Iran says it wants nuclear energy to fuel its economy. The US says it wants to build an 'Islamic bomb'. But what do Iranians think about the deepening crisis? Given rare access, Simon Tisdall spoke to people on the streets of Tehran - and to the men in charge of the country's nuclear programme
Monday August 21, 2006The Guardian
Tensions between Iran and the west have rarely been greater than they are today. On the one side, President George Bush has accused Iran of being behind the attack by Hizbullah on Israel that sparked the Lebanon war; and both the US and Britain say that Iran is bent on developing nuclear weapons. On the other, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed that the Bush administration is trampling on the rights of Muslims throughout the world; the US is the "Global Arrogance" (the term which has replaced the "Great Satan" in the Iranian lexicon) in which Washington's plan for a "new Middle East" is simply a scheme to subjugate the region to US and commercial interests.
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Just last week, an article by Seymour Hersh, the respected US investigative reporter, which claimed that the war against Iran's proxy Hizbullah was a premeditated US-directed warm-up for an attack on Iran itself, stoked fears in Tehran that a US air assault on its nuclear facilities, even regime change, are moving to the top of the agenda. Officials in Tehran worry that, after Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran is seen by Bush as "unfinished business" - and that, urged on by Israel, he is determined to destroy what both countries see as the looming threat of an "Islamic bomb". They hear Bush's talk of "Islamic fascists" - and wonder whether he will soon be gunning for them.
There is a way out. Tomorrow the Iranian government will present its long-awaited response to the west's last-ditch compromise offer on nuclear power. This package, belatedly backed by the US, offers Iran a range of incentives from implicit security, territorial guarantees and an end to sanctions, to new commercial and technological collaborations. But first, Bush insists, Iran must suspend all uranium enrichment operations, which Washington believes are connected to its attempts to acquire bomb-making capability.
So far, Iran has insisted that it will not accept any such pre-conditions. Officials say they are willing to resume negotiations with the west - but on equal terms. So when Ahmadinejad delivers Iran's formal reply at a Tehran press conference, the stage will be set for an epic clash that could reverberate across the Middle East and far beyond. So far, the story has mostly been reported from the outside, and from a western perspective. But what are the prospects for war and peace as seen from inside Iran? For the past two weeks the Guardian has been given unprecedented access to explore what ordinary Iranians think about the most pressing issue facing their country - and what some of the country's most powerful men believe will happen next.
'Diplomatic chess'
In a high-ceilinged, thick-carpeted inner sanctum of Iran's fortress-like Supreme National Security Council building in central Tehran, Ali Larijani patiently spells out the factors that will play a part in Iran's decision. The CIA would dearly love to penetrate inside these walls. Perhaps it already has; visitors' mobile phones and other electronic devices are confiscated.
Larijani is an important man in Iran. As secretary of the security council and chief nuclear negotiator, it is he, and his predecessor, Hassan Rowhani, who have by turns tantalised, teased and infuriated the west during three years of discussions on the nuclear dossier. Iran plays a long and astute negotiating game, which Larijani likens to "diplomatic chess". Officials say they learned at the feet of masters: the European powers who exploited Persia during the 19th century "Great Game". Britain is still referred to as the "Old Fox".
Larijani has a daunting reputation as the dour former head of state television whose programme schedules were both morally edifying and utterly tedious. His appointment by Ahmadinejad was seen in the west as representing an ominous shift towards recalcitrance. But in person he is charming and courteous.
"There are many reasons why Iran is seeking nuclear power," he says. "The history of our nuclear activity dates back 45 years to the time of the ex-shah's regime. But after the Islamic revolution, some western countries condemned Iran and cancelled their nuclear agreements with us. For example, the Americans had concluded an agreement for a research reactor in Tehran and also to provide the fuel. But they cancelled the agreement and did not give back the money. The Germans did the same. So the lesson was: we have to be self-sufficient, to provide fuel for ourselves."
He continues: "We don't see why we should stop the scientific research of our country. We understand why this is very sensitive. But they (the west) are categorising countries. Some countries can have access to high nuclear technology. The others are told they can produce fruit juice and pears! They say: 'Don't seek a nuclear bomb.' We don't have any objection to that. But unfortunately officials of some countries such as the UK say, 'We don't want you to have the knowledge for nuclear technology'. This is not logical. And we don't pay attention to this."
The Americans' contradictory impulses are to blame for the standoff, he says. "After September 11 2001, they faced a problem in Afghanistan. They requested assistance from Iran and we gave it. But after the problem ended in Afghanistan, they called us the 'axis of evil'. This paradox has always been their way. They want to kiss one side of our face, but at the same time they also want to slap the other side."
Iran is still willing to negotiate, Larijani concludes, but it will not give up its nuclear power programme. Nor will it yield to preconditions such as Bush's demand for an immediate suspension of uranium enrichment. "If they are going to seek an imposed agreement by putting pressure on us, we will not accept it. If the atmosphere is not proper, we may delay our reply. If you try to cultivate a flower in salty land, it does not grow."
For Larijani, the bottom line is respect. And the evident lack of it in Washington, magnified by loose talk of enforced regime change, is one of many reasons why Iran is going nuclear.
A changing society
Tehran is a city of elegant parks. And none is more serene than Saee Park, off Vali Asr Avenue, one of the capital's main thoroughfares. Known as the "lovers' park", it is where young and not-so-young couples sit at dusk beneath a canopy of fragrant chinar, cypress and pine trees, exchanging gossip and intimacies, sharing ice creams and swapping phone numbers.
According to Reza, 27, and his girlfriend, things are more easy-going socially than they were 10 years ago. They attribute the change to the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor. Despite Ahmadinejad's conservative instincts, the new government has been unable to put the street culture genie back in the bottle, Reza says.
"There's more personal freedom. You don't get harassed like you used to. The young people are changing the older people's attitude. They have to accept it - they have no choice, so they go with the flow." And in a country of 70m, where two-thirds of the population is under 30, the trend appears irreversible.
The present hardline government is not popular among many inhabitants of Saee Park. They complain about its failure to expand and diversify an economy that is roughly 80% state-controlled. Younger people worry about careers and jobs, about the difficulties of foreign travel and internet censorship, about the lack of things to do and places to meet. Leila, 27, says she would like to go to parties, to clubs; she would like to sing. "But they won't allow female singers, did you know that? Female vocalists are banned. They say they are too alluring to men. Poor men! They have weak brains!"
Yussuf, 63, has a different perspective. "I was a metallurgist until I retired. I trained in the US during the Shah's time. I worked all my life. But now I have to take part-time jobs because my pension isn't enough. This government is no good, they're all no good." Yussuf has another complaint: the government is sending money to Hizbullah in Lebanon that would be better spent at home, he says. "First you must look after your own people."
His friend, Ali, agrees. He wants to know into whose pockets Iran's record oil revenue is going. "Some of them [the governing elite] are buying cars for $100,000. Think of that! Did they get that money by working?"
All the same, Ahmadinejad's personal brand of nationalist populism, typified by his defiant handling of the nuclear issue, has many admirers in Saee Park and beyond. "Why don't they just leave us alone and let us live under our own rules?" asks a 32-year-old engineer.
"Iran has the right to nuclear power," chanted a crowd in Ardabil, in northern Iran, last week. During a series of nine rallies addressed by Ahmadinejad, the sentiments expressed by ordinary people are the same. Western attempts to deny Iran nuclear technology are "an obvious attempt to keep us down, like they want to keep all the developing countries down," says Majid, a 30-year-old teacher in Tehran. "We don't want nuclear weapons. But we want to build our country. What's wrong with that?"
Iranians may be cut off from the modern western world in many ways, but they are well versed in the long history of western intervention in Persia. From the Treaty of Golestan in 1813, by which Russia took control of Iran's Caucasus territories, to the 1953 CIA-led coup that toppled Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, from the US embassy hostage siege to the Iran-Contra scandal, a tale of national subjugation and degradation forms the context in which Iran looks at the west. And Iranians hear, in derogatory western talk of "mad mullahs", an echo of a 19th-century British diplomat's sneering reference to "incomprehensible orientals". It smacks of disrespect.
And now, with Washington's neo-conservatives on one side and Ahmadinejad's neo-conservatives on the other, this mutual antagonism and misunderstanding is coming to a head. In some analyses, it has brought the two countries to the brink of military conflict. If the US attacks, experts say it is likely to take the form of "precision strikes" on the four main nuclear facilities and possibly Iranian armed forces and Revolutionary Guard bases, too. But Pentagon planners know Iran has the potential to retaliate, as the unexpected success of Hizbullah in Lebanon has shown. This week the US ambassador to Iraq highlighted what he said were Iranian attempts to push Shia militants into attacks on coalition forces in Iraq. And Baghdad is only one possible theatre for Iranian reprisals should the US pull the trigger.
Mohammad Saeidi is a practical man. Sidestepping the political, ideological and historical aspects of the nuclear dispute with the west, the vice-president of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation is focused on a set of problems that must be solved logically if the country and its people are to develop to their full potential. "The country's oil and gas reserves will last a maximum of another 25 or 30 years," he says. "Therefore we have to provide other resources."
About 7,000 people work in Iran's atomic establishment - principally in Tehran and at the Bushehr, Arak, Isfahan and Natanz complexes. Saeidi says there are plans to build 20 nuclear power stations in all, at a cost of $24-$25bn. The first, at Bushehr, built with Russian help, is expected to come on stream next year. Saeidi says that in going nuclear Iran is only following the example of other countries with growing populations and rising energy demand. Nuclear power is cheaper, and its raw component, naturally occurring uranium, is in plentiful supply in Iran's central deserts.
It is the cascade of 164 centrifuges constructed at Natanz that has drawn most international attention since Ahmadinejad announced last April that Iran had mastered the processes for uranium enrichment. It was Natanz that finally prompted the US to join with European negotiators in offering the compromise incentives package that is now on the table. But like Larijani, Saeidi stresses the research stage nature of this work - and the ongoing inspections of Natanz and other plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
To try to divert nuclear material for bomb-making purposes without the UN knowing would be "impossible", he says, and if a deal is struck, Tehran would be ready to reintroduce spot checks. But, in any case, bomb-making is not Iran's aim, Saeidi says - even if it had the capacity, which it does not. Overall, independent experts tend to agree that, at present, Iran does not have the wherewithal to build a nuclear weapon. But that does not mean it will not in future.
Saeidi denies that Iran kept its facilities at Natanz secret, as claimed in 2003 by the Bush administration. He says there was no legal necessity to notify the IAEA before nuclear material had entered the plant. "Natanz is a very large factory. You cannot hide it. It wasn't secret."
He also denies receiving help from Pakistan, now or in the past, despite a spate of disclosures concerning the proliferation network run by the Pakistani scientist, AQ Khan. "We don't have any relation to Pakistan on the nuclear issue. All the equipment and components we are using are made by Iranian companies and factories."
Needless to say, such statements are disputed by the US and other western governments who suspect that Iran may be running a hidden, parallel uranium enrichment programme using more advanced centrifuges. They worry it is also experimenting with plutonium reprocessing. But all such claims are met with a flat denial.
"We don't have any secret programme. We don't have any secrets," Saeidi says. Iran does not want the bomb, he and other officials insist; and it has no plans to build one. What it does want is a plentiful future supply of nuclear energy to fuel the rise of a new, more powerful nation - and in this ambition, it will brook no obstacles.
