Howard Zinn 1922-2010. A Great and Wonderful Man

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as "A People's History of the United States," inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.

His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he suffered a heart attack.

"He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect."

Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn's writings "simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation. He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant. Both by his actions, and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement."

For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. "A People’s History of the United States" (1980), his...

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Source URL = http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve5/1089cult.html

****

It is no doubt redundant to assert that Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel
Sharon, is a terrorist. After all, the evidence is displayed on the
television news almost every night.

He has in fact always been a terrorist — at least since his early teens,
at any rate. At 14 Sharon joined the secret right-wing Zionist paramilitary
"underground", the Haganah.

Organised originally in the 1920s to combat the revolts of Palestinian
Arabs against the Zionist-organised settlement of Palestinian lands by
Jewish immigrants, Haganah ("Defence") emerged after WW2 as an openly
terrorist outfit, bombing bridges, railway lines, and ships used to deport
"illegal" Jewish immigrants.

It was the Haganah that organised the mass migration of Jews from Europe to British-controlled Palestine in the first years after the Second World War.
This strategy was intended to force Britain's hand on the Zionist dream of
creating a "Jewish state" on the territory of multi-ethnic, religiously
diverse but largely Arabic Palestine.

It's a policy Sharon's government still pursues, with over a hundred Jewish
settlements being aggressively developed on the sites of Palestinian
villages and farms, under the protection of occupying Israeli troops.

Before the War, Haganah had claimed to be opposed to the tactics of the
openly terrorist Zionist groups Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang.
Fascist-nationalist organisations, they carried out numerous bombings,
murders and terrorist raids on the British administration during WW2.

They also bombed Arab bus stops and carried out other terrorist actions
against the Arab population, while claiming to be fighting for
"independence from Britain".

On July 22, 1946, Irgun Zvai Leumi bombed the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem, with the loss of 91 lives. Numerous other post-war acts by Irgun
included the hanging of two British sergeants in July 1947.

In 1946 there were 1,269,000 Arabs and 678,000 Jews in Palestine. By 1947,
although the Arabic majority and some of the historical Jewish population
opposed partition of the country, the UN decided to do just that.

The UN decision was a major Zionist victory. Not only did it affirm the
Zionist right to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, but it also gave
the state a territory that was far out of proportion to the relative
numbers of Jews to Arabs in Palestine.

It comprised more than half the territory of Palestine, including the
greater part of the valuable coastal area, leaving the narrow coastal strip
of Gaza, half of Galilee, the Judaean and Samarian uplands, and a bit of
the Negev to the Arab state.

This decision was partly influenced by awareness of Hitler's genocidal
policy towards European Jewry over the previous decade, and partly by
pressure from the US and British Governments seeking their own strategic
advantage in the Middle East.

It was also felt that something had to be done to stop the killing. In
addition, pressure was put on some smaller UN members by Zionist
sympathisers in the United States.

The partition plan inevitably left a substantial Arab population within the
borders of the proposed Jewish state. This the Zionists did not want. In
fact they were not content with receiving only part of Palestine — even
the larger part — at all.

In early 1948, Irgunists and members of the Stern Gang joined forces to
massacre the 250 civilian inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yasin.
This gruesome act was successfully intended to sow panic among the Arab
population and begin an exodus.

The Zionist leadership then proclaimed the creation of Israel and set about
the process of militarily seizing the rest of Palestine and driving
hundreds of thousands of Arabs into exile.

It's a set of policies that Israeli Governments, including that of Ariel
Sharon, have consistently pursued since. Not surprising, really: Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been a leader of Irgun Zvai Leumi and another PM, Yitzhak Shamir, had been a leader of the Stern Gang.

And Ariel Sharon had fought with the Haganah. The Haganah actually became the Israeli army, officially known today as Tzva Haganah le-Yisra`el (" Israel Defence Forces").

Sharon despises Arabs and has no compunction about killing them. In 1950 he led bloody "reprisals" against Jordanian villages which Israel claimed had
harboured Palestinian "terrorists".

It was unimportant whether Palestinian fighters had used the villages or
not. The Israeli attacks were terror raids intended to make Israel's
neighbours afraid to support Palestinian resistance.

Similarly, following Israel's seizure of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
in 1967, Sharon pursued another ruthless hunt for "terrorist bases",
destroying hundreds of Palestinian homes. This policy too his government
also pursues today.

In 1982, Sharon was Defence Minister when Israel invaded Lebanon. He gave the nod for Israel's allies, the fascist Christian Falangists, to carry out
yet another massacre of Palestinians, this time the inhabitants of the
Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.

Israel's involvement was so blatant that Sharon had to be dropped as
Defence Minister. But he knew it would only be a temporary "punishment".

