Home > Programs
> Democracy
Now! > Wed., July 23, 2003
Democracy Now!
ATTN: ALL STATIONS
From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 7-23-03
PRSS Channel: A67.7
8:00-8:01 Billboard:
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits8:00-8:01 Billboard:
U.S. Army Says Hussein's Two Sons Killed In Firefight With
American Troops
INTRO: The top U.S. military commander in Iraq says his
troops yesterday killed Saddam Hussein’s two sons, Uday
and Qusay. They were the most wanted men in Iraq besides their
father. We speak with London Independent reporter Patrick
Cockburn.
What Really Happened to Jessica Lynch?
INTRO: As Private Jessica Lynch arrives in West Virgina
Democracy Now! takes a look at the media coverage of her capture
and “rescue” in Iraq. We speak with Washington
Post ombudsman Michael Getler and listen to an earlier interview
with London Times reporter Richard Lloyd Parry.
Judge Drops Two Terrorism Counts Against Civil Rights Attorney
Lynne Stewart in Major Defeat for the Justice Department
INTRO: A federal judge said the charges Lynne Stewart conspired
to support a terrorism organization by delivering messages
from her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman’s prison cell
to his followers in Egypt were unconstitutionally vague. We
speak with Lynne Stewart and her lawyer Michael Tigar.
House Votes 309-188 to Scale Back Patriot Act; FCC Rules
May Be Overturned Too
INTRO: Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) discusses last night’s
vote where the House surprisingly voted to bar the Justice
Department from secretly searching homes in first vote against
Patriot Act. The House may also vote this week to oppose the
FCC’s recent media ownership rule changes. And Sanders
raises questions about what Vice President Dick Cheney knew
about the Iraq intelligence.
GOP Warns TV Stations Not to Air Ad Alleging Bush Mislead
the Nation Over Iraq
INTRO: Republican attorneys claim that it isn’t the
Bush administration who is guilty of misleading the country
but the Democrats for running an anti-Bush TV spot. Only one
station has refused to run the ad, a Fox station.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:15 U.S. Army Says Hussein's Two Sons Killed In Firefight
With American Troops
INTRO: The top U.S. military commander in Iraq says his
troops yesterday killed Saddam Hussein’s two sons, Uday
and Qusay. They were the most wanted men in Iraq besides their
father. We speak with London Independent reporter Patrick
Cockburn.
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq says his troops yesterday
killed Sadaam Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay. They
were the most wanted men in Iraq besides their father.
The deaths occurred in Mosul after an intense gun battle
Tuesday. 37-year-old Qusay was once seen as Saddam heir apparent.
He headed the Special Republican Guard and the nation’s
other elite security services. 39-year-old Uday headed up
the Fedayeen milita. --- We’ll have more on this in
a few minutes.
Also killed in the raid was Qusay’s 14-year-old son
and a bodyguard. Four U.S. soldiers were injured in the attack.
The New York Times reports that U.S. military leaders believe
the killings may lead to an immediate wave of retribution
attacks. In the long run, officials hope the deaths will demoralize
surviving Baath Party members and other opponents of the U.S.
occupation.
Some in Baghdad said Uday and Qusay were more feared than
even their father. Celebrations in Baghdad last night went
awry when a unit of the Florida National Guard mistook the
celebratory gunfire as an attack. USA Today reports the U.S.
troops shot a man twice man in the chest and a young girl
who may have been only six was shot in the head.
- Patrick Cockburn, reporter for the London Independent,
joining us from London. He is recently back from Iraq.
Link: www.independent.co.uk
8:15-8:25 What Really Happened to Jessica Lynch?
INTRO: As Private Jessica Lynch arrives in West Virgina
Democracy Now! takes a look at the media coverage of her capture
and “rescue” in Iraq. We speak with Washington
Post ombudsman Michael Getler and listen to an earlier interview
with London Times reporter Richard Lloyd Parry.
Private Jessica Lynch is home. She arrived to her rural West
Virginia community yesterday amid bristling flags, yellow
ribbons and TV news trucks.
She suffers from multiple broken bones and other injuries
and is able to walk with the aid of a walker but still has
trouble standing.
On Monday, she was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart
and Prisoner of War medals.
Jessica Lynch first gained national headlines when she was
captured in the first week of the Iraq invasion. On March
23rd, her Army maintenance unit was ambushed near the Iraqi
city of Nasiriyah.
11 U.S. soldiers were killed and five others captured in
the attack. Lynch was taken to hospital by Iraqi soldiers
and held for 9 days before being rescued.
The press initially reported that Lynch fought fiercely during
the attack, getting stabbed and shot several times as she
fended off her assailants. News articles described her emptying
her M-16 into Iraqi soldiers, killing several of them before
finally being caught.
Initial reports of her subsequent rescue 9 days later were
also dramatic. They described Army Rangers and Navy Seals
storming the Nassiriyah hospital just after midnight. The
press reported they came under fire but managed to find Lynch
and whisk her away by helicopter. A video of the rescue captured
by the military’s night-vision camera was released to
the public.
Since then, enterprising reporters have shown that the reality
of both her capture and rescue were very different.
New reports concluded that Lynch was injured when her Humvee
crashed into another vehicle in the convoy after being hit
by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Reports also found that the convoy blundered into the ambush
after getting lost and many of the unit’s weapons malfunctioned
during the battle.
Of her rescue, Iraqi doctors at the hospital said later that
the U.S. has faced no resistance and the operation had been
over-dramatized.