Ahmadinejad's vision
The man who could make all the difference is Ahmadinejad himself. He insists that Iran's intentions were not to make a bomb - "Iranians have mastered the complete cycle of uranium enrichment by themselves. But we will use it for peaceful purposes, for nuclear power. This is our right and no one can take this right away from us." But the man best known in the west for his desire to "wipe Israel off the map" and his questioning of the Holocaust, this blacksmith's son who rose to be mayor of Tehran before unexpectedly winning the presidency a year ago this month, is a controversial figure inside Iran, too. Many people, largely among the working class and in rural areas, adore him. Others, particularly among the intellectual elite of Tehran, fear his devout Islamic beliefs and his conservative political instincts will further isolate the country.
For Iran's president is a true believer. He maintains that the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah was besmirched and betrayed after the death of its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, by pragmatists and corrupt mercantilists, by pro-western compromisers and reformists. Ahmadinejad's famously humble lifestyle, emphasised by his rumpled jackets and unkempt beard, offers but one clue to the fundamentalist spirit that moves him. Tehranis say his vision is a return to the ideals of 1979, including a reinvigorated social conservatism, a revived popular piety, and a principled rejection of the Christian and Zionist "crusader" west.
Many political moderates, western diplomats and ordinary citizens say Ahmadinejad's vision is to turn the clock back to a more honest and more dutiful time. And what better way to demonstrate the uplifting virtues and potency of this religious retrenchment than defiance of the west over the nuclear issue? Here is a golden opportunity to re-affirm Iran's compromised independence and dignity - and restore both the international respect and the religious values that Ahjmadinejad believes the revolution has squandered since 1989. This is Ahmadinejad's chance.
It may be naive to believe that Iran's government, surrounded by nuclear-armed neighbours and directly threatened by the US, is not seeking to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. "The Americans have been seeking regime change in Iran ever since the victory of the revolution," say Larijani. Given such widespread convictions, and the example of several other countries that have built atomic weapons without facing serious penalties, Iran's leaders might be thought remiss in not seeking to arm themselves.
But more naive, perhaps, and potentially even more destabilising, is Ahmadinejad's apparent belief that by confronting the west over the nuclear issue, he can revive the purist, Khomeini-era ideal of fundamentalist Islamic revolution in a country that is changing rapidly. Most Iranians support the government's pursuit of nuclear power. But most oppose the intolerant theocracy that is Khomeini's legacy.
In his brilliant new book, Confronting Iran, Ali Ansari portrays the growing "secularisation" of Iranian society as an unstoppable force. "Fewer and fewer people show an interest in organised religion," he writes. And in Tehran the evidence of that is everywhere. Iran is a rich country, poorly run. Slowly but surely its people are demanding and obtaining change. Iran does seem destined once again to be a great regional power, but that destiny is likely to be attained despite its religious leadership - and despite the Bush administration's counter-productive bullying.
Ahmadinejad, the articulate champion of Iran's national rights, is a potent figure. But Ahmadinejad, the would-be visionary leader of a resurgent revolution awaiting the coming of the Hidden Imam, is living a dangerous illusion. And it is Iranians, not the US air force, who should be allowed to shatter his dream.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Airs Rare Interview With Saddam Hussein Shortly After First Gulf War
Shortly after the first Gulf War, filmmaker Jon Alpert traveled to Baghdad and became one of the last American journalists to interview Saddam Hussein. The interview was originally slated to air on ABC but it was never broadcast. [includes rush transcript]
In Baghdad, the Iraqi government has announced plans to investigate why Saddam Hussein was taunted in the final moments before his hanging. Cell phone footage shows that masked guards chanted the name of Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr and then told the former Iraqi president to go to hell. The treatment of Hussein has sparked protests around the world.
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw said Hussein’s execution "resembled the worst kind of nightmare out of the old American West." Britain’s deputy prime minister, John Prescott, said the manner of Hussein’s killing was deplorable.
Well, today on Democracy Now! we are going to continue our coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein by airing one of the last televised interviews Hussein did with an American journalist. The interview took place in 1993 in Baghdad shortly after the first Gulf War and was conducted by our colleague here at Down Town Community Television, the 15-time Emmy Award winner Jon Alpert. Until now, it has never been aired in the United States.
Jon Alpert, 15-time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker and the founder of
Excerpts of Jon Alpert’s interview with Saddam Hussein in 1993
AMY GOODMAN: Well, today on Democracy Now!, we're going to continue our coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein by airing one of the last televised interviews Saddam Hussein did with an American journalist. The interview actually took place in 1992, soon after Desert Storm. It was in Baghdad and was conducted by our colleague here at Downtown Community Television, 15-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Jon Alpert. Until now, this broadcast was never aired in the United States. In a moment, we'll play excerpts. But first, Jon Alpert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about this interview you did with Saddam Hussein.
JON ALPERT: Well, everybody was anxious to find out what he was thinking after the Gulf War. Did he feel that he had made a mistake in invading Kuwait? Was he interested at all in trying to find a path to peace? There didn't really seem to be much going on in the diplomatic front. And we were fortunate enough to get an interview with him, and he used it to talk about the possibilities for peace and how he felt about the war.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did you do the interview?
JON ALPERT: In one of his palaces. It’s really a rather exciting journalistic story. They came knocking on the hotel room door at 10:00 in the morning. And I could tell from the way they were dressed and their serious faces that this was -- these were the people who were going to take me to the interview. And I went to get my camera, because I do my interviews basically from behind the camera, not sitting here like this. And they said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m getting my camera.” They said, “You can’t take the camera.” I said, “Well, how can I interview him? You know, I’m not going to do this with colored pencils.” And they said, “Get in the car. If you're not in the car in two minutes, we're leaving you behind.”
And they took us to the palace. We walked in. And immediately, Saddam Hussein appears. And he came up, he shook my hand, took our photograph. I have the souvenir photographs here. And then he disappeared. And I said, “My goodness, I blew it. There's no interview.” And they said, “Just shut up,” and took us down to the basement, where I had my first and only jailhouse search. They inspected parts of me I didn't know I had, then took me to a room, and when they opened the door, there were 200 people sitting in the room. The entire crew from Iraqi Television and all Saddam's officials, hanger-on, translators, and things like that. And I knew eventually I’d be speaking to him. It didn't happen until later on that evening. But then we conducted a one-hour interview.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to a clip of this interview.
JON ALPERT: We’re wondering, when the Iraqi army went into Kuwait, did you imagine that the forces were going to strike back against your country as hard as they did?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Yes, we imagined this, and we imagined even more than that.
JON ALPERT: This is now your chance to talk directly to the American people. And I’m wondering if you could just make a simple declarative statement about your intentions with chemical weapons and nuclear weapons?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If it helps make things clear to the American people, then let me tell you that we are ready and willing to work positively and effectively with all those who are interested to work in this direction to make the region of the Middle East a region free of all weapons of mass destruction.
JON ALPERT: We have a new administration in Washington. Do you think that there is any hope, now that President Bush has gone, that there can be better relations between the United States and your country?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] We are still willing to discuss new relations with the United States, if the United States is prepared so to do.
JON ALPERT: If President Clinton was sitting here opposite you, what would you like to tell him?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] When he actually sits in front of me, then I will tell him what I think I will do.
JON ALPERT: And how about if ex-President Bush was here?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] And it is part of the trait of an Arab and values of an Arab not to fight. It is part of an Arab’s trait to fight only those who are on their horses with their swords drawn. Now that President Bush is neither on his horse nor with a sword drawn, then I don't think that he is in a position to be fought.
JON ALPERT: Basically, the people in the United States have come to the point where they don't trust you.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] At any rate, whether or not people trust us or not is -- I don't want to comment on that. But I want to say that the American people are going to discover that amongst the first people that are worthy of their trust are people here in Iraq.
JON ALPERT: Many people believe that if, for example, we turn around and we walk away, that you'll be back across the border in Kuwait tomorrow.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If only we had the means to reach out to the American people and explain to them how the American administration goaded the Kuwaitis themselves to become part of the conspiracy being woven against us, then the situation and the perception of the American people today would have been different from what it is.
JON ALPERT: Now, whatever you think about Kuwait, Kuwait is a much smaller country than your country, doesn't measure up to your country militarily, and the same situation exists with you vis-à-vis Kuwait. In other words, the United States is a big country, and the United States can push you around, and they did push you around. You were a big country, and you pushed Kuwait around. How can we stop this?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Would you consider any quarter or a government that was announcing at the time that they intended to -- that is before, before the 2nd of August, 1990 -- that they intended to bring the value of the Iraqi dinar to its lowest possible value and that they had intended to shrink or minimize the revenues and the resources of Iraq to the lowest possible level, would such a government be considered weak? So the rulers of Kuwait used their weapons to the limit, but their weapon was money.
JON ALPERT: If the same situation existed again, in your perception -- Kuwait, for example, was successful in undermining your economy again -- would you do the same thing that you did before? Would you go into Kuwait again if you felt that that would solve your problem?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] I don't think it would be right to put hypothetical questions and then expect an answer from the head of state on the basis of those hypothetical questions. The question should be put in this way: why should they use their wealth to destroy -- in this way to destroy the Iraqi economy? So, the fact is -- the known fact is that this great people of Iraq, despite all that has been inflicted upon it, perpetrated against it, still maintains its leadership and is still attached to its leadership. What does this mean? This means that the Iraqi people is in possession of -- it's more in possession of the truth. It has more details about the situation than the American public.
JON ALPERT: Well, the United States and Iraq are somewhat different. You know, the United States voted out its leadership. We did not have President Bush. Does the Iraqi people have this type of choice? Always when they talk about you, they talk about, this is a country that is a dictatorship, and they say that you’re a strongman and people cannot disagree with you.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] What does this mean? It means, that is at the time when the American people have thrown their president out of the White House. If the Iraqi people were not convinced in their leadership, they would have dismissed the leadership and could have at least used the opportunity created by the coming of all these armies and all the campaign, the military campaign launched against Iraq and the destruction inflicted upon the country. They could have used that chance to say to its leadership, well, we can no longer take it with you in power.
JON ALPERT: You’re one tough cookie, though. It’s not so easy. I’m curious, if you don't mind, when we go around town now, we see hospitals without medicine. If you want to buy a car at the normal salary, you'd have to work 200 years to buy a car. The people are really suffering. And when you look back at the last two years, is there anything that you would have liked to have done differently? Great men have the capacity to look at their actions and say, “I should have done something different.” And as you look back at what you’ve done, would you have done anything at all different possibly to avoid the situation, to avoid the bloodshed, to avoid the war?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If you looked at the situation then and examined the details and the developments, you would have discovered yourself that the United States and its allies did not want peace to be ensured.
JON ALPERT: Do you think that President Bush was trying to kill you, for example, when he hit the air raid shelter, when he hit the hotel? There was talk that you might be at that conference at the Al-Rashid Hotel. Do you think that you were personally targeted? And how did you avoid getting killed during the war?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Unfortunately, I have read things in the book, in the memoirs of Norman Schwarzkopf that would tend to explain, to go along the political level and military level. At any rate, whoever wanted to hit Saddam Hussein, it's God's will that has prevailed, not his, because you see what the situation is like nowadays. It is God's will that Saddam Hussein is here and the others are not.
AMY GOODMAN: Saddam Hussein being interviewed by journalist Jon Alpert, just after Bill Clinton was elected for the first time in 1992. When we come back from break, we'll discuss this interview and play a bit more. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, joined by my colleague here at Downtown Community Television at the firehouse in Downtown Manhattan, Jon Alpert, won an Emmy 15 times for his reporting, interviewed Saddam Hussein just after the first Iraq war, just after Desert Storm. Jon, what we are watching today never appeared on American television, and yet I think it was you and Dan Rather who were the only ones who interviewed Saddam Hussein since the first Iraq war.
JON ALPERT: That's correct. It's the only time he's ever talked to the press.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened? Why didn't this air here?
