Talk Nation Radio for July 2, 2008
Dahr Jamail on Iraq, infants with birth defects born at Fallujah Hospital, US and Israeli Policy toward Iran, and US Presidential Race
Is this 2008 or 2003? The latest increase in U.S. propaganda is foreboding and familiar.
UPDATE: Palestinian Journalist Mohammed Omer was detained by the Israeli Shin Bet at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan to the West Bank. He was returning home from London after receiving the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism which he shares with Dahr Jamail Read Dahr Jamail’s story 3 July 2008 in Le Monde.
Here is John Pilger’s account. There is a Petition to Protest the Israeli Assault on Mohammed Omer.
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Produced by Dori Smith at WHUS, a Pacifica Affiliate at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT
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Dahr Jamail is author of ‘Beyond the Green Zone, Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.’ He is presently working on a second book about US GI Resistance Movement.
Beyond the Green Zone has become internationally recognized and he has won several prestigious awards including the 2008 Martha Gelhorn Award for Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and four Project Censored Awards.
Dahr Jamail writes for Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other outlets and is a special correspondent for Flashpoints investigative radio produced at KPFA in Berkley, CA. You can find his work online at http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com
Transcript:
Intro; When we last spoke with journalist Dahr Jamail he was discussing his brand new book, ‘Beyond the Green Zone, Dispatches from an ‘Unembedded journalist in Occupied Iraq’. Now that book has become internationally recognized and Dahr has won several prestigious awards including the 2008 Martha Gelhorn Award for Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and four Project Censored Awards.
Dahr Jamail writes for Inter Press Service Le Monde Diplomatique and many other outlets and is a special correspondent for Flashpoints, investigative radio produced at KPFA in Berkley, CA. You can find his work online at http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in
Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, the Independent and other publications. He reports for Democracy Now! and has appeared on the BBC and NPR. He has reported on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Dahr was kind enough to provide us with many first hand accounts from Iraq. This time he joins us from his home on the West Coast. Dahr Jamail welcome:
DJ: Thanks Dori good to be with you.
DS: Dahr Reuters is reporting that the Sunni block is close to rejoining the cabinet. The US media claiming it’s mostly good news out of Iraq. They say the Iraqi Military is now successful. Just give us an update on events in Iraq as the US guided oil deal is now beginning to be implemented.
DJ: I see this as the continuation of kind of the upswing in propaganda that we have been witnessing. It’s right in line with the politics here as far as the race for the presidency for November where now we have it down to two candidates. We have kind of a fresh wave of propaganda about Iraq because neither one of these men want to talk about what’s going on in Iraq because then that brings up the very uncomfortable proposition of total immediate unconditional withdrawal of all US forces which is what most people in this country want, what most people in Iraq want, and actually what most people in the military want now as well according to recent polls.
I see this situation of for example citing the return of the Sunni block to the government or I should say the potential return, they’re claiming that as a success? I can’t tell you how many time’s we’ve had Sunni walk outs from the government and then Sunni returns to the government and the fact that this is being held up as some sort of a success is laughable, really, because politically the government is not anywhere near a reconciliation, they are not any closer today to unity and reconciliation and ironing out differences and really having a truly representative government than they have been ever. In fact I would argue I think confidently that they are further from having that be the case today than ever and of course all of this in the midst of well we are looking to sign over parts of Iraq’s oil infrastructure to privatization to these four major western corporations. So I think that is obviously having a big play in why this propaganda is going to have to paint it like well things are going a bit better in Iraq now, we have oil deals being secured, the economy is on the up and up, bla bla bla. And the reality is let’s look at the hard numbers on the ground. We have scores of Iraqis dying on a daily basis. We have an average of one soldier being killed and about eight to ten wounded every single day. We have over a million Iraqis now dead. One in five Iraqis is a refugee from their home and then we have eight million Iraqis who are in dire need of emergency assistance.
