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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Did the U.S Lie About What Happened in Samarra?
“We Have More Than One Guantanamo In Iraq” –
British Anti-War Lawyer Representing Tariq Aziz Arrested After
Charging Blair With War Crimes
75 U.S. Soldiers Shout “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Outside
Anti-War Priest’s House
Irish Peace Accord In Jeopardy With Elevation of Hard-Line
Unionist Ian Paisley
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Did the U.S Lie About What Happened in
Samarra?
INTRO: U.S. officials said that up to 54 Iraqi guerillas
were killed in a battle and 16 wounded Sunday in the northern
Iraqi town of Samarra, but Iraqis say the local hospital received
the bodies of only eight dead civilians as well as 60 others
wounded. We go to Iraq to speak with Newsday’s Mohamad
Bazzi.
Widely differing accounts are emerging over a battle Sunday
between U.S. troops and Iraqi resistance fighters in the northern
Iraqi town of Samarra.
The U.S. Army said that either 46 or 54 guerillas were killed
in the clashes and another 16 wounded in what it described
as the bloodiest fire-fight since the official end of the
war. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt later admitted that the
U.S. figures are only estimates and that U.S. forces had not
recovered a single body from the scene.
Iraqi accounts differ sharply. The director of the local
hospitals says they received the bodies of only eight civilians,
including those of a woman and child as well as 60 others
wounded. U.S. military officials denied their forces had overreacted
and fired indiscriminately, as charged by senior police, hospital
and municipal officials in the Samarra.
- Mohamad Bazzi, Newsday correspondent reporting from Baghdad.
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:35 “We Have More Than One Guantanamo
In Iraq” – British Anti-War Lawyer Representing
Tariq Aziz Arrested After Charging Blair With War Crimes
INTRO: We go to Britain to speak with Abdul Haq Al-Ani who
was released on bond after being arrested for allegedly helping
break sanctions against Iraq. He is representing former Iraqi
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and is separatedly charging
Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of the cabinet with
war crimes.
A human rights lawyer representing Saddam Hussein’s
former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was arrested in London
last week. Abdul Haq Al-Ani was arrested by Britain’s
Customs and Excise and charged under Section 3C of the Iraq
and Kuwait (United Nations Sanctions) Order 1990 which states
that "no person shall do any act calculated to promote
the supply or delivery of any goods to any person in Iraq
or Kuwait or for the purpose of any business carried on in
Iraq".
He was released on bond and ordered to return for further
questioning in eight weeks. He is the first person in Britain
to be arrested in connection with the Iraq sanctions. But
international lawyers rights organizations say the arrest
of Abdul Haq Al-Ani, who is a British barrister, is political.
He has been an active opponent of the invasion and occupation
of Iraq and was a vigorous campaigner against the more than
decade of economic sanctions against Iraq. Shortly after the
occupation began, Al-Ani traveled to Iraq to investigate US
and British war crimes. Two weeks ago, shortly before his
arrest, Al-Ani along with a number of other British lawyers
had recently handed a petition to Scotland Yard asking the
police to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by Prime
Minister Tony Blair and members of the cabinet.
- Abdul Haq Al-Ani, is a London-based barrister. He is currently
the lawyer representing former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Tariq Aziz.
8:35-8:40 75 U.S. Soldiers Shout “Kill! Kill!
Kill!” Outside Anti-War Priest’s House
INTRO: We speak with Father John Dear, author of more than
20 books on peace and justice and outspoken critic of the
U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq about why 75 U.S.
soldiers shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill!” outside his
front door.
In a recent article on CommonDreams.org, Father John Dear
writes:
“I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three block
long town in the desert of northeastern New Mexico. Everyone
in town--and the whole state--knows that I am against the
occupation of Iraq, that I have called for the closing of
Los Alamos, and that as a priest, I have been preaching, like
the Pope, against the bombing of Baghdad….Suddenly,
at 7 a.m., the [soldiers’] shouting got dramatically
louder. I looked out the front window of the house where I
live, next door to the church, and there they were--all 75
of them, standing yards away from my front door, in the street
right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming
to the top of their lungs, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Their commanders had planted them there and were egging them
on.”
8:40-8:58 Irish Peace Accord In Jeopardy With Elevation
of Hard-Line Unionist Ian Paisley
INTRO: Veteran journalist and Ian Paisley biographer Ed
Monoley joins us in our studio to talk about the Democratic
Unionist Party winning the most seats in the power-sharing
assembly in Belfast and its implications on the 1998 Good
Friday peace agreement.
In Northern Ireland, the future of the 1998 Good Friday peace
agreement is in jeopardy following last week's elections.
One of the hard-line Protestant parties that opposed the agreement,
the Democratic Unionist Party, won the most seats in the power-sharing
assembly in Belfast.
The party's head Ian Paisley has called for the renegotiation
of the peace treaty. His son Ian Paisley Jr. said the peace
agreement was “dead in the water.”
The impact of the elections remains unclear in part because
Britain suspended home rule a year ago temporarily stripping
the Belfast body of most of its power.
Ian Paisley has also ruled out working with Sinn Fein, the
political party led by Gerry Adams which secured the most
seats among the Catholic political parties. After the election
Paisley told the BBC, “I don't accept the principle
that we must sit down with armed terrorists who have enough
weapons in their possession to blow up the whole of Northern
Ireland.”
On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke publicly
about the election results for the first time. He described
it as a "a difficult situation." Six months ago
Blair predicted that if Paisley’s DUP came to power
they would destroy the Good Friday Agreement.
- Ed Moloney, a veteran journalist who has been reporting
on Northern Ireland for two decades. He is co-author of
“Paisley” (1986), an unauthorized biography
of Ulster Protestant leader Ian Paisley and more recently
“The Secret History of the IRA” (2002). He has
been Northern Editor of The Irish Times and The Sunday Tribune
and has written for a wide range of newspapers, including
The Washington Post, The Economist, The Guardian, the New
Statesman and a variety of Irish publications. In 1999,
he successfully defeated an attempt by Scotland Yard Commissioner
Sir John Stevens to force him to hand over notes of an interview
with a source who alleged an official cover-up of the murder
of a Belfast solicitor. In that year he was elected Irish
Journalist of the Year.
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 Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu
(RAY MA MU), Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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