JON ALPERT: I think it was probably a combination of two things. There might have been perceived pressure from the American government basically just to not give Saddam a forum, even though you would think that if we went to war with him, and ultimately we went to war with him again, we might be interested in finding out what he had to say, any type of conversation, what he was thinking. We were certainly putting American lives on the line there, and it would be nice to sort of have a little more understanding.
But this was the interview that everybody wanted. And I got it. And, boy, it made a lot of people in the establishment unhappy. We ultimately had a handshake from ABC. It was going to be Primetime Live, the main story. But I was told that Roone Arledge decided to kill it.
AMY GOODMAN: Roone Arledge was the president of NBC?
JON ALPERT: Yeah, you know, one of the gods of television news. And it was his idea and basically all sort of figured this out, that if they could keep this off the air, then maybe one of their reporters could get the interview, and that’s what they did. They sort of all ganged up, a little cabal, to keep this off the air, and then they all began calling up Baghdad, pushing their own reporters as substitutes.
AMY GOODMAN: But no one got it.
JON ALPERT: Not in the United States. It was seen all over the world and analyzed all over the world, and there were some actually important news items in the things that Saddam was saying. But never was seen here. It’s a real -- it's a journalistic tragedy, when you get right down to it. I don't care about myself, but it was obvious that Saddam Hussein wanted to talk some way to the American people. He had gone to war with us. He would go to war with us again. And this was an opportunity to talk, instead of fight.
AMY GOODMAN: It particularly made headlines in Israel. Let's go to another clip of the interview that you did. Jon Alpert interviewing Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
JON ALPERT: People in the United States are very curious, if you would tell them what your policy on Israel and Palestine is at this particular time. If an accommodation could be reached with Palestine, what would be your view towards the state of Israel?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] As far as the Arabs are concerned, they are against discrimination. And they are against any religious discrimination amongst -- on the level of mankind or within a certain nation. The Arabs do not establish their relations with others on the basis of religion or on the basis of race.
JON ALPERT: Can you envision an Israeli state and the Palestinians living side-by-side, if the solution was acceptable to the Palestinians?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] But the question is, do you think Israel is going to give the Palestinians their rights? I don't think so.
JON ALPERT: Would you recognize the right of Israel to exist, if justice was done for the Palestinians?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] I said that if they come to a solution that would be satisfactory to the people of Palestine, then that would be satisfactory to the whole, to everyone and to the Arab world, and to including Iraqis, because that would mean that the Arabs would be dealing with a new situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Alpert interviewing Saddam Hussein. So, this made headlines in Israel.
JON ALPERT: This was big news: Saddam Hussein saying that he was ready to recognize the right of Israel to exist, that he was ready for peace in the Middle East. They weren't talking those things in those days. And this was -- when this played in Israel, my phone rang. My cousin was on the phone, “Jonny, you're on TV!” And the fact that Saddam Hussein was saying, “Let's make peace with Israel, I can make peace with Israel,” was transformative, and it got absolutely no traction over here. And that's a big tragedy. When you look at the death and destruction that’s come in the Middle East, and he was signaling at that particular time, “Listen, there might be a peaceful way to do this,” it's a shame that nobody picked up on this here in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the footage that we didn't get to see on the national networks then, that you brought back, was about the carnage in Iraq after Desert Storm.
JON ALPERT: Well, it's the suffering that happens in all wars. Some people think that there's justification for this war, justification for that war. In the end, the people on the ground always suffer, no matter what. And the people in Iraq were suffering. They were suffering from Saddam. He was a dictator. He was brutal. And they were suffering from the shortages. They were suffering from the effect of the war. And the people were dying, especially the babies. And when you saw this, it's something that you’ll never ever forget, when you go to the baby hospital in Iraq, then and now, because the people in Iraq are still paying the price for what Saddam did and the war that the United States brought to them, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Alpert most recently did Baghdad ER, a remarkable film about the emergency room in Baghdad today.
JON ALPERT: We're suffering too. I mean, the American soldiers, 19 years old, 20 years old, getting chopped up there. So any time there’s an opportunity to talk instead of fight, it's a good opportunity. We should talk.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go back in time with Jon Alpert to this footage after the US first attacked Iraq, and I want to warn you, this footage is graphic. Jon Alpert, thank you.
JON ALPERT: Sure, my pleasure.
JON ALPERT: At night, during the war two years ago, when we visited the Kardaciya [phon.] general hospital, the doctors had to work under incredible conditions. There was no electricity. But at least they had supplies. Now, because of the blockade, conditions in the hospital are actually worse than they were during the war.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: I am Dr. Abdul-Jabar Hashim. I’d like to show you some problems that we are having actually every day.
JON ALPERT: OK. So can we visit the hospital?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes, please. This is the surgical department. Actually, normally this room is nearly filled, and there is awaiting people. When somebody come out, somebody come instead of him to have a surgery. But now, because we can't afford the surgery, it's empty.
JON ALPERT: How many operations are you doing a day?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Now, we are doing about two to three. Before, we used to do about 12 to 15 operations a day.
JON ALPERT: And what happens to the people that are sick?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: They just are waiting. They don’t know what to do, actually.
This is my supply cart.
JON ALPERT: This is the supply cart?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes.
JON ALPERT: But, Doctor, it’s empty.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes, it’s empty. I mean, it’s usually filled with all medicine, what which we needed every minute.
JON ALPERT: So, band-aids?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No.
JON ALPERT: Let’s look at the pharmacy. Show me the pharmacy.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: This used to be all the types of [inaudible] fluid here. You can see only this [inaudible] and this and this one.
JON ALPERT: So in the whole hospital you’ve only got those two bottles left? That’s it?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: I mean, this is -- yeah, we have no more.
JON ALPERT: And what happens when the patient needs the fluid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Very difficult. Some of them will die.
I mean, this is the bandage unit. This kid. If we have the bandages and the cottons, we will cover him and dress him. But now we are leaving him exposed.
JON ALPERT: And you don't have any band-aids for this kid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No.
JON ALPERT: That's horrible.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Of course.
JON ALPERT: [to the boy] You OK?
IRAQI BOY: [nods]
JON ALPERT: Doctor, what happened to this kid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: This kid has a burn, actually. Exposed to burn. And she is suffering from burn. Her condition is actually getting worse. We can't cover her, because we are having shortages of bandages and cotton. I think she might die, because, I mean, in another two days she will get septicemia from the infection because we have no proper antibiotic for her.
JON ALPERT: And does the mother know that her baby’s going to die?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes. She said, “Yes, I know she is.”
IRAQI GIRL: [speaking Arabic]
JON ALPERT: What is she saying, doctor?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: She is saying, “I am suffering,” actually. “Don’t let me suffer more.”
JON ALPERT: Do you have painkillers for her?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No, we have no painkillers for her.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the footage of journalist Jon Alpert in Iraq soon after Desert Storm. For those of us in our radio listening audience, you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see the footage from Iraq.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi government has announced plans to investigate why Saddam Hussein was taunted in the final moments before his hanging. Cell phone footage shows that masked guards chanted the name of Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr and then told the former Iraqi president to go to hell. The treatment of Hussein has sparked protests around the world.
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw said Hussein’s execution "resembled the worst kind of nightmare out of the old American West." Britain’s deputy prime minister, John Prescott, said the manner of Hussein’s killing was deplorable.
Well, today on Democracy Now! we are going to continue our coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein by airing one of the last televised interviews Hussein did with an American journalist. The interview took place in 1993 in Baghdad shortly after the first Gulf War and was conducted by our colleague here at Down Town Community Television, the 15-time Emmy Award winner Jon Alpert. Until now, it has never been aired in the United States.
Jon Alpert, 15-time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker and the founder of
Excerpts of Jon Alpert’s interview with Saddam Hussein in 1993
AMY GOODMAN: Well, today on Democracy Now!, we're going to continue our coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein by airing one of the last televised interviews Saddam Hussein did with an American journalist. The interview actually took place in 1992, soon after Desert Storm. It was in Baghdad and was conducted by our colleague here at Downtown Community Television, 15-time Emmy Award-winning journalist Jon Alpert. Until now, this broadcast was never aired in the United States. In a moment, we'll play excerpts. But first, Jon Alpert, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about this interview you did with Saddam Hussein.
JON ALPERT: Well, everybody was anxious to find out what he was thinking after the Gulf War. Did he feel that he had made a mistake in invading Kuwait? Was he interested at all in trying to find a path to peace? There didn't really seem to be much going on in the diplomatic front. And we were fortunate enough to get an interview with him, and he used it to talk about the possibilities for peace and how he felt about the war.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did you do the interview?
JON ALPERT: In one of his palaces. It’s really a rather exciting journalistic story. They came knocking on the hotel room door at 10:00 in the morning. And I could tell from the way they were dressed and their serious faces that this was -- these were the people who were going to take me to the interview. And I went to get my camera, because I do my interviews basically from behind the camera, not sitting here like this. And they said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m getting my camera.” They said, “You can’t take the camera.” I said, “Well, how can I interview him? You know, I’m not going to do this with colored pencils.” And they said, “Get in the car. If you're not in the car in two minutes, we're leaving you behind.”
And they took us to the palace. We walked in. And immediately, Saddam Hussein appears. And he came up, he shook my hand, took our photograph. I have the souvenir photographs here. And then he disappeared. And I said, “My goodness, I blew it. There's no interview.” And they said, “Just shut up,” and took us down to the basement, where I had my first and only jailhouse search. They inspected parts of me I didn't know I had, then took me to a room, and when they opened the door, there were 200 people sitting in the room. The entire crew from Iraqi Television and all Saddam's officials, hanger-on, translators, and things like that. And I knew eventually I’d be speaking to him. It didn't happen until later on that evening. But then we conducted a one-hour interview.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to a clip of this interview.
JON ALPERT: We’re wondering, when the Iraqi army went into Kuwait, did you imagine that the forces were going to strike back against your country as hard as they did?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Yes, we imagined this, and we imagined even more than that.
JON ALPERT: This is now your chance to talk directly to the American people. And I’m wondering if you could just make a simple declarative statement about your intentions with chemical weapons and nuclear weapons?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If it helps make things clear to the American people, then let me tell you that we are ready and willing to work positively and effectively with all those who are interested to work in this direction to make the region of the Middle East a region free of all weapons of mass destruction.
JON ALPERT: We have a new administration in Washington. Do you think that there is any hope, now that President Bush has gone, that there can be better relations between the United States and your country?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] We are still willing to discuss new relations with the United States, if the United States is prepared so to do.
JON ALPERT: If President Clinton was sitting here opposite you, what would you like to tell him?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] When he actually sits in front of me, then I will tell him what I think I will do.
JON ALPERT: And how about if ex-President Bush was here?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] And it is part of the trait of an Arab and values of an Arab not to fight. It is part of an Arab’s trait to fight only those who are on their horses with their swords drawn. Now that President Bush is neither on his horse nor with a sword drawn, then I don't think that he is in a position to be fought.
JON ALPERT: Basically, the people in the United States have come to the point where they don't trust you.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] At any rate, whether or not people trust us or not is -- I don't want to comment on that. But I want to say that the American people are going to discover that amongst the first people that are worthy of their trust are people here in Iraq.
JON ALPERT: Many people believe that if, for example, we turn around and we walk away, that you'll be back across the border in Kuwait tomorrow.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If only we had the means to reach out to the American people and explain to them how the American administration goaded the Kuwaitis themselves to become part of the conspiracy being woven against us, then the situation and the perception of the American people today would have been different from what it is.
