TRNN's Paul Jay's Long & Interesting Interview With Sy Hersh on "Controversial" bin Laden Article

[KoKo]

TRNN's Paul Jay Talks to Sy Hersh

Seymour Hersh says by going public with a "fairytale" narrative of the murder of Bin Laden, President Obama broke an agreement with top Pakistani generals to hide the U.S. mission and Pakistani military complicity. Includes the video backlash from Navy Seal who says he was there when bin Laden was shot and Sy's answer to that criticism. The second half of the interview has that info.


PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE VIDEO...READ THE REST AT:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13859

'''

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN:\\ Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. In a piece in the London Review of Books, Seymour Hersh debunks the American narrative of the capturing of Osama bin Laden. He says the official version is more like a fairy tale than fact. Now joining us from his office is Seymour Hersh. Thanks very much for joining us.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Sure.

JAY: So the basic thesis, if I understand correctly, is the two top military leaders of Pakistan, the chief of the Army and the chief of the ISI, in fact not only knew where bin Laden was, and not only cooperated with the Americans, but the entire official version that this was done as a completely unilateral American mission is a lie.

HERSH: That's pretty good, accurate description of--yeah, it's exactly right. I think the way I usually say it is the President authorized the raid, and the SEAL Team, American SEAL Team 6, which was our most--these are good people, this is the, sort of the cream of the crop of this, the special forces. They did go into Abbottabad, this little resort town outside of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, where bin Laden was a prisoner, or under the control of the Pakistanis for years.


JAY: Since 2006.

HERSH:

And they killed him. Period. Came back, successful mission. After that, much of the other story just isn't right.

JAY: Now, the 10,000 word article is extremely detailed. We're not going to try to go through the whole, all the details.

HERSH: Thank God, yeah.

JAY: Because people should go read the article. Not only is it very detailed, but it's also a great read. So go read it. That being said, a few questions. What--why wouldn't the Americans want to capture bin Laden and interrogate him?

HERSH:

We would. We would've wanted to very much. Just--you're getting ahead of the curve here. Let me just, let me just do the chronology for you.What happens is in 2010, a guy that worked, a retired military officer who was involved in, in something to do with the, the building in which bin Laden was a prisoner, or what you will, in Abbottabad. Some guy that, he has something to do with the security, maybe providing guards for the complex. But he was a, he was a retired officer on contract with the Pakistani Intelligence Service, the ISI. That's what it is, it's the counterpart to our CIA, the Pakistani counterpart.This guy walks into the American embassy in Islamabad and wants the, you know, there's a bounty. We put a bounty, a $25 million buck reward for the guy's head. And so this guy comes in and he, he wants the money, and he tells us where bin Laden is, and tells us a lot of other information. He says bin Laden was picked up by the Pakistanis somewhere in the rural district, near the border with Afghanistan, a place called Waziristan. And a mountain area. And they had him as a prisoner basically since '06. He also says, we later learn that the Pakistanis had told the Saudis about it. And the Saudis' position with the Pakistanis was, we'll build a house for him. We'll build a complex where he was staying. We'll pay for that. We'll give you some money. We don't know how much, I think a lot. I've heard a lot, but I don't know. I just don't know what the answer is. We, we'll pay you not to tell the Americans. Why? Because the last thing they want is to have the Americans go interrogate Osama bin Laden about who was giving him money back in '01 when he took down New York and Washington.So that's the reasonable assumption.

JAY:

Because according to the Senate co-investigation into 9/11, the congressional committee, Bob Graham and such, many, according to Graham, Saudi government officials are in on financing and facilitating the 9/11 attacks.

Hersh:

Well we, we, we--you know, we don't have the money transfer. We don't have the empirical evidence. But getting bin Laden to say something would have been important. And so that was a pretty good reason. The other reason, you know, the Pakistanis have their own axe to grind in the world. They don't have to tell us everything. But in any case, once, what it--

.JAY: One more question. Why not kill him?