At the time, Sharon gave an interview to the daily Davar. In it he said:
"Even if you prove to me that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don't care."

"Let them [the Arabs] understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to
our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children
is murdered, just one!

"If anyone even raises his hand against us we'll take away half his land
and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms.

"Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to
kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us."

"To have everyone hate us" — well, he is certainly succeeding there. No Trackbacks

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Sami El Haj, Al Jazeera Journalist, Tells His Story

02/08/08 "
Translation from French for CagePrisoners by Sue Bingham:
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=25632

Original in French:
http://www.silviacattori.net/article469.html

****

" - -- - Standing straight and tall, an impressive and deeply introspective man, Sami El Haj walks with a limp and the help of a walking stick. Neither
laughter nor smiles light up the refined face of this man, old before his time. A deep sadness pervades him. He was 32 years old when, in December 2001, his life, like that of tens of thousands of other Muslims, became a horrific nightmare.

He endured horrendous suffering. Weakened by a hunger strike which lasted 438 days, set free on the 1st May 2008, he greets you attentively and with a gentle manner. He calmly tells you of a world whose paralyzing, suffocating horror is beyond your comprehension.

He is the first of the released detainees from the camps built by the Bush administration at the Guantánamo Bay naval base to be authorised to travel.

“I came to Geneva, the city of the United Nations and freedom, [1] to ask for the law to be respected, to demand the closure of the Guantánamo camp and secret prisons, and to demand that this illegal situation be brought to an end”, he says calmly. The word has been uttered. Everything is “illegal”; everything is false, manipulated, absurd and Kafka-esque in this war waged
essentially against those of the Muslim faith.

We now know many things; most notably that many of the terrorist attacks since 1996 which have been attributed to Muslims were financed and manipulated by secret agents of MI6, the CIA and Mossad. It was brave witnesses like the former German minister, Andreas Von Bülow [2] in particular, who discovered and denounced this kind of criminal activity, practiced by the superpowers. Apart from the new media, which journalist has ever spoken of the revelations made by this great man, Andreas Von Bülow?

In Guantánamo, spurred on by his passion for justice and his conviction that every journalist’s mission is to bear witness to what he sees, Sami El Haj
had the psychological strength to carry on, resisting the worse abuses and putting his own suffering to one side. His experiences were extremely painful
but he was able, even in the worst moments, to cling to the hope that he would get out alive. And knowing that he had to observe everything in order to be able to tell the world helped him to bear the unbearable.

Moreover, it was through viewing this horrific place which could have been his tomb, created by President Bush, with the objective eye of the journalist that Sami El Haj was able to survive and remain sane. Others, who were not as lucky as he was, died or became insane, and so were unable to recount their experience.

With neither pencil nor paper, Sami El Haj forced himself to memorise everything in order, even in a cage, to carry on his work as “an Al Jazeera journalist covering a story”, as he put it.

Today he is driven by the idea of bringing to the world’s attention these tens of thousands of prisoners who are still suffering inhuman treatment in the prisons of Guantánamo, Bagram and Kandahar. He replies tirelessly and with good humour to all the journalists who interview him, hoping that his words will allow those who no longer have a voice to be heard.

His account is crucial. Like the other detainees, also wrongly labelled as “terrorists”, Sami El Haj was never tried and was never informed of the charges against him. Which demonstrates that President Bush, and the journalists who supported his theories, must have invented the “Islamic terrorists”. Human beings like Sami El Haj could never have been arrested or remained hostages of this barbarism, for the simple reason that they are Muslims, without the complicity of European governments and those Islamophobic propagandists under the orders of Tel Aviv and Washington who, for decades, have been misinforming public opinion and influencing the powers that be with their lies.


Silvia Cattori : How do you feel, just a few short weeks after your liberation?

Sami El Haj : I feel fine, thank you. When I see people committing themselves to saving human beings and fighting to defend their rights, it gives me great comfort. Of course, when I left Guantánamo, two months ago, I was in a very bad way. But now I feel better, discovering that people outside are fighting and not losing sight of the main goal – achieving peace and freedom for everyone.

Silvia Cattori : After those painful years spent in the camps, what are your strongest feelings and greatest hopes?

Sami El Haj : Of course, I am happy to be free again. I have been reunited with my family, my wife and my son. For six and a half years he did not see me, and had to go to school without me. He waited for me and said,“ Dad, I have missed you for so long! I was so unhappy, especially when I saw my school friends, with their fathers, and they asked me where my father was. I had no answer to give them. That’s why I asked my mum to take me to school in the car, because I didn’t want them to keep asking me that question”.