JON ALPERT: Now, whatever you think about Kuwait, Kuwait is a much smaller country than your country, doesn't measure up to your country militarily, and the same situation exists with you vis-à-vis Kuwait. In other words, the United States is a big country, and the United States can push you around, and they did push you around. You were a big country, and you pushed Kuwait around. How can we stop this?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Would you consider any quarter or a government that was announcing at the time that they intended to -- that is before, before the 2nd of August, 1990 -- that they intended to bring the value of the Iraqi dinar to its lowest possible value and that they had intended to shrink or minimize the revenues and the resources of Iraq to the lowest possible level, would such a government be considered weak? So the rulers of Kuwait used their weapons to the limit, but their weapon was money.
JON ALPERT: If the same situation existed again, in your perception -- Kuwait, for example, was successful in undermining your economy again -- would you do the same thing that you did before? Would you go into Kuwait again if you felt that that would solve your problem?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] I don't think it would be right to put hypothetical questions and then expect an answer from the head of state on the basis of those hypothetical questions. The question should be put in this way: why should they use their wealth to destroy -- in this way to destroy the Iraqi economy? So, the fact is -- the known fact is that this great people of Iraq, despite all that has been inflicted upon it, perpetrated against it, still maintains its leadership and is still attached to its leadership. What does this mean? This means that the Iraqi people is in possession of -- it's more in possession of the truth. It has more details about the situation than the American public.
JON ALPERT: Well, the United States and Iraq are somewhat different. You know, the United States voted out its leadership. We did not have President Bush. Does the Iraqi people have this type of choice? Always when they talk about you, they talk about, this is a country that is a dictatorship, and they say that you’re a strongman and people cannot disagree with you.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] What does this mean? It means, that is at the time when the American people have thrown their president out of the White House. If the Iraqi people were not convinced in their leadership, they would have dismissed the leadership and could have at least used the opportunity created by the coming of all these armies and all the campaign, the military campaign launched against Iraq and the destruction inflicted upon the country. They could have used that chance to say to its leadership, well, we can no longer take it with you in power.
JON ALPERT: You’re one tough cookie, though. It’s not so easy. I’m curious, if you don't mind, when we go around town now, we see hospitals without medicine. If you want to buy a car at the normal salary, you'd have to work 200 years to buy a car. The people are really suffering. And when you look back at the last two years, is there anything that you would have liked to have done differently? Great men have the capacity to look at their actions and say, “I should have done something different.” And as you look back at what you’ve done, would you have done anything at all different possibly to avoid the situation, to avoid the bloodshed, to avoid the war?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] If you looked at the situation then and examined the details and the developments, you would have discovered yourself that the United States and its allies did not want peace to be ensured.
JON ALPERT: Do you think that President Bush was trying to kill you, for example, when he hit the air raid shelter, when he hit the hotel? There was talk that you might be at that conference at the Al-Rashid Hotel. Do you think that you were personally targeted? And how did you avoid getting killed during the war?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] Unfortunately, I have read things in the book, in the memoirs of Norman Schwarzkopf that would tend to explain, to go along the political level and military level. At any rate, whoever wanted to hit Saddam Hussein, it's God's will that has prevailed, not his, because you see what the situation is like nowadays. It is God's will that Saddam Hussein is here and the others are not.
AMY GOODMAN: Saddam Hussein being interviewed by journalist Jon Alpert, just after Bill Clinton was elected for the first time in 1992. When we come back from break, we'll discuss this interview and play a bit more. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, joined by my colleague here at Downtown Community Television at the firehouse in Downtown Manhattan, Jon Alpert, won an Emmy 15 times for his reporting, interviewed Saddam Hussein just after the first Iraq war, just after Desert Storm. Jon, what we are watching today never appeared on American television, and yet I think it was you and Dan Rather who were the only ones who interviewed Saddam Hussein since the first Iraq war.
JON ALPERT: That's correct. It's the only time he's ever talked to the press.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened? Why didn't this air here?
JON ALPERT: I think it was probably a combination of two things. There might have been perceived pressure from the American government basically just to not give Saddam a forum, even though you would think that if we went to war with him, and ultimately we went to war with him again, we might be interested in finding out what he had to say, any type of conversation, what he was thinking. We were certainly putting American lives on the line there, and it would be nice to sort of have a little more understanding.
But this was the interview that everybody wanted. And I got it. And, boy, it made a lot of people in the establishment unhappy. We ultimately had a handshake from ABC. It was going to be Primetime Live, the main story. But I was told that Roone Arledge decided to kill it.
AMY GOODMAN: Roone Arledge was the president of NBC?
JON ALPERT: Yeah, you know, one of the gods of television news. And it was his idea and basically all sort of figured this out, that if they could keep this off the air, then maybe one of their reporters could get the interview, and that’s what they did. They sort of all ganged up, a little cabal, to keep this off the air, and then they all began calling up Baghdad, pushing their own reporters as substitutes.
AMY GOODMAN: But no one got it.
JON ALPERT: Not in the United States. It was seen all over the world and analyzed all over the world, and there were some actually important news items in the things that Saddam was saying. But never was seen here. It’s a real -- it's a journalistic tragedy, when you get right down to it. I don't care about myself, but it was obvious that Saddam Hussein wanted to talk some way to the American people. He had gone to war with us. He would go to war with us again. And this was an opportunity to talk, instead of fight.
AMY GOODMAN: It particularly made headlines in Israel. Let's go to another clip of the interview that you did. Jon Alpert interviewing Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
JON ALPERT: People in the United States are very curious, if you would tell them what your policy on Israel and Palestine is at this particular time. If an accommodation could be reached with Palestine, what would be your view towards the state of Israel?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] As far as the Arabs are concerned, they are against discrimination. And they are against any religious discrimination amongst -- on the level of mankind or within a certain nation. The Arabs do not establish their relations with others on the basis of religion or on the basis of race.
JON ALPERT: Can you envision an Israeli state and the Palestinians living side-by-side, if the solution was acceptable to the Palestinians?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] But the question is, do you think Israel is going to give the Palestinians their rights? I don't think so.
JON ALPERT: Would you recognize the right of Israel to exist, if justice was done for the Palestinians?
SADDAM HUSSEIN: [translated] I said that if they come to a solution that would be satisfactory to the people of Palestine, then that would be satisfactory to the whole, to everyone and to the Arab world, and to including Iraqis, because that would mean that the Arabs would be dealing with a new situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Alpert interviewing Saddam Hussein. So, this made headlines in Israel.
JON ALPERT: This was big news: Saddam Hussein saying that he was ready to recognize the right of Israel to exist, that he was ready for peace in the Middle East. They weren't talking those things in those days. And this was -- when this played in Israel, my phone rang. My cousin was on the phone, “Jonny, you're on TV!” And the fact that Saddam Hussein was saying, “Let's make peace with Israel, I can make peace with Israel,” was transformative, and it got absolutely no traction over here. And that's a big tragedy. When you look at the death and destruction that’s come in the Middle East, and he was signaling at that particular time, “Listen, there might be a peaceful way to do this,” it's a shame that nobody picked up on this here in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the footage that we didn't get to see on the national networks then, that you brought back, was about the carnage in Iraq after Desert Storm.
JON ALPERT: Well, it's the suffering that happens in all wars. Some people think that there's justification for this war, justification for that war. In the end, the people on the ground always suffer, no matter what. And the people in Iraq were suffering. They were suffering from Saddam. He was a dictator. He was brutal. And they were suffering from the shortages. They were suffering from the effect of the war. And the people were dying, especially the babies. And when you saw this, it's something that you’ll never ever forget, when you go to the baby hospital in Iraq, then and now, because the people in Iraq are still paying the price for what Saddam did and the war that the United States brought to them, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Alpert most recently did Baghdad ER, a remarkable film about the emergency room in Baghdad today.
JON ALPERT: We're suffering too. I mean, the American soldiers, 19 years old, 20 years old, getting chopped up there. So any time there’s an opportunity to talk instead of fight, it's a good opportunity. We should talk.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to go back in time with Jon Alpert to this footage after the US first attacked Iraq, and I want to warn you, this footage is graphic. Jon Alpert, thank you.
JON ALPERT: Sure, my pleasure.
JON ALPERT: At night, during the war two years ago, when we visited the Kardaciya [phon.] general hospital, the doctors had to work under incredible conditions. There was no electricity. But at least they had supplies. Now, because of the blockade, conditions in the hospital are actually worse than they were during the war.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: I am Dr. Abdul-Jabar Hashim. I’d like to show you some problems that we are having actually every day.
JON ALPERT: OK. So can we visit the hospital?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes, please. This is the surgical department. Actually, normally this room is nearly filled, and there is awaiting people. When somebody come out, somebody come instead of him to have a surgery. But now, because we can't afford the surgery, it's empty.
JON ALPERT: How many operations are you doing a day?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Now, we are doing about two to three. Before, we used to do about 12 to 15 operations a day.
JON ALPERT: And what happens to the people that are sick?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: They just are waiting. They don’t know what to do, actually.
This is my supply cart.
JON ALPERT: This is the supply cart?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes.
JON ALPERT: But, Doctor, it’s empty.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes, it’s empty. I mean, it’s usually filled with all medicine, what which we needed every minute.
JON ALPERT: So, band-aids?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No.
JON ALPERT: Let’s look at the pharmacy. Show me the pharmacy.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: This used to be all the types of [inaudible] fluid here. You can see only this [inaudible] and this and this one.
JON ALPERT: So in the whole hospital you’ve only got those two bottles left? That’s it?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: I mean, this is -- yeah, we have no more.
JON ALPERT: And what happens when the patient needs the fluid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Very difficult. Some of them will die.
I mean, this is the bandage unit. This kid. If we have the bandages and the cottons, we will cover him and dress him. But now we are leaving him exposed.
JON ALPERT: And you don't have any band-aids for this kid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No.
JON ALPERT: That's horrible.
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Of course.
JON ALPERT: [to the boy] You OK?
IRAQI BOY: [nods]
JON ALPERT: Doctor, what happened to this kid?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: This kid has a burn, actually. Exposed to burn. And she is suffering from burn. Her condition is actually getting worse. We can't cover her, because we are having shortages of bandages and cotton. I think she might die, because, I mean, in another two days she will get septicemia from the infection because we have no proper antibiotic for her.
JON ALPERT: And does the mother know that her baby’s going to die?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: Yes. She said, “Yes, I know she is.”
IRAQI GIRL: [speaking Arabic]
JON ALPERT: What is she saying, doctor?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: She is saying, “I am suffering,” actually. “Don’t let me suffer more.”
JON ALPERT: Do you have painkillers for her?
DR. ABDUL-JABAR HASHIM: No, we have no painkillers for her.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the footage of journalist Jon Alpert in Iraq soon after Desert Storm. For those of us in our radio listening audience, you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see the footage from Iraq.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
The Hanging of Saddam Hussein: A Roundtable Discussion on International Law, the U.S. Role, the Kurdish Response and the Media's Glossing Over of U.S.
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
The Hanging of Saddam Hussein: A Roundtable Discussion on International Law, the U.S. Role, the Kurdish Response and the Media's Glossing Over of U.S.
Democracy Now! talks to Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch; international law expert Richard Falk; Najmaldin Karim, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute; and Professor John Collins.
It was a grisly scene. Just after dawn Saturday, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in Baghdad.
A video released on the internet, filmed on a cellular phone, showed men preparing to execute Hussein. As the men with Hussein argue over how best to tie the noose, others behind the cameraman begin a series of chants including, "Muqtada muqtada," a reference to the Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr. As Saddam Hussein interrupts to mock al Sadr, the men tell him "go to hell." The jeering continues as the noose is placed around Hussein's neck. He says the testimony once, then as he is in the middle of repeating it a second time, the door below him opens and he drops to his death. Afterwards the chants continue. Hours later, the video was shown around the world, drawing massive protest.
