Posts
Remember this guy?
Headline:
Gaddafi: I told you so!
Saddam: I told you so!
Probable future headlines:
Assad: I told you so!
Iran: I told you so!
Gaddafi said that the trouble in Ben-Ghazzi was being led by Al-Qaeda. We said he was a tyrant and attacking his own people. Now, who do you suppose killed the American Ambassador there? Gaddafi is not around, but we are.
Sadam said he had no contact with Al-Qaeda. In fact, we pointed out that he and Ben Laden hated each other.
Well, hrm.
We at the Absurd Times have been saying "We Told You So," and we do not "hate to say it". Such hypocrisy is the province of the White House and State Department.
There are now demonstrations against the U.S. in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan (a call for a boycott there), and that is not the end of it. Rocket propelled Grenades were used against the U.S. Embassy.
If it were possible to examine them or the launchers, we might find "Made in USA" inscribed on them.
Just a bit of clarity here: this spate was started first by Al Qaeda announcing the U.S. had it coming for its drone strikes against their members.
Then came the film by an Israeli-American accusing the Prophet Mohammed of being a pedophile and of other vile lies. This is not an issue of free speech. Imagine what would happen if a Muslem had made a movie accusing Jesus of being a sodomist and sent it to Kentucky. I doubt if freedom of speech would be much of an issue here over that.
Romney idiotically attacked Obama over not being "tough enough" and this confirms that can can not help but say the wrong thing. Just as the Republicans are Obama's greatest allies in this campaign, pity would be Romney's crutch, pity for him.
Anyway, here are a couple of serious interviews about recent events:
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed as Anti-Islam Film Inflames "Repressed Social Forces" Post-Gaddafi
GUESTS:
Nizar Sarieldin, Libyan activist and journalist.
Vijay Prashad, professor at Trinity College and author ofArab Spring, Libyan Winter.
Links
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.DONATE >
Transcript
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Libya, where the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff have been killed after protesters attacked the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. Ambassador Christopher Stevens is reportedly the first American envoy to be killed abroad in more than two decades. The consulate was attacked by protesters denouncing a short American film insulting the Prophet Muhammad. There are conflicting accounts of how Stevens died. Some reports say he died inside the consulate from smoke inhalation. Others say he was killed in a car being driven from the consulate building. There was no immediate comment from the State Department in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: The protests against the film began Tuesday in both Libya and Egypt. In Cairo, demonstrators stormed over the fortified walls of the U.S. embassy.
Joining us now on the phone from Benghazi is the Libyan activist and journalist Nizar Sarieldin. We’re also joined by Vijay Prashad, a professor at Trinity College. His latest book is called Arab Spring, Libyan Winter.
Nizar, let’s turn to you first. Tell us what’s happening in Benghazi and what you understood happened yesterday.
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, the security void is unclear, and no one can really accuse who did this or moved these groups to make this protest. Yesterday, we heard about this attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. We went over there and found this building burned. And like, beard people were outside, looks like radical groups with weapons, and they were like planning to attack the consulate. We didn’t know for what reason, until we found out that a channel, an Egyptian channel, religious Egyptian channel, were accusing Americans that we need to move to protect our Prophet Muhammad and stop this video that had been posted two months ago. And you just—we don’t know why this thing’s been provoked right now. And nobody knows about this movie. I don’t know why and who and for whose interest is to attack the embassy in Benghazi.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nizar Sarieldin, do you know if there were any links between the attacks on the embassy in Cairo, whether it was a coordinated attack, the attack in Cairo and then the one in Benghazi on the U.S. consulate?
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, these groups are moved by clerics outside the country. They have no control of them. They take their orders from outside the country, so they are Salafis with the radical Salafist group, and they are moved by certain clerics. And they are on channels, on satellite, so everybody watched them. When they got this—get this order, they go out and do what they asked for. So, what they moved them, actually, a channel, a program and a channel called Al Nas, People, and it’s a religious Sunni TV.