DS: Now the new good news story is about the Iraqi Military. Most of the US corporate press reporting on how much better they are doing. Do you see that in any way related to this other good news about the oil deal that supposedly will help out the world suffering from heavy oil prices?
DJ: I think you put your finger right on the pulse of that story, of the motivation of that story, because the biggest concern with foreign contractors now in Iraq, and there is over six hundred western corporations with contracts in Iraq as we speak, I think the number is roughly six hundred and thirty. The core of this, the main concern in particularly these oil companies is, we can’t have these contracts, we can’t get to work and start profiting from Iraq’s oil infrastructure without security, we have to have security. I think that is really one of the main things right along side the political situation here in this country with the race for the presidency is we have to show that there is some kind of security in Iraq and that the Iraqi Government and their military can provide some of that security so that these foreign companies can safely operate in Iraq.
It’s a wash, anyone that knows what’s going on on the ground knows that there is no security and the Iraq Military is nothing more than a cobbling together of various militia men whose loyalties lie elsewhere. It’s an absolute joke. Everyone on the ground and everyone in the US Military knows the Iraqi Military is completely impotent. I cannot operate on its own. It cannot do anything without full backing of the US Military.
DS: We have had another report from Iraq’s Health Ministry. I remember the last one just in January. This report coinciding with a positive report from the US Military. The Iraqi report claiming civilian casualties are down but US deaths are up. What about this question of stability and civilian casualties versus US casualties. What are the numbers looking like to you Dahr?
DJ: There has been actually a decrease in US Military deaths. In the last six months we have a notable decrease. Mainly because there has been a huge upswing in the use of air power. They are trying to turn over more parts of Iraq over to various militias to control. Hence the ‘Awakening’ group. That’s really what’s behind that. And as far as civilian casualties no, I mean we still have daily suicide bombings, car bombings, attacks, kidnappings. We have scores of people dying. Hundreds of people being wounded every single day.
You know when we talk about oh there has been a decrease in civilian deaths. Well OK. Instead of roughly a thousand to fifteen hundred dying every single week as we had a year a year and a half ago. Now we are down to maybe 400 or 500 a week. And that’s being painted as good news.
Let’s look at this in perspective. If 400 Americans were being killed by violence from a foreign occupying power on a weekly basis how do you think that would be reported in our news media? Then contrast that image with how this is being basically not reported with what’s happening in Iraq and Iraqi civilians. Of course the bottom line lesson is if you are in the mainstream corporate media in the United States Iraqi civilian lives just don’t count.
DS: Your most recent reports in Inter Press Service with your Iraqi counterparts offers a lot of feedback from Iraqis on the US election and Barack Obama versus John McCain came up, the issue of whether or not US forces would leave and which leader would make that happen. Just go over some of what is being said in Iraq about questions of politics in the US.
DJ: The core of that story is is that while there is some mixed feeling in Iraq where many people that my colleagues are talking to in that country do believe that if Barack Obama is elected there will be some kind of positive change. Because he does have some Arab roots. He does have some Muslim roots. That’s how he was raised. So that maybe that would soften his policy in the Middle East and specifically within Iraq. But also a large number of people that my colleagues have spoken with in Iraq about this believe, and these are really more the people in the know as far as what is US Foreign Policy, who are the real backers of Barack Obama, and they get the fact that until people here, I.e., presidential candidates, talk about well we need to change the national security strategy of the United States, or we need to change the Joint Vision 20/20 document of the Quadrennial Defense Review Report; all of which basically call for US domination of the globe by using the US Military to control the natural resources of other countries and the shipping lanes of those resources. I.e., natural gas and oil. Until that’s addressed on a regular basis and these people are asked the tough questions about what are you going to do to change this policy, then thinking that there is going to be any improvement in Iraq, whether John McCain or Barack Obama comes into power, is kind of an exercise in idealism and futility. It’s just not going to happen.
DS: Now do you think that Barack Obama if he did get elected could change some of these larger broader policies that have to do with Joint Vision 20/20? This is a really long range plan for what has been called Full Spectrum Dominance.
