PBS Interview: "We are dealing with the devil".

[Guest guest]

>

>On Friday, February 21st, 2003, Jane Wallace interviewed Seymour Hersh on

>PBS.

>

>Conclusion: "We are dealing with the devil".

>

>The transcript follows.

>

>

>

>http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hersh.html

>

> TRANSCRIPT

>

>JANE WALLACE: Thank you for joining us.

>

>SY HERSH: Glad to be here.

>

>JANE WALLACE: It might be safely said that the one country for whom the war

>on terror has been a bombless bonanza is Pakistan. In a matter of two weeks

>they went from being an international pariah, to being our new best friend.

>

>The aid started flowing. It is flowing in the billions. Are they worthy of

>our friendship and our aid, the Pakistanis?

>

>SY HERSH: In a perfect world, sure, it would be great if Musharraf, the

>head of the country can hold it together and they can become secular. And

>we can avoid having an Islamic republic with a lot of nuclear weapons. But

>it's dicey.

>

>JANE WALLACE: What kind of dicey?

>

>SY HERSH: I think it's a losing game. I think it's a losing game and I

>think there's a lot of evidence that Musharraf is certainly much more

>interested in his own survival than ours. I can't give you chapter and

>verse of things. He came to American when and when there was tremendous

>concern about the fate of Danny Pearl, the WALL STREET JOURNAL reporter.

>

>And he was here about a week or so before it became known that Pearl was

>dead. And the whole time, we later learned, that he was here, when he was

>saying, you know telling us that he was doing everything he can. He was

>sure he was alive. He knew that Pearl was dead. We now know that. We knew

>he was deceiving us.

>

>JANE WALLACE: How do we know that?

>

>SY HERSH: Because--

>

>JANE WALLACE: Time of death on Pearl?

>

>SY HERSH: More than that. There's-- we were able to unravel a lot of

>information, WALL STREET JOURNAL reporters and others about when he died.

>And there was, if you remember, there's been a trial. And everything that

>showed up in the trial indicated that-- witnesses told about telling the

>government things-- weeks before we thought they had.

>

>JANE WALLACE: There is a man facing death, facing hanging, Saeed Sheikh, in

>the murder of Daniel Pearl. Saeed Sheikh is reported, in various quarters,

>to have been an ISI Pakistani intelligence agent.

>

>SY HERSH: Asset. Yeah.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Do you believe that?

>

>SY HERSH: This certainly is a case when he gave up, he turned himself in

>basically eventually to ISI and-- who-- not-- not right away, but pretty

>immediately. He turned a-- he was made available to the ISI and they

>debriefed him first.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Why would he turn himself in to Pakistani intelligence as

>opposed to the police?

>

>SY HERSH: There's no question he has some connection. There's no question

>he had some deep standing-- long standing connection to Pakistani

>intelligence.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Now let me draw the picture ... If in fact he has a deep long

>standing connection to Pakistani intelligence, we are supporting a

>government that has some responsibility in the murder of an American

>reporter?

>

>SY HERSH: What can you do?

>

>JANE WALLACE: Let's talk about Konduz. During the war with Afghanistan--

>

>SY HERSH: Great story.

>

>JANE WALLACE: -- you reported that during a key battle our side in that

>battle had the enemy surrounded. There were a reported perhaps 8,000 enemy

>forces in there.

>

>SY HERSH: Maybe even more. But certainly minimum that many.

>

>JANE WALLACE: It's your story, take it.

>

>SY HERSH: Okay, the cream of the crop of Al Qaeda caught in a town called

>Konduz which is near ... it's one little village and it's a couple hundred

>kilometers, 150 miles from the border of Pakistan. And I learned this story

>frankly-- through very, very clandestine operatives we have in the Delta

>Force and other very...

>

>We were operating very heavily with a small number of men, three, 400

>really in the first days of the war. And suddenly one night when they had

>everybody cornered in Konduz-- the special forces people were told there

>was a corridor that they could not fly in. There was a corridor sealed off

>to-- the United States military sealed off a corridor. And it was nobody

>could shoot anybody in this little lane that went from Konduz into

>Pakistan. And that's how I learned about it. I learned about it from a

>military guy who wanted to fly helicopters and kill people and couldn't do

>it that day.

>

>JANE WALLACE: So, we had the enemy surrounded, the special forces guys are

>helping surround this enemy.

>

>SY HERSH: They're whacking everybody they can whack that looks like a bad

>guy.