AMY GOODMAN: And Nizar, did you know U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens? He had been there for years. In fact, he had been there when the U.S. was having a rapprochement with Muammar Gaddafi, and then he was named the ambassador.
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, yes, I did meet him once in a demonstration in Tahrir Square, and he was alone talking to the people without guards. He trusted the people. He loved the people, and the people loved him so much. And I think that he respected. And he was going around with no high security in the beginning. And then he disappeared, of course, after the frequent incident happened in Benghazi. They start to have higher security. And after the attack on the embassy by the RPG like months ago, he disappeared. We didn’t know if he’s in Benghazi or in Tripoli.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Were people aware, Nizar, that he was in Benghazi at the time of the attack, though? Was his visit announced?
NIZAR SARIELDIN: No, I found—well, I was there after the attack, and I was there, and I found—like, when I saw the people’s faces in the group, they were even themselves confused and shocked that the ambassador was inside. So there was like a big confusion. And they tried to hide the story. Yeah, and they couldn’t talk about it to the public. So, they were—I definitely know that they didn’t know, because they were outside the embassy by that time.
AMY GOODMAN: And Nizar—
NIZAR SARIELDIN: And they discovered that someone is inside—
AMY GOODMAN: You were there in Benghazi. What has been the reaction since the killing of the U.S. ambassador and his aides?
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Confusion is looming, and everybody is actually worried, especially from these groups, because they are starting took to a little bit control and take actions, especially with this security void and political void. There has been call and demos and—against these groups, but 'til now the state is doing nothing to control them or to arrest them. And this is what worries everybody here in Benghazi. They're not comfortable with them. And today there is a demonstration for Chris, and not only for Chris, and for the security here and against those groups, so we are hoping that it will be big. Everyone is depressed about this news. I talked to a lot of people. There were not really comfortable. They couldn’t sleep all night, because they’re really worried about their families, their security and everything.
AMY GOODMAN: And when you say "Chris," you’re referring to the U.S. ambassador, Christopher Stevens, who was killed last night. We’re talking to Nizar Sarieldin. He is in Benghazi right now. We are also joined by Vijay Prashad, professor at Trinity College. His latest book, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter. As you learn this news, your reaction to what’s taken place in Libya, Professor Prashad?
VIJAY PRASHAD: Well, obviously, the first thing is, this is not a very, you know, surprising event to me. It’s a very sad event. It’s very sad when there’s violence of this kind. Chris Stevens was a career Foreign Service officer. He had been in the Peace Corps. He also was in Benghazi in 2011 at the start of the February revolution. He had been deputed there by the U.S. State Department. So he has had a long relationship with Libya. But it’s not surprising, Amy, because there are social forces inside Libya that have been suppressed and are seeking to have some kind of outlet.
You know, in Benghazi itself, this is not the first incident of this kind. In 2006, during the high point of the Danish cartoon controversy, there was a demonstration of more than a thousand people in front of the Italian consulate, because an Italian minister, Roberto Calderoli, had worn a T-shirt, very insulting, which had that Danish cartoon on it. At that demonstration, the Gaddafi regime opened fire on the crowd, killed 11 people. And that was on February 17th, 2006. Because of that firing on the crowd, several human rights activists—Fathi Terbil, Idris al-Mesmari, people like that—had become politicized. And it was for the fifth anniversary of that police firing by the Gaddafi regime, on February 17, 2011, that people like Terbil had planned demonstrations in Benghazi, the fifth anniversary, to commemorate the Gaddafi shooting against this crowd. And the spur, as it were, of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year was essentially around the commemoration of the shooting in Benghazi in 2006.
