Seymour Hersh

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“What Difference Does It Make What The Fuck I Think About Journalism?”

May 14, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

At this point, I think Seymour Hersh might just be trolling us, doing a performance-art piece called “Seymour Hersh.” I wouldn’t be surprised if there were government and military officials in Pakastan who aided us in the bin Laden mission, but there’s still no real proof of that and many of the journalist’s other assertions about the killing are difficult to accept with the information he’s provided.

It’ll be interesting to see if Leon Panetta and John Brennan file suit against Hersh and the London Review of Books for writing that the former CIA Director and Senior Adviser for Counterterrorism, respectively, wanted to lie to make it seem like “enhanced interrogation” (i.e., torture) was instrumental in identifying bin Laden’s whereabouts.

In his spellbinding Slate piece, Isaac Chotiner conducted a stormy phone interview with the cantankerous reporter, who had apparently dropped a cactus in his trousers just before picking up the receiver.

Three brief excerpts follow.

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Isaac Chotiner:

If the plan until the night of the raid was to use the cover story that he had not been killed in a raid but in a drone strike, then why have the raid at all?  Why not just have the Pakistanis kill him? Why risk Obama’s presidency?

Seymour Hersh:

Of course there is no answer there because I haven’t talked to any of the principals. But I can just give you what the people who were in the process believed to be so, which is that for [Gens.] Pasha and Kayani, the chance of something like that getting leaked out would be devastating. America was then running at about 8 percent popularity in Pakistan, and Bin Laden was running at 60, 70 percent. He was very popular. [Editor’s note: This 2010 opinion poll says that Bin Laden’s popularity was at 18 percent in Pakistan.] You couldn’t just take a chance, because if someone ratted you out—I can only give you a basic theory.

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Seymour Hersh:

You probably don’t know that NBC reported, and now they have reported it on one of these dopey afternoon shows with that woman, what’s her name, the NBC woman who claims to have some knowledge of foreign policy, married to Alan Greenspan.

Chotiner:

Andrea Mitchell.

Seymour Hersh:

She’s comical. On her show the administration is acknowledging walk-ins but saying the walk-ins aren’t necessarily linked to Bin Laden.

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Isaac Chotiner:

I just want to talk to you about your piece and journalism.

Seymour Hersh:

What difference does it make what the fuck I think about journalism? I don’t think much of the journalism that I see. If you think I write stories where it is all right to just be good enough, are you kidding? You think I have a cavalier attitude on throwing stuff out? Are you kidding? I am not cavalier about what I do for a living.

Isaac Chotiner:

I don’t think you are cavalier. That was not my question.

Seymour Hersh:

Whatever it is, it’s an impossible question. It’s almost like you are asking me to say that there are flaws in everybody. Yes. Do I acknowledge that not everybody can be perfect? But I am not backing off anything I said.•

 

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“The Tale Of How Osama Bin Laden Met His Death…Has Been A Changeable Feast”

May 13, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

If it proved true, Seymour Hersh’s revisionist report on the bin Laden killing might be the most significant work of his career, perhaps even more than My Lai or Abu Ghraib, since it would not just reveal a failure of fealty in government but also an almost-universal breakdown of U.S. journalism. It would signal an utter capitulation of the Fourth Estate. But I don’t think Hersh’s initial 10,000-word story comes close to doing the job, with its few and (seemingly) middling sources. If the contrarian version is to gain traction, either Hersh or someone else follows up with much more significant sources or a smoking gun emerges. And some of the piece’s more outrageous claims (e.g., SEALS throwing pieces of bin Laden’s corpse from a helicopter) shouldn’t have been published unsupported by better evidence.

One aspect of the Hersh account, that the terrorist mastermind was a prisoner of the Pakistani government for years and was sold out by a mercenary former intelligence official, has been seconded by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times. An excerpt:

From the moment it was announced to the public, the tale of how Osama bin Laden met his death in a Pakistani hill town in May 2011 has been a changeable feast. In the immediate aftermath of the Navy SEAL team’s assault on his Abbottabad compound, American and Pakistani government accounts contradicted themselves and each other. In his speech announcing the operation’s success, President Obama said that “our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.” 

But others, including top Pakistani generals, insisted that this was not the case. American officials at first said Bin Laden resisted the SEALs; the Pakistanis promptly leaked that he wasn’t armed. Then came differing stories from the SEALs who carried out the raid, followed by a widening stream of new details from government reports — including the 336-page Abbottabad Commission report requested by the Pakistani Parliament — and from books and interviews. All of the accounts were incomplete in some way.