I said to my son, “Now, I could take you to school, but you must understand that I have a message to give, a just cause to defend. I want to fight for the cause of human rights, for those who have been deprived of their freedom. I do not want to fight alone. There are thousands of people who are standing up and fighting wherever human dignity is attacked. Do not forget that we are fighting for peace, to defend rights whenever they are denied, for a better future for you. Perhaps one day we will achieve this, and then I will be able to stay with you and take you to school”.

I do not know if he understood, because he is still very young, but he smiled at me. My wife did not want me to leave again either. But when I reminded her of the horrific situation those imprisoned in Guantánamo find themselves, and that they also have a family, sons, daughters, a wife whom they miss terribly, and that if I do not fight these people will remain imprisoned even longer, she understood that I must carry on travelling, adding my voice to all the other voices, so that the detainees can return home as soon as possible. She gave me her full support. On the way to the airport she said to me,
“I will pray for you”.

Silvia Cattori : So, by going to Afghanistan to film the massacres of civilians, victims of President Bush’s war, you yourself became one of his victims? Are you not afraid of what could happen to you again?

Sami El Haj : For me, there is no question - I will continue my work as a journalist. I must continue carrying a message of peace, no matter what. For my part, I have spent six years and six months in prison, far from my family, but for others it was so much worse. I lost a very dear friend, a journalist with Al Jazeera: he died in Baghdad, killed when the hotel where he was staying was bombed. I also lost a colleague who was working with me at Al Jazeera, whom I consider a sister: she too died in Baghdad.

Many people have lost their lives because of this war. You must know that the Bush administration wanted to prevent coverage by the free media, like Al Jazeera, in the Middle East. The Al Jazeera offices in Kabul and Baghdad were bombed.

In 2001, when I left my son and my wife to film the war initiated by the USA against Afghanistan, I had to expect finding death during a bombing raid. I
went there fully aware of the risks. Every journalist knows that he is carrying out a mission and must be ready to sacrifice himself in order to bear witness to what is happening, through his films and writing. And to help people understand that war brings nothing but the death of the innocent, destruction and
suffering. It is on the basis of this conviction that my colleagues and I went to countries at war.

Now, after all these years in captivity, I can once again do something to help bring about peace. I am going to commit myself to this goal, until it is
achieved. I am sure that one day, even if I do not personally reap the fruits, we will succeed in achieving peace and the respect of human rights, as well
as the protection of journalists throughout the world. I am sure that we will see the day when journalists are no longer tortured or injured doing their
job, defending people’s rights to information and highlighting human rights abuses.

Silvia Cattori : You said at the beginning that you are feeling fine. But after such a terrible experience, and given that you were released with no apology
whatsoever from your torturers, how are you able to talk about all this without resentment or bitterness?

Sami El Haj : Of course, what happened to me was very hard and my personal situation is difficult. But when I think of those who are still in Guantánamo, and their families that they miss very much and who have no news at all of them, I tell myself that my situation, as difficult as it is, is better than theirs.

I cannot forget that in Guantánamo I have left behind brothers who have been crushed, who have gone mad. I am thinking in particular of a Yemeni doctor who now lives naked in his cell because he has lost his mind.

Silvia Cattori : What kind of torture did they subject you to?

Sami El Haj : All kinds of physical and psychological torture. As all the detainees were Muslim, the camp administration subjected them to many forms of harassment and humiliation linked to religion. With my own eyes I saw soldiers tearing up the Qur’an and throwing it in the toilet. I saw them, during interrogation sessions, sitting on the Qur’an until their questions were answered. They insulted our families and our religion. They made fun of us by pretending to ring our God, asking him to come and save us. The only Imam at the camp was accused of complicity with the detainees and was sent away, in 2005, for refusing to tell visitors that the camp respected religious freedom.

They beat us up. They taunted us with racist insults. They locked us in cold rooms, below zero, with one cold meal a day. They hung us up by our hands.
They deprived us of sleep, and when we started to fall asleep, they beat us on the head. They showed us films of the most horrendous torture sessions. They showed us photographs of torture victims – dead, swollen, covered in blood. They kept us under constant threat of being moved elsewhere to be tortured even more. They doused us with cold water. They forced us to do the military salute to the American national anthem. They forced us to wear women’s clothes. They forced us to look at pornographic images. They threatened us with rape. They would strip us naked and make us walk like donkeys, ordering us around.
They made us sit down and stand up five hundred times in a row. They humiliated the detainees by wrapping them up in the Israeli and American flags, which was their way of telling us that we were imprisoned because of a religious war.

When a detainee, filthy and riddled with fleas, is taken out of his cell to be submitted to more torture sessions in an attempt to make him collaborate,
he ends up not knowing what he is saying or even who he is any more.