>

>JANE WALLACE: And suddenly they're told to back off--

>

>SY HERSH: From a certain area--

>

>JANE WALLACE: -- and let planes fly out to Pakistan.

>

>SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you

>maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani

>military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe

>3,000, maybe mmore. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not

>only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the

>military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of

>senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.

>

>And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin

>Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We

>allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.

>

>JANE WALLACE: How high up was that evacuation authorized?

>

>SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized — Donald Rumsfeld who —

>we'll talk about what he said later — it had to be authorized at the White

>House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level.

>

>JANE WALLACE: The Department of Defense said to us that they were not

>involved and that they don't have any knowledge of that operation.

>

>SY HERSH: That's what Rumsfeld said when they asked him but it. And he

>said, "Gee, really?" He said, "News to me." Which is not a denial, it's

>sort of interesting. You know,

>

>JANE WALLACE: What did we do that? Why we would put our special forces guys

>on the ground, surround the enemy, and then-- fly him out?

>

>SY HERSH: With al Qaeda.

>

>JANE WALLACE: With al Qaeda. Why would we do that, assuming your story is

>true?

>

>SY HERSH: We did it because the ISI asked us to do so.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Pakistani intelligence.

>

>SY HERSH: Absolutely.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Yeah.

>

>SY HERSH: Yeah. That's why. You asked why. Because we believe Musharraf was

>under pressure to protect the military men of — the intelligence people

>from the military, ISI, that were in the field. The Pakistanis were

>training the Taliban, and were training al Qaeda.

>

>When the war began, even though this is-- again, you know, this is

>complicated. Musharraf asked, as a favor, to protect his position. If we

>suddenly seized, in in the field, a few dozen military soldiers, including

>generals, and put them in jail, and punished them, he would be under

>tremendous pressure from the fundamentalists at home.

>

>So, to protect him, we perceive that it's important to protect him, he

>asked us-- this is why when I tell you it comes at the level of Don

>Rumsfeld, it has to. I mean, it does. He asked-- he said, "You've got to

>protect me. You've got to get my people out."

>

>The initial plan was to take out the Pakistani military. What happened is

>that they took out al Qaeda with them. And we had no way of stopping it. We

>lost control. Once there planes began to go, the Pakistanis began--

>thousands of al Qaeda got out. And so-- we weren't able to stop it and

>screen it. The intent wasn't to let al Qaeda out. It was to protect the

>Pakistani military.

>

>SY HERSH: What else can you do? We need the idea of some sort of country as

>a bulwark to what's going-- look, Afghanistan is smoking today. You know if

>you want another reality, the reality that nobody wants to hear about is

>that probably from Khandhar to Jalalabad and all of the southern part of

>Afghanistan is cowboy and Indian territory.

>

>It's ISI. It's Taliban. It's Pashtun. Some al Qaeda. You know you don't

>find our troops-- a little bit in-- on the coast near-- you know in the

>north-- the northern territories. We're-- it's-- we have un-- we're-- we're

>really at square one even in Afghanistan.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Okay, I'm gonna slow you down because you know your material

>very well. The northwestern part of Pakistan--

>

>SY HERSH: Right.

>

>JANE WALLACE: --that borders on Afghanistan now is where the-- the al Qaeda

>forces are said to be regrouped?

>

>SY HERSH: Along with Kashmir. They probably are there too.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Yes. This is where some of our American troops-- we have

>about 8,000 left in Afghanistan, are facing some of the heaviest fighting

>they've seen in a year.

>

>SY HERSH: The forces that are seeing heavy fighting are a few special

>forces that are there and some elite units from the 82nd Airborne. Most of

>our troops are just guarding bases. But we have some elite units in

>contact. Yes.

>

>JANE WALLACE: What you're saying is that then part of the forces our guys

>are facing are forces that are being supported by or intermixed with

>Pakistan intelligence which is a government we support. And al Qaeda, which

>is supported by a government we support. In other words we're doing battle

>with ourselves to some degree?

>

>SY HERSH: I'll make it better. We have reason to think, from intelligence--

>I haven't written this that-- that the Saudi's are financing some of this

>all the way.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Financing what?

>

>SY HERSH: Saudi's put a lot of money into Pakistan to religious aspects.