The latest contribution is the journalist Seymour Hersh’s 10,000-word article in The London Review of Books, which attempts to punch yet more holes — very big ones — in both the Obama administration’s narrative and the Pakistani government’s narrative. Among other things, Hersh contends that the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan’s military-intelligence agency, held Bin Laden prisoner in the Abbottabad compound since 2006, and that “the C.I.A. did not learn of Bin Laden’s whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the U.S.”

On this count, my own reporting tracks with Hersh’s.•

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“Are We Really To Believe Special Forces Would Spend Who Knows How Long Gleefully Carving Up Bin Laden Like Horror Movie Villains?”

May 12, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

As I suspected, New Yorker editors seemed to have simply not believed Seymour Hersh’s contrarian reportage about the killing of Osama bin Laden which wound up published in the London Review of Books. So much is at stake here, journalistically as well as politically, as Hersh being correct would mean that essentially every American news organization was guilty of a dereliction of duty on par with the one many committed in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But Hersh’s sources, few and murky, aren’t proof on their own of any such grand failing.

Max Fisher of Vox lays into Hersh’s revisionist narrative but good, speaking along the way to the passage that struck me as the most fabulistic: the terrorist’s corpse being flung piece by piece from a helicopter. I guess anything’s possible in this crazy world, but asserting behavior that insane requires some sort of clear confirmation. An excerpt:

As for Hersh’s story of what really happened to bin Laden’s body — “torn to pieces with rifle fire” and thrown bit by bit out the door of the escaping helicopter, until there was not enough left to bury — it is difficult to know where to begin. It is outlandish to imagine small arms fire reducing a 6-foot-4 man “to pieces,” not to mention the sheer quantity of time and bullets this would take. Are we really to believe that special forces would spend who knows how long gleefully carving up bin Laden like horror movie villains, and then later reaching into the body bag to chuck pieces of him out of a helicopter, for no reason at all? On the most sensitive and important operation of their careers?•

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“The Seals Weren’t There Because They Thought Bin Laden Was Running A Command Centre For Al-Qaida Operations”

May 11, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Almost as fascinating as Seymour Hersh’s revisionist account of the killing of Osama bin Laden, which asserts that much of what the Administration said about the mission (from planning to burial at sea) is a lie, is that it’s published in the London Review of Books rather than the New Yorker. The latter, Hersh’s longtime main outlet, had two possible reasons to pass on the article. One is that his piece disagrees strongly with the New Yorker account of the mission in 2011 on everything from bin Laden’s courier being tracked to a SEAL lying down next to the terrorist mastermind’s corpse so that his height could be measured. But I don’t think the editors would behave that way if they felt Hersh had gotten a story they missed on. They must have simply not trusted Hersh’s version based on their own reporting on the subject (which doesn’t mean they’re right, of course). I also doubt the New Yorker rejecting the journalist’s 2013 Syria report would have made a collaboration untenable if the magazine wanted this article, nor do I think his reportage endangers anyone involved in the mission.

An excerpt:

At the Abbottabad compound ISI guards were posted around the clock to keep watch over bin Laden and his wives and children. They were under orders to leave as soon as they heard the rotors of the US helicopters. The town was dark: the electricity supply had been cut off on the orders of the ISI hours before the raid began. One of the Black Hawks crashed inside the walls of the compound, injuring many on board. ‘The guys knew the TOT [time on target] had to be tight because they would wake up the whole town going in,’ the retired official said. The cockpit of the crashed Black Hawk, with its communication and navigational gear, had to be destroyed by concussion grenades, and this would create a series of explosions and a fire visible for miles. Two Chinook helicopters had flown from Afghanistan to a nearby Pakistani intelligence base to provide logistical support, and one of them was immediately dispatched to Abbottabad. But because the helicopter had been equipped with a bladder loaded with extra fuel for the two Black Hawks, it first had to be reconfigured as a troop carrier. The crash of the Black Hawk and the need to fly in a replacement were nerve-wracking and time-consuming setbacks, but the Seals continued with their mission. There was no firefight as they moved into the compound; the ISI guards had gone. ‘Everyone in Pakistan has a gun and high-profile, wealthy folks like those who live in Abbottabad have armed bodyguards, and yet there were no weapons in the compound,’ the retired official pointed out. Had there been any opposition, the team would have been highly vulnerable. Instead, the retired official said, an ISI liaison officer flying with the Seals guided them into the darkened house and up a staircase to bin Laden’s quarters. The Seals had been warned by the Pakistanis that heavy steel doors blocked the stairwell on the first and second-floor landings; bin Laden’s rooms were on the third floor. The Seal squad used explosives to blow the doors open, without injuring anyone. One of bin Laden’s wives was screaming hysterically and a bullet – perhaps a stray round – struck her knee. Aside from those that hit bin Laden, no other shots were fired. (The Obama administration’s account would hold otherwise.)

