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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
9/11 Report: "Incontrovertible Evidence" that Saudi
Gov't Supported Hijackers; CIA and FBI Face Scathing Critique
INTRO: Report findings include: FBI informant housed two
of the hijackers; no link existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda;
possible Saudi agent directly helped two hijackes; U.S. knew
Al Qaeda was considering flying planes into buildings. We
speak to former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, reporter Robert
Fisk and Stephen Push whose wife died on Sept. 11.
Ex-CIA Agent on Cheney Iraq Speech: "Longest Statement
of Disinformation" Ever Fed U.S. Public
INTRO: Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday attempted to
restate the administration's case for war at a speech at the
conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
Robert Fisk: “The Publication of the Uday and Qusay
Photographs will Prove to be Either a Stroke of Genius or
a Historic Mistake of Catastrophic Consequences”
INTRO: As the U.S. releases the bloody and grisly photos
of two men identified as the sons of Saddam Hussein we go
to Baghdad to hear from London Independent reporter about
the reaction of Iraqis.
Monsanto Sues Milk Producer For Advertising It Sells Hormone-Free
Milk
INTRO: Monsanto claims the advertisements give the public
the impression artificial growth hormones are not safe. But
there have long been concerns of the effect on the hormones
on both the cows and humans.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:30 9/11 Report: "Incontrovertible Evidence"
that Saudi Gov't Supported Hijackers; CIA and FBI Face Scathing
Critique
INTRO: Report findings include: FBI informant housed two
of the hijackers; no link existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda;
possible Saudi agent directly helped two hijackes; U.S. knew
Al Qaeda was considering flying planes into buildings. We
speak to former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, reporter Robert
Fisk and Stephen Push whose wife died on Sept. 11.
After the Bush administration delayed its publication for
months, Congress yesterday released its nearly 900-page investigation
on the Sept. 11 attacks.
The report's findings provide an even more damning indictment
of the intelligence community than many had predicted. Sen.
Bob Graham, former head of the Senate intelligence committee,
says the report proves the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped.
The investigation was based on the interviews of hundreds
of U.S. and foreign officials and a review of hundreds of
thousands of FBI and CIA files.
The scathing critique of the CIA and the FBI finds the agencies
did not talk to each other at critical junctures, most notably
on intelligence related to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
The FBI missed evidence of its own informant who was actually
living with two of the hijackers in San Diego.
The agency failed to keep tabs on warnings that Omar al-Bayoumi,
a key associate of two of the hijackers and suspected Saudi
government secret agent, met with Saudi government officials
and the hijackers.
The FBI missed the opportunity in large part because the
CIA had failed to share information about the hijackers it
had two years prior to the attacks.
The report concluded that the informant's contacts with the
two hijackers would have offered, "the best chance to
unravel the Sept. 11 plot."
The report also raises more questions about a foreign government's
complicity in the attacks: longtime U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia.
The report finds that the Saudi Arabian government thwarted
efforts to prevent the rise of Al-Qaeda and stop attacks as
well as provided financial and logistical support to the Saudi-born
9/11 hijackers. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi
Arabian.
Large sections of the report explaining how the Saudis did
not cooperate remains classified. The Washington Post reports
an entire 28-page section detailing whether Saudi Arabia was
somehow implicated in 9/11 remains classified. This despite
a seven-month campaign by congressional investigators and
others to have them made public.
The CIA argued that disclosure of the details could upset
relations with a key US ally.
The report goes on to say that Bush was warned in a more
specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting
that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the U.S.
Meanwhile, the White House resisted efforts to pin down Bush's
knowledge of the threats and to catalogue the executive's
pre-Sept. 11 counter-terrorism strategy.
Finally the report reveals that U.S. intelligence had no
evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein had any involvement in
the attacks or connection to Al Qaida.
Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland who served on
the congressional committee charged the Bush administration
purposely delayed the release of the 9/11 report until after
the Iraq invasion.
- Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst.
He is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy
and director of the Center’s National Security Project.
He is the author of the forthcoming book Bush League Diplomacy:
Putting the Nation At Risk (Prometheus). He is a professor
of international security studies and chairman of the international
relations department at the National War College.
Link: ciponline.org;
www.ndu.edu/nwc
- Stephen Push, spokesperson for Families of September 11.
His wife of 21 years, Lisa Raines, was on American Airlines
Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11,
2001.
Link: www.familiesofseptember11.org/
- Robert Fisk, foreign correspondent for the London Independent.
He is speaking to us from Baghdad. He has covered the Middle
East for over 20 years and has interviewed Osama Bin Laden
three times.