So, there are social forces in Libya that have had a sense of being humiliated and suppressed. Many of them, you know, have, in a sense, the framework of Islamism. But I don’t think we should fully, you know, make this a situation where we say, "Well, these are, you know, far-right, radical, dangerous, al-Qaeda," things like that. You know, sure, there were black flags, but I think there’s an exaggeration of the black flag used in these demonstrations both in Cairo and in Benghazi. You know, the black flag, for instance, is not only a symbol of al-Qaeda, as people have been saying in the American media, but it has become a routine flag of Islamists. You know, at the storming of the Cairo embassy, it was not just Islamists, it was also the Ultras, the football group that had played a significant role in the Tahrir Square rebellion in Egypt. But there is a section of the population that is feeling, in a sense, you know, marginalized. They have no political voice. There’s a section that feels that the election, where, you know, the rules of the election may not have fully allowed them to put forward their own position. So, there is a complicated social section that I think we need to consider its history, its role, and I think it’s continuing an enduring sense that it has no voice. I don’t think arresting a lot of people or shooting people in these demonstrations is going to quell that social section. It needs to have a political voice.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Vijay Prashad, you mentioned the Danish cartoon controversy in 2005. Can you elaborate a little on what the response in Benghazi was at the time to those cartoons?
VIJAY PRASHAD: Yes, certainly. You know, when the cartoon controversy begins in November, December 2005, it spreads rapidly around the world. You know, just as Nizar is saying now, the satellite television channels played a major role there. Clerics played a major role. And there were demonstrations in—across the world, really, against the cartoon controversy. In February, there was a major demonstration in Benghazi. And again this—we should keep putting this in context. The 20061demonstration in February wasn’t the first major demonstration in Benghazi on this idea of being a people humiliated. You know, why is it that the West wants to humiliate us with things like these cartoons or this ridiculous film made by Sam Bacile and promoted by Terry Jones, the pastor in Florida? So, in Benghazi in 2006, there was a major demonstration—I mean, in 2006, there was a major demonstration, and the police fired at it. But again, you know, when I say let’s put this in con—in 1996, the Libyan Islamic fighting group had started its rebellion. And at that point, it was, you know, virulently put down by the Gaddafi regime. So, whether it’s 1996, 2006, 2011, 2012, you cannot suppress the social section simply by force of arms.
AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to read a bit from the APpiece on what the film that people were protesting is, who it was made by. AP says, "An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding [Tuesday] after his movie attacking Islam’s prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya... Speaking by phone ... from an undisclosed location, writer and director Sam Bacile" — if that’s how it’s pronounced, B-A-C-I-L-E — "remained defiant, saying Islam is a cancer and that the 56-year-old intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion."
It goes on to say, "The two-hour movie, 'Innocence of Muslims,' cost $5 million to make... The film claims Muhammad was a fraud. An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons.
"It depicts Muhammad as a feckless philanderer who approved of child sexual abuse, among other overtly insulting claims that have caused outrage."
Now, this was made in 2011. It is unclear why this is gaining attention right now. "It was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind cameras." "Bacile’s film was dubbed into Egyptian Arabic by someone he doesn’t know, but he speaks enough Arabic to confirm that the translation is accurate."
I’d like to get response from Vijay Prashad, and then, Nizar, I’d like you also to respond, if people are watching this film. Nizar Sarieldin is still with us in Benghazi.
VIJAY PRASHAD: Well, Amy, as far—
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Yes.
VIJAY PRASHAD: I watched the 13-minute trailer. It is a very, very disturbing film. It’s not the presence of the film or the making of the film itself that’s the problem. It’s that it’s been heavily promoted. You know, as I mentioned, Terry Jones, the pastor in Florida who threatened to burn the Koran in public, you know, to commemorate 9/11 a few years ago, has been promoting films like this. He has become a touchstone. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are radical clerics, just like this radical preacher, who are mirroring him. And, you know, they are creating a very tense kind of so-called clash of civilizations atmosphere, in which there is a combustion going to happen. So I think that’s the context in the larger sense.
