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Fall From Grace: Iraq Issues Arrest Warrants for Fmr. U.S.
Ally Ahmad Chalabi and Nephew Salem Chalabi
Bush to African American Voters: "Just Don't Focus on
Florida, I'll Talk to the Governor Down There to Make Sure
it Works"
Jesse Jackson To Journalists: "Be Interpreters And Appraisers
Not Just Reporters"
Norman Mailer: Why I Am Protesting the Presidency
Fall From Grace: Iraq Issues Arrest Warrants for
Fmr. U.S. Ally Ahmad Chalabi and Nephew Salem Chalabi
Iraq issues separate arrest warrants for former Governing
Council member and former Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi
and his nephew, Salem Chalabi head of the tribunal trying
Saddam Hussein. We speak with veteran Middle East journalist
Dilip Hiro.
An Iraqi judge has issued arrest warrants for former Governing
Council member Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew, Salem Chalabi.
Ahmad Chalabi, who had close ties to Vice President Dick
Cheney and the Pentagon, is wanted on counterfeiting charges.
The Associated Press quoted the judge as saying that Chalabi
appeared to have been mixing counterfeit money with other
old money and changing it into new dinars in the street. Police
found the counterfeit money during a May raid on his house
in Baghdad, the judge said.
Ahmed Chalabi was once the Pentagon's favored candidate to
lead Iraq, but he fell from grace amid allegations of links
to Iranian hardliners and concerns that he provided faulty
intelligence in the run-up to the war. Chalabi spoke to CNN
from Tehran yesterday and said he would return to Iraq to
respond to the fraud charges.
Separately, Ahmad's nephew, Salem who is the head of the
tribunal trying Saddam Hussein, was named as a suspect in
the murder of director general of the finance ministry Haithem
Fadhil.
Fadhil who was shot and killed in May, had been preparing
a report on reclaiming government-owned real estate. According
to a source quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the document
concluded that members of the Chalabi family and their political
party, the Iraqi National Congress, had illegally seized hundreds
of pieces of property after the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Both men, who are out of the country, denied the charges
and said they were politically motivated.
- Dilip Hiro, veteran journalist on the Middle East. His
trilogy of books on Iraq and Iran are considered some of
the most definitive histories of the wars in the Persian
Gulf. His latest book is called Secrets and Lies: Operation
'Iraqi Freedom' and After
Bush to African American Voters: "Just Don't
Focus on Florida, I'll Talk to the Governor Down There to
Make Sure it Works"
We hear President Bush being questioned by journalists of
color at the UNITY conference in Washington DC and we speak
with Chicago Defender columnist Roland Martin, one of the
journalists who questioned Bush.
The Unity conference wrapped up this weekend in Washington
DC. It was the largest conference of journalists in US history.
The event was organized by the four journalists of color organizations:
the National Association of Black Journalists, the National
Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian-American Journalists
Association and the Native American Journalists Association.
More than 7,500 journalists participated in the convention.
At the conference, Unity released the results of a survey
it conducted with the University of Maryland"s Philip
Merrill College of Journalism that shows that only one in
10 writers, editors and bureau chiefs in the Washington daily
newspaper press corps are journalists of color.
While journalists of color are rarely in a position to question
president Bush at his rare press conferences, a handful of
journalists had a chance to question him on Friday when the
president addressed the Unity conference. Each organization
at the conference selected one journalist to question Bush.
We begin with Roland Martin, a columnist for the Chicago Defender
newspaper.
- Roland Martin,
a columnist for The Chicago Defender. He was one of the
journalists selected by the Unity Conference to question
President Bush. We hear him questioning Bush at the conference
and speak with him about the conference.
Jesse Jackson To Journalists: "Be Interpreters
And Appraisers Not Just Reporters"
The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to the UNITY conference of
journalists of color in Washington DC about the government's
elevated security alert to level “orange.”
Norman Mailer: Why I Am Protesting the Presidency
The legendary writer and journalist talks with Amy Goodman
about the November election, the state of protest today and
the historic 1968 conventions which he chronicled in "Miami
and the Siege of Chicago."
On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, I had a
chance to interview one of the country’s best-known
literary figures, Norman Mailer, at a benefit for WOMR in
Provincetown Massachusetts.
Over the past half century Mailer has written 39 books, won
two Pulitzer Prizes and co-founded the Village Voice.
36 years ago Norman Mailer wrote one of the definitive accounts
of the historic 1968 conventions. The book was called “Miami
and the Siege of Chicago.”
He also wrote “Armies of the Night” on the 1967
march on the Pentagon by antiwar protesters.
I began by asking him about his thoughts on the November
election
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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