Democracy Now! April 21, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:10 Headlines 8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break 8:11-8:20: Last week Christian Science Monitor reporter Scott Peterson filed a story titled Setbacks in winning Iraqi hearts. It began: The night after Baghdad fell, three Bradley Fighting Vehicles, fresh from battle, came across some Iraqi military trucks loaded with ordnance in residential District 405. What happened next would become a tragedy for both the American soldiers and the Iraqi civilians. After warning the residents along Street No. 2 to stay in their homes, the lead US vehicle fired explosive rounds into the parked trucks. The resulting fireball destroyed four houses, broke windows up to six blocks away - and killed the Bradley commander. As US troops attempt to restore safety and order to Baghdad, events like these are complicating the postwar campaign to win Iraqi hearts and minds. The incidents also raise the issue of who should pay for the unintentional mistakes of war. Damaged beyond repair is District 405 resident Abdulkarim Al-Fardousi's faith that Americans had come to free his people from dictatorship and make a better future for Iraq. "The happiness at the fall of Saddam has faded away in that single incident," says Fardousi, owner of an advertising agency, as he picks through mangled wreckage that included four computers and six monitors - brought home from work for safety during the war. "If this is freedom, I don't want it," Fardousi says. The blast knocked out hearing in his right ear, but the 27 other family members crammed into the back of the house survived that night, April 10. In the block, eight people were lightly wounded. "Who is going to compensate for all this loss?" Fardousi asks. "This was an American mistake - they told us that." * Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor reporter in Iraq. 8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40: U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials have told UPI that the CIA helped support Saddam Hussein more than 40 years in an attempt to assassinate then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim. UPI reporter Richard Sale wrote: U.S. forces in Baghdad might now be searching high and low for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but in the past Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials. United Press International has interviewed almost a dozen former U.S. diplomats, British scholars and former U.S. intelligence officials to piece together the following account. The CIA declined to comment on the report. While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with U.S. intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim. . * Richard Sale, UPI intelligence correspondent and author of Saddam Key in early CIA Plot 8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58: He has been called the country s leading Islamophobes. He claims that up to 15 percent of Muslims are potential killers. He says Muslim government police officers, soldiers and diplomats QUOTE "need to be watched for connections to terrorism." And he contends that QUOTE "mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples." His name is Daniel Pipes. He is the founder of the Middle East Forum and a columnist for the New York Post. He has now been nominated by President Bush to serve on the United States Institute of Peace. Muslim groups have protested Bush s selection. Now the Washington Post has called on Bush to rescind the nomination. So far Pipes has generally refused to discuss the nomination. Last week Pipes walked off the set of an Al Jazeera news show when he learned representatives from the Council on American Islamic Relations would also appear on the show. Almost two weeks ago we talked with Pipes, as well as Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations. Since it was a phone interview Pipes couldn t walk off the set. But he did the next closest thing. He hung up. Not once but twice. But we were able to ask him a few questions. I began by asking for his response to the charge that he was the nation s leading Islamophobe. * Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum Link: http://www.danielpipes.org * Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Link: http://www.adc.org * Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for Council on American Islamic Relations Link: http://www.cair-net.org/8:58-8:59 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.