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October
8, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Flashes
and Plumes of Fire
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Resources:
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Ridge Long Groomed
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Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
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Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
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October 11,
2001
Former US Ambassador to Iraq
Calls US War Plan "Dumb"
"Why it is that all of
these people hate us. It's not because of freedom. It's not because
Britney Spears has a belly button or because we export hamburgers.
They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part
of the world that they definitely do not like."
Edward
Peck,
former US Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President
Reagan's terrorism task force.
CNN CROSSFIRE
America Strikes Back:
Should the U.S. Target Iraq?
Aired October 8, 2001 - 19:30
ET
Guests, the former U.S. Ambassador
to Iraq, Edward Peck, and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert
Maginnis.
BILL PRESS: AmbassadorWe know Osama bin Laden
has been supporting the terrorists, financing them and arming
them. He's not alone, and perhaps not the most dangerous. There's
Hussein that we know is supporting terrorist groups like the
Hezbollah the Hamas, and probably bin Laden. We know he has got
biological weapons. Probably has nuclear weapons. Wouldn't this
war against terrorism be a mistake if we stop at Osama bin Laden
and don't take out Saddam Hussein as well?
EDWARD PECK, FORMER AMBASSADOR
TO IRAQ: Let me answer
your question. I think it's not a mistake for the following reasons.
No. 1 is that nobody in this world -- with the possible exception
of Tony Blair -- gives us the right to decide who rules Iraq.
That is not part of our charter. It is not part of our mandate.
Now, they can't stop us, because we are who we are. But when
you take out Saddam Hussein, the key question you have to ask
then is, what happens after that? And we don't have a clue. Nobody
knows, but it's probably going to be bad. And a lot of people
are going to be very upset about that, because that really is
not written into our role in this world is to decide who rules
Iraq.
PRESS: We don't know what is coming next, but it's
hard to believe it could be any worse than Saddam Hussein. But
you know, Ambassador, looking at this today -- Bill Kristol at
"The Weekly Standard," he got a passel of conservatives
to sign this letter to President Bush.
NOVAK: 41.
PRESS: Saying, we've got 41 conservatives. We have
to put Saddam Hussein in the target. But he's not alone. There
are even some liberals who are speaking like this, and talking
about the evidence that we do have that there was a link here
in the September 11 bombings. I would like you to listen to one
of my favorite liberals and hear what he had to say. Senator
Joe Lieberman.
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, CONNECTICUT: We have heard reports of contact between
the individuals who were on those planes that committed those
atrocities against America on September 11; contact between them
and various members of Iraqi intelligence. The obvious fact is
that Saddam Hussein has the motive to have wanted to strike us.
I think if the trail leads in this case to Iraq and contact with
the attacks of September 11 or with terrorism generally, we have
to go at them.
PRESS: If the trail leads, are you saying we look the
other way?
PECK: No, but the trail hasn't led there yet.
PRESS: Pretty clear.
PECK: You have to understand now. Just like the colonel
here, I'm a veteran of the armed forces. I have had two tours
of active duty in the Army. And I don't take a back seat to anybody
in terms of patriotism. This is the greatest nation that ever
was and may be the greatest nation that ever will be. But that's
my view, and it is not universally shared. So we have come out
with 21 pages of proof that Osama bin Laden was involved. I have
read that material. That's allegations. That's not proof. It's
an entirely different thing. Proof of what it means to us. So,
yes, he's not a nice guy, Saddam Hussein. But I think that the
costs to our nation and its interests of taking him out are probably
vastly exceeding anything we would gain by doing it.
NOVAK: I want to read you a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup
poll taken just over the weekend. "Action against other
countries that are just harboring terrorists": 78 percent
approved, 16 percent disapprove. Now, I don't want to criticize
the Gallup organization, but I would like a definition of terrorist.
You know, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
They don't say terrorist connected with September 11. They don't
say terrorist connected with anything. Were the Israeli Haganah
or Stern Gang terrorists when they blew up the King David Hotel?
What is a terrorist?
MAGINNIS: Taking innocent lives unnecessarily,
whether it be 9- 11 or it being Hamas or Hezbollah going into
pizza parlors, blowing up innocent civilians. That's terrorism
to me.
NOVAK: What about Israeli F-16s shooting down Palestinian
civilians?
MAGINNIS: If they shoot down Palestinian civilians
and they're not collateral damage in going after a known Hamas
or Hezbollah person that happens to be at the wrong place at
the right time. And those sorts of circumstances do take place.
But unfortunately, when we are dealing with terrorism and they
are targeting civilians -- in many cases, primarily civilians,
quite frankly -- they are not targeting the military
PRESS: Ambassador, as former ambassador to Iraq I know
you have affection for the country and for its people, and you
are disgusted with what Saddam Hussein has done with that country.