In the more specific sense, there is certainly political jockeying going on in Egypt, where this really began, you know, with an Egyptian social section, with an Egyptian political section that is jockeying for authority in contemporary Egypt. It just happened to be a coincidence that in Libya, the prime minister was going to be announced yesterday. So it was just coincidental in Libya, as well, that there is a kind of political jockeying. But in Egypt, there is a very real political battle between a section of the Islamists and those who want to have a different kind of constitution, when that is indeed written. So, this is a kind of context that is there, and this combustive battle between two kinds of radicalism came in the middle of it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nizar Sarieldin, could you comment, as well, on this film and whether the trailer has been circulating in Libya?
NIZAR SARIELDIN: Well, if you—if you check the rate of number of viewers, two months ago you would find just only 5,000 people have been watching this video. And since the channel talked about it, it gave it like a boost, and they started like 25,000 in one day, and it’s only in Libya. So, I guess who did the publicity for this movie is actually clerics, and like this channel made the publicity and made everybody watched it and moved the street for that. So, I think the only—there is a reason. I think there is—they want to score something. They want to hide us on certain facts, because we are going towards democracy. And democracy—of course, those radicals are against democracy, and they are not really happy with this elections and everything. They want it to be like in old-time Islamic ruling, which is that everybody disagreed with. So—
AMY GOODMAN: Nizar Sarieldin, I want to thank you very much for being with us. He’s speaking to us from Benghazi, Libyan activist and journalist, Benghazi, where the U.S. ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed last night with three embassy aides. Vijay Prashad, joining us from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Professor Prashad’s latest book is called Arab Spring, Libyan Winter.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, Kurt Eichenwald will join us to talk about Secrets and Lies in the Terror War, is his new book, 500 Days. Stay with us.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
"500 Days": Author Kurt Eichenwald’s New Account of How Bush Admin Ignored Warnings Before 9/11
Newly disclosed documents provide further evidence the administration of George W. Bush ignored repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack the United States. In "500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars,” author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald fleshes out how the Bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al-Qaeda attack against the United States beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on alleged threats from Saddam Hussein in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Kurt Eichenwald, award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His latest book is called 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars. He is also author of The Informant.
Related
- The 9/11 Decade: Voices of Dissent on Democracy Now! Sep 11, 2012 | Web Exclusive
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- The 9/11 Decade: Timeline of Voices of Dissent on Democracy Now! Sep 11, 2012 | Web Exclusive
- Part 2: Former NSA Employee Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack on Obama Admin. Whistleblower Crackdown Mar 26, 2012 | Story
- Glenn Greenwald: Is Obama Fulfilling the Neocon Dream of Mass Regime Change in Muslim World? Nov 28, 2011 | Story
Links
- "The Deafness Before the Storm." By Kurt Eichenwald. (New York Times Op-Ed, Sept. 10, 2012)
- "500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars." By Kurt Eichenwald (Simon Schuster, 2012)
- Kurt Eichenwald’s Website
- The 9/11 Decade: Timeline of Voices of Dissent on Democracy Now!
Editor's Picks
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.Donate >
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One day after the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we begin the show by talking about newly disclosed documents that provide further evidence the Bush administration ignored repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack the United States. Writing in the New York Times, journalist and author Kurt Eichenwald reports the Bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al-Qaeda attack in the United States beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Eichenwald writes, quote, "the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to [this] theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat," end-quote.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, to talk about the significance of these findings, we’re joined by the author himself, Kurt Eichenwald, an award-winning journalist, contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His op-ed in the New York Times yesterday is called, "The Deafness Before the Storm." His latest book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars, also author of the book The Informant.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!
KURT EICHENWALD: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Kurt, lay out the chronology for us. A lot of people know August 6, 2001, right before the September 11th attacks. Explain then that memo and then how you went back.