I was interrogated and tortured more than two hundred times. 95% of the questions were about Al Jazeera. They wanted me to work as a spy within Al Jazeera. In exchange, they offered American citizenship for myself and my family, and payment based on results. I refused. I told them repeatedly that my job is a journalist, not a spy, and that it was my duty to make the truth known and to work for the respect of human rights.

Silvia Cattori : Today, can you find it within yourself to pardon your torturers?

Sami El Haj : Of course I will pardon them if they close Guantánamo. But if they continue to cause suffering, I will go to the courts and take action against them.

Although I know that the Bush administration has done so much harm, I still think that it’s not too late for these people to make up for their mistakes.

A distinction must be made between the administration and the people. The Guantánamo detainees know that they have friends in America, like the lawyer who came to Guantánamo and fought for my case.

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Date:       July 22, 2008

From:      Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel

Subject:  Federal ruling regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row, Pennsylvania [please circulate]

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia  Today our Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, submitted on behalf of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  Simply put, we did not receive the needed majority vote from the nine sitting judges; at least five votes for a rehearing were necessary.  However, Justice Thomas L. Ambro continues to urge the granting of relief on the issue of racism in jury selection.  That position, as detailed in his brilliant dissenting opinion of March 27, 2008, will continue to serve as a beacon of hope
as we press on for a new trial and Mumia’s freedom.  Judge Ambro said that the “core guarantee of equal protection, ensuring citizens that their State will not discriminate on account of race, would be meaningless were we to approve the exclusion of jurors on the basis of . . . race. . . . I respectfully dissent.” 
A copy of today’s decision is attached below:
http://www.iacenter.org/pdf/maj_legal072208.pdf
Right click on link above and left click on save as to save this pdf file.

Reaction 
Mumia and I had a legal conference this afternoon.  He, as I, was stunned by the federal court’s refusal to grant relief since it flies in the face of established legal precedent in both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.  I am furious because racism continues to raise its ugly head in this country, and should have no place in our legal system.  The indisputable facts are that the prosecutor engaged in racism in selecting the jury in this case, and that bigotry lingers today in Philadelphia.  It would be naive not to realize that this case continues to reek of politics and injustice.


U.S. Supreme Court
  We will be seeking relief in the Supreme Court.  The Petition for Writ of Certiorari will be filed by October 20, 2008, unless there is an extension.  The racism issue will be presented, along with the fact that the prosecutor made misrepresentations to the jury in order to obtain a murder conviction against Mumia.

Conclusion
  My goal remains a complete reversal of the conviction, even though the federal court has already granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty.  We will not rest until Mumia is free.

Yours very truly,

Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117

Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal No Trackbacks

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Philip Agee, the former CIA operative who broke with the agency and devoted his life to exposing its role in political subversion, assassination, torture
and support for military dictatorships, died January 7 in Cuba. Cuban sources said that he died of peritonitis after ulcer surgery. He was 72.

Agee joined the CIA in 1957, at the age of 22, soon after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. He worked for the agency for 12 years, with three tours of duty in Latin America, in Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. He resigned in 1969, after witnessing the US-backed bloodbath against student protesters on the eve of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

After a six-year effort to write an exposé, find a publisher and evade CIA efforts to suppress his revelations, Agee saw his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary published by Penguin Books in London. It gave a meticulous account of CIA activities in the three Latin American countries, including the recruitment of officials in each country as CIA informants, the sponsoring of right-wing media and political parties, and close collaboration with local repressive forces, both police and military, in the arrest, torture and murder of leftist students, workers and political activists.

The book was filled with details of CIA tradecraft, including the codenames and descriptions of numerous operations, and concluding with a list of nearly 250 CIA operatives, local agents and informants, whom Agee identified under their real names as well as their pseudonyms.

Inside the Company was a political bombshell, coming amid widespread revelations of CIA assassination plots, involvement in military coups such as the 1973 bloodbath in Chile, and illegal surveillance against the American people, particularly those opposed to the Vietnam War. The book became a bestseller despite
efforts by the US government to block its publication and distribution, and it sparked additional efforts by left-wing political activists to expose CIA
operations.

Agee participated in these efforts, co-sponsoring Covert Action Information Bulletin, a magazine devoted to blowing the cover on CIA activities, and co-authoring several books that named thousands of CIA agents in Africa and Western Europe. He drew on his knowledge of CIA practices and combed lists of US diplomatic and military personnel stationed abroad to identify those likely to be undercover operatives.

Agee was at pains to declare his political motivation in turning against the agency. He was not a mercenary defecting to the Stalinist side in the Cold War, he maintained, and he publicly refused collaboration with the Soviet KGB and the Cuban DGI. His goal was to help save the lives of those targeted for mass murder by US imperialism, and to contribute to the victory of popular revolutionary movements. He told the New York Times in 1974, on the eve
of the publication of Inside the Company, “I wrote it for revolutionary organizations in the United States, in Latin America and everywhere else. I wrote it as a contribution to the socialist revolution.”

