Seymour Hersh: "After 9/11 We Became a Different Country"

By Faisal Abbas, Asharq Al-Awsat. Posted December 25, 2008.

Asharq Al-Awsat: However, I imagine that many people considered you a hero after you exposed the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal for example, but at the same time many would have also criticized you for being "unpatriotic" to say the least. How do you feel about these mixed emotions?

SH: I don't have mixed emotions about it. I think that it is very simple; it is my job to hold public officials to the highest possible standards.

In my case, I hold public officials to the same standards that I hold my family to. I wouldn't want my children to lie to me and I wouldn't want to lie to them.

Also, unlike most Americans, I am not willing to say that our presidents never tell the truth and that our national security advisors, whether it is [Henry] Kissinger or McGeorge [Bundy] or Condoleezza Rice, just don't tell the truth … I just think we should hold them to the highest possible standards.

A lot of people do get angry at me; for example I've been critical of Israel, and since I am Jewish I get a lot of hate-mail for that, but that is all part of the job.

Asharq Al-Awsat: How do you compare Abu Ghraib to the My Lai massacre?

SH: It is apples and oranges. In one case the Americans were murdering anybody they saw, but that didn't happen (in Iraq).

But that [the Vietnam War] was always a tactical mistake, in other words we prosecuted that war, it was murderous, we killed a lot of people, a lot of our people got killed, it was stupid. But Iraq is a strategic war, i.e. we have put ourselves in a position where Arabs and Muslims have a real reason to hoard a lot of anger towards us. Abu Ghraib was enormously important in this regard. I can't even tell you how many times I have heard that between Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and our treatment of prisoners, we have created [more members for the] Taliban in Afghanistan and many Al Qaeda [followers], or that is Jihadists in Iraq. It is very easy to recruit young men to commit terrible acts because of the way we dehumanize Arabs.

I would also like to say that most Americans are horrified at what happened. We do not believe in Abu Ghraib or that this is the way to treat people. I can certainly understand how people in the Arab world think that Americans can do these things much easier than I think we really do.

Asharq Al-Awsat: Many people are expecting that you will start talking as soon as the Bush administration leaves office in January; are these claims true and what will you be saying?

SH: What I have said is that there are a lot of people that I have talked to who will be much easier to talk to after the inauguration of [President-elect] Barack Obama.

I will be writing a book with a very fine publishing house and a very bright group of people; the idea is to write a book from the inside.

I really believe something happened to America; after 9/11 we became a different country. That is fine, presidents sometimes might want to do that, but my issue is how did Bush do it? How did he beat the press? How did he beat the military and Congress and turn everyone into a coward? Why didn't people stand up to him in this situation? In other words, how fragile is the American constitution; it turns out that it is much more fragile than people think.

Asharq Al-Awsat: If we look at your journalistic style, you quote a lot of unnamed sources, and though many of your stories are accurate, many people believe this style is weak in comparison to someone like [the Washington Post's] Bob Woodward, for example. What is your comment in this regard?

SH: I don't agree with everything Woodward does, but his material is certainly accurate and honorable.

For me, it is a convenient point to criticize; the real issue is whether these stories are true or not. People know that The New Yorker has an incredible fact-checking [process] and that the majority of stories have proven to be pretty accurate.

See more stories tagged with: iraq, vietnam, journalism, new york times, seymour hersh, abu ghraib, syria, new yorker, barry mccaffrey, my lai

Faisal Abbas is Asharq Al-Awsat's Media Editor.

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