Interview With Seymour Hersh LATE EDITION

[seemslikeadream]

What are the Israelis doing in Iraq?

SEYMOUR HERSH, "THE NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: They're in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. They're not in Iraq central. They're in northern Iraq, and they're working with the Kurds. Their long-time friends.

And what the Israelis did, as I write about, they decided six months ago, this was a no-win for us. We were in real trouble without a major change in policy.

And one of the Israeli issues all along had been that the United States was very slow to recognize the fact that Iran was playing a peaceful but very aggressive role in helping the insurgency against us. And they tried, they batted heads against us, and we would not listen. This is the White House and the Defense Department.

So they took the option of going in there with their old allies, the Kurds, and they're beginning run operations against the people they really are frightened of, the Iranians, nuclear issue, and the Syrians. They like to pose trouble for the Syrians.

The only problem with their operation is that it puts them face to face with the Turks.

BLITZER: Well, we're going to get to that in the moment because the Israelis have a long-standing, very good relationship with Turkey, as well.

But what you're saying is that there are Israeli operatives in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan, the Kurdish part of northern Iraq, that are, what, engaged in actions against Iran?

HERSH: Intelligence-gathering. There's no gun play here. We're talking about Israeli operatives, and many of them are going in -- some Masad people go in without passports. They're not wearing uniforms. They're undercover.

How many? A few hundred probably is the best guess, maybe more even. But what they're doing -- and don't forget, there's always been, as I say, a long ties, a lot of economic ties, a lot of Kurdish Jews are very friendly with -- emigrated to Israel. There's a lot of ties.

What they're doing is they're -- Kurdistan puts them very close to some very central potential nuclear sites in Iran, and they're running operations with the Kurds into Iran setting up, you know, the kind of devices, you have the sniffers, the kind of activity you get to see what kind of nuclear goings on might be going on.

BLITZER: So it's basically an intelligence-gathering operation for the Israelis in cooperation with the Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds.


more
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/20/le.00.html

[leftchick]

1. Sy is so great... I saw the interview....

this was my favorite part.. bushco* policies in a nutshell...

"This is an administration that doesn't want to hear bad news and doesn't absorb bad news. So they just go along hoping it'll change."

Go Sy... :)

[seemslikeadream]

2. more

HERSH: And more. I mean, there's been a lot of trouble in Syria recently. There's been a lot of disturbances among the Kurdish populations of Syria. Syrians have about 2 million Kurds among the 17 million population, and there's been a lot of trouble. There was riots at a soccer match.

BLITZER: So what are you suggesting, the Israelis are involved in this?

HERSH: Well, the Israelis certainly, to a degree, not on the ground there, but certainly supporting the idea that the Syrians have a lot of trouble with their own population.

This is all keeping people off balance. This you have to understand in the context for Israel of a major strategic defeat for the United States in Iraq.




BLITZER: Let's talk about another quote you have in the new issue of The New Yorker. A former Israeli intelligence officer quoted as saying this about what you call Plan B: "It's over, not militarily -- the United States cannot be defeated militarily in Iraq -- but politically."

The Israelis very pessimistic about what's happening in Iraq right now.

HERSH: They've been pessimistic for six months. I write about the fact that, beginning last summer, late last summer, they started worrying about, as I say, the Iranian infusion.




But more than that, even people like Ehud Barak, the former prime minister, who's very straightforward, I write about a meeting he had with our vice president, Mr. Cheney, in which he, said according to a witness, he told Cheney, "Your only issue now is how much humiliation will you collect."





BLITZER: Let me read you exactly what you wrote. You said, "Israel had learned that there's no way to win an occupation. The only issue, Barak told Cheney, was choosing the size of your humiliation."

What Barak saying to Cheney, what, get out, or stop, or move on? What was his bottom line?








Saddam was, you know, killing his the way through the Baath Party to get control. The vice president then -- all during the '70s he was seizing control, but he finally got it officially in '79.

And for five or six or seven years, Allawi was his guy, one of his people in Europe. And what they would do is they would basically, the only other word for it is murder the opposition anywhere in Europe. And he was certainly involved with those people. He was a thug. I've talked to people who have read his internal CIA file. On the other hand, he also became later a very big asset.