Even before publication of Inside the Company, Agee faced death threats originating in the US intelligence apparatus. After the book’s release, he was a marked man, targeted by the CIA and the US government as a whole. Country after country expelled him or refused admission, under pressure from Washington.

In 1978, the British Labour government of Prime Minister James Callaghan deported him in response to his efforts to expose CIA backing of a right-wing, pro-US political party in Jamaica.

In 1979, the Carter administration revoked his passport, citing national security reasons. In 1982, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, making it illegal to deliberately expose the identities of CIA officers, even if the information was gathered from publicly available sources.

In 1987, Agee published a memoir, On the Run, which gave more details of his break with the agency and the CIA’s efforts to retaliate. He had formed a relationship with a leftist Brazilian woman who had been tortured under the military junta that seized power in that country in 1964. Even after leaving the agency, he struggled with the decision to expose its operations.

He wrote: “It was a time in the ’70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala,
El Salvador—they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the US government. That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries.”

In his review of On the Run, published in the New York Times, Thomas Powers wrote: “Did Mr. Agee’s activity hurt the agency? You bet it hurt. The best evidence of how much can be found in his careful account of CIA efforts to convince him he had been neither forgiven nor forgotten—following him on his travels, spreading rumors about his alleged connection with the KGB and DGI, surrounding him with agents, tapping his telephone and even providing him with an elaborately wired typewriter in order to monitor what he was putting down on paper. Most difficult of all was a two-year period in the mid-1970s, when the agency,
with high-level help, managed to bar him from residence in Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands, apparently hoping to hound him until he was forced to take up residence in the Soviet bloc, where his true allegiance (from the agency’s point of view) would no longer be in doubt”

Agee survived this campaign, and eventually settled in Hamburg, Germany, where he lived with his second wife, American ballerina Giselle Roberge Agee. He also maintained an apartment in Havana, and operated a small business promoting American travel to Cuba.

He remained a continual target of harassment and smear tactics by the US government. One of the more notorious slanders was that Agee’s revelations had led to the assassination of Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, who was shot to death by a Greek terrorist organization in 1975. Welch was not named in Inside the Company, which focused on Latin America, and it is now known that his identity was uncovered by local journalists in Athens.

This did not stop President George H. W. Bush, who was CIA director in 1976-1977, from accusing Agee of responsibility for Welch’s death in a 1989 speech at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia (in the building now named after himself). The slander was repeated by Barbara Bush, the former first lady, in her 1994 autobiography. Agee sued her for libel, forcing a legal settlement in which Mrs. Bush agreed to remove the charge from subsequent editions of
her book.

Agee remained committed to exposing the CIA, and at the time of his death was reportedly working on a book about CIA subversive activities in Venezuela. His trajectory was a singular one: he is the only CIA covert operative known to have broken with the agency out of revulsion against its crimes, and possessed
of the moral courage to make that break public, thus risking repression or assassination.

Despite his avowal of socialism—which he wrongly identified with the Cuban state—Agee’s was the voice of outraged moral conscience rather than politically educated understanding. As he wrote in Inside the Company, “When I joined the CIA I believed in the need for its existence.... After 12 years with the
agency I finally understood how much suffering it was causing, that millions of people all over the world had been killed or had their lives destroyed
by the CIA and the institutions it supports.”

Agee wrote of one interrogation session in Uruguay that he overheard from an adjoining room: “The moaning grew in intensity, turning to screams. By then I knew we were listening to someone being tortured.... I’m going to be hearing that voice for a long time.”

The crimes exposed by Agee and others have the utmost relevance today, when the role of the CIA in torture, secret prisons and illegal detentions is once more the focus of public attention. No Trackbacks

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Auto-biography of veteran communist-turned-anarchist Alan Lipman

On the Outside Looking In - Colliding with Apartheid and Other Authorities

From his early life growing up during the brutal apartheid years, to battles in the desert
in Israel, through his dissillusionment with the Communist Party and his move to Anarchism.

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You may never have heard of Joseph Priestley, but he is considered by many to be one of the greatest scientists of all time. What did he know that the
leading scientists of the 1700's did not? Certainly not science. He never took a single science course during his entire lifetime. That was to Priestley's
advantage. Check out this story to learn about his long list of important scientific contributions. Also, discover Priestley's role in the future of
soft drinks and rubber.