HERSH: What do you mean, why not kill him, what--.

JAY: Why not kill bin Laden?HERSH: Where?JAY: [Are] they afraid of--well, once they have him, why not kill him? Why keep him for six years?

HERSH:

Well first of all, they're being paid to keep him. Second of all, they--as long as they have bin Laden, the Pakistani Intelligence Service can go to the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Taliban in Pakistan and say--and also to the jihadists, the Sunni wackos in both countries, and say, we got your guy. And you have to understand at this point bin Laden was ten times more than what--a huge number more, more popular than we were. Than America is. America at one point was only, polls showed only 8 percent of the people in Pakistan liked us. They didn't like us. They saw us as guys that dropped bombs on them. Which we just may be.And, um, and so, um, the issue was, just to go kill him, if the--if, if Pasha and Kayani, the two generals who ran the country then. The Army general was named Kayani, the head of the Intelligence Service was named Pasha. If they had just gone and whacked the guy, if anything had come out, leaked out--I'm just giving you a reason for that. This, this never came up in my interviews. Because I was always looking at it from the American point of view. But it would make sense to me that the last thing they'd want to have happen is let the, let the population know that they were involved in killing bin Laden. How would you keep that a secret?So I--that makes sense. But your question is good, and unanswered.

JAY: Okay. We're going to go through a lot of, much of the specifics of the story. But this all really comes down to confidence in you, that you have sources. Because your, your sources you can't reveal. Or don't reveal.HERSH: I could, but they'd be in jail the next day, or with--you know, pretty tough government here.

MUCH MORE & The Second Half of the View/Transcript is NEWER Info at:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13859

[Jack Rabbit]

1. I recommend viewing this to all.

Mr. Hersh's narrative is coherent and plausible.

The major hole he finds in the official narrative is concerning how fast the DNA testing can be completed. Mr. Hersh does not believe there is any way President Obama could have had reliable DNA results when he announced that Osama had been killed.

Mr. Hersh does not know if the President willfully lied or not. It's not a terribly important question, since even if he knew the facts about DNA test results on Osama's body, he probably would have said what he said even knowing it was inaccurate in order to foster the continuing cooperation of Pakastani intelligence.

If anybody doubts it, Mr. Hersh reassures his audience that Osama bin Laden is dead.

[bahrbearian]

2. Unless they had his DNA since 2006, Maybe ?

[Jack Rabbit]

3. DId you view the tape?

Yes, they had a known sample of Osama's DNA and had it for some time. However, the test still needs to be made. According to Mr. Hersh, there are no faclities in Pakistan where a sample from the corpse believed to be Osama could be tested against the existing sample of Osama's DNA. Mr. Hersh's further says that the closes place to do that tested was Frankfurt, which isn't exactly in the same neighborhood. Mr. Hursh does not believe it could have been known with certainty that the man Navy SEALS killed that night was Osama bin Laden for the better part of a week.

Again, it is irrelevant whether the President was aware of this or not. He would have said what he did to protect intelligence sources inside the ISI.

[JDPriestly]

9. I remember wondering at the time ofthe event why there weren't more pictures of what

happened inside the compound. The Seals must have taken them. The White House staff was watching something in the famous picture we are shown of them. What were they watching if not a video or pictures of what was going on in the compound. I don't think we know everything well although Hersh's reporting clarifies a few more of the facts.

[RufusTFirefly]

10. Of course, the photo of the White House team may have been as fraudulent as the narrative

For all we know, they could've been watching Bugs Bunny. The whole operation was orchestrated. It was the President's decision to announce things early that necessitated a whole new narrative.

[JDPriestly]

11. And Seymour Hersh may have been fed a phony story also -- for political purposes --

to undercut not just Obama but Hillary.