BLITZER: Well, they tried to kill him. They axed him almost to death. He spent a year in a hospital because Saddam Hussein tried to kill him?



What's important is that it's totally, completely clear that he was involved with what the Russians call wet-ops, blood. And he was involved in a lot of very bloody things. And I quote a former CIA official using that word.

BLITZER: Let me talk briefly about the prison abuse scandal, since you were so directly involved in breaking this news in The New Yorker over so many weeks.

Is there anything new that you have uncovered in recent weeks you'd like to share with our viewers in the United States and around the world right now?

HERSH: I'm glad you asked the last part. Yes and no. I mean, yes, there's more stuff. I work for The New Yorker magazine, and I really have an obligation to report there.




So it went higher than everybody wants to say it did.

more
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/20/le.00.html

[Swamp Rat]

3. Seymour Hersh - Journalist and American patriot

Great article! I have tremendous respect for Sy Hersh.

[swinney]

4. Sy what I like best about him

He said investigative reporter Bill O'Reilly was--
scum of the earth--pathological liar--would sell his mom for a story.

That is good description

[Pachamama]

6. I love Sy....what a great statement...and an honest one...

Sy...:yourock:

[Judi Lynn]

7. Beautiful. He really needs his own show, doesn't Bill?

Delightful hearing Seymour Hersch said this. It's profoundly true, I'm certain. O'Reilly is un-kempt, mentally, emotionally. He's a wreck. Shows you how well the right-wing is doing, doesn't it? (He dares to pretend he's "independent." He's not bright enough to be independent.)

Now O'Reilly's going to have to do some entertaining "lashing out" at Hersch. That should really ruin him!

[Swamp Rat]

8. REALLY?!

LOL!!! " would sell his mom for a story." Ha ha ha!... poor Mrs. O'Reilly.

[Pachamama]

5. Wolfie B. was grilling Bug Eyes Al-Jabeir about Israeli involvement w/

...Al-Qaida as suggested by Crown Prince Abdullah and others in the royal family circles....Wolfie seemed very upset about it...(naturally since he's a neo-con zionist himself)...

I mentioned it only because it was interesting to watch that conversation and then to see his conversation with Sy Hersh...and that the issue of "Israel" came up again....


Personally, I believe the Israelis and Neo-cons have their hands and signature all over a lot more things than we think they do....And as long as the US props them up and is seen as being joint partners with the Israelis, we will be hated by Muslim Extremists....

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

[earthside]

9. Torture Scandal Goes Up to Bush?

I liked this part of the interview.
Do you think Hersh is hinting that he may get the goods on Bush?

BLITZER: Let me talk briefly about the prison abuse scandal, since you were so directly involved in breaking this news in The New Yorker over so many weeks.

Is there anything new that you have uncovered in recent weeks you'd like to share with our viewers in the United States and around the world right now?

HERSH: I'm glad you asked the last part. Yes and no. I mean, yes, there's more stuff. I work for The New Yorker magazine, and I really have an obligation to report there.

And also, we talked about this the other day. I learn a lot of things, but getting them into the position where they can be facts, where they can be fact-checked as The New Yorker as so carefully do, where I can get enough sources that make me sure.

In general, what we're seeing in the last month -- and this story is trickling its way upward. And it was there. It was there. It was there high up in this administration. There was a lot of concern very early by a lot of people.

Wolf, American soldiers, military, senior officers want their boys when they're captured to be treated well. And the military, the senior officers of this government have a lot of integrity. We have a lot of great officers. They don't approve of doing the kind of stuff that was being done to some of the prisoners, because it offends their own sense of military justice and also in terms of their own boys.

So it went higher than everybody wants to say it did.

[mountainvue]

15. When does

the next issue of the new Yorker come out?

[Moderator]

10. seemslikeadream

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news
source.

Thank you.

DU Moderator

[seemslikeadream]

13. Sorry I will be more careful in the future but

it's so hard sometimes!