DJ: There is nothing to indicate that Barack Obama would make any massive changes in US Foreign Policy. I actually wrote an in depth article for Le Monde Diplomatique published about two months ago, it was in their May Issue, and I outlined at that time what is Hillary Clinton’s Middle East policy, what is Barack Obama’s and what is John McCain’s, and basically the conclusion was of those three candidates the most honest about what their policy in Iraq was was John McCain.
I mean here is a guy, you get what you see right? He calls for 100 years in Iraq, no problem, being very open about that, while contrasted with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they were obfuscating the truth, not being clear about what their foreign policy really was. And at the time that I wrote that article two months ago Barack Obama’s advisors, his security advisors, were calling for 60,000 American troops to be in Iraq at least until the end of his first term which would be 2013. Now two months later those same advisors are calling for 90,000 US troops to be in Iraq at least until the end of his first term, 2013.
So my point is this is not my opinion, these are the facts. There is nothing to indicate that casting a vote for Barack Obama is going to improve US policy. And then of course we have his nice stunt of the day he found out that he got the nod and was for sure the Democratic nominee over Hillary Clinton he fell over himself racing to AIPAC to give the most right wing speech to that lobby group that they have heard in a long time, talking about a Jewish State of Israel and a unified capital of Jerusalem, basically, screw the Arabs, screw the Palestinians, we’re going to throw everything behind Israel. So his policy is pretty clear.
DS: Would America be better off electing someone who tells the truth but has terrible policies or someone who doesn’t quite tell the truth but we are more hopeful about his policies?
DJ: It’s a false choice right? I mean someone that’s at least like John McCain very clear on where he stands on stuff, OK, that’s great, but that’s still basically we are running the country into the ground, we are running the world into the ground, and we are basically causing even greater anti American sentiment around the globe.
That’s obviously a bad choice versus Obama who in my opinion has very very smart handlers, has been marketed in a very brilliant way, ran a very intelligent campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic presidential nod. But what is this guy beyond his packaging and the messaging? What are his policies? And I always encourage people when I give talks, look at his policies, don’t you know he is a politician, don’t listen to what he says, look at what his policies are and watch his actions. School kids should know this. So why do adults get caught up in this messaging? Why do you get caught up in the marketing? This is a guy, yeah, hope, change, join us, this kind of stuff, well you know it’s good, I mean it’s smart marketing for the times when people in this country are desperate for change, everyone across the political spectrum gets that this system is crumbling, we need change, we need drastic change, if anything hopeful is going to come, and they have run their message and marketed this man right along that change change change.
Well again, watch what he does, watch who is backing him, and watch what his advisors are saying, not what he is saying which is basically nice packaging speeches, he’s very eloquent, he’s handsome, and symbolizes this, but it’s a myth. I mean the reality is if you vote for this guy it’s another false choice, it’s another lesser of two evils because if you look at his policies and what he is supporting in unbridled support of Israel and all of these other things, he is very friendly towards corporate America, he is very friendly to and amenable to the US empire project and there is nothing to indicate, if you look at his policies and look at where he stands now and what his advisors are set to tell him and who specifically his advisors are which is it’s basically a regurgitation of much of Bill Clinton’s cabinet. These are the people, and look at the policies under Bill Clinton. We had massive bombing campaigns against countries. We had economic sanctions against Iraq that killed over a million people. Bill Clinton was probably one of the most pro corporate presidents this country has seen before George W. Bush. And this is Barack Obama. So again, why get caught up in all of the hope and this bleary eyed dreaming for the future? Let’s get down to the hard facts and be really clear and honest about what we are dealing with here.
DS: What I have heard from voters is that they hope the American people will be more able to have a voice in a Barack Obama administration. What are your thoughts about that?