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Published: 04-Feb-2003
By: Channel 4 News

We present a world exclusive - Saddam Hussein in his own words. At the weekend, the veteran labour politican Tony Benn travelled to Baghdad to meet and
interview the Iraqi President. Tonight we hear why - according to Saddam - Iraq has no interest in war and possesses NO weapons of mass destruction. Here
is the transcript:

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When correspondent Mike Wallace interviewed him in Tehran last week, it became apparent that he sees the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — a militia
Iran has long supported — as part of a larger battle between the U.S. and a militant Islam for control of the Middle East.

08/13/06 "
CBS" -- --
"Very clearly, I will tell you that I fully oppose the behavior of the British and the Americans," Ahmadinejad tells Wallace. "They are providing state-of-the-art
military hardware to the Zionists. And they are throwing their full support behind Israel. We believe that this threatens the future of all peoples, including
the American and European peoples. So we are asking why the American government is blindly supporting this murderous regime."

Wallace tried to ask him about Hezbollah's use of missiles, rockets furnished by Iran, but he wanted to talk about Israel's attacks with American bombs.

"The laser-guided bombs that have been given to the Zionists and they're targeting the shelter of defenseless children and women," the president said.

"Who supports Hezbollah?" Wallace asked. "Who has given Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars for years? Who has given Hezbollah Iranian-made missiles
and rockets that is making — that are making all kinds …" he continued as he was interrupted.

"Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?" Ahmadinejad asked Wallace.

"I'm a journalist. I am a journalist," Wallace replied.

"This is not journalism, sir. Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon, and they are defending their land," the president said. "They are defending
their own houses. And, according to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.

"What I'm saying is that the killing of innocents is reprehensible. And making this — the displacement of people and making them refugees, again, is reprehensible,"

"Well, what has Hezbollah, though — wait a minute," Wallace asked. "Hezbollah is displacing and damaging and making bleed all kinds of people. You know
that."

"Please tell me, are the Lebanese inside the occupied lands right now or is it the other way around, that the Zionist troops are in Lebanese territory?"
Ahmadinejad replied. "Lebanon is defending its independence. We are not at all happy with war. That is why on the first day we condemned these recent —
conflict. And we asked for an immediate cease fire."

Ahmadinejad told Wallace the United Nations Security Council has not passed an effective ceasefire resolution because the Security Council is in America's
pocket.

"Tell, the reason is, that the United Nations Security Council is there to safeguard the interests of the British and the Americans. They are not there
to provide security. It's very clear," the president said.

"The UNSC, the United Nations Security Council, is there to protect the interests of the United States and the British. That's what you say?" Wallace asked.

"It has been created to help with peace and justice. But we see that it is not responding to atrocities. If we search for the root causes we see the hand
of the British and the Americans," Ahmadinejad said. "People, innocent people are being killed. … And houses are being destroyed. Where is the UNSC? Also,
the draft resolution which has been circulated only serves the interests of one party. And it is not just."

And, he told Wallace the Security Council is also doing America's bidding by trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear energy. The Security Council
is demanding that Iran stop all uranium enrichment by the end of this month, which Iran is refusing to do.

"But if Mr. Bush thinks that he can stop our progress, I have to say that he will be unable to do that," Ahmadinejad said.

Asked to elaborate, the president said: "We want to have access to nuclear technology. We want to produce fuel. Do you not think that the most important
issue of the world of tomorrow that is will be energy?

"We think that Mr. Bush's team and the parties that support him want to monopolize energy resources in the world. Because once they have that they can impose
their opinions, points of view, policies on other nations and, of course, line their own pockets."

"President Bush said — vowed — he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. You believe it?" Wallace asked.

"Basically we are not looking for — working for the bomb," the president said. "The problem that President Bush has is in his mind he wants to solve everything
with bombs. The time of the bomb is in the past. It's behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges."

But "dialogue and cultural exchanges" don't sound like his policy toward Israel.

"Israel, you have said time and again, Israel must be wiped off the map. Please explain why. And what is Iran doing about that?" Wallace asked.

"Well, allow me to finish with the nuclear dossier first," Ahmadinejad said.

"No, you finished with that. You finished with that. Please," Wallace continued.

"No, it's not finished, sir. It's not finished. We are just beginning," Ahmadinejad said.

"OK, oh!" Wallace replied with a chuckle. "That's what I was afraid of. But go."

"Well, the Americans are overly sensitive. And, of course, the American government. I don't know why they're opposed to Iranian progress," the president
said.

Asked if he really believed that the United States is against Iranian progress and development, Ahmadinejad said, "That is true. That is what I am saying."

"You know that's not so," Wallace replied.

President Ahmadinejad then offered an explanation for his theory.

"Before the revolution, the German, French, American government and the Canadian government had signed contracts with us to produce nuclear fuel inside
Iran. But immediately after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, their opposition started," he said. "Right now, they are opposed to our nuclear
technology. Now why is that?"