KURT EICHENWALD: Well, actually, that is the way to look at this, is sort of backwards. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission hearings were coming down and saying, "We want to see these presidential daily briefs." And the Bush administration fought releasing them. They finally released the August 6th one, which had the now-infamous headline, "Bin Laden determined to strike U.S." And in her testimony, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said this was merely a historical document. It was a review of, you know, bin Laden and al-Qaeda and their intents and what they’ve done. And actually, when you read it, that is what it was. And it was also a red herring, because—I can’t say that’s why they released it, but it certainly was convenient, because that document was the only one of the many that had gone out over the previous few months that was historical. All the others were: "There is an attack coming," "There’s an attack coming that’s going to be devastating. There are going to be mass casualties," "There is a terrorist cell in the United States that is plotting to strike," I mean, with a great deal of table pounding. And there was—and I don’t want to keep picking on Secretary Rice, but she did—in that, she did testify, "If we had been made aware that there was an attack coming, we would have done something." Well, they were made aware. And, you know, in the end, what these documents show is that the Bush administration was not at that point prepared to consider al-Qaeda and these kind of non-state terrorist organizations as being a significant threat.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But who are the neoconservative leaders that you point to who were more interested in Iraq than in listening to what’s happening with al-Qaeda, what was happening?
KURT EICHENWALD: Well, the lead fellow was Paul Wolfowitz, who was the number two at the Pentagon. And, you know, one of—since this piece came out, there was members of the Bush administration—Ari Fleischer last night was saying, "Oh, Paul was kicking this idea around, but people said no, and that was it." Well, that’s a lie, you know, because when you look at the presidential daily briefs, the CIA actually had to go back and put together an entire brief saying, "No, we’re not being fooled. This is real. Let’s have to deal" — and it’s going to the president of the United States. There’s a debate playing out to the president of the United States, in June of—June 29th of 2001, about whether these warnings are even worth listening to. So, you know, it’s a very serious, serious circumstance.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Who else is privy to the briefs, apart from the president? Who else heard the briefings from the CIA?
KURT EICHENWALD: Well, it would have gone to the vice president. It would have—there are two levels of briefings. There are the presidential daily briefs, and then there’s a second level down called the SEIB. And that gets around a broader roof of people. Now, elements of what are in the presidential daily briefs are also in the SEIB. And those—so I can say that some elements of what I’m saying were wide—were among the whole national security senior advisory group within the Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: This is a clip from April 8th, 2004, of the secretary of state then, Condoleezza Rice, testifying in a hearing before the 9/11 Commission about the attacks.
SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9/11, it would have been better information about threats inside the United States, something made very difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
AMY GOODMAN: That was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who actually spoke at the Republican National Convention this summer. Kurt Eichenwald, talk about what she said, and then talk about what you describe as the obsession, not with Osama bin Laden, but with Saddam Hussein, and how they felt this was sidetracking that targeting.
KURT EICHENWALD: OK. Well, that quote from Secretary Rice was something that, actually, to me, sort of goes to the heart of what’s so offensive here, because, you know, we can say, "Well, here are the warnings." We cannot say, "Well, if they had done x, y and z, 9/11 would have been stopped." All we can say is they had this information.
But what we also know is, now that these documents are out, the CIA did a spectacular job in developing the evidence and bringing it to the White House, and the White House didn’t listen. And so, what you had from almost the get-go was the White House and members of the administration saying, "Well, the intelligence wasn’t good enough," and "Oh, if we had only had something else." And they get to the point of saying, "Well, we weren’t given a place and a time," as if, you know, we’re talking about an invitation to a birthday party. I mean, the way intelligence works, you don’t say, "On Tuesday, March—you know, September 11th, there will be an attack here." If you have that much information, it would simply be: "We’ve arrested these people."