DJ: Again I think that’s kind of a ramification of this marketing myth that they have so brilliantly used to package Obama in that yes he is a man of the people, he has run his political campaign more like a grass roots organizational campaign than someone who is running for President. It’s been very smartly done. And then of course he does have the appeal that he is younger, he’s handsome, he’s articulate, he’s passionate, but again, I just encourage people, let’s look at the policies, let’s look at who his backers are, let’s get down to the brass tacks and the hard facts.
When you do that there is nothing to indicate unfortunately that this man is all that dissimilar even I would argue from George W. Bush. Now with some of the domestic policies, yes. I want to be very clear. I’m talking about foreign policy here. But on some of his domestic policies certainly he is clearly the better candidate but when we are talking specifically about the Middle East and about Iraq there is nothing to indicate that this is basically not another pawn of US empire.
DS: We are speaking with journalist Dahr Jamail, author of, ‘Beyond the Green Zone, Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. He spent eight months covering the Iraq War’. Dahr you reported from Fallujah during two sieges. Talk about the recent Inter Press story about women now giving birth to infants with birth defects in Fallujah.
DJ: Yes. My Iraqi colleague, Ali al-Fadhily sent me a lot of information so we did a story on this a ways back. He managed to interview doctors at Fallujah General Hospital in conjunction with a report that came out from an Iraqi NGO working in that city as well which showed that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of miscarriages pregnant women have been having and babies being born with horrible malformations.
The doctors believe that this is a result of the use of illegal weapons in Fallujah during the November 2004 siege, White Phosphorus, Depleted Uranium munitions, cluster bombs, but specifically White Phosphorus and DU, Depleted Uranium munitions. And I had a lot of pictures sent to me too and IPS didn’t post them but they are horrific photos of babies with just absolutely disgusting deformations, with absolutely completely white skin that’s severely wrinkled as though they are an old old old person when they are born with organs on the outsides of their bodies, being born with huge tumors.
My point is it’s very similar to a lot of the photos that we started seeing out of Basra in the aftermath of the 1991 US war against Iraq when so much, at least 300 tons of Depleted Uranium munitions were being used according to the US Military. Here we are, it’s almost three years now since the second siege of Fallujah and all of this weaponry was used so heavily and big surprise, we are seeing the exact same affects in Fallujah that we saw in Basra where in the aftermath of 1991 we had the incidence of cancer, like for example childhood Leukemia alone increased 26 fold, not 26 percent, but 26 fold in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, and I think unfortunately we are seeing the beginnings of that trend being repeated in Fallujah.
DS: As of a year ago, April 2007, the United Nations was estimating that up to 8 million people were vulnerable in Iraq. Are you surprised at this point that we haven’t seen really a major aid program yet for the Iraqi civilian population.
DJ: I am really not. Certainly coming from the US. This country has admitted, the last number I saw was less than 4,000 visas to Iraqis out of 5 million refugees. I don’t know what percentage that is but it’s point zero zero something. It’s dismal and it’s embarrassing. And as far as aid, the US has given I believe it’s less a hundred million dollars total to aid Iraqi refugees while they are sending over $3 billion dollars every single week for the occupation. I mean if they took one week of what they are spending on the occupation I can’t imagine the type of assistance that would give to some of these refugees.
I think I am a little bit surprised at how other countries have been not more forthcoming with their aid. Granted Sweden has issued 50,000 visas to Iraqis. I think they are in the lead of countries taking in refugees, behind Syria and Jordan but other countries that have money and have funds there has been just a small amount given and I think it’s a direct result of the leverage the US empire still holds over these countries, can still hold economic leverage over them and short of the countries like Great Britain and some of the others that are in this deep with the United States, the empire project, it is still a bit baffling to me why other countries won’t do more. But it is I think kind of indicative of kind of a very worrying right leaning politic within the heads of so many of these Western European Countries.
Of course if we look further around the globe, places like Africa or some of the other countries in Asia I mean simply the economic resources just are not there and that’s obviously understandable but it is dismal. I mean this is the fastest growing refugee crisis on the planet. It’s absolutely massive. It’s completely restructuring the entire face of the Middle East with this massive population migration and as far as the scale of it and the fact that it is ongoing and these people are facing worse conditions every single day, again, people here have little idea of how serious this really is.
