- Neither the Bush administration nor Democrats in Congress
have covered themselves in glory during the war against terrorism or the
runup to a possible war against Iraq.
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- That's the view of Seymour Hersh, an acclaimed investigative
journalist who has ferreted out many government secrets during the past
seven administrations.
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- Bush administration officials have employed obsessive
secrecy and scare tactics for political gain, Hersh said Thursday at the
Westminster Town Hall Forum. "They've got to keep us scared and they've
got to keep us jacked up on Iraq" because national security and terrorism
are the only issues where most Americans back Bush, he said.
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- "Their definition of national security and mine
are different," he said. In this White House, disagreement is not
dissent -- it's disloyalty. Dissent is treason."
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- As for the Democratic Party, it "seems to have disappeared,"
Hersh said. "The morality of the Democrats' position is astonishing
to me. If the war turns out to be a disaster, it's good for us because
we're not responsible. We didn't elect them to take a dive on this issue."
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- Hersh, now of the New Yorker, is best known for uncovering
the 1968 My Lai massacre by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War but also
has written extensively about the CIA, the violent overthrow of Chile's
government in 1973, Gulf War syndrome and the war in Afghanistan. He makes
no bones about the tilt of his politics, and said he would be glad to vote
for Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., as often as he could.
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- Hersh noted that anyone reading newspapers these days
is apt to be frightened. "But I'm just as scared as all of you,"
he said, citing his prodigious sources throughout government. "I don't
know what they're doing."
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- He believes he does know why administration officials
are focusing so loudly on Iraq. "If we're not talking about Saddam
[Hussein], we're talking about Enron and Tyco," he said. "It's
the best issue he has and he's playing it hard," he said of President
Bush.
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- When the White House only belatedly revealed that Bush
had been briefed in August 2001 about the possibility of a terrorist attack,
it showed that "political expedience is more important than informing
the public," Hersh said. "The possibility the president may have
known something in advance would have been politically dangerous."
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- Based on what he has been told by sources, Hersh said
he does not believe that an attack on Iraq is imminent. "There is
no execute order for war," he said. "There's no agreement on
who the next leader would be. There's no agreement in the military how
to carry out the war . . . . It's not going to happen in the short run."
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- He called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "this
administration's Woody Allen." Noting that he has known Rumsfeld for
years, he added, "Rummy is funny. He's also on a very hard path for
America."
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- Of Bush's address to the United Nations last week, Hersh
said, "He's restored irony to the American lexicon. He says 'you guys
have to do it. But if you don't do it, I'll do it myself.' "
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- -- Bob von Sternberg is at vonste@startribune.com.
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