U.S. President George Bush hailed the execution as "the end of a dark era" for Iraq. Just hours earlier, Hussein had been transferred from U.S. custody to the custody of the Iraqi government. Last week, Hussein lost his final appeal and was sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite Iraqis at Dujail in 1982. Yet while many Iraqis celebrated Hussein's demise, the execution was also met with worldwide condemnation. Egypt, Libya, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and the Vatican protested the hanging. Rallies were held in India and Pakistan throughout the weekend. In the Iraqi city of Samarra Monday, Sunni demonstrators stormed the Al-Askiriya mosque carrying a mock coffin and a photograph of Hussein. Iraqi Kurds protested the timing of Hussein's death--he was killed before hearing the majority of the counts against him. Human Rights groups also criticized the execution.
Param Preet Singh, counsel for the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch.
Najmaldin Karim, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute.
Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of more than twenty books and was a founding member of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
John Collins, Associate Professor of Global Studies at St. Lawrence University. author of Occupied by Memory: The Intifada Generation and the Palestinian State of Emergency and co-editor of Collateral Language: A User's Guide to America's New War.
AMY GOODMAN: Param Preet Singh joins us now in our firehouse studio. She is the counsel for the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch. We are also joined on the phone by Richard Falk, who is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And we welcome you both to Democracy Now! Param Preet Singh, your response to the execution?
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, Saddam Hussein's execution follows a deeply flawed trial for crimes against humanity committed in Dujail. Our observers documented a number of severe procedural flaws within the trial, in terms of how the trial was conducted. First of all, a fundamental benchmark of a fair trial is independence of the judiciary from the executive and impartial judges conducting the case.
But there were a number of instances throughout the trial to indicate that this indeed wasn't present in Saddam Hussein's case. For example, in January of 2006, the first presiding judge resigned in protest over a public criticism by the then-Minister of Justice and others, that he was being too lenient on Saddam Hussein. Similarly, the second presiding judge in July of 2006 indicated that -- he abruptly halted the defense case and told the defense attorneys that “no number of witnesses will convince me of your client's innocence.”
And there were a number of political statements, as well. In July of 2006, the prime minister indicated that Saddam Hussein's execution would follow shortly after his conviction for the crimes committed, but the verdict didn't come out until November of 2006, which indicates that clearly this was an atmosphere of prejudgment of the outcome against him.
There were also other flaws. For example, Saddam Hussein didn't have an opportunity to confront a lot of the witnesses who presented key evidence against him. Without the opportunity to confront, he had no -- there was no possibility for him to test their credibility or test the type of evidence presented. Extensive use of anonymous witnesses, again, the same issue: he didn't have a right to confront the witnesses and the evidence against him. Those are just a few of the procedural flaws that we documented.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, once the verdict came down in November -- November 5th -- what happened?
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, the verdict came down on November 5th, but the judgment, the 300-page judgment, was not made available to defense attorneys until November 22nd. And under Iraqi law, defense attorneys have 30 days from the announcement of the verdict to launch an appeal. But, of course, they didn't get the judgment until two weeks later, so they had essentially less than three weeks to review a complex 300-page judgment and present arguments.
Those submissions were given, I guess, in December 5th of 2006. And the appeals chamber reviewed their submissions and the 300-page judgment, and on December 26 indicated that it confirmed the death sentence and the verdict. In less than three weeks it was able to review the judgment, the 300-page judgment, and the submissions of the defense, which, I think, it illustrates that the appeals process is -- appears to be even more unfair than the actual trial.
AMY GOODMAN: And what has happened to the other two people who were tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, as well: the judge, as well as Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law, al-Tikriti?
PARAM PREET SINGH: It’s my understanding that their execution will take place on a -- I mean, the execution against them was also confirmed. The verdict against them was confirmed. And it’s my understanding that they’ll be executed at a later date.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Richard Falk, your assessment of the trial, the verdict? And then I’d like to go into the issue of the timing of this verdict. Welcome to Democracy Now!
RICHARD FALK: Well, my [inaudible] echoes that of your other guest, in the sense that, from the beginning, the trial was deeply flawed, and the flaws, in a sense, distracted one from the substantive issues engaged by Saddam Hussein's behavior while he had been a leader. And the execution, its manner, the fact of not only carrying out a death penalty at a time when most liberal democracies have repudiated that as an option for the state and doing it in a particularly horrifying manner, has completely eclipsed the criminality of Saddam Hussein’s period of brutal rule. And I think in a way that’s the greatest cost, aside from the public relations catastrophe for the United States and the current Iraqi leadership that’s associated with the way in which this execution was carried out.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about the timing and what it meant. And can you talk about the US role? I mean, he was killed in Iraqi custody, though that only happened in the last hours before he was executed, the transfer.
RICHARD FALK: Yes, precisely. As far as we know -- it is to some extent based on circumstantial evidence -- the US orchestrated the whole process and was very intent on accelerating both the reaching of judgment and now the announcement of the process that culminated in this execution. The timing of the verdict seemed connected with the American November elections. The timing now seems clearly connected with both the hope to divert attention from passing the 3,000-death threshold, as well as -- and I think this is more important -- creating a possibility for President Bush to contend that this is -- that the United States is making progress in the Iraq war and that all that is required to achieve the goals that he has set some years ago is the patience of the American people and the support of Congress when he unfurls this new turn in American policy, which is expected to include the recommendation of -- or the decision to send an additional 20,000 to 30,000 American troops to Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the New York Times had a front-page piece yesterday, on January 1st, saying that the US felt that Iraq was rushing the execution. You’re making the opposite case in a piece you wrote, “The Flawed Execution of Saddam Hussein,” that the US was trying to speed it up.
RICHARD FALK: Well, yes. It may be that at the very last moment, because it became so clear that this was going to be a very ugly, ugly way of handling the execution, that there was an attempt to make it conform at least to Iraqi internal law, which had, as far as we know, required that no execution be carried out during an Islamic holiday, and the Saturday when Saddam Hussein was executed was the first day of the Eid holiday, which is the most sacred day in the Islamic liturgical calendar and a holiday that is supposedly dedicated to the ethical theme of forgiveness.
And beyond that, there was clearly the sense that the execution should be carried out in a manner that doesn't deepen the sense that this is an incident in internal sectarian strife within Iraq, rather than a matter of rendering justice. So I think the people in Iraq got very nervous. The American handlers of the policy surrounding Saddam Hussein got very nervous at the very last stage, when they saw what the Iraqi leadership planned to do with this event associated with the execution.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Richard Falk. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. We’re also talking to Param Preet Singh, who is with Human Rights Watch, which has condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein. When we come back from break, we’ll be talking with a Kurdish surgeon about his response to the killing. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We are joined, in addition to Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch and Dr. Richard Falk, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, we’re joined by Najmaldin Karim. He is on the phone with us, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute. He wrote a piece in the New York Times on Saturday. It was called “Justice, But No Reckoning.” We welcome you to Democracy Now!
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Thank you. Glad to be with you.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the execution?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: My response is just like the Op-Ed piece. Most of the people in Kurdistan are really deeply disappointed by the timing of the execution. Saddam was going through the trial for his genocidal campaign, which he named Anfal, and that trial was starting to go. And it was very important for the victims and their families for that trial to come to conclusion.
For us, as Kurds, going through these trials, the Anfal campaign, the massacre of the Shias in the south in 1991, the killing of the Barzanis or the use of chemical weapons, is not about revenge. It’s about coming to a conclusion. Why did Saddam do this? Who helped him? Who were his accomplices in committing these crimes? And I think he took all of those answers with him, and we probably will never know.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think he was tried on this one issue in Dujail, the killing of the Shia there in 1982, without being tried for these other crimes, Dr. Falk?
RICHARD FALK: A possible explanation is that this incident was clearly detachable from American complicity with the regime of Saddam Hussein and the period when the worst offenses occurred under his rule. And it was a very unprecedented procedure to separate the crimes of someone who is charged with sustaining a criminal regime during a period of political leadership.
If one thinks back to the Pinochet trial or the Milosevic trial, much less the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, it was taken for granted that the whole package of alleged criminality would be addressed in a single unified trial. And that makes political, moral and legal sense, as the main purpose of such trials is not the punishment of the defendant, but, really, the political education of the society and the wider global public, in the hope that such an exposure of criminality will be a warning to the people and to future leaders of their accountability for crimes of state.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Karim, in your piece, you wrote about President Ford in 1975. Today, a funeral for him is being held in Washington, D.C., at the National Cathedral. Can you elaborate?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Well, first, let me say that President Ford is revered by the people in this country, particularly in his late years, for what he did as far as the healing and all that. But it was during 1975, when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and there was a Kurdish resistance against the Baathist regime in Iraq, at that time Saddam Hussein was the vice president but he was really the de facto president. And the United States at the time was helping the Kurds, and there was a covert operation where the Kurds were getting help from the United States. And then, the Shah of Iran decided that he will make a deal with Saddam Hussein. And at that time, Kissinger was obviously the person who was running the foreign policy of this country, and it was during the Ford administration. So that is really where Ford's name comes in. And when Kissinger was asked why did he cut the aid to the Kurds, and his answer was “Covert operation is not missionary work,” if I’m quoting him correctly, but that's basically what he said. And as a result of that, 250,000 refugees went into Iran, and I was one of those. And many, many more returned to Iraq, and a lot of those were deported into the southern deserts, and thousands of them were killed, and we still don't know what happened to them.
AMY GOODMAN: You feel this point in 1975 was the worst?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: I believe that was the beginning, because it was that agreement between Saddam Hussein and the shah of Iran that probably led to the other things that happened afterwards because it was during that agreement that Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran that probably led to the other things that happened afterwards, because it was during that agreement that Saddam Hussein gave up Iraqi territory to the Shah of Iran.
And in 1979, when he saw that the Shah was overthrown and Khomeini had come to power, the Iranian regime was weak, he thought, and it was the time of the hostage crisis, when they took American hostages. So he took advantage of that moment to come back and tear that agreement on television -- this is Saddam Hussein -- and attacked Iran, thinking that Iran is weak and he will regain the territory that he had given to the Shah of Iran in the 1975 agreement. But, of course, that war with Iran lasted eight years, and as a result of that, Iraq went bankrupt, and it was that bankruptcy and the need for money that made Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait.
So, if you look at it, really a series of blunders and aggressions by Saddam Hussein really resulted from him giving up Iraqi territory to the Shah of Iran, which he felt that he will get back, and led to these other military adventures and then his genocidal campaign against the Kurds, invasion of Kuwait, killing of the Shias, and etc.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Karim, among those who will be eulogizing President Ford today at the National Cathedral are Henry Kissinger and also former President George H.W. Bush. What about the role of the Reagan-Bush years with Saddam Hussein?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Well, as we all know now that it was in 1983 when President Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to establish relations with Baghdad -- with Saddam Hussein's regime, and it was the support of the Reagan administration to Saddam. And it was during that time when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds and carried out the genocidal Anfal campaign. Even though this was known in this country and there were hearings in the United States Senate about this and imposing sanctions on Iraq, yet the Reagan administration kept defending its policies towards Iraq.
And in 1990, on exactly on June 15, there was a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when Bush was president, and that hearing was about imposing sanctions at the time the United States was giving hundreds of millions of dollars in credit to Iraq, and this was June 15, just about six weeks prior to the invasion of Kuwait, when the Bush administration defended its relationship with Iraq and described Saddam's influence in the region as being a moderating influence against, particularly, the Iranian aggression.