[Just Me]

11. Awwww!! I missed it!!!

Oh, well. Thanks so much for the link!

:bounce:

[Wright Patman]

12. Is it possible Nick Berg

was Mossad? Wasn't he detained at one point in either the Kurdish area or a city bordering it?

I think there is a lot more to Berg's death than meets the eye and I don't believe the cover story at all.

The timing was too convenient in terms of knocking Abu Ghraib off the front pages. Task Force 666 or whatever it's called must've got him.

[JoFerret]

14. Israelis using Kurds to build power-base

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1243588,00.html

Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.
The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israel's aims, according to Hersh, are to build up the Kurdish military strength in order to offset the strength of the Shia militias and to create a base in Iran from which they can spy on Iran's suspected nuclear-making facilities.

"Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam," one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border."

By supporting Kurdish separatists, Israel also risks alienating its Turkish ally and undermining attempts to create a stable Iraq. "If you end up with a divided Iraq it will bring more blood, tears and pain to the Middle East and you will be blamed," a senior Turkish official told Mr Hersh.

<more>

[seemslikeadream]

16. Israelis 'using Kurds to build power base'

Gary Younge in New York
Monday June 21, 2004
The Guardian

In the autumn the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak told the US vice president, Dick Cheney, that America had lost in Iraq. Israel "had learned that there's no way to win an occupation," he told Mr Cheney, and the only issue was "choosing the size of your humiliation".

From July last year, argues Mr Hersh, the Israeli government started what one former Israeli intelligence official called "Plan B" in order to protect itself from the fallout of the chaos prompted by America's failure ahead of June 30. If the June 30 transfer of sovereignty does not go well, "there is no fallback, nothing," a former National Security Council member tells Hersh. "The neocons still think they can pull the rabbit out of the hat in Iraq," a former intelligence official says. "What's the plan? They say, 'We don't need it. Democracy is strong enough. We'll work it out.'"

Israel has a longstanding relationship with the Kurds, whom they regard as one of the few non-Arab allies in the area. The Iraqi Kurds, who played a key role in providing the United States with intelligence ahead of the war, have been angered by the United Nations resolution on Iraq earlier this month. The resolution did not affirm the interim constitution that granted them minority veto power in a permanent constitution and so could potentially leave them sidelined.

One Turkish official told Mr Hersh that Kurdish independence would be calamitous for the region. "The lesson of Yugoslavia is that when you give one country independence everybody will want it. Kirkuk will be the Sarajevo of Iraq. If something happens there, it will be impossible to contain the crisis."

more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1243588,00.html

[seemslikeadream]

17. 100,000 Arabs have fled their homes

For an indication of how rapidly sectarian divisions in Iraq can inflame the country, read this New York Times story.

But thousands of Kurds appear to be ignoring the American orders. New Kurdish families show up every day at the camps that mark the landscape here, settling into tents and tumble-down homes as they wait to reclaim their former lands.
The Kurdish migration appears to be causing widespread misery, with Arabs complaining of expulsions and even murders at the hands of Kurdish returnees. Many of the Kurdish refugees themselves are gathered in crowded camps.

American officials say as many as 100,000 Arabs have fled their homes in north-central Iraq and are now scattered in squalid camps across the center of the country. With the anti-American insurgency raging across much of the same area, the Arab refugees appear to be receiving neither food nor shelter from the Iraqi government, relief organizations or American forces.

"The Kurds, they laughed at us, they threw tomatoes at us," said Karim Qadam, a 45-year-old father of three, now living amid the rubble of a blown-up building in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. "They told us to get out of our homes. They told us they would kill us. They told us, `You don't own anything here anymore.' " …

The biggest potential flash point is Kirkuk, a city contested by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Kurdish leaders want to make the city, with its vast oil deposits, the Kurdish regional capital and resettle it with Kurds who were driven out in the 1980's.

To make the point, some 10,000 Kurds have gathered in a sprawling camp outside Kirkuk, where they are pressing the American authorities to let them enter the city. American military officers who control Kirkuk say they are blocking attempts to expel more Arabs from the town, for fear of igniting ethnic unrest.

more
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com