Democracy Now! March 10, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:06 Headlines: 8:06-8:07 One-Minute Music Break 8:07-20: Renowned writers Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and Maxine Hong Kinston, author of The Woman Warrior, and over 20 other women were arrested in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. The women were among thousands of women who marched on Washington on International Women s Day, protesting the Bush administration s plans to invade Iraq. The protest was organized by a new group called Code Pink, a play on the Bush administration s color-coded system of terror alerts. Also arrested were magazine publisher Nina Utne, Authors Terry Tempest Williams and Susan Griffin, CodePink Co-founder Medea Benjamin, Reverend Patricia Ackerman and musician Rachel Bagby. Police also arrested Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman while covering the event. Similar rallies were held yesterday in 50 other cities, from Anchorage to Honolulu. There were also massive anti-war rallies held around the globe. Tens of thousands braved torrential downpours in Britain, including 20,000 in Manchester in what some believe was the city s largest peace protest in 150 years. In Italy, tens of thousands marched from Pisa to nearby Camp Darby, a U.S. military base that is one of Europe's biggest munitions bases for U.S. and NATO forces. In Indonesia up to 800,000 gathered in city of Surabaya. In the Lebanese city of Tripoli, 8,000 Lebanese and Palestinians protested. * Recording of Park Police arresting the Code Pink protesters as well as Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman * Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple Link: Code Pink for Peace: http://www.codepink4peace.org/8:20-8:21 One-Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40: The National Review and Stateside News Service are reporting that a group of progressive Democrats are may introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush and possibly members of his Cabinet. One member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, Danny Davis, of Illinois said he expected to see a resolution be put forth in the event of "a full-fledged military effort" if Bush goes to war without new congressional backing. A draft of the impeachment resolution accuses Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft of more than a dozen 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' including bombing civilians in Afghanistan and constitutional violations in the so-called war on terror. The impeachment drive was largely initiated by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and University of Illinois Law Professor Francis Boyle. In 1991 the late Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez filed a motion to impeach the first President Bush based on articles drafted by Francis Boyle. We spoke with Boyle recently and asked him to outline the grounds on which Bush could be impeached. Guest: Francis Boyle, professor of law, University of Illinois School of Law Link: Read Boyle s Articles of Impeachment against President Bush: http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle01172003.html 8:40-8:41 One-Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58: On Friday, the chief U.N. weapons inspectors gave their latest report. Overall, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix reported the inspections are yielding results. He said Iraq is cooperating much more than it did in the 1990s and that this cooperation has accelerated over the past month. In particular, Blix said Iraq's destruction of its al-Samoud 2 missiles constituted QUOTE "a substantial measure of disarmament." The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei said a key piece of evidence the US has used was faked. After a careful investigation, UN and independent experts concluded that documents purportedly showing Iraqi officials tried to buy uranium in Africa two years ago were not authentic. The Bush administration was using the documents to claim Iraq is developing a nuclear weapons program. The Washington Post reports sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. But the forgers made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away --including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time. One US official claimed QUOTE: "We fell for it." ElBaradei also again rejected a key Bush administration claim that Iraq tried to purchase aluminum tubes for use in uranium enrichment. He said experts had concluded the tubes were for a rocket engine program, as Iraq had said. President Bush twice claimed otherwise in major speeches. And Secretary of State General Colin Powell repeated the claim in his speech to the Security Council on Friday after ElBaradei had rejected the claim. Tape:. Mohamed El Baradei director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recorded March 7, 2003 Phone Guest: Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, specializing in Middle East and United Nations issues She is the author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis. Link: Institute for Policy Studies: http://www.ips-dc.org/8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits 9:01-9:06 Headlines: 9:06-9:07 One-Minute Music Break 9:07-9:30: Renowned writers Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and Maxine Hong Kinston, author of The Woman Warrior, and over 20 other women were arrested in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. The women were among thousands of women who marched on Washington on International Women s Day, protesting the Bush administration s plans to invade Iraq. The protest was organized by a new group called Code Pink, a play on the Bush administration s color-coded system of terror alerts. Also arrested were magazine publisher Nina Utne, authors Terry Tempest Williams and Susan Griffin, CodePink Co-founder Medea Benjamin, Rev. Patricia Ackerman and musician Rachel Bagby. Gloria Johnson, Coalition of Labor Union Women Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, her stepson is a 25-year-old Marine who is currently stationed in the Gulf region and being prepared for the battle. Links: Coalition of Labor Union Women: http://www.cluw.org/Military Families Speak Out: http://www.mfso.org/9:21-9:22 One-Minute Music Break ON MINI DV??? Hafsat Abiola, Nigerian human rights advocate. Her mother, Kudirat Abiola, was assassinated by the military regime in June 1996. Hafsat's father, President-elect Moshood Abiola, was imprisoned in 1993. Just prior to release from prison in 1998 he died of a heart attack. 9:33-9:45: A 28-year-old woman working at the top-secret British Government Communications Headquarters has been arrested on charges of contravening the Official Secrets Act. The GCHQ is the electronic surveillance arm of the British intelligence service. The arrest comes just a few days after the Observer published a top-secret National Security Agency document. The memo revealed US agents had been ordered to bug the telephone and email communications of U.N. Security Council delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea. The surveillance operation was designed to help the US win votes for the war resolution on Iraq. The Observer reports the NSA document was leaked to the paper by British security sources who objected to being asked to aid the US surveillance operation. Meanwhile, the United Nations has launched a top-level investigation into the US is spying operation. Guest: Martin Bright, journalist with the London Observer. He is co-author of the article US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war Links: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html for a transcript of the leaked document, see: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905954,00.html Guest: Wayne Madsen, senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a former National Security Agency intelligence officer. Link: Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org/9:40-9:41 One-Minute Music Break 9:44-9:58: On Saturday, cable station MSNBC went ahead with the launch of the controversial new program by arch-conservative talk-radio star Michael Savage. This came despite protests from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and other advocacy groups. Savage heads the Paul Revere Society, an organization which advocates closing borders, deporting illegal immigrants, mandating health tests for immigrants, eliminating entitlement programs and making tax cuts permanent. Savage s debut comes less than two weeks after MSNBC fired Phil Donahue at a time when his show was the network s top rated program. A leaked internal NBC study indicates Donahue was fired because of his anti-war views. Media analyst Rick Ellis obtained a copy of the study and outlined portions on his website, AllYourTV.com. The study found Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report goes on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Donahue has not spoken publicly about his dismissal but issued a statement that indicated MSNBC was trying to silence anti-war voices in favor of new conservative hosts. He wrote, The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough suggest a strategy to out-Fox FOX. Studio Guest: Steve Rendall, senior analyst at FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Contact: http://www.fair.org 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, and Ana Nogiera. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer and webmaster.