So, and then after the invasion of Kuwait and then the first Gulf War, President Bush called for the Iraqi people to rise up and get rid of the dictator. And when they did so, instead of protecting them, actually the Bush administration allowed Saddam Hussein to fly his helicopters, and it was those helicopters that massacred the Kurds and the Shias in 1991.
So, if you look back at it, you know, there is complicity. At least, at the minimum, they looked the other way when they knew Saddam was committing these atrocities and committing genocide against the people of Kurdistan.
AMY GOODMAN: Najmaldin Karim, I want to thank you very much for being with us, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute, a surgeon here now in the United States. In a minute, we’re going to go to Professor John Collins at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, who did some media analysis of CNN this weekend in the coverage of the execution. But before we do that, I wanted to turn back to Param Preet Singh to ask you about the possibility now, what it means when Saddam Hussein has been executed, yet these trials of his involvement in these other killings have not been carried out.
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, I think it’s important to remember that the Anfal trial -- that was a trial that was being conducted at the time of his execution -- will continue. There are six other defendants against whom the prosecution will present evidence, and the defense will have an opportunity to rebut that evidence. So, of course, there are secrets about the Anfal campaign that Saddam Hussein will take with him to his grave. But the evidence that will come out in that trial could shed some light, in terms of how the crimes were committed, who was involved, how the victims were chosen, etc. So, I mean, there is still an opportunity there for the victims of these crimes to see some justice. It certainly wouldn't be the same had Saddam Hussein lived to stand trial.
AMY GOODMAN: And why do you think they didn't do these trials before he was killed?
PARAM PREET SINGH: I can't speculate on the thinking of the Iraqi government in terms of why they decided to, first of all, go forward with the Dujail case, as opposed to the Anfal case, which, although the killings in Dujail are horrific, the Anfal case involved the killing of up to 100,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. So in terms of why they decided to move ahead with one case over the other, it’s not clear.
In terms of the decision to execute him before his role was fully explored in other crimes, again, I mean, I can’t speculate on why the Iraqi government decided to do what they did. It most likely, you know -- they had a conviction, and they wanted to put in place the sentence as quickly as possible, just for the sake of making sure that there was at least some justice done for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to turn now to Professor John Collins at St. Lawrence University, Upstate New York, who wrote a piece for Electronic Iraq called “The Low Profile: CNN and New York Times Execute a Denial of History.” Welcome to Democracy Now!
JOHN COLLINS: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you evaluate the media coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein here in the United States?
JOHN COLLINS: Sure. Certainly CNN, I think, needs to get some attention here. I turned on CNN's broadcast on the night of the execution, as I’m sure a lot of people did, and I was immediately struck by the fact that the whole event was being very carefully framed in order to kind of facilitate a denial of the historical relationship between Saddam Hussein and the US government.
The entire focus of the broadcast -- and this was the Anderson Cooper program on CNN -- the entire focus was on Saddam Hussein as an individual, and the images that were being looped on the screen, sort of over Anderson Cooper's voice and the voices of the guests, were obviously selected for their value in pushing that storyline forward. So, we saw, for example, images of Saddam Hussein brandishing a sword, firing a gun, laughing sort of like a cartoon villain, being checked for lice by US military doctors, and so forth.
And for me, the most obvious absence there was the photo and the video of this Donald Rumsfeld visit to Saddam in December 1983, at a time when the US government was working very hard to strengthen its ties with Baghdad. And that image of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein is not a random image. It’s a very crucial piece of the history of that regime, a piece that many Americans, I think, may not be aware of. And it’s all the more important given Rumsfeld's subsequent and current role during the current Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, Professor Collins, I think it was CNN that was one of the first to show that videotape on air, the actual videotape in 1983-1984 of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, and questioning Rumsfeld about it.
JOHN COLLINS: Right. And that’s why it’s all the more so strange to me that CNN would have chosen, at this point, at the moment of the execution, to frame the issue in a way that shielded its viewers in that moment from any reference to past US support for Saddam and his actions.
And I think we saw a little bit something kind of similar in the New York Times the following morning in the front-page obituary in the Times, which was a long piece, over 5,000 words, and it certainly did a better job than CNN, in terms of providing some historical context. It did mention briefly that the US chose to back Iraq in its war with Iran during the 1980s. But the vast majority of the obituary portrayed the US as a consistent opponent of Saddam, which is to say that it leaned heavily toward the post-1990 piece of the story.
And I think what we have to keep in mind here is that the history of this regime is a long and complicated history, like anything in international politics. It’s built on a web of relationships, which bring with them webs of responsibility. And I think that, as Americans, we have an ethical responsibility to confront the role that we’ve played in that story, and certainly the news media have a responsibility to give us as detailed a history as possible, so that we can make informed decisions about policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor John Collins, you also write about New York Times coverage of Saddam Hussein's reign.
JOHN COLLINS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about that?
JOHN COLLINS: Absolutely. I mean, I think the obituary on the front page was particularly noteworthy, because it played on a lot of the kinds of, I guess, stereotypes that we’ve become very used to when America's enemies are discussed in the mainstream media. So there were lots of anecdotes in the Times obituary about Saddam's paranoia, his megalomania, his sadism, and so forth. And I think the overall effect of that piece was to confirm to the readers of the Times that, yes, this man really was evil. But that just raises the question of why we ever allied ourselves with him to begin with. And the Times could have done a much better job of exploring that issue at the moment of his execution.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Richard Falk, President Bush at Crawford, praising Saddam's execution as, quote, "the kind of justice he denied victims of his brutal regime. Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule," said Bush. He said, “It’s a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression, that despite his terrible crimes, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.” That sentiment of a fair trial was underscored by, well, formerly Democrat, but now independent Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman on CNN, talking about the fact that Saddam Hussein got a fair trial. Professor Falk?
RICHARD FALK: Well, I can hardly imagine a more Orwellian description of the actual trial. And to hear those words juxtaposed with the reality that we’ve been discussing this past hour suggests either the extreme detachment of President Bush from the notion of what a fair trial constitutes or a deliberate confusion of what happened with what the American people are being told happened by our leadership and, as Professor Collins suggested, by the most supposedly reliable mainstream media. So, it’s part of spinning an event in such a distorted and deformed manner as to really commit a kind of crime on the language itself and on the seriousness of the events that were taking place.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all for being with us: Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton, now Visiting Distinguished Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, teaching in the Global Studies Department; Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch; and Professor John Collins of St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York.
The Hanging of Saddam Hussein: A Roundtable Discussion on International Law, the U.S. Role, the Kurdish Response and the Media's Glossing Over of U.S.
Democracy Now! talks to Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch; international law expert Richard Falk; Najmaldin Karim, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute; and Professor John Collins.
It was a grisly scene. Just after dawn Saturday, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in Baghdad.
A video released on the internet, filmed on a cellular phone, showed men preparing to execute Hussein. As the men with Hussein argue over how best to tie the noose, others behind the cameraman begin a series of chants including, "Muqtada muqtada," a reference to the Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr. As Saddam Hussein interrupts to mock al Sadr, the men tell him "go to hell." The jeering continues as the noose is placed around Hussein's neck. He says the testimony once, then as he is in the middle of repeating it a second time, the door below him opens and he drops to his death. Afterwards the chants continue. Hours later, the video was shown around the world, drawing massive protest.
U.S. President George Bush hailed the execution as "the end of a dark era" for Iraq. Just hours earlier, Hussein had been transferred from U.S. custody to the custody of the Iraqi government. Last week, Hussein lost his final appeal and was sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite Iraqis at Dujail in 1982. Yet while many Iraqis celebrated Hussein's demise, the execution was also met with worldwide condemnation. Egypt, Libya, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and the Vatican protested the hanging. Rallies were held in India and Pakistan throughout the weekend. In the Iraqi city of Samarra Monday, Sunni demonstrators stormed the Al-Askiriya mosque carrying a mock coffin and a photograph of Hussein. Iraqi Kurds protested the timing of Hussein's death--he was killed before hearing the majority of the counts against him. Human Rights groups also criticized the execution.
Param Preet Singh, counsel for the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch.
Najmaldin Karim, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute.
Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of more than twenty books and was a founding member of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.
John Collins, Associate Professor of Global Studies at St. Lawrence University. author of Occupied by Memory: The Intifada Generation and the Palestinian State of Emergency and co-editor of Collateral Language: A User's Guide to America's New War.
AMY GOODMAN: Param Preet Singh joins us now in our firehouse studio. She is the counsel for the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch. We are also joined on the phone by Richard Falk, who is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And we welcome you both to Democracy Now! Param Preet Singh, your response to the execution?
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, Saddam Hussein's execution follows a deeply flawed trial for crimes against humanity committed in Dujail. Our observers documented a number of severe procedural flaws within the trial, in terms of how the trial was conducted. First of all, a fundamental benchmark of a fair trial is independence of the judiciary from the executive and impartial judges conducting the case.
But there were a number of instances throughout the trial to indicate that this indeed wasn't present in Saddam Hussein's case. For example, in January of 2006, the first presiding judge resigned in protest over a public criticism by the then-Minister of Justice and others, that he was being too lenient on Saddam Hussein. Similarly, the second presiding judge in July of 2006 indicated that -- he abruptly halted the defense case and told the defense attorneys that “no number of witnesses will convince me of your client's innocence.”
And there were a number of political statements, as well. In July of 2006, the prime minister indicated that Saddam Hussein's execution would follow shortly after his conviction for the crimes committed, but the verdict didn't come out until November of 2006, which indicates that clearly this was an atmosphere of prejudgment of the outcome against him.
There were also other flaws. For example, Saddam Hussein didn't have an opportunity to confront a lot of the witnesses who presented key evidence against him. Without the opportunity to confront, he had no -- there was no possibility for him to test their credibility or test the type of evidence presented. Extensive use of anonymous witnesses, again, the same issue: he didn't have a right to confront the witnesses and the evidence against him. Those are just a few of the procedural flaws that we documented.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, once the verdict came down in November -- November 5th -- what happened?
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, the verdict came down on November 5th, but the judgment, the 300-page judgment, was not made available to defense attorneys until November 22nd. And under Iraqi law, defense attorneys have 30 days from the announcement of the verdict to launch an appeal. But, of course, they didn't get the judgment until two weeks later, so they had essentially less than three weeks to review a complex 300-page judgment and present arguments.
Those submissions were given, I guess, in December 5th of 2006. And the appeals chamber reviewed their submissions and the 300-page judgment, and on December 26 indicated that it confirmed the death sentence and the verdict. In less than three weeks it was able to review the judgment, the 300-page judgment, and the submissions of the defense, which, I think, it illustrates that the appeals process is -- appears to be even more unfair than the actual trial.
AMY GOODMAN: And what has happened to the other two people who were tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, as well: the judge, as well as Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law, al-Tikriti?
PARAM PREET SINGH: It’s my understanding that their execution will take place on a -- I mean, the execution against them was also confirmed. The verdict against them was confirmed. And it’s my understanding that they’ll be executed at a later date.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Richard Falk, your assessment of the trial, the verdict? And then I’d like to go into the issue of the timing of this verdict. Welcome to Democracy Now!
RICHARD FALK: Well, my [inaudible] echoes that of your other guest, in the sense that, from the beginning, the trial was deeply flawed, and the flaws, in a sense, distracted one from the substantive issues engaged by Saddam Hussein's behavior while he had been a leader. And the execution, its manner, the fact of not only carrying out a death penalty at a time when most liberal democracies have repudiated that as an option for the state and doing it in a particularly horrifying manner, has completely eclipsed the criminality of Saddam Hussein’s period of brutal rule. And I think in a way that’s the greatest cost, aside from the public relations catastrophe for the United States and the current Iraqi leadership that’s associated with the way in which this execution was carried out.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about the timing and what it meant. And can you talk about the US role? I mean, he was killed in Iraqi custody, though that only happened in the last hours before he was executed, the transfer.