The Washington Post was the first to report the heroic version
of Lynch’s capture. The paper came under sharp criticism
from its own ombudsman, Michael Getler, for its handling of
the story. He was the first U.S. journalist to question the
original reported version of events on April 20th. The Post
later published a 5,000 word expose on Lynch’s capture
completely debunking their original version of the story.
Days earlier the London Times’ Richard Lloyd Parry
had exposed the true story of Lynch’s rescue. This was
followed by a report from the BBC’s John Kampfner which
was widely read.
- Jessica Lynch, reading a statement after arriving in
Elizabeth, West Virginia yesterday.
- Richard Lloyd Parry, foreign correspondent for the London
Times interviewed on Democracy Now! on April 28th, 2003
regarding his article in the London Times: "So Who
Really Did Save Private Jessica?"
8:25-8:35 Judge Drops Two Terrorism Counts Against Civil
Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart in Major Defeat for the Justice
Department
INTRO: A federal judge said the charges Lynne Stewart conspired
to support a terrorism organization by delivering messages
from her client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman’s prison cell
to his followers in Egypt were unconstitutionally vague. We
speak with Lynne Stewart and her lawyer Michael Tigar.
A federal judge dismissed two main terror charges against
a prominent civil rights lawyer and her co-defendants yesterday.
U.S. district judge John Koeltl said the charges Lynne Stewart
conspired to support a terrorism organization were unconstitutionally
vague and QUOTE “reveal a lack of prosecutorial standards.”
Stewart was facing a possible 40-year jail sentence.
Prosecutors had accused Stewart of passing messages between
her client, the imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, and an
Egyptian terrorist organization. Rahman was convicted of conspiring
to blow up several New York landmarks and to assassinate Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak. He is serving a life sentence.
The judge’s ruling yesterday left intact charges that
Stewart and two others conspired to defraud the United States
and that Stewart made false statements.
But the dismissal of the first two counts of a five-count
indictment was a major blow to prosecutors. The case had been
personally announced in April 2002 by Attorney General John
Ashcroft.
U.S. Attorney James B. Comey was unwilling to concede defeat,
saying in a statement that he still believes the law prohibiting
material support for terrorism is constitutional and that
an appeal is possible.
- Lynne Stewart, human rights attorney, arrested in April,
2002 on charges that she helped her client Sheik Omar Abdel
Rahman deliver messages from his Minnesota prison cell to
his followers in Egypt.
- Michael Tigar, defense attorney representing Lynne Stewart.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:35-8:50 House Votes 309-188 to Scale Back Patriot Act;
FCC RulesMay Be Overturned Too
INTRO: Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) discusses last night’s
vote where the House surprisingly voted to bar the Justice
Department from secretly searching homes in first vote against
Patriot Act. The House may also vote this week to oppose the
FCC’s recent media ownership rule changes. And Sanders
raises questions about what Vice President Dick Cheney knew
about the Iraq intelligence.
In another major set back for the Justice Department, the
U.S. House last night voted 309 to 118 to overturn key provisions
of the Patriot Act.
It marks the first time the House or Senate has voted to
make changes to the controversial USA Patriot Act which was
approved with little debate one month after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Last night’s vote attached a provision to a $38 billion
appropriations bill that would block the Justice Department
from using any funds to secretly search homes. Over the past
two years the Justice Department has overseen 47 of these
so-called sneek and peek searches.
The House is also expected to vote this week to roll back
another provision of the Patriot Act that allows the FBI to
secretly obtain detailed information on patrons from libraries
and bookstores.
The Bush administration also yesterday threatened to veto
any bill that would seek to overturn the recent changes by
the Federal Communications Commission to the nation’s
media ownership laws.
There has been growing bipartisan support in Congress to
roll back the FCC’s new rules that are expected to result
in greater media consolidation.
We talk to Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the Patriot Act
and the FCC as well as his recent letter requesting answers
on Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the Iraq intelligence
scandal.
- Rep. Bernie Sanders, Independent Congressman from Vermont
8:50-8:58 GOP Warns TV Stations Not to Air Ad Alleging Bush
Mislead the Nation Over Iraq
INTRO: Republican attorneys claim that it isn’t the
Bush administration who is guilty of misleading the country
but the Democrats for running an anti-Bush TV spot. Only one
station has refused to run the ad, a Fox station.
Attorneys for the Republican Party are warning TV stations
not to air a new commercial by the Democratic National Committee
that charges President Bush misled the country in the lead-up
to the invasion of Iraq. The video shows Bush saying, "Saddam
Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium
from Africa."
Republicans said the ad is "deliberately false and misleading”
because the ad omits the portion of Bush's statement where
he points out that the disputed information came from the
British government.
A letter from Republican counsel to TV stations in Wisconsin
reads in part, “The Democratic National Committee certainly
has a legitimate First Amendment right to participate in political
debate, but it has no right to willfully spread false information
in a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people…
as an FCC licensee you have the responsibility to exercise
independent editorial judgment to not only oversee and protect
the American marketplace of ideas, essential for the health
of our democracy, but also to avoid deliberate misrepresentations
of the facts.”
The letter concludes: “Such obligations must be taken
seriously. This letter puts you on notice that the information
contained in the above-cited advertisement is false and misleading;
therefore, you are obligated to refrain from airing this advertisement.”
A message on the DNC website now reads: “This is the
ad President Bush doesn’t want you to see.”
- Democratic National Committee commercial
- Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National
Committee
Link: www.democrats.org
8:58-8:59 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, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira,
and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro
and engineer.
[Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo and Ionnis Mookas.]
|
Listen
to the show
Help