>I'm not saying the Saudi's necessarily-- the Saudi government knows that

>the money they're putting in is ending up supplying the forces that are in

>contact with our forces in the northern territories. But the fact is the

>Saudi's are still a supplier of a great deal of funds to Pakistan. We've

>got a country that's teetering on the edge, we don't want Pakistan to go

>Islamic. We don't want the weapons to get out of control.

>

>JANE WALLACE: How exactly did the Pakistanis acquire nukes?

>

>SY HERSH: They stole the technology from Europe-- to-- basically-- they

>used enriched uranium, Enriched uranium makes as perfectly a good a bomb as

>plutonium without a big nuclear reactor that anybody can see and-- and get

>intelligence on. They began turning out warheads. We now know I-- as they

>say, we estimate up to 40-- and that's just a rough guess.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Forty warheads means what in terms of destructive power?

>

>SY HERSH: Well, it depends the average warhead probably-- takes out New

>York. A good chunk of New York.

>

>JANE WALLACE: So forty warheads is a lot--

>

>SY HERSH: Yeah.

>

>JANE WALLACE: --for a country the size of Pakistan?

>

>SY HERSH: I would say one isn't a lot if you can fire it. Yes, if you know

>how to do it and-- and-- it's a lot. They--

>

>JANE WALLACE: So formidable, especially in a third-world country where

>we're not entirely sure--

>

>SY HERSH: It could--

>

>JANE WALLACE: --who's in charge of the switch?

>

>SY HERSH: Well, we'd like to think that the military and Musharraf is in

>charge of the switch. That makes us very happy to think that. That's the

>whole issue. The issue is making sure and reinforce Musharraf being in

>charge of the switch, which--

>

>JANE WALLACE: But the--

>

>SY HERSH: It's--

>

>JANE WALLACE: --on the--

>

>SY HERSH: --it's a--

>

>JANE WALLACE: -- issue--

>

>SY HERSH: --it's a crap game. It's a roll of the dice. That's what it is.

>

>JANE WALLACE: You reported recently that not only do the Pakistanis have

>the nukes, the international community knew that. That's why they were

>ostracized for many years, because they wouldn't stop developing their own

>nuclear program. So they were blackballed by the rest of the world. Forget

>it, we're not trading with them anymore.

>

>They were in that position when 9/11 struck. Not only do they have these

>nuclear weapons, but then they go one further to put it in our face and

>start helping North Korea develop the same cheaper, more efficient

>warheads. What is that about? These are our new best friends?

>

>SY HERSH: Well, this started before they became our new best friends. This

>isn't-- this started in '97. What I did is I wrote about an intelligence

>report that the White House had for, what, eight months before it became

>known.

>

>I love the story that this administration does live in a sort of a web of

>it's own sort of stories. They-- the story they put out was last fall one

>of our guys goes to North Korea, the Pyongyang and-- and confronts the

>North Koreans. And they admit they have it. And we're stunned. They've

>admitted they have it. Something we've known they've had for a year.

>

>What they did is in '97-- they buy missiles from North Korea. The North

>Korean government is insane. Half the people starve and meanwhile they have

>a tremendously efficient missile system. They-- they-- if-- if the leader

>of that country decided that he wanted to-- to get rid of the missiles and

>start spending money on-- on-- on food, they could all live. There's enough

>there. But it's-- it's a madness society.

>

>And so the North-- the North Koreans are supplying missiles for-- for

>Pakistan for years. And in '97, Pakistan had some serious economic

>problems. And I can tell you right now i-- if nu-- if Pakistan's economy

>is-- is in the toilet, North Korea's deep in the sewer.

>

>So here they are. North Korea's-- one of their great exports is missiles

>for cash and then they sell some missiles to the Paks. And the Paks come to

>the North Koreans in '97 and they say, "Hey guys, we can't pay. We got no

>money. We're broke too. But we've got something in kind. I'm giving you the

>most--" this is actually an interpretation the community-- intelligence

>community, same people in the American intelligence community.

>

>And by the way, there's a lot of good people in our system. And awful lot.

>And they must be very frustrated with it, because I think things at the

>top-- it's a very strange world at the top of this government. It's a

>cocoon. And no bad information invited. I'm talking about in a-- in the--

>in the leadership.

>

>JANE WALLACE: What do you mean cocoon, no bad information invited?

>

>SY HERSH: Oh, I just don't think it was hard-- I don't think they could

>sell this story of the-- the-- I don't think the intelligence community

>was-- was able to get the President and the Vice President and other people

>to focus on North Korea-- for a year before it became known. It was just--

>they didn't wanna focus on it. They had other issues.