RICHARD FALK: Yes, precisely. As far as we know -- it is to some extent based on circumstantial evidence -- the US orchestrated the whole process and was very intent on accelerating both the reaching of judgment and now the announcement of the process that culminated in this execution. The timing of the verdict seemed connected with the American November elections. The timing now seems clearly connected with both the hope to divert attention from passing the 3,000-death threshold, as well as -- and I think this is more important -- creating a possibility for President Bush to contend that this is -- that the United States is making progress in the Iraq war and that all that is required to achieve the goals that he has set some years ago is the patience of the American people and the support of Congress when he unfurls this new turn in American policy, which is expected to include the recommendation of -- or the decision to send an additional 20,000 to 30,000 American troops to Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the New York Times had a front-page piece yesterday, on January 1st, saying that the US felt that Iraq was rushing the execution. You’re making the opposite case in a piece you wrote, “The Flawed Execution of Saddam Hussein,” that the US was trying to speed it up.
RICHARD FALK: Well, yes. It may be that at the very last moment, because it became so clear that this was going to be a very ugly, ugly way of handling the execution, that there was an attempt to make it conform at least to Iraqi internal law, which had, as far as we know, required that no execution be carried out during an Islamic holiday, and the Saturday when Saddam Hussein was executed was the first day of the Eid holiday, which is the most sacred day in the Islamic liturgical calendar and a holiday that is supposedly dedicated to the ethical theme of forgiveness.
And beyond that, there was clearly the sense that the execution should be carried out in a manner that doesn't deepen the sense that this is an incident in internal sectarian strife within Iraq, rather than a matter of rendering justice. So I think the people in Iraq got very nervous. The American handlers of the policy surrounding Saddam Hussein got very nervous at the very last stage, when they saw what the Iraqi leadership planned to do with this event associated with the execution.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Richard Falk. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. We’re also talking to Param Preet Singh, who is with Human Rights Watch, which has condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein. When we come back from break, we’ll be talking with a Kurdish surgeon about his response to the killing. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: We are joined, in addition to Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch and Dr. Richard Falk, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, we’re joined by Najmaldin Karim. He is on the phone with us, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute. He wrote a piece in the New York Times on Saturday. It was called “Justice, But No Reckoning.” We welcome you to Democracy Now!
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Thank you. Glad to be with you.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the execution?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: My response is just like the Op-Ed piece. Most of the people in Kurdistan are really deeply disappointed by the timing of the execution. Saddam was going through the trial for his genocidal campaign, which he named Anfal, and that trial was starting to go. And it was very important for the victims and their families for that trial to come to conclusion.
For us, as Kurds, going through these trials, the Anfal campaign, the massacre of the Shias in the south in 1991, the killing of the Barzanis or the use of chemical weapons, is not about revenge. It’s about coming to a conclusion. Why did Saddam do this? Who helped him? Who were his accomplices in committing these crimes? And I think he took all of those answers with him, and we probably will never know.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think he was tried on this one issue in Dujail, the killing of the Shia there in 1982, without being tried for these other crimes, Dr. Falk?
RICHARD FALK: A possible explanation is that this incident was clearly detachable from American complicity with the regime of Saddam Hussein and the period when the worst offenses occurred under his rule. And it was a very unprecedented procedure to separate the crimes of someone who is charged with sustaining a criminal regime during a period of political leadership.
If one thinks back to the Pinochet trial or the Milosevic trial, much less the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, it was taken for granted that the whole package of alleged criminality would be addressed in a single unified trial. And that makes political, moral and legal sense, as the main purpose of such trials is not the punishment of the defendant, but, really, the political education of the society and the wider global public, in the hope that such an exposure of criminality will be a warning to the people and to future leaders of their accountability for crimes of state.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Karim, in your piece, you wrote about President Ford in 1975. Today, a funeral for him is being held in Washington, D.C., at the National Cathedral. Can you elaborate?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Well, first, let me say that President Ford is revered by the people in this country, particularly in his late years, for what he did as far as the healing and all that. But it was during 1975, when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and there was a Kurdish resistance against the Baathist regime in Iraq, at that time Saddam Hussein was the vice president but he was really the de facto president. And the United States at the time was helping the Kurds, and there was a covert operation where the Kurds were getting help from the United States. And then, the Shah of Iran decided that he will make a deal with Saddam Hussein. And at that time, Kissinger was obviously the person who was running the foreign policy of this country, and it was during the Ford administration. So that is really where Ford's name comes in. And when Kissinger was asked why did he cut the aid to the Kurds, and his answer was “Covert operation is not missionary work,” if I’m quoting him correctly, but that's basically what he said. And as a result of that, 250,000 refugees went into Iran, and I was one of those. And many, many more returned to Iraq, and a lot of those were deported into the southern deserts, and thousands of them were killed, and we still don't know what happened to them.
AMY GOODMAN: You feel this point in 1975 was the worst?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: I believe that was the beginning, because it was that agreement between Saddam Hussein and the shah of Iran that probably led to the other things that happened afterwards because it was during that agreement that Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran that probably led to the other things that happened afterwards, because it was during that agreement that Saddam Hussein gave up Iraqi territory to the Shah of Iran.
And in 1979, when he saw that the Shah was overthrown and Khomeini had come to power, the Iranian regime was weak, he thought, and it was the time of the hostage crisis, when they took American hostages. So he took advantage of that moment to come back and tear that agreement on television -- this is Saddam Hussein -- and attacked Iran, thinking that Iran is weak and he will regain the territory that he had given to the Shah of Iran in the 1975 agreement. But, of course, that war with Iran lasted eight years, and as a result of that, Iraq went bankrupt, and it was that bankruptcy and the need for money that made Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait.
So, if you look at it, really a series of blunders and aggressions by Saddam Hussein really resulted from him giving up Iraqi territory to the Shah of Iran, which he felt that he will get back, and led to these other military adventures and then his genocidal campaign against the Kurds, invasion of Kuwait, killing of the Shias, and etc.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Karim, among those who will be eulogizing President Ford today at the National Cathedral are Henry Kissinger and also former President George H.W. Bush. What about the role of the Reagan-Bush years with Saddam Hussein?
NAJMALDIN KARIM: Well, as we all know now that it was in 1983 when President Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to establish relations with Baghdad -- with Saddam Hussein's regime, and it was the support of the Reagan administration to Saddam. And it was during that time when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds and carried out the genocidal Anfal campaign. Even though this was known in this country and there were hearings in the United States Senate about this and imposing sanctions on Iraq, yet the Reagan administration kept defending its policies towards Iraq.
And in 1990, on exactly on June 15, there was a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when Bush was president, and that hearing was about imposing sanctions at the time the United States was giving hundreds of millions of dollars in credit to Iraq, and this was June 15, just about six weeks prior to the invasion of Kuwait, when the Bush administration defended its relationship with Iraq and described Saddam's influence in the region as being a moderating influence against, particularly, the Iranian aggression.
So, and then after the invasion of Kuwait and then the first Gulf War, President Bush called for the Iraqi people to rise up and get rid of the dictator. And when they did so, instead of protecting them, actually the Bush administration allowed Saddam Hussein to fly his helicopters, and it was those helicopters that massacred the Kurds and the Shias in 1991.
So, if you look back at it, you know, there is complicity. At least, at the minimum, they looked the other way when they knew Saddam was committing these atrocities and committing genocide against the people of Kurdistan.
AMY GOODMAN: Najmaldin Karim, I want to thank you very much for being with us, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute, a surgeon here now in the United States. In a minute, we’re going to go to Professor John Collins at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, who did some media analysis of CNN this weekend in the coverage of the execution. But before we do that, I wanted to turn back to Param Preet Singh to ask you about the possibility now, what it means when Saddam Hussein has been executed, yet these trials of his involvement in these other killings have not been carried out.
PARAM PREET SINGH: Well, I think it’s important to remember that the Anfal trial -- that was a trial that was being conducted at the time of his execution -- will continue. There are six other defendants against whom the prosecution will present evidence, and the defense will have an opportunity to rebut that evidence. So, of course, there are secrets about the Anfal campaign that Saddam Hussein will take with him to his grave. But the evidence that will come out in that trial could shed some light, in terms of how the crimes were committed, who was involved, how the victims were chosen, etc. So, I mean, there is still an opportunity there for the victims of these crimes to see some justice. It certainly wouldn't be the same had Saddam Hussein lived to stand trial.
AMY GOODMAN: And why do you think they didn't do these trials before he was killed?
PARAM PREET SINGH: I can't speculate on the thinking of the Iraqi government in terms of why they decided to, first of all, go forward with the Dujail case, as opposed to the Anfal case, which, although the killings in Dujail are horrific, the Anfal case involved the killing of up to 100,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. So in terms of why they decided to move ahead with one case over the other, it’s not clear.
In terms of the decision to execute him before his role was fully explored in other crimes, again, I mean, I can’t speculate on why the Iraqi government decided to do what they did. It most likely, you know -- they had a conviction, and they wanted to put in place the sentence as quickly as possible, just for the sake of making sure that there was at least some justice done for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to turn now to Professor John Collins at St. Lawrence University, Upstate New York, who wrote a piece for Electronic Iraq called “The Low Profile: CNN and New York Times Execute a Denial of History.” Welcome to Democracy Now!
JOHN COLLINS: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you evaluate the media coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein here in the United States?
JOHN COLLINS: Sure. Certainly CNN, I think, needs to get some attention here. I turned on CNN's broadcast on the night of the execution, as I’m sure a lot of people did, and I was immediately struck by the fact that the whole event was being very carefully framed in order to kind of facilitate a denial of the historical relationship between Saddam Hussein and the US government.
The entire focus of the broadcast -- and this was the Anderson Cooper program on CNN -- the entire focus was on Saddam Hussein as an individual, and the images that were being looped on the screen, sort of over Anderson Cooper's voice and the voices of the guests, were obviously selected for their value in pushing that storyline forward. So, we saw, for example, images of Saddam Hussein brandishing a sword, firing a gun, laughing sort of like a cartoon villain, being checked for lice by US military doctors, and so forth.
And for me, the most obvious absence there was the photo and the video of this Donald Rumsfeld visit to Saddam in December 1983, at a time when the US government was working very hard to strengthen its ties with Baghdad. And that image of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein is not a random image. It’s a very crucial piece of the history of that regime, a piece that many Americans, I think, may not be aware of. And it’s all the more important given Rumsfeld's subsequent and current role during the current Bush administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, Professor Collins, I think it was CNN that was one of the first to show that videotape on air, the actual videotape in 1983-1984 of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, and questioning Rumsfeld about it.
JOHN COLLINS: Right. And that’s why it’s all the more so strange to me that CNN would have chosen, at this point, at the moment of the execution, to frame the issue in a way that shielded its viewers in that moment from any reference to past US support for Saddam and his actions.
And I think we saw a little bit something kind of similar in the New York Times the following morning in the front-page obituary in the Times, which was a long piece, over 5,000 words, and it certainly did a better job than CNN, in terms of providing some historical context. It did mention briefly that the US chose to back Iraq in its war with Iran during the 1980s. But the vast majority of the obituary portrayed the US as a consistent opponent of Saddam, which is to say that it leaned heavily toward the post-1990 piece of the story.
And I think what we have to keep in mind here is that the history of this regime is a long and complicated history, like anything in international politics. It’s built on a web of relationships, which bring with them webs of responsibility. And I think that, as Americans, we have an ethical responsibility to confront the role that we’ve played in that story, and certainly the news media have a responsibility to give us as detailed a history as possible, so that we can make informed decisions about policy.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor John Collins, you also write about New York Times coverage of Saddam Hussein's reign.