‘They knew where the target was – third floor, second door on the right,’ the retired official said. ‘Go straight there. Osama was cowering and retreated into the bedroom. Two shooters followed him and opened up. Very simple, very straightforward, very professional hit.’ Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defence, the retired official said. ‘Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defence? The house was shabby and bin Laden was living in a cell with bars on the window and barbed wire on the roof. The rules of engagement were that if bin Laden put up any opposition they were authorised to take lethal action. But if they suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe, they could also kill him. So here’s this guy in a mystery robe and they shot him. It’s not because he was reaching for a weapon. The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy.’ The later White House claim that only one or two bullets were fired into his head was ‘bullshit’, the retired official said. ‘The squad came through the door and obliterated him. As the Seals say, “We kicked his ass and took his gas.”’

After they killed bin Laden, ‘the Seals were just there, some with physical injuries from the crash, waiting for the relief chopper,’ the retired official said. ‘Twenty tense minutes. The Black Hawk is still burning. There are no city lights. No electricity. No police. No fire trucks. They have no prisoners.’ Bin Laden’s wives and children were left for the ISI to interrogate and relocate. ‘Despite all the talk,’ the retired official continued, there were ‘no garbage bags full of computers and storage devices. The guys just stuffed some books and papers they found in his room in their backpacks. The Seals weren’t there because they thought bin Laden was running a command centre for al-Qaida operations, as the White House would later tell the media. And they were not intelligence experts gathering information inside that house.’•

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“There Is A Difference Between What People Say Loosely Or In Speeches And What We Publish”

March 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Last year Seymour Hersh made comments about the official U.S. government report regarding the Obama bin Laden killing, labeling it as “bullshit.” It was taken to mean initially that the journalist believed the terrorist hadn’t actually been eliminated, but he quickly clarified, saying that bin Laden was dead but that the White House version of the mission was fantastical. In a wide-ranging New Republic interview conducted by Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker editor David Remnick pushes back at his contributor’s assertion. An excerpt:

“Isaac Chotiner:

Speaking of Hersh, he claims that the U.S. government’s story of the Osama bin Laden raid is bullshit. What do you say to that given that your magazine ran a piece that relied heavily on government sources?

David Remnick:

I thoroughly stand by the story we published.

Isaac Chotiner:

And his comments?

David Remnick:

Look, there is a difference between what people say loosely or in speeches and what we publish. All I can be in charge of is what we publish. I have enormous respect for him.

Isaac Chotiner:

Hersh wrote a piece a few months back hinting that the rebels were the ones who used chemical weapons in Syria. Why did that run in the London Review of Books and not The New Yorker?

David Remnick:

Or The Washington Post. I have worked with Sy on many dozens of pieces and am proud of that work. And a lot of those pieces had the potential to break a lot of crockery. I was willing, and am still willing, to go to the wall with investigative journalism. But if he and I disagree, it is not an easy thing. I hope we will work again together. I hope you will print this: I wish him all the best, and I think he is one of the great journalists of our age.”

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“He Was In No Way Suggesting That Osama Bin Laden Was Not Killed In Pakistan”

October 8, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

One update to the Seymour Hersh comments which suggested that the bin Laden raid story wasn’t legit, which made it sound like the journalist believed the terrorist’s murder was a moon landing on a sound stage. Hersh has made it clear that he was not referring to the actual killing: The Guardian correction:

“Hersh has pointed out that he was in no way suggesting that Osama bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan, as reported, upon the president’s authority: he was saying that it was in the aftermath that the lying began.”

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“Nothing’s Been Done About That Story, It’s One Big Lie, Not One Word Of It Is True”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Seymour Hersh doesn’t buy the official line about the raid that erased Osama bin Laden–or much else the media says these days. He tears into his industry in discussion with Lisa O’Carroll of the Guardian. The opening:

“Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. 

It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as ‘the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.’

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth. 

Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends ‘so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would’ – or the death of Osama bin Laden. ‘Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,’ he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011. 

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an ‘independent’ Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. ‘The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,’ he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

 ‘It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],’ he declares in an interview with the Guardian.”

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