The United States is convinced that nuclear energy is just a smokescreen and that what Iran really wants is the bomb. Then Wallace tried to get the president
back to his most inflammatory statement regarding Israel.

"You are very good at filibustering," Wallace remarked. "You still have not answered the question. You still have not answered the question. Israel must
be wiped off the map. Why?"

"Well, don't be hasty sir," the president said. "I'm going to get to that. I think that the Israeli government is a fabricated government."

"Fabricated" following the Holocaust, which he's said may also have been fabricated.

Last December, Ahmadinejad said the Europeans had created a myth of the Holocaust.

"What I did say was, if this is a reality, if this is real, where did it take place?" Ahmadinejad replied.

"In Germany," Wallace said.

"Who — who caused this in Europe?" Ahmadinejad asked.

"In Europe. If I may … so …what you're suggesting — one moment — what you're suggesting then, that Israel should be over in Germany because that's where
the holocaust took place?" Wallace asked.

"I'm not saying that, mind you," the president replied.

But he has said Israel could be moved to Europe, or even to the United States but it shouldn't be in Palestine.

"Well, if an atrocity was committed in Germany or Europe for that matter, why should the Palestinians answer for this?" the president asked. "They had no
role to play in this. Why on the pretext of the Holocaust they have occupied Palestine? Millions of people have been made refugees. Thousands of people
to-date have been killed, sir. Thousands of people have been put in prison. Well, at the very moment, a great war is raging because of that."

"Look if you could — if you could keep your answers concise. Concise. I beg you. We'll get more questions in," Wallace requested.

"Well, one of your questions required — all of your questions require a book-long answer. If you want me to just finish the interview, please tell me and
we can wrap up right now," the president said.

"No, no, no, no, no," Wallace said.

"Do you, perhaps want me to say what you want me to say?" Ahmadinejad said to Wallace.

"No, no," Wallace insisted.

"If that is the case, then I ask you to please be patient," the president replied. "Maybe these days you don't have a lot of patience to spare. Maybe these
are words that you don't like to hear, Mr. Wallace."

"Why? What? What words do I not like to hear?" Wallace asked.

"Because I think that you're getting angry," Ahmadinejad said.

"I couldn't be happier for the privilege of sitting down with the president of Iran," Wallace said.

And with that established, Wallace moved on to the topic of Iraq.

"I am told that your revolutionary guards, Mr. President, are taking bombs, those — those roadside bombs — the IED's into Iraq. And what they are doing
is furnishing the insurgents in Iraq with the kind of material that can kill U.S. soldiers. Why would you want to do that?" Wallace asked.

"Well, we are very saddened that the people of Iraq are being killed," Ahmadinejad replied. "I believe that the rulers of the U.S. have to change their
mentality. I ask you, sir, what is the American army doing inside Iraq? Iraq has a government, a parliament. Iraq is — has a civilized nation with a long
history of civilization. These are people we're dealing with."

Asked if he thinks Saddam Hussein was a civilized, reasonable, leader and whether the United States was wrong about going into Iraq, Ahmadinejad said: "Well,
Saddam's story has been finished for close to three years, I would say. He belongs in the past. … And the Americans are openly saying that 'We are here
for the long run,' in Iraq that is. So, a question for you, according to international law, the responsibility of providing security rests on the shoulder
of the occupying, rather army. So, I ask them why are not — why are they not providing security?"

Instead of security, he says the United States is oppressing Iraq, and instead of calling the United States, "the great Satan," as the Ayatollah Khomeini
did, Ahmadinejad calls the United States "the great oppressor."

"We are opposed to oppression," the president told Wallace. "We support whoever is victimized and oppressed even the oppressed people of the U.S."

A senior European diplomat in Tehran told Wallace that Iran's president feels the United States should be confronted in Iraq — and around the world — because
he truly believes that the U.S. government is against Islam, and the developing world, that America keeps pushing Iran and other countries around, and
he is determined to push back.

The Bush administration paints Iran's president as America's mortal enemy — as a man who wants nuclear weapons and supports Islamic terrorists. For his
part, President Ahmadinejad views the United States as his major adversary.

He's the son of a blacksmith; was a commando during the Iran-Iraq war; has a Ph.D. in civil engineering, and became president a year ago by running as a
populist man of the people. He is savvy, self-assured and self-righteous, but he rarely gives interviews to American journalists. His last U.S. newspaper
interview was six months ago in USA Today.

But he sat down with 60 Minutes because he wanted to speak directly to the American people — and to President Bush.

Asked what he thinks of Mr. Bush, Ahmadinejad replied, "What do you think I should think about the gentlemen? How should I think about him?"

"Come on. Come on. You're perfectly capable of handling that question if you have the courage to answer it," Wallace pushed.

