[Media-watch] Military afraid to tell Bush/Cheney the truth - Hersh /Editor and Publisher - 4/11/2004

Julie-ann Davies jadavies2004 at yahoo.co.uk
Sat Nov 6 19:35:48 GMT 2004


Full transcript of interview is available here:
http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/politics_hersh_110304.htm
JA
_____________________

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000706557

 Military Is Afraid to Tell Bush, Cheney the Truth, Says Sy Hersh in 'WP' 
Online Chat

Published: November 04, 2004 5:50 PM EST

NEW YORK Seymour Hersh, the famed reporter known for breaking stories from 
My Lai to Abu Ghraib, said in a Washingtonpost.com chat today that "the 
major media have been part of the problem since 9-11, merely because they 
have far too often taken the president's public utterances at face value."

He added: "There also is a terrific unwillingness, perhaps understandable 
(though not by me), to make a moral judgment about a president's policies. 
There are plenty of people on the inside who are worried about the policies, 
especially among military guys, and I'm sure their views will increasingly 
become known."

Hersh, who has rarely sat for such chats, was asked about voters' lack of 
information on certain key issues, as revealed by non-partisan polls. "The 
most distressing issue, for me, in the election was the lack of information 
and the lack of interest in information about far too many of the 
electorate -- obviously, I'm referring to many of the religious factions who 
voted for Bush," he said. "The reality is that far too many Americans are 
not interested in the facts, or in reality." He added, however , that this 
just might be "a loser's lament." (He backed Kerry.)

Some of the other exchanges:

Asked how the Republicans can refer to the narrow Bush victory as a mandate, 
Hersh said, "You would be right in a rational world. Welcome to the Bush 
White House."

Will Bush now strive for unity? "In my view, he's got his mandate and he's 
going to carry on with his mantra -- bringing democracy to the Middle East.. 
Bush will consider many scary options [there]. What he can do, as opposed to 
what he wants to do, is the issue. Not much intelligence for some of his 
desires. ... I worry about the inability to the men running the U.S. 
government to accept information that challenges their assumptions and their 
belief. It's very frightening and the fact is that our senior military are 
very reluctant to give Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld any bad news. Sounds 
insane, doesn't it?"

On Iraq: "The military are scared of telling Cheney and Bush the truth and 
that will have to end within the next six months. They cannot deliver in 
Iraq what the president wants, and we'll have to start getting out. So I 
believe anyway."

Asked if the blue states should secede from the union, now dominated by the 
south, he said: "The other side tried that once and it didn't work."




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