And the thing to bear in mind—I’ll throw one more little fact out. The only other time you had a series of threat alerts on the scale of what you had on the summer of 2001 was in December of 1999. And it was: bin Laden is about to strike. I mean, same thing, very, very similar. And the entire government went on high alert. You had, you know, the Counterterrorism Center in their terrace—Counterterrorist Center at the CIA was told, "Don’t worry about your budget." And they blew through their first nine months of the year budget in 15 days. And, you know, this—yes, I mean, it’s—this was a full-court-press "we’re going to stop them." And they picked up terrorists around the world. You know, the one people know about is the fellow who was planning to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. But there were people picked up in Indonesia, there were people picked up in Pakistan, who were going to attack American interests there. And so, that was very, very successful. And it was successful because the government has the ability and the capacity to go on high alert. What the Bush administration did was say, "This is very concerning. Let’s have a meeting, you know, and let’s put out notices to our embassies and put out notices to our military: you know, be particularly careful." But it’s not the same thing.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about Saddam Hussein here, the significance of the problem of it being Osama bin Laden for the neocons in the White House, because they wanted to get Saddam Hussein?
KURT EICHENWALD: Well, there, you just sort of have to understand the shift that took place in that period. The Republicans had been out of the White House since '92. When they left, the nation state was the enemy—you know, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, whoever you wanted to pick. And Saddam was, you know, the center of the war. They leave. And during the time from ’92 through 2000, the detached threat, the non-nation-state threat, develops. Al-Qaeda develops. We hadn't heard of al-Qaeda before that time. And so, when they get—when the Republicans get back into office, they have spent the last year on the outside, you know, rattling the "We have to take down Iraq, and Clinton isn’t taking down Iraq" saber. And they get back in, and the Clinton people tell them, "The most important thing you’re going to deal with over the next few years is bin Laden." But they haven’t adapted to that. This is a new world. And it’s, "No, Iraq is the most important." So they’re still in that old mindset. And unfortunately, facts started being shoved into that mindset. If you had a piece of information come up, "Well, how does that relate to Iraq? What did bin Laden say? Well, how does that relate to Iraq? What’s for breakfast today? Well, how does that relate to Iraq?"
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Kurt Eichenwald, I want to turn to your appearance on MSNBC yesterday, where you were joined by Republican governor of New York, George Pataki, who challenged the premise of your book and much of what you’re saying now, your book 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.
GEORGE PATAKI: I just think this is incredibly unfortunate, to be perfectly honest, because, first of all, having been there on September 11th and for weeks, months thereafter, President Bush provided inspired, effective leadership. And September 11th, everything changed. And to look 11 years later and say, "Aha! This was happening before September 11th in the summer," and to go through and selectively take out quotes and say, "You should have done that, you should of done that," I think it’s incredibly unfair and a disservice to history. And, by the way, you know, if you look back, there are those who could have said, "President Roosevelt was at fault for Pearl Harbor. Look at all the intelligence."
KURT EICHENWALD: And there are a lot of people who do say that.
GEORGE PATAKI: But the government didn’t look back and say, "Let’s blame the president." It came together to fight an important war. We came together to fight an important war. Wait, you could also look back, Kurt, and say that you got intelligence we were going to be attacked. Of course, we had already been attacked. The towers were blown up in '93. And I don't think it serves us any point to say that then the Clinton administration treated it as a criminal act as opposed to a terrorist act.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was George Pataki, who was governor of New York when the 9/11 attacks happened. Your response?
KURT EICHENWALD: There has been, over the last 24 hours, a quite a disturbing response from the Republicans, which is actually surprising, because what I’m doing is I am writing a history. This is what happened. I don’t come in and say something horrific about, well, this is what, you know, should be done, and they should have acted in this way, and they could have stopped 9/11. I never say any of that. I have said, this is what they did in '99, and it worked, and they could have done that. But, you know, what is sort of the conceit of what Governor Pataki is saying is, "Well, we don't want to hear the history, because George Bush did a great job after 9/11, and whatever happened beforehand is irrelevant." His comment about Roosevelt, I mean, this would be as if we were saying, in 1956, we couldn’t talk about the history of what happened before the bombing, before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Well, it’s 11 years before. It’s history. And unfortunately, so much in this country now gets seen through this partisan prism, that when you’re dealing with "here’s what happened," people don’t want—you know, people don’t want to hear it if it doesn’t fit the talking points of the day.