"Well, thank you very much. So, you're teaching me how to be bold and courageous," Ahmadinejad said, laughing. "That's interesting."

"Answer the question," Wallace said.

"I think that Mr. Bush can be in the service of his own people," Ahmadinejad said. "He can save the American economy using appropriate methodologies without
killing people, innocents, without occupation, without threats. I am very saddened to hear that 1 percent of the total population is in prison. And 45
million people don't have a health care cover. That is very sad to hear."

And he was sad also not to hear any answer from President Bush to an 18-page letter he sent three months ago, urging him to be less bellicose in his view
of the world. The White House dismissed the letter as a publicity stunt.

Asked what he expected to hear back from President Bush, Ahmadinejad said: "I was expecting Mr. Bush to give up or, I should say, to change his behavior.
I was hoping to open a new window for the gentlemen. One can certainly look on the world from other perspectives. You can love the people. You can love
all people. You can talk with the people of the Middle East using another language, other words. Instead of blind support for an imposed regime, they can
establish a more appropriate relationship with the people of the region."

"You can love the people. That's very easy to say," Wallace remarked. "You despise certain people. You despise the Zionists."

"Well, I don't despise people or individuals, I should say," Ahmadinejad said.

Pushed further on Zionists, the president said, "What I am saying is that I despise heinous action."

And as for his letter to Mr. Bush.

"In the letter you praise Jesus and ask President Bush how he could be a follower of Christ and claim to support human rights but at the same time attack
and occupy other countries, kill thousands of people, spend billions of dollars on wars. And you urged him, the president, out of respect for the teachings
of Christ to be a force for peace instead of war. How is that so?" Wallace asked.

"That is true, which was a part of my letter," Ahmadinejad acknowledged.

And then he had a new message for President Bush: "Please give him this message, sir. Those who refuse to accept an invitation to good will not have a good
ending or fate."

Asked what that means, Ahmadinejad said: "Well, you see that his approval rating is dropping everyday. Hatred vis-à-vis the president is increasing everyday
around the world. For a ruler, this is the worst message that he could receive. Rulers and heads of government at the end of their office must leave the
office holding their heads high."

After Ahmadinejad answered the question, an assistant handed the president a note. Asked what he was telling him, Ahmadinejad said he had been told to rearrange
his jacket.

"Why are they worried about your jacket? I think you look just fine," Wallace said, laughing.

"That is right. They have told me the same thing. They tell me that it's a very nice looking coat," Ahmadinejad replied.

Asked if he is a vain man, Ahmadinejad said, "Sometimes appearances — yes, you have to look your back… that is why I comb my hair."

"What do you do for leisure?" Wallace asked.

"I study. I read books. I exercise. And, of course, I spend some time — quality time — with my family," said Ahmadinejad, who is a father of three.

"How long has it been since the leaders of Iran and the leaders of the U.S. have had any conversations?" Wallace asked.

"Twenty-six, 27 years," the president replied.

Asked if he has a desire to resume relations with the United States, Ahmadinejad said, "Who cut the relations, I ask you."

"That's not the point. The question is would you, the president of Iran, like to resume relations which have been gone for 26, 27 years with the United
States," Wallace pressed.

"Well, we are interested to have relations with all governments … and all nations. This is a principle of my foreign policy," Ahmadinejad said.

"I know that," Wallace said.

"Allow me to finish myself," Ahmadinejad said.

"Why don't you just answer, say yes or no?" Wallace asked. "Do you want to have relations now, after 26, 27 years, with the United States? What harm could
come from that?"

"We are not talking about harm. The conditions, conducive conditions, have to be there," Ahmadinejad said.

Asked what those "conducive conditions" are, the president said, "Well, please look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American
administration. See how they talk down to my nation. They want to build an empire. And they don't want to live side by side in peace with other nations."

"Who does not? Washington does not?" Wallace asked.

"The American government, sir. It is very clear to me they have to change their behavior and everything will be resolved," Ahmadinejad answered.

"I am told that your aides want us to wind up our interview. But you kindly promised to answer my questions," Wallace said. "And I still have just a few
left."

"Well, you might have five more hours of questions now," Ahmadinejad said. "Well, I have other appointments to get to. It's time for the night prayer, sir."

"Last one," Wallace said. "You have a special unit of martyr seekers in your revolutionary guard. They claim they have 52,000 trained suicide bombers ready
to attack American and British targets if America should attack Iran."

"So, are you expecting the Americans to threaten us and we sit idly by and watch them with our hands … tied?" Ahmadinejad said.

Asked if the Americans have threatened him, Ahmadinejad said: "I do hope that the Americans will give up this practice of threatening other nations so that
you are not forced me to ask such questions. I wish you well."

Produced By Robert G. Anderson ©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. No Trackbacks

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