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Re: Rundown 9-18-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
General Wesley Clark: The Anti War Warrior?
Robert Fisk: “What is Happening Is An Absolute Slaughter
Every Night of Iraqi People”
Ashcroft Declassifies Number of Records Sought Under Patriot
Act After Calling Critics “Hysterical”
Gov't Sets Up Massive Watchlist of “Known and Suspected
Terrorists”
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 General Wesley Clark: The Anti War Warrior?
INTRO: General Wesley Clark -- the former Supreme Allied
Commander of NATO and the man who led the 78-day bombing of
Yugoslavia in 1999 -- announced his candidacy for president
yesterday, bringing to 10 the number of Democratic contenders
hoping to unseat President Bush in next year's election. Clark
is the first four-star general in history to run for President
as a Democrat.
- Steve Rendall, Senior Analyst, Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting.
Link: www.fair.org
- Zoltan Grossman, Professor of Geography at the University
of Wisconsin Eau Claire.
- Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London
Independent. Speaking from Baghdad
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Robert Fisk: “What is Happening Is
An Absolute Slaughter Every Night of Iraqi People”
INTRO: As the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq approaches
300, we go to Baghdad to hear from London Independent reporter
Robert Fisk on the virtually unreported number of Iraqis killed
in feuds, looting, revenge killings and raids by U.S. troops.
The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq stands close to
300. While figures of U.S. troops killed or wounded in Iraq
are widely disclosed, the number of Iraqis killed or wounded
are unknown.
In an article last Sunday, Robert Fisk of the London Independent
writes:
“In Iraq there are thousands of incidents of violence
that never get reported; attacks on Americans that cost civilian
lives are not even recorded by the occupation authority press
officers unless they involve loss of life among "coalition
forces". Go to the mortuaries of Iraq's cities and it's
clear that a slaughter occurs each night. Occupation powers
insist that journalists obtain clearance to visit hospitals
- it can take a week to get the right papers, if at all, so
goodbye to statistics - but the figures coming from senior
doctors tell their own story.
“In Baghdad, up to 70 corpses - of Iraqis killed by
gunfire - are brought to the mortuaries each day. In Najaf,
for example, the cemetery authorities record the arrival of
the bodies of up to 20 victims of violence a day. Some of
the dead were killed in family feuds, in looting, or revenge
killings. Others have been gunned down by US troops at checkpoints
or in the increasingly vicious "raids" carried out
by American forces in the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni
cities to the north.”
Robert Fisk continues:
“If you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two
or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad
death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians
are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative
figure.”
- Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London
Independent. Speaking from Baghdad
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:52 Ashcroft Declassifies Number of Records
Sought Under Patriot Act After Calling Critics “Hysterical”
INTRO: In a telephone call to the American Library Association
Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to disclose previously
classified information on how many requests law enforcement
officials have made for records from libraries and businesses
under the Patriot Act. He did not indicate how soon information
would be released.
The Justice Department decided yesterday to disclose previously
classified information on how many requests law enforcement
officials have made for records from libraries and businesses
under the Patriot Act.
The news came in a telephone call from Attorney General John
Ashcroft to the president of the American Library Association
yesterday. Ashcroft did not indicate the specific types of
information included in the report to be made public, or how
soon it will be released.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act expands the government's power
to obtain records from a wide range of businesses as part
of an investigation, without notifying the subjects of the
probe. This section of the law in particular has drawn sharp
criticism from civil libertarians.
Ashcroft claims the In a confidential memo to FBI Director
Robert Mueller obtained by the Washington Post today, Ashcroft
writes “The number of times [the provision] has been
used to date is zero." In 2002, a Supreme Court ruled
that the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Colorado did not have
to disclose any information after police entered the store
two years earlier and demanded to search the purchase records
of a suspected drug manufacturer.
Ashcroft's move to declassify the information follows a pair
of speeches he delivered this week in which he mocked critics
saying: "According to these breathless reports and baseless
hysteria, some have convinced the American Library Association
that under the bipartisan Patriot Act, the FBI is not fighting
terrorism. Instead agents are checking how far you have gotten
on the latest Tom Clancy novel."
The disclosure however does not address how investigators
have used other parts of the sprawling Patriot legislation.
Ashcroft is in the midst of a cross-country speaking tour
aimed at shoring up support for the controversial law, which
has been the focus of more than 160 protest resolutions across
the country.
- Maurice Freedman, Immediate past president of the American
Library Association, member of the ALA Council, the organization's
governing body, and Director of the Westchester New York
Library System.
Link: www.ala.org
8:52-8:58 Gov't Sets Up Massive Watchlist of “Known
and Suspected Terrorists”
INTRO: The watch list of over 100,000 names will be widely
accessible to law enforcement agents, border police, airport
workers as well as some private industries. It will contain
the name of both international and domestic “suspects.”
The Bush Administration announced Tuesday the creation of
a massive computerized watch list that will contain over 100,000
names of individuals the government claims are “known
and suspected terrorists.”
The watch list will be widely accessible to law enforcement
agents, border police, airport workers as well as some private
industries. It will contain the name of both international
and domestic suspects.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has praised the new Terrorist
Screening Center because it will “provide one-stop shopping
so that every federal anti-terrorist screener is working off
the same page – whether it’s an airport screener,
an embassy official issuing visas overseas or an FBI agent
on the street.”
It is unclear what criteria the government will use to place
individuals on the watch list or if citizens will be able
to appeal their inclusion in the FBI-controlled database.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said "Our greatest concern is that innocent
people might be wrongly labeled as terrorists, with little
or no recourse to clear their names. The government must tell
us how it plans to keep this watch list from turning into
a blacklist that will inevitably ruin innocent lives."
- Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional
Rights
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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