If Osama Bin Laden had died without his death being accounted for, the government, whether Obama's or anyone else's would have had difficulty persuading many Americans that he was in fact gone. He may have just died or been killed in fighting or by some other means. Anyway, we have this confused story with various versions. It will do. It is important that we be finished with Osama Bin Laden. He is dead. If he weren't we would have heard from him by now. I always wondered whether the Bush administration knew he was dead but just kept the idea of his threat going because it was useful in achieving their goal of establishing more firmly a surveillance state. But that is a conspiracy theory that is just the stuff of novels rather than of serious consideration. When it comes to Republicans, I put not prevarication beyond them.

[lovemydog]

6. Very well-stated summary, Jack Rabbit.

[JDPriestly]

8. I haven't listened to the second part yet, but it makes utterly no sense to me that we would

have located Bin Laden and had the chance to take him and would not have taken him. The idea that we killed him there in his secluded safehouse does not seem believable to me. Perhaps that is why there are different stories about the cache of materials taken, a firefight, the burial place of Bin Laden, etc. I just don't believe we who are searching to this day to end Al Qaeda would have let Bin Laden die if we could take him alive. I do believe we would not want the world to know we had taken him alive.

Of course, there is always the possibility that this entire story is false and that Bin Laden was killed much earlier.

But I cannot picture our having the possibility of taking Bin Laden alive and failing to do so because of a promise to Pakistan or anyone else. This was/is the number one man on our wanted list and we wanted his information. I can understand why the US government would want to tell the world and us that they killed him in the raid.

Why were the Bin Laden women/wives, etc. turned over to Saudi Arabia?

[Jack Rabbit]

12. I don't think it was ever the intention to take him alive

Mr. Hersh explains that many Saudi oil sheiks had good reason to want him dead. Osama, taken alive, could have talked Saudi funding for al-Qaida. They might have found that a wee bit embarrassing. Of course, they couldn't just take him out themselves. They needed a US operation to do it.

The US government, too, would not have wanted Osama alive and talking. At the very least, the government would be motivated just to save its seedier foreign allies like the Sauds from embarrassment.

[JDPriestly]

13. I don't believe that we would have killed him without a thorough interview. That would

have been stupid on our parts, and what would we have had to gain from it? Nothing.

And as for burial at sea? No way. The story still has some holes in it. It does not hang together yet for me.

[RufusTFirefly]

4. Great interview! Hersh is such a classic, old-school reporter.

And I love the Real News Network.

Thanks for posting!

[lovemydog]

7. I know, right. I love those types of reporters.

Brilliant. I will check out Real News Network. I'm impressed with this interview and with the Senior Editor Paul Jay.

[lovemydog]

5. Fascinating interview.

Thank you KoKo.

Of all the interviews I've seen recently with Sy Hersh, this one is the most informative because Paul Jay isn't playing for a sound bite but is really listening and asking great questions. Obviously Hersh respects the way Jay approaches the subject, and begins to open up more freely toward someone who is more a colleague than most of the other interviewers who are just looking for cheap shots toward Hersh or toward the President.

Most of the mainstream 'reporting' on this article claims that Hersh is calling President Obama a 'liar' whereas in this interview you learn of why the 'official' version came out as it did. I noticed that Hersh said he voted for President Obama twice and says he's 'the smartest President since Lincoln.' One gets a better sense of all the different things at play, and why protection of sources also works within the CIA, especially in regards to the generals in Pakistan. As Hersh says the government may never provide a totally accurate story, nor will we ever learn it completely from reporters either. Really fascinating stuff.

[KoKo]

14. I thought so, too... Thanks for watching it...

He does a great job in his guest interviews, imho. He interviews people that the MSMedia ignores. And, he usually asks tough questions that get interesting replies. His archive of interviews on the site are worth a rewatch, also.

Different Journalism in a Challenging Time.....

[swilton]

15. Can totally see this explanation

as well as the administration's..

Public relations is a most powerful tool used by politicians. They have paid handlers and propagandists to do nothing but manufacture images - reality be damned. They have been doing this long before Jessica Lynch and the Iraq War. On the one hand social media is making it more transparent but to balance out the transparency, the stories/propaganda is more penetrating and intrusive.