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> Fri., July. 25, 2003
Pacifica's PeaceWatch
Today's Stories:
9-11 Widow Reacts to Congressional
Intelligence Committee Report
Bush To Send Troops to Liberian Coast
Nuns Sentenced to 2-3 years for Plowshares Disarmament Protest
In War On Iraq, Truth Was the First Casualty
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9-11 Widow Reacts to Congressional Intelligence Committee
Report
The House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees released
a 900-page report yesterday, detailing the results of its
10-month investigation into the security lapses surrounding
the events of September 11th, 2001. Speaking at a bi-partisan
news conference, members of Congress including Democratic
Representative and Committee co-Chair Bob Graham, as well
as Republican Representative and House Intelligence Committee
chair Porter Goss placed blame upon the FBI and CIA for failing
to heed repeated warnings that Al Qaeda planned to launch
attacks within the US.
Also in attendance at the news conference were several family
members who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks.
Tape: Kristin Breitweiser, the widow of Ronald Breitweiser,
who was killed on the 94th floor of World Trade Center Tower
2 on September 11, 2001. She spoke with Peacewatch Producer
Scott Gurian.
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Bush To Send Troops to Liberian Coast
President Bush on Friday ordered an unspecified number of
U.S. troops to be positioned off the coast of war torn Liberia
to assist West African peacekeeping forces.
The U.S. role will be limited, the White House said in a
statement. "The president has directed the secretary
of defense to position appropriate military capabilities off
the coast of Liberia" to help support the peacekeeping
force, it said. The statement did not say how many U.S. troops
or ships would be involved. "The immediate task of the
(West African peacekeeping) force is to reinforce a cease-fire
and begin to create conditions where humanitarian assistance
can be provided to the Liberian people," it said.
The statement reiterated Bush's insistence that Liberian
President Charles Taylor "must leave." International
relief workers have been pressing the White House for a decision,
saying that a delay in sending in peacekeepers made it impossible
to help the victims of the fighting.
Meanwhile, mortar rounds slammed into the U.S. Embassy compound,
homes and a school crowded with refugees in the bloodiest
attack on Liberia's besieged capital in days, killing at least
12 Liberian men, women and children.
The Coalition of Concerned Liberians held a panel discussion
earlier this week to debate whether outside troops are needed
in their country, which troops would serve the crisis better
and when the forces should be slated to arrive.
Tape: Report from Peacewatch Associate Producer Angelique
Shofar
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Nuns Sentenced to 2-3 years for Plowshares Disarmament
Protest
Three Dominican nuns were sentenced in a Denver courtroom
today to several years in prison for an anti-war protest that’s
drawn international attention and raised questions over the
legality of the US’s so-called first strike nuclear
arsenal.
Calling themselves the “Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares
II,” Ardeth Platte, Jackie Hudson and Carol Gilbert
cut a chain-link fence in Northwest Colorado on the morning
of October 6th and entered the US military’s Minuteman
III missile silo. They wore white outfits bearing the title
“disarmament specialists,” and proceeded to hammer
on the concrete silo lid, enacting the biblical prophesy of
hammering swords into plowshares and bringing an end to war.
Tape: Report from Sam Fuqua
Tape: Sister Ardeth Platte, speaking with Peacewatch producer
Scott Gurian last January, as she was in prison awaiting her
trial.
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In War On Iraq, Truth Was the First Casualty
Pictures of the slain sons of Saddam Hussein have circulated
around the world. In an exclusive interview with The Times
of London, the bodyguard of Uday Hussein spoke out for the
first time, claiming that, Saddam Hussein and his sons did
not flee Baghdad during the bombing but rather held out in
the capital for at least a week after its fall. He said that
they evaded repeated American attempts to assassinate or capture
them, and even appeared in public under the noses of U.S.
troops.
The bodyguard told the newspaper that Saddam suspected an
informant in his camp when the Americans’ so called
‘decapitation strikes’ began hitting closer to
the safe houses in which he was hiding. Saddam then directed
the suspected captain to set up a safe house behind a restaurant
in the Mansour district for a meeting. Saddam and company
arrived and went immediately out the back door. Ten minutes
later the house was bombed. Saddam had the captain he suspected,
summarily executed while the Pentagon was claiming the strike
had killed Saddam and his son Uday.
Meanwhile, questions continue over whether the Bush administration
overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to mislead the
country into war. In a recent article in The New Republic
magazine, Spencer Ackerman and John B. Judis wrote: “Foreign
policy is always difficult in a democracy. Democracy requires
openness, yet foreign policy requires a level of secrecy that
frees it from oversight and exposes it to abuse.”
Peacewatch sat down with Ackerman earlier this week and
asked him to talk about this principle in the context of the
post-September 11 world that we live in and the trust that
the American people placed in Bush when he used confidential
intelligence info to justify the war in Iraq.
Tape: Spencer Ackerman, assistant editor of The New Republic
and co-author with John B. Judis of the article “The
First Casualty,” which appeared in the June 30th issue
of the magazine.
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