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Seymour Hersh: Bush Authorized Covert Plan to Manipulate
Iraqi Elections
The NOC Program: A Look at Valerie Plame's "Nonofficial
Cover" as a CIA Operative
Survivors of 1979 Greensboro Massacre Testify Before Truth
and Reconciliation Commission
Seymour Hersh: Bush Authorized Covert Plan to Manipulate
Iraqi Elections
Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour
Hersh reports that President Bush authorized covert plans
last year to support the election campaigns of Iraqi candidates
and political parties with close ties to the White House.
Hersh cites unidentified former military and intelligence
officials who said the administration went ahead with the
plan over congressional opposition. [includes rush
transcript - partial]
In Iraq, the bloodshed under the US occupation continues
on a daily basis. Gunmen killed at least 24 police, soldiers
and government workers on Monday in assorted attacks across
the country.
The killings come after one of the bloodiest weekends in
Iraq since the March 2003 U.S. invasion. In three days of
suicide attacks, more than 150 people were killed and nearly
300 wounded.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Richard Myers, said on a visit to Berlin that the recent violence
wouldn't derail the drafting of a constitution or what he
said was progress toward democracy.
Myers said, "We should see a draft constitution by the
end of this month. A constitutional referendum is planned
for the middle of October and then (national) elections in
December."
The formation of a new permanent government in Iraq began
with the highly-lauded January 30 elections that formed the
country's national assembly. In his 2005 State of the Union
address a few days later, President Bush celebrated the Iraqi
elections as free and fair and a step towards democracy. But
did Washington manipulate the Iraq vote?
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week's
issue of The New Yorker that President Bush authorized covert
plans last year to support the election campaigns of Iraqi
candidates and political parties with close ties to the White
House. Hersh's article cites unidentified former military
and intelligence officials who said the administration had
gone ahead with covert election activities in Iraq that "were
conducted by retired CIA officers and other nongovernment
personnel, and used funds that were not necessarily appropriated
by Congress."
In response to the article, a spokesperson from the National
Security Council denied that, saying the administration rescinded
the proposal because of congressional opposition.
- Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter
for The New Yorker.
- Read Hersh's article: Get
Out the Vote
The NOC Program: A Look at Valerie Plame's "Nonofficial
Cover" as a CIA Operative
As pressure mounts for President Bush to fire senior adviser
Karl Rove for his role in the outing of undercover CIA operative
Valerie Plame, we take a look at her reported work as a "NOC"
- "nonofficial cover". We speak with investigative
journalist Bob Dreyfuss, the first American reporter to cover
the CIA's Non-Official Cover program.
We now to turn to the CIA leak case that has recently been
dominating the headlines. In the latest news, President Bush
is appearing to backtrack on his pledge to fire anyone involved
in the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. Bush
said on Monday he will fire anyone who "committed a crime"
in the leak.
On June 10, 2004, Bush was asked whether he stood by an earlier
White House pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked the
officer's name, Bush replied: "Yes." On Monday,
he added the qualifier that it would have to be demonstrated
that a crime was committed.
While it is clear that chief presidential advisor Karl Rove
played a role in the outing of Plame as a CIA operative, whether
he broke the law or not is still a matter of debate
Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, prosecutors
would have to prove that Rove knew Plame was operating undercover.
During the 1990's, Plame posed as a private energy consultant
while actually working for a CIA department tracking weapons
proliferation. The Los Angeles Times reported this weekend,
that Plame worked under what is known as "nonofficial
cover" or NOC.
Survivors of 1979 Greensboro Massacre Testify Before
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
We look back at the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, when forty
Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis opened fire on an anti-Klan
demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina. Five people were
killed. No one was convicted. We speak with Paul Bermanzohn,
a survivor of the massacre who testified before a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission almost 26 years after the massacre.
"On November 3, 1979, at the corner of Carver and Everitt
Streets, black and white demonstrators gather to march through
Greensboro, North Carolina, a legal demonstration against
the Ku Klux Klan. A caravan of Klansmen and Nazis pull up
to the protesters and open fire. "Eighty-eight seconds
later, five demonstrators lie dead and ten others wounded
from the gunfire, recorded on camera by four TV stations.
Four women have lost their husbands, three children have lost
their fathers.
"After two criminal trials, not a single gunman has
spent a day in prison, although a civil trial won an unprecedented
victory for the victims: For one of the only times in US history,
a jury held local police liable for cooperating with Ku Klux
Klan in a wrongful death."
That is the introduction to the book: Through Survivors"
Eyes: From the Sixties to the Greensboro Massacre written
by one of the survivors, Sally Bermanzohn. This weekend, the
Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission met to hear
testimony from perpetrators and victims in the massacre. We
will speak with a survivor of the massacre, but first let's
go back to that fateful day in 1979.
- Excerpt from "Guns of November 3rd," Courtesy
of Jim Waters.
After two criminal trials with all-white juries, not a single
gunman was sent to prison. However, in 1985 a civil jury found
the city, the Klan and the Nazi party liable for violating
the civil rights of the demonstrators. The city paid a $350,000
dollar judgment on behalf of all parties. This was one of
the only times in US history that a jury held local police
liable for cooperating with Ku Klux Klan in a wrongful death.
Well, this weekend was the historic first meeting of the
Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The two-day
hearing was the first of three and is modeled after similar
efforts in other countries such as South Africa and Peru.
While those truth commissions were state-supported, the Greensboro
commission evolved from a grassroots citizen movement. In
fact, white Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday and some other
members of the Greensboro City Council voted along racial
lines not to support the commission's work. Despite the commission's
lack of subpoena power, two Klansman testified at the hearing
-Virgil Griffin, an imperial wizard with the KKK who was at
the scene of the shootings, and Gorrell Pierce, who at the
time was grand dragon of the Federated Knights of the KKK.
- Paul Bermanzohn, survivor of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre,
he testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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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