DS: US Representative Jim McGovern and a variety of experts on the Mideast and the Iraq War compiled a report on how to withdraw from Iraq recently, calling for a short term renewal of the UN mandate rather than the US Iraqi security agreement, working with Iraq’s neighbors including Syria and Iran to build peaceful coalition and finally stopping pressure on Iraq about oil. Should the US forces withdraw and can this still happen in this political climate?
DJ: It’s nice to have these plans and know that some people are talking about the practicalities of withdrawal but let’s be real honest here. Until we have someone that is in a position of power in this country, whether it be a Nancy Pelosi or a Barack Obama, or somebody like this, that says you know what, we have a completely flawed strategy, this country cannot afford to go for world empire anymore, it’s failed, we are failing, we are imploding, the days of the US being this elite super power are over, if we do not have a massive shift in policy then literally we are going to go from being the leading industrial country on the planet to a living standard comparable to developing countries in a very short amount of time and we are seeing that happen right now. It’s happening actually rather quickly. So if someone doesn’t show up and say look, we are going to do like what the British did in this part of the last century and say you know what we are going to abandon our vision of global domination and we are going to pull back into ourselves and kind of put resources back into ourselves; you know short of that happening I.e., rewriting the National Security Strategy, the Joint Vision 20/20, the Quadrennial Review Report, then the idea of withdrawing from Iraq, or cutting funds to Israel for violating International Law as they are doing on a daily basis, and doing away with this bellicose rhetoric towards Iran, none of that is going to happen until we have someone legitimately stands up and say I am going to completely abandon the US empire project and we are going to start using diplomacy and behaving more like a democracy instead of the Third Reich.
DS: You mentioned Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, she and other members of Congress using that Stand with Israel code language and supporting AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the political PAC or lobby, both Barack Obama and John McCain also support it. To what extent do you see Israel, AIPAC, as guiding America’s foreign policy visa vis Iran versus George Bush and Dick Cheney?
DJ: The former. I think that’s exactly the problem. You know there is a joke I heard recently. Why doesn’t Israel become a state of the United States? I mean they get so much, several billion dollars a year in funding, they have unbridled support in the government, they can basically do whatever the hell they want, the hell with International Law. So why doesn’t Israel just go ahead become a state of the United States of America? Because then they would only have two senators. And the reality is that if you look at the political influence the State of Israel has through Jinsa, AIPAC, etc., I mean our government basically gives them a blank check on a daily basis to do whatever they want to do. And Israel, the right wing elements in their government, are forcing this issue with Iran. They absolutely want Iran attacked before this administration leaves office because they know this administration will do will do whatever they want. And Bush has said so. He has said exactly that to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that you tell us what your people need and we will give it to you. That’s the bottom line. And that’s what’s happening.
Right now the one thing that’s holding it up is that there is a large contingent within the bureaucracy of the US Government, otherwise known as the realists, that know the catastrophe this would cause. It would make Iraq look like a cakewalk. We are talking about a massive massive catastrophe to not just humanity in the region over in the Middle East but to the US economy. If we think it’s in bad shape now? Wait until the first bomb hits Iran and see what happens. And I know that you know this information Dori but we are talking about oil going up, you know it’s up to over $140 dollars a barrel now? What happens when it goes up to three, four, five hundred dollars a barrel within about a week’s time? What does that do to our economy? Think about the ramifications of this. And that’s just for starters. Now you are talking about massive regional war spreading around the Middle East and then what happens with Russia and China etcetera, I mean this is very very serious stuff that we are talking about. And this is all the direct result of right wing elements in the Israeli Government and the lobby groups over here that support their agenda having massive influence on our government, otherwise my point is what is in the interest of these right wing hawkish elements within the Israeli Government is clearly not in the interest of, I would argue and when I read Israeli media this is what I see, it’s clearly not in the interest of the Israeli people, nor is it in the interest of the US Government and the American people. But again in Israel just like we have here, clearly not a healthy Democracy, they do not have a government that represents the majority of their people, we do not have a government that’s representing the majority of our people, and that’s why an attack on Iran still looks like a very real possibility.