AMY GOODMAN: The people who threatened to quit within the CIA, I mean, this wasn’t just a minor issue. You had a whole group of people who—we remember when Cheney went repeatedly to the CIA, saying, "You’re not giving me the information I want to attack Saddam Hussein." The White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke, September 12th, Bush comes up to him and says, "I need information on Saddam Hussein." But the CIA folks who were talking about it being Osama bin Laden when the rest were pushing them to say Saddam Hussein?
KURT EICHENWALD: Well, I think what you’re talking about is the July 9th meeting at the CIA, where the counterterrorism people all got together. And again, this goes to exactly what Governor Pataki was saying. It’s like, "We get these warnings all the time. And there was something in ’93," you know, as if—as if there’s no purpose for counterterrorism, because, oh, we all know they’re going to come at us all the time. Well, the people who put together the intelligence, the people who were there, day in, day out, the people who were the ones listening in on the phone calls, the people who are protecting American citizens were sitting in a conference room saying, "We need to put in for a mass transfer, because this is coming, and it’s going to be really bad." And—
AMY GOODMAN: And they’re going to be blamed for it.
KURT EICHENWALD: And they’re going to be blamed for it. And the senior fellow in the room says — this is a scene in 500 Days — senior fellow in the room says, "There’s nobody more qualified than us to ride this thing down. They’re not going to be able to get people in here who are qualified, and we are going to be the ones here holding the bag," and, you know, which is exactly what happened. They’re sitting there saying, not, you know, "Oh, what’s the next thing we can do?" They’re saying, "We’ve done everything we can do. They won’t act. It’s going to happen. It’s going to be bad. We’re going to be blamed." And all the—the only thing they failed to do was to get the White House off the dime, and that wasn’t their responsibility.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the most interesting accounts in your book is of President Bush trying to persuade—then-President Bush trying to persuade French President Jacques Chirac to support U.S. military action in Iraq. You write that Bush said to Chirac, quote, "Jacques, you and I share a common faith. You’re Roman Catholic, I’m Methodist, but we are both Christians committed to the teachings of the Bible. We share one common Lord." Bush goes on to say, quote, "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase His people’s enemies before a new age begins," end-quote. Can you elaborate on that exchange?
KURT EICHENWALD: That was a very interesting day when I heard that. This was a phone call—at that point, Chirac had been expressing a great deal of doubt about the intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. His doubts obviously were well placed. And Bush was trying to get a unified—you know, unified effort behind getting a resolution from the U.N. and then for military action. And Chirac was not being particularly cooperative, for the very reason he didn’t trust the intelligence. And so there’s this phone call, and Bush is, you know, giving many reasons why France should become part of a—why Chirac should be joining in. And he’s not having a lot of success. And suddenly you shift into this religious conversation.
And Chirac’s response to this was, you know, he gets off the phone—and other people had been—you know, had been in on the call, and he looks at his staff and says, "Does anyone know what he was talking about?" And they—his administration, someone there reaches out to an expert on the Bible in Switzerland, and this person—because it’s like, what is Gog and Magog? And this person writes up a report for—I mean, I just say this, and it’s surreal. He writes a report for the French president explaining these biblical terms that were cited by the president of the United States in this national security conversation. And Gog and Magog are two—are from two the books of the Bible, one the Book of Ezekiel and one the Book of Revelation. And it is central elements in, you know, the apocalyptic—you know, the Armageddon concept. And so, Chirac’s response when he reads this is, "I’m dealing with a fanatic, and I’m not going to make, you know, national security decisions for France based on someone—you know, the president’s interpretation of the Bible."
AMY GOODMAN: Kurt Eichenwald, we have to end this conversation, but the book is fascinating, 500 Days. We’d like to ask you to stay after the show so we can do part two and then broadcast it on Democracy Now! and put it online at democracynow.org. Kurt Eichenwald is a contributing writer at Vanity Fair. His latest book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
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