Democracy Now! April 1, 2003

9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break 9:07-9:20 US troops shoot and kill at least 7 Iraqis including women and children: We go to Baghdad for a report from unembedded journalist May Ying Welsh US troops shot and killed at least 7 Iraqi civilians yesterday, including women and young children, at an intersection near Karbala. Officers from the Army s 3rd infantry division say a van packed with 15 civilians approached the intersection. The Washington Post reports Captain Ronny Johnson repeatedly ordered his troops to fire warning shots. When they failed to take action, he yelled at them to stop the van. The troops responded by firing several high explosive rounds into the passenger cabin of the van. According to the Washington Post, ten innocent people, including women and five children who appeared to be under 5 years old, were killed on the spot. 26-year-old Army medic Sgt. Mario Manzano said: "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again." He said one of the wounded women sat in the vehicle holding the mangled bodies of two of her children. He said she didn't want to get out of the car. Hours later, US Marines killed another Iraqi civilian at another roadblock. The Pentagon issued a statement contradicting the Post s account. The Pentagon claims troops fired on the van after the driver ignored shouted orders and warning shots. And the Pentagon says seven people were killed (not ten). * May Ying Welsh, independent journalist in Baghdad 9:20-9:40 Rumsfeld ignored advice on top Pentagon generals on Iraq: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh on the war, Richard Perle s resignation, Gen. Barry McCaffrey & more This from the New York Times today: Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army commanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it. Raw nerves were obvious as officers compared Rumsfeld to Robert McNamara, an architect of the Vietnam War who failed to grasp the political and military realities of Vietnam. One colonel, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, was among the officers criticizing decisions to limit initial deployments of troops to the region. "He wanted to fight this war on the cheap," the colonel said. "He got what he wanted." A major story in this week s New Yorker by Seymour Hersh broke open this major rift. We are joined by him now to about Rumsfeld, the war, the resignation of Richard Perle and the questionable history of former General and current NBC/MSNBC commentator Barry McCaffrey. * Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter with The New Yorker. His latest piece is titled Offense and Defense: The Battle Between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. Link: Offense and Defense: The Battle Between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon - http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030407fa_fact1 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break 9:21-9:40 Hersh cont d 9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break 9:41-9:58: The international press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres has accused US and British coalition forces in Iraq of displaying "contempt" for journalists covering the conflict who are not embedded with troops. The criticism comes after a group of four "unilateral" or roving reporters revealed how they were arrested by US military police as they slept near an American unit 100 miles south of Baghdad and held overnight. They described their ordeal as "the worst 48 hours in our lives". "Many journalists have come under fire, others have been detained and questioned for several hours and some have been mistreated, beaten and humiliated by coalition forces," said the RSF secretary general, Robert Menard. The four journalists - Israeli Dan Scemama and Boaz Bismuth and Portugese Luis Castro and Victor Silva - entered Iraq in a jeep and followed a US convoy but were not officially attached to the troops. US military police seized the journalists outside their base and detained them even though they were carrying international press cards. The group claimed they were mistreated and denied contact with their families. * Dan Scemama, Israeli s Channel One political correspondent who was detained and expelled by the U.S. military * Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of Target Iraq" with Reese Erlich 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer.