Democracy Now! December 19, 2002

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Program Title:
Democracy Now! December 19, 2002
Series Title:
PRA Archive #: 
PZ0517.058
Description: 

Top secret Iraq weapons report says the U.S. government & corporations helped to illegally arm Iraq, Part Two: We talk again with the German reporter who obtained leaked portions of the unedited report that names Hewlett Packard, Dupont and Bechtel, Kodak & 20 other U.S. companies as well as Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and the Department of Energy; Why isn t Ashcroft in Lotts of trouble? He did everything in his power to fight the integration of the St. Louis schools; in an interview with the racist Southern Partisan magazine he praised Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery; he intervened on behalf of a supporter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (the uptown Klan ) who was indicted for trying to kill an FBI agent; the list goes on and on: today, a roundtable discussion

9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:10: Hewlett-Packard, Dupont, Eastman Kodak, Honeywell, Bechtel, American Type Culture Collection, Spectra Physics, Semetex, TI Coating, Unisys, Sperry Corp., Tektronix, Rockwell, Leybold Vacuum Systems, Finnigan-MAT-US, Alcolac International, Consarc, Carl Zeiss - U.S., Cerberus, Electronic Associates, International Computer Systems, , EZ Logic Data Systems, Inc., Canberra Industries Inc., Axel Electronics Inc. These 24 U.S. corporations all illegally helped Iraq, according to the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, which published the list today. The report is based on top-secret portions of the Iraq weapons document received by the paper s Geneva correspondent Andreas Zumach. Iraq s report also implicates the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce, and Agriculture and U.S. government nuclear weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia. Zumach also revealed today that Iraq s report indicates two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Russia and China, continue to this day to arm Iraq. The names of the companies were supposed to be top secret. Two weeks ago Iraq provided two copies of its full 12,000-page report, one to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva, and one to the United Nations in New York. Zumach said the U.S. broke an agreement of the Security Council and blackmailed Colombia, which at the time was presiding over the Council, to take possession of the UN s only copy. The U.S. then proceeded to make copies of the report for the other four permanent Security Council nations, Britain, France, Russia and China. Only Tuesday did the remaining members of the Security Council receive their copies. By then, all references to foreign companies had been removed. Guest: Andreas Zumach, Geneva-based UN correspondent with the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung who obtained an unedited copy of Iraq s 12,000 page report to the United Nations. The report reveals how German and U.S. corporations helped build Iraq s weapons program. Links: Full Democracy Now! coverage: http://www.democracynow.org/Zumach.htm 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break 9:07-9:20: He persistently attempted to block school desegregation in his state; a federal court threatened to hold the state in contempt for his failure to comply with a court order. He gave a lengthy interview to the Neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, in which he praised Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis He distorted the record of a highly qualified African American state Supreme Court Judge and misled his colleagues in the Senate, successfully sabotaging the judge s nomination to a federal district court. He received an honorary degree from Bob Jones University and spoke there just three years ago; the Christian university has a segregationist history and until recently banned interracial dating and marriage. No, this is not the resume of the embattled Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott? It is the resume of the man who has already been entrusted to enforce the nation s civil rights laws. We re talking about Attorney General John Ashcroft. Secretary of State General Colin Powell yesterday said he is disappointed in Senator Lott and he deplores the sentiments behind Lott s statement. Two weeks ago, Lott said America would be better off today if Strom Thurmond had won the 1948 presidency on his Segregation Forever platform. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island became the first Republican Senator to call unambiguously for Lott to step down, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush also criticized the Senator. As the criticism and calls for Lott s resignation increase, we thought it s time to take another look at Attorney General John Ashcroft. Democrats repeatedly denounced Ashcroft during the dramatic confirmation hearings of January, 2001. But then eight Democrats voted for him, and Senator Edward Kennedy declined to filibuster the nomination, even though he had the votes he needed. Then-Majority Leader Trent Lott had promised to deliver all fifty Republican votes to Ashcroft before the confirmation hearings even began, and he did it. Guest: John Hickey, executive director of the Missouri Citizen Education Fund Tape: Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) asks John Ashcroft why he tried to block school desegregation in St. Louis at Ashcroft s confirmation hearings Guest: Minnie Liddell, parent who filed a class action suit against the St. Louis City Board of Education in 1972. The case was only recently settled. Guest: Joe Conason, columnist with the New York Observer and Salon.com Tape: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) discusses Ashcroft s interview with the new-Confederate magazine, Southern Partisan, at Ashcroft s confirmation hearings; (January, 2001) Guest: Ralph Neas, President for People for the American Way 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break 9:21-9:40 ASHCROFT IN LOTTS OF TROUBLE?, cont d 9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break 9:41-9:58 ASHCROFT IN LOTTS OF TROUBLE?, cont d 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogiera and Alex Wolfe. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer.

Date Recorded on: 
December 19, 2002
Date Broadcast on: 
December 19, 2002
Item duration: 
59 min.
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Distributor: 
WBAI; Amy Goodman, host., December 19, 2002
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