When you look at this guy, it's not just the events of September
11, as horrific as they were. We had a couple weeks ago on CROSSFIRE
Laurie Mylroie, an author who has written a book where she puts
out what I think is pretty convincing evidence that it was Saddam
Hussein and his intelligence that were the masterminds behind
the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. If we don't get him
now, aren't we letting him get away with two attacks on the United
States in a row? Don't you believe her evidence?
PECK: No, I do not. I think Dr. Mylroie has got a
real phobia about this, and if she possibly could, she would
accuse him of being responsible for male pattern baldness in
the United States. Saddam Hussein is not all that powerful. And
we have been -- I have no -- I have an affection for that country
because I lived there, but my job has been all these years to
learn to understand these other countries so I could tell my
country about them. Do not confuse, please, the message with
the messenger. And the message is that we have been bombing Iraq
whenever we feel like it for the last 10 years. Nobody likes
that, least of all the Iraqis, and but lot of other people besides.
We have been responsible --
pardon, I'll take it back. We have accepted responsibility for
the death of 500,000 Iraqi children on American television, a
position taken by the then-ambassador to the United Nations.
A lot of people don't want to excuse you for that. So if Saddam
Hussein believes, in the words of Dr. Mylroie that he's still
at war with the United States, could it be the daily bombings?
Could it be the $94 million that Congress appropriated to finance
his overthrow. Sir, that's an act of war. Whether you want to
accept it as such, we are going to finance people to overthrow
his government? That is -- that is called a hostile act, you
see? So if he's upset with us, there may be a reason for it
PRESS: U.S. ground forces [may be] going to go in. Do
you agree and don't you agree that's a necessary next step?
PECK: I always feel, you know, as a former military
man, yeah, that's it. Because you have to have an objective.
You have to know what it is you are going to accomplish, and
how you are going to accomplish it and what the end game is.
I think that going into Afghanistan -- where in addition to fighting
the Taliban forces, who are armed with slingshots and large rocks,
as far as I know -- you're going to look for individuals. That's
hard to do in a country like that.
PRESS: So that's a no?
PECK: I would say it's not a smart thing to do. I
would say it would be a very dumb thing to do you. You have got
a surrogate that you can use and arm and equip and so forth:
the northern forces. Go that way. Don't put U.S. forces on the
ground.
PRESS: Let me follow up on that. Isn't that in fact
the best role for-- we are not talking perhaps about an expeditionary
force, but we're talking about special forces that could go in
and help the Taliban prepare them, train them, equip them, maybe
give them transportation to the front, protect the refugees;
the job for U.S. special forces has to be there.
PECK: I guess so. But that's kind of how we started
out in Vietnam. That didn't work out to our advantage. Because
you start out and they are not doing well, so we have to do more
and then we try this and then we try that.One of the things you
have to understand -- try -- is that a lot of people, an awful
lot of people are going to resent seriously the fact that we
believe that if we don't like that government, we have the right
to throw it out, overthrow it and put somebody else in place.
I sat at this very table a
couple of years ago when the United States was debating the Iraq
Liberation Act. And my opponent -- pardon me, my partner at the
time -- was, we were going to go in and put this group in power
and bring democracy to Iraq. You cannot enforce democracy. You
don't stuff it down people's throat. It comes this way. Not that
way. So that an awful lot of folks around the world are going
to say, "Hey, that is not your job."
PRESS: I know we've been focusing on what comes next.
I want to come back, if I can, to what we are doing today.
PECK: Yes, sir.
PRESS: Day two of this war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
94 percent of the American people support it. Do you? Are you
among the 94?
PECK: Oh, yes, sure. Except that you ask the American
people the question one way and they will say, "yes we are
for it." And then you watch the body bags to come home and
then they are against it. Polling is a very tricky business,
sir. I don't need to tell you that. When you tell me that 86.2
percent of the people want lower taxes and 94 percent more services,
I recognize that there's a conflict there. What the American
people want is something that's very hard to understand because
A) they don't know where Afghanistan is; B) they know nothing
about it; and c) they have no idea whatsoever as to what the
potential gains and costs are from getting involved
The difficulty that we face is that I support -- because I understand
how democracy works -- we have to go out and do the sorts of
things we are doing. So we will mercilessly, viciously, effectively
attack and destroy all kinds of symptoms. When the rubble has
settled and the dust is gone, the disease is still going to be
out there untouched. Because we don't want to look at why, why
it is that all of these people hate us. It's not because of freedom.
It's not because Brittney Spears has a belly button or because
we export hamburgers. They hate us because of things they see
us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not
like.
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