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Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq, Iran and
Syria
Bill Clinton Loses His Cool in Democracy Now! Interview on
Everything But Monica: Leonard Peltier, Racial Profiling,
the Iraqi Sanctions, Ralph Nader, the Death Penalty and the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq,
Iran and Syria
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports
that Israel warned the US last year it would not be able to
bring stability or democracy to Iraq. Now, hundreds of Israeli
agents, including members of Mossad, are conducting covert
operations in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, Iran and
Syria.
As the June 30th so-called transfer of sovereignty in Iraq
approaches, resistance to the US occupation continues unabated.
Bombings, assassinations, house raids, mass detentions, kidnappings,
torture are daily occurrences in Iraq as US forces and Iraqi
resistance clash under occupation.
As far back as July 2003, Israel had warned the US would
not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq. Israel
was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Iraq invasion.
This according investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in this
week's issue of the New Yorker.
Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, reportedly
warned Vice-President Dick Cheney that America had lost in
Iraq and said the only issue was "choosing the size of
your humiliation."
Now, Israel has hundreds of agents, including members of
Mossad operating in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. In
addition Mossad is now conducting covert operations in Kurdish
areas of Iran and Syria. One former Israeli intelligence officer
told Hersh "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds
Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria."
Bill Clinton Loses His Cool in Democracy Now! Interview
on Everything But Monica: Leonard Peltier, Racial Profiling,
the Iraqi Sanctions, Ralph Nader, the Death Penalty and the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Former President Clinton's memoirs have hit bookstores across
the country. All three editions of the 1,000-page book - the
abridged, the large print and the regular version - are in
the top-ten bestseller list of online bookseller Amazon.com.
The cable networks have already begun their orgy of Clinton-bashing
with Clinton's affair with Monica their main thrust.
A one-hour appearance on Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes"
kicked off the media extravaganza. The interview was promoted
for days with a clip about Lewinsky and the program was watched
by an estimated 15.4 million viewers.
In an interview airing tonight with Britain's BBC television,
Clinton reportedly loses his temper with host David Dimbleby
when he is repeatedly quizzed about his affair with Monica
Lewinsky. Clinton's outrage at the line of questioning is
being billed as the first time that the former president has
been seen to publicly lose his temper in an interview.
But it did happen before. Four years ago in an interview
for Democracy Now! We rebroadcast that interview Amy Goodman
conducted on Election Day 2000 with the then-sitting president.
They discussed many topics you won't likely hear raised this
week: Leonard Peltier, racial profiling, the Iraqi sanctions,
the death penalty, Ralph Nader and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. At one point Clinton accused Amy of being "hostile
and combative." On the next day the president's aides
threatened to ban Amy from the White House. Amy and her brother
David Goodman wrote about the interview in their new book,
The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War
Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.
On Election Day 2000, I was in the Democracy Now! office
at WBAI on Wall Street when I received a call minutes before
going on the air at 9:00 a.m. The caller said, "Hello,
I am calling from White House Communications." Things
get very frantic moments before broadcasting, and we get a
fair number of unusual calls. White Horse? That's the famous
tavern in Greenwich Village where poet Dylan Thomas was said
to have drunk himself to death. Even the White Horse has a
PR agent?
Then the caller said that the president would like to speak
to me. I said, "The president of what?" We were
on the air in less than a minute. "The president of the
United States." Oh, please. "He'd like to call in
to your radio program."
"Yeah, right," I said. "Whatever."
I ran into the studio as the theme music for Democracy Now!
was playing. Our producers were Brad Simpson, a history grad
student, and Maria Carrion. Maria had produced Democracy Now!
for two years before moving home to Spain, and had flown back
just to help out for the election. That was supposed to mean
three days, but this was the election of 2000. She ended up
staying five weeks-from the night before the election to the
day after the final "selection" of George W. Bush.
I could hardly tell Maria and Brad as they were frantically
putting the finishing touches on the election show that the
president was calling in, especially because I didn't believe
it myself. But as the music swelled, I said, "By the
way, that was the White House on the phone. They said the
president might call in." "Yeah, right," Maria
said. I left it at that.
When Democracy Now! finished, we were about to head out for
coffee when someone began shouting from master control, "President
Clinton is on the phone!" Maria ran in, took the call,
and yelled for me to get into master control immediately.
Gonzalo Aburto, the host of the Latino music show that followed
Democracy Now! on Tuesdays, was at the control board.
I ran into the studio and heard, over the blasting Latino
beat, the disembodied voice of President Clinton saying, "Hello,
hello, is anyone there? Can you hear me?" The faders
on our microphones were all the way down, and the music was
all the way up. I practically dove over the master control
board and pulled down the music, put up all of our mikes,
and welcomed the president to WBAI.
"For Clinton it was supposed to be two minutes of get-out-the
vote happy talk with a progressive radio show and then: Gotta
go," The Washington Post later wrote of the encounter.
The story continued, "In this insider media age when
oh-so-serious reporters measure status by access to the powerful,
Goodman is the journalist as uninvited guest," wrote
Michael Powell. "You might think of the impolite question;
she asks it. She torments Democrats no less than Republicans."
There was no question this was President Clinton's voice,
so we just launched in:
AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President, are you there?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am, can you hear me?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we can. You are calling radio stations
to tell people to get out and vote. What do you say to people
who feel that the two parties are bought by corporations,
and that they are ... at this point feel that their vote
doesn't make a difference?
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,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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