld took significant risks by leaving key units
in the United States and Germany at the start of the war.
That resulted in an invasion force that is too small, strung
out, underprotected, undersupplied and awaiting tens of thousands
of reinforcements who will not get there for weeks.
Current and former U.S. military officers are blaming Rumsfeld
and his aides saying the civilian leaders"micromanaged"
the deployment plan out of mistrust of the generals and an
attempt to prove their own theory that a light, maneuverable
force could handily defeat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Rumsfeld yesterday repeatedly denied the reports on the
Sunday talk shows, insisting the war is going as planned.
We are now joined by Scott Ritter who has predicted the
U.S. will lose the war.
- Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector and US marine.
In a recent interview on Irish radio he warned the US will
lose the war with Iraq. Ritter said: "We find ourselves...
facing a nation of 23 million, with armed elements numbering
around 7 million --who are concentrated at urban areas.
We will not win this fight. America will loose this war."
Links: “US Will Lose the Iraq War” at www.GuluFuture.com
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:58 Ritter cont’d
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer.
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