>

>But the Paks then start giving the fruits of their 10, 15 years, 20 years

>of nuclear labor to the North Koreans. And you have to understand, to start

>with a centrifuge and some designs and get to the point where you can

>actually make bomb-grade material is a 12, 15 year process. The Paks--

>

>JANE WALLACE: It's very sophisticated?

>

>SY HERSH: Oh. The Paks cut it way down to a couple years, three, four,

>maybe five years.

>

>JANE WALLACE: So you could really spin 'em out?

>

>SY HERSH: You can kick it out. You can put it in high gear. They gave 'em

>prototypes of the centrifuges that they made. They gave 'em prototypes of

>the warheads. They gave 'em test data.

>

>There's something called cold testing. You can actually test natural

>uranium in a warhead and it gives you a lot of information about the real

>stuff-- enriched stuff would work.

>

>JANE WALLACE: So both third-world powers become more dangerous?

>

>SY HERSH: To put it mildly.

>

>JANE WALLACE: Colin Powell did not deny your story. He did go out of his

>way to say, the Secretary of State, that Musharraf has assured the State

>Department that this is not happening now.

>

>SY HERSH: Right.

>

>JANE WALLACE: That's all-- well, what do you make of that?

>

>SY HERSH: It's the-- it's the-- it's the-- the three-card Monty we have

>going, which is that, "What are you going to do with this guy? Are you

>going to say--" it's clear that some of the help that Musharraf gave the

>North Koreans took place after 9/11. That is a continuum.

>

>Musharraf's answer to us was a-- you know, "Oh my god. There's gambling on

>the premises?" You know shades of Casablanca. And, "I'll stop it right

>now." And we say, "Great." What else are we gonna do?

>

>Are we gonna take a run at this guy and make it-- make him more vulnerable

>to his critics that are there already? The fundamentalists-- the Islamic--

>the mujahadin? So we--

>

>JANE WALLACE: Or are we gonna pretend it didn't happen or-- or at least

>it's stopped?

>

>SY HERSH: We-- the rationalization for pretending it didn't happen or that

>it's stopped-- and it probably has stopped. The rationalization-- first of

>all, why shouldn't it stop? They've got what they need already?

>

>The rationalization is that we can't jeopardize Musharraf. We've gotta keep

>him going. Prop him up as much as possible.

>

>JANE WALLACE: This is getting to be a very costly prop up.

>

>SY HERSH: Absolutely. But you know, let me give you another-- theory. Why

>do you think Pakistan has only helped North Korea with nuclear weapons? Why

>haven't they helped other countries?

>

>JANE WALLACE: I don't know why.

>

>SY HERSH: Well, the answer is, they probably have. They're interested in

>spreading it to the Third World. How much control does Musharraf have?

>

>JANE WALLACE: Do you have any evidence?

>

>SY HERSH: No, no. I'm just telling you-- heuristically, I'm just telling

>you-- I'm telling what I-- my instinct tells me that in a perfect world, if

>our editor of the world's newspaper, I would-- I would want to look at

>our-- is Pakistan-- I'd look at Pakistan and Iran, look at Pakistan and--

>and Indonesia. Look at Pakistan even and Lebanon. There's a lot of ties

>that I'm interested in. Are they gonna be spreading nuclear technology into

>the Muslim world above and beyond their own country?

>

>JANE WALLACE: If we were really going after the people who sponsored al

>Qaeda, wouldn't we be bombing Pakistan?

>

>SY HERSH: Well, it'd be attacking Pakistan is not like attacking

>Afghanistan, or Iraq. They have an air force. They have nuclear weapons, of

>course. They have a-- very strong powerful Army. We're not gonna attack

>Pakistan. That would be-- that would be an impossible chore. If you said to

>me, "Are we better off in Pakistan or in Iraq in terms of beating

>terrorism?" I would say to you-- if you'd asked me that question, I would

>say, "No question. Let's forget about Iraq and let's focus on Pakistan and

>start doing-- the money we're gonna spend if we go to war there, even in

>moving troops, if we tried to use some of that money in-- in positive ways

>in Pakistan, we might be able to accomplish more than we are right now."

>

>JANE WALLACE: The picture you are painting here is that we're dealing with

>the devil.

>

>SY HERSH: It's not a perfect world.

>

>

>

>

>

 

 

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