DS: Dahr Jamail when you first headed out to cover the Iraq War in 2003 you were saying that the US corporate press was just not getting the facts right and you wanted to go and get the truth for yourself. Five years later we see the US press once again helping the Bush administration make it’s case for an attack on Iran. Do you think that could make all the difference in terms of this policy?
DJ: They have already made the difference. Let’s look at the hard facts. The hard facts is that less than a year ago we had the NIE, the National Intelligence Estimate, which is basically a collection of the 18 biggest intelligence services in the US Government that came together and put out a report that said, look, there is no credible evidence at all anywhere to suggest that Iran is anywhere within reach of obtaining one nuclear weapon. I think the most outside possibility, the closest possibility was that they were a minimum of three years away from maybe having one nuclear weapon. And they put all of the cards on the table and since that time this administration has vociferously attacked that report, trying to discredit it, trying to show no we still need to be worried bla bla bla, of course conveniently overlooking the fact that Israel has at least 200 nuclear weapons of their own, they are the only nuclear armed power in the entire region of the Middle East.
Iran poses no threat to them whatsoever or any other country there but the fact that the NIE came out, it’s irrefutable evidence, and yet the media continues to talk about this, oh Iran is going for a nuclear weapon, no, they are going for nuclear energy, they have been very clear about that, that’s what the IAEA has shown, that’s what the UN has shown, nevertheless, this government has been successful in imposing different sanctions against Iran, the media keeps up the drum beat for war, trying to portray Iran as this rogue nation, they are about to get nuclear weapons, and then they are instantly going to use them, and it’s all complete nonsense, not backed up by any shred of evidence and yet here we have the media talking about it like it’s fact and the majority of the people here taking it in and believing that as well, which is exactly what happened during the lead up to Iraq.
DS: Dahr Jamail, what are you working on these days? I know you have been interviewing a lot of US soldiers.
DJ: I am working on a book right now it’s my second book and it’s on resistance within the US Military to the occupation of Iraq. I’ve been interviewing many soldiers, most of them who have been over in Iraq and come back home sharing stories about doing search and avoid missions over there because they just wanted to get home in one piece and didn’t want to kill Iraqi people, didn’t want to get themselves killed, so they would go out and do these fake patrols and basically park their vehicles in fields rather than ride around and do patrols. I have been talking to people who have been involved in having their units refuse orders and interviewing many people who have come back and are speaking out against the war. They are going to the high schools talking to people about the risk of joining the military at this time. So it’s very interesting and very hopeful and it’s something that is spreading and increasing every single day and it gives me hope that within the Military, and this actually is new, but within the Military there is a growing resistance to the policies of this government where they are very clear on the fact that the Military is just being used as cannon fodder to build US empire rather than as a defense force to defend this country from the aggression of some other country. Obviously, the Military is being horribly misused and naturally this is leading to resistance within the Military to these insane policies.
DS: Dahr Jamail thanks so much for giving us this update.
DJ: Thank you Dori
His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in
Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, the Independent and other publications. He reports for Democracy Now! and has appeared on the BBC and NPR. He has reported on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
July 4, 2008, Journalist Charges Censorship by U.S. Military in Fallujah Dahr Jamail, Antiwar.com
IAEA update Iran July 1, 2008, Communique from UK
Dion Nissenbaum Jerusalem Bureau Chief, McClatchy Newspapers, interview with Dori Smith, June 21, 2008 Talk of a Military Strike on Iran.
Specials to be uploaded early for next week’s holiday schedules:
An interview with former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, author of ‘The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder from Vanguard Press.
An interview with Steven Heller Diebold whistleblower and voting rights activist.
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