Link: www.independent.co.uk
8:30-8:31 One Minute Music Break
8:30-8:40 Ex-CIA Agent on Cheney Iraq Speech: "Longest
Statement of Disinformation" Ever Fed U.S. Public
INTRO: Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday attempted to
restate the administration's case for war at a speech at the
conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to restate
the administration's case for war at a speech at the conservative
think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
He repeatedly cited an October 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate that warned Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop
nuclear weapons.
"Those charged with the security of this nation could
not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist.
Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away, would
be irresponsible in the extreme," Cheney said. "And
our President did not ignore that information--he faced it.
He sought to eliminate the threat by peaceful, diplomatic
means and, when all else failed, he acted forcefully to remove
the danger."
Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman responded on Democracy
Now! by describing Cheney's speech as the "longest statement
of disinformation that I think the American government has
distributed to the American people."
Goodman went on to say, "For Dick Cheney to recite those
charges we all know now not to be true adds to the terrible
politicization of intelligence that's created a scandal in
the intelligence community unlike anything I ever saw in my
24 years in the C.I.A. that includes the period of Vietnam,
the period of the intelligence failure on the Soviet Union,
and the incredibly contentious disputes over arms control."
Cheney did not discuss his role in the Iraq-Niger uranium
scandal or the reports that he personally went to CIA headquarters
to pressure the Agency on Iraq intelligence.
Senator Bob Graham of Florida yesterday called for a congressional
probe to examine whether Cheney's meetings with the CIA.
- Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking on July 23, 2003
at the American Enterprise Institute.
- Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst.
He is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy
and director of the Center’s National Security Project.
He is the author of the forthcoming book Bush League Diplomacy:
Putting the Nation At Risk (Prometheus). He is a professor
of international security studies and chairman of the international
relations department at the National War College.
Link: ciponline.org
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:50 Robert Fisk: “The Publication of the Uday
and Qusay Photographs will Prove to be Either a Stroke of
Genius or a Historic Mistake of Catastrophic Consequences”
INTRO: As the U.S. releases the bloody and grisly photos
of two men identified as the sons of Saddam Hussein we go
to Baghdad to hear from London Independent reporter about
the reaction of Iraqis.
Robert Fisk of the London Independent writes in his latest
article:
“The publication of the Uday and Qusay photographs
will prove to be either a stroke of genius or a historic mistake
of catastrophic consequences….The occupation authorities
are pondering the idea of plastering the pictures around Baghdad.
But be sure, they will soon be used as martyrs' photographs
on posters with a somewhat different message. The work of
the Americans. The work of the occupiers.”
Fisk continues to say:
“In Iraq, I suspect, there will be a growing number
of young men who will see the need in these pictures not to
content themselves with regime change, with the realisation
that they can believe in a new future, but to revenge themselves
upon the foreigners in Iraq, to avoid the further humiliation
of occupation. They may not have been Ba'athists. They may
have hated the sons of Saddam. But after death can come a
remarkable reversal of fortunes for the dead.”
- Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London
Independent speaking from Baghdad.
Link: www.independent.co.uk
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Monsanto Sues Milk Producer For Advertising It
Sells Hormone-Free Milk
INTRO: Monsanto claims the advertisements give the public
the impression artificial growth hormones are not safe. But
there have long been concerns of the effect on the hormones
on both the cows and humans.
Biotech giant Monsanto recently filed a suit against a small
milk producer in Maine, Oakhurst, that advertises its milk
contains no artificial growth hormones.
Monsanto claims the advertisements give the public the impression
artificial growth hormones are not safe. And Monsanto claims
that by doing this Oakhurst is directly disparaging Monsanto’s
product Posilac, the only artificial growth hormone on the
market.
Monsanto boasts the hormones help cows produce up to 15 percent
milk. But there have long been concerns of the effect on the
hormones on both the cows and humans.
Today we are joined by investigative reporter Jane Akre who
was among the first to uncover the possible dangers of Monsanto’s
milk hormones. But both Fox News and the Monsanto went to
great lengths silencing their reports.
In 1997 she and Steve Wilson were working for a Fox owned
TV station WTVT Fox 13 in Tampa, Florida where they were hired
to do hard-hitting investigative reports. They discovered
that the milk in Florida and throughout the U.S. was being
affected by Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). The Fox station was
promoting the story aggressively until the night before it
was scheduled to air when the Monsanto Corporation threatened
Fox. Fox then demanded that Akre and Wilson change their story.
They put them through 83 re-writes and eventually fired them
just before Christmas 1997.
Akre and Wilson sued Fox charging the station deliberately
ordered them to distort news reports.
A jury first ruled in favor of Akre and Wilson. But Fox appealed
the ruling and it was overturned. Earlier this year a court
ruled that Akre and Wilson must pay the legal costs and fees
that Fox incurred during the trial.
- Jane Akre, investigative reporter who examined the dangers
behind Monsanto’s artificial growth hormones.
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.]
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