JOHN COLLINS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about that?
JOHN COLLINS: Absolutely. I mean, I think the obituary on the front page was particularly noteworthy, because it played on a lot of the kinds of, I guess, stereotypes that we’ve become very used to when America's enemies are discussed in the mainstream media. So there were lots of anecdotes in the Times obituary about Saddam's paranoia, his megalomania, his sadism, and so forth. And I think the overall effect of that piece was to confirm to the readers of the Times that, yes, this man really was evil. But that just raises the question of why we ever allied ourselves with him to begin with. And the Times could have done a much better job of exploring that issue at the moment of his execution.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Richard Falk, President Bush at Crawford, praising Saddam's execution as, quote, "the kind of justice he denied victims of his brutal regime. Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule," said Bush. He said, “It’s a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression, that despite his terrible crimes, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.” That sentiment of a fair trial was underscored by, well, formerly Democrat, but now independent Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman on CNN, talking about the fact that Saddam Hussein got a fair trial. Professor Falk?
RICHARD FALK: Well, I can hardly imagine a more Orwellian description of the actual trial. And to hear those words juxtaposed with the reality that we’ve been discussing this past hour suggests either the extreme detachment of President Bush from the notion of what a fair trial constitutes or a deliberate confusion of what happened with what the American people are being told happened by our leadership and, as Professor Collins suggested, by the most supposedly reliable mainstream media. So, it’s part of spinning an event in such a distorted and deformed manner as to really commit a kind of crime on the language itself and on the seriousness of the events that were taking place.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all for being with us: Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton, now Visiting Distinguished Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, teaching in the Global Studies Department; Param Preet Singh of Human Rights Watch; and Professor John Collins of St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York.
Monday, January 1, 2007
شعری از :فروغ فرخزاد
از دوست داشتن
امشب از آسمان دیده تو
روی شعرم ستاره می بارد
در سکوت سپید کاغذها
پنجه هایم جرقه می کارد
شعر دیوانه تب آلودم
شرمگین از شیار خواهش ها
پیکرش را دوباره می سوزد
عطش جاودان آتش ها
آری آغاز دوست داشتن است
گرچه پایان راه ناپیداست
من به پایان دگر نیندیشم
که همین دوست داشتن زیباست
از سیاهی چرا حذر کردن
شب پر از قطره های الماس است
آن چه از شب به جای می ماند
عطر سکر آور گل یاس است
آه بگذار گم شوم در تو
کس نیابد ز من نشانه من
روح سوزان آه مرطوب من
بوزد بر تن ترانه من
آه بگذار زین دریچه باز
خفته در پرنیان رویا ها
با پر روشنی سفر گیرم
بگذرم از حصار دنیاها
دانی از زندگی چه می خواهم
من تو باشم ‚ تو ‚ پای تا سر تو
زندگی گر هزار باره بود
بار دیگر تو بار دیگر تو
آن چه در من نهفته دریایی ست
کی توان نهفتنم باشد
با تو زین سهمگین طوفانی
کاش یارای گفتنم باشد
بس که لبریزم از تو می خواهم
بدوم در میان صحراها
سر بکوبم به سنگ کوهستان
تن بکوبم به موج دریا ها
بس که لبریزم از تو می خواهم
چون غباری ز خود فرو ریزم
زیر پای تو سر نهم آرام
به سبک سایه تو آویزم
آری آغاز دوست داشتن است
گرچه پایان راه نا پیداست
من به پایان دگر نیندیشم
.که همین دوست داشتن زیباست
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Some Quotes
="All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing: Dwight Eisenhower - Source: Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Bush and America's Willing Executioners would be Guilty at Nuremberg, The Free Press (Columbus, Ohio), 3/2/03
=A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain: Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)
="The misapprehension springs from the fact that the learned jurists, deceiving themselves as well as others, depict in their books an ideal of government -- not as it really is, an assembly of men who oppress their fellow-citizens, but in accordance with the scientific postulate, as a body of men who act as the representatives of the rest of the nation. They have gone on repeating this to others so long that they have ended by believing it themselves, and they really seem to think that justice is one of the duties of governments. History, however, shows us that governments, as seen from the reign of Caesar to those of the two Napoleons and Prince Bismarck, are in their very essence a violation of justice; a man or a body of men having at command an army of trained soldiers, deluded creatures who are ready for any violence, and through whose agency they govern the State, will have no keen sense of the obligation of justice. Therefore governments will never consent to diminish the number of those well-trained and submissive servants, who constitute their power and influence."Leo Tolstoy -- Source: Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence (Signet Books, 1968), pp. 238-239.
=A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain: Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)
="The misapprehension springs from the fact that the learned jurists, deceiving themselves as well as others, depict in their books an ideal of government -- not as it really is, an assembly of men who oppress their fellow-citizens, but in accordance with the scientific postulate, as a body of men who act as the representatives of the rest of the nation. They have gone on repeating this to others so long that they have ended by believing it themselves, and they really seem to think that justice is one of the duties of governments. History, however, shows us that governments, as seen from the reign of Caesar to those of the two Napoleons and Prince Bismarck, are in their very essence a violation of justice; a man or a body of men having at command an army of trained soldiers, deluded creatures who are ready for any violence, and through whose agency they govern the State, will have no keen sense of the obligation of justice. Therefore governments will never consent to diminish the number of those well-trained and submissive servants, who constitute their power and influence."Leo Tolstoy -- Source: Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence (Signet Books, 1968), pp. 238-239.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
ويليام ديگه کيه
ويليام ديگه کيه
داستانی کوتاه از: مهري يلفاني
پرهام که قصه را به پايان برد، برگشت به الهام نگاه کرد، اما انگار او را نميديد، مثل کسي بود که با مسئلهاي بغرنج دستبهگريبان شده باشد يا کسي که ناگهان خبري تکاندهنده شنيده باشد. چشمانش که به رنگ خاکستر بود، درشتتر، و چين بين دو ابرويش عميقتر شد و دندانهاي فک پايينش، با فاصلهاي که دو دندان وسط را از هم جدا ميکرد، پيدا شد و پرسيد: «ويليام ديگه کيه؟»الهام داشت پرهام را نگاه ميکرد که دست چپش توي موهاي پرپشتش ميچرخيد، انگار آن تو دنبال چيزي ميگشت و نمييافت. با دست ديگرش نوشتة الهام را گرفته بود. شب در آپارتمان جا خوش کرده بود. پونه و مينا خوابيده بودند. پنجرة آپارتمان باز بود و نسيمکي گهگاه پرده را آبستن ميکرد. از دور صداي اتومبيلهايي که از خيابان اصلي ميگذشتند به گوش ميرسيد. الهام دستي ميان موهاي سياه و کوتاه خود فرو برد و آنها را از روي پيشاني عقب زد. در چشمان سياه درشتش، که ابرواني نازککرده و کوتاه درشتتر نشانشان ميداد، گيجي و گنگي نشست و انگار نفهميده باشد پرهام چه گفته، به او خيره شد و هيچ نگفت. هنوز در هيجان و التهاب خبر بود و شادي بر پوست چهرهاش نشسته بود. پرهام نگاهي دوباره به نوشته انداخت، پنج ورق را پشت سرهم از هم جدا کرد و به طرف الهام گرفت. مثل کسي که آلت قتاله را نشان قاتل بدهد، خشم در کلامش نشست و دوباره پرسيد: «گفتم اين ويليام خان کيه؟»موهاي جوگندمياش او را پيرتر از سنش نشان ميداد. در حرکات دست و چشم و شانههايش عصبيتي پنهان بود. سرِ جايش وول خورد. در نگاهش بيش از کلامش سرزنش بود. خشم پرهام مثل آتشي هرچند قابل کنترل در الهام اثر کرد. صدا بياختيار خودش بالاتر رفت و گفت: «ويليام؟ منظورت همين ويليامِ قصه است يا...»پرهام نگذاشت حرف الهام تمام شود: «مگر ويليام ديگري هم هست؟»الهام صدايش را بلندتر کرد اما سعي کرد آرام باشد. گفت: «ويليام توي قصه است.»پرهام تکاني به خود داد، انگار که بخواهد بلند شود و برود، اما از جايش تکان نخورد. دستهايش حرکتي بياختيار کردند. ـ ميدانم، خر نيستم، قصهات را خواندم. ميخواهم بدانم اين ويليام را ازکجا پيدا کردي.ـ نميفهمم، منظورت چيه؟ از جايي پيدا نکردم. ويليام يک شخصيت است. يک آدم خيالي.ـ داري بچه گول ميزني يا خيال ميکني من از پشت کوه آمدهام؟ـ راستش را بگويم، اصلاً نميفهمم داري از چه حرف ميزني. خودت بايد بداني. ويليام يک آدم خيالي است. وجود ندارد. فقط توي قصه...ـ خوب، لازم نيست براي من اظهار فضل کني! مگر من نبودم که فرستادمت کلاس قصهنويسي؟ مگر من نبودم که هميشه تشويقت ميکردم زياد بخواني و بنويسي و آدمهايت را از ميان آدمهاي واقعي انتخاب کني تا زندهتر و جاندارتر باشند، پوست و گوشت داشته باشند، هويت داشته باشند؟ ها؟ من نبودم؟ حالا که قرار است قصهات توي مسابقه شرکت کند، داري براي من اظهار فضل ميکني؟الهام هيچ نگفت. گذاشت پرهام هرچه ميخواهد بگويد. راست بود؟ پرهام تشويقش کرده بود يا خودش اصرار کرده بود؟ آنقدر اصرار کرده بود و نق زده بود و پيله کرده بود تا قبول کرده بود هفتهاي يک شب مواظب بچهها باشد که او به کلاس قصهنويسي برود. همة قصههايي را هم که نوشته بود، اول داده بود پرهام خوانده بود و نظر داده بود. حتي قبل از آنكه قصه را بنويسد يا در او نطفه ببندد. ـ ميخواهم يک قصه بنويسم که قهرمانش با رويا خوش است. آنقدر که توي رويا زندگي ميکند، از عالم واقع زياد خبر ندارد. درد و بدبختيهايش را هم با همان روياهايش تحمل ميکند و زياد خودش را عذاب نميدهد.پرهام گوش ميکرد و وقتي که حرف الهام تمام ميشد، ميگفت: «بهنظر من فريده براي اين کار مناسب است. اسمش را بگذار فرزانه که طنزآميز باشد.» قصه که تمام ميشد، ميداد به پرهام ميخواند و نظر ميداد: «اين جمله زيادي است. نويسنده نبايد دخالت کند. فرزانة تو زياد با فريده جور درنميآيد. زيادي نازکنارنجي است.»الهام دليل ميآورد: «آخر ميداني، قصه گاهي به راه خودش ميرود. قهرمان گاهي چموش ميشود، سواري نميدهد. ميخواهد خودش باشد. فرزانه شکل و شمايل و رفتارهاي فريده را دوست ندارد. ديوانگيهاي خودش را دارد. وقتي ساعتها زير باران راه ميرود و درِ خانة غريبهاي را ميزند و پليس...»ـ بايد درستش کني. تو با اين کارهايت خواننده را گمراه ميکني. خوانندة بدبخت چه گناهي کرده که مجبور است چرندياتي...الهام ديگر گوش نميکرد. هميشه همانطور بود. پرهام هم الهام را به نوشتن تشويق ميکرد و هم ناگهان مثل ابليس ميزد توي ذوقش. اما الهام از رو نميرفت. باز مينوشت. و هرچه بيشتر خواند و بيشتر نوشت و ـ بعد از رفتن به کلاس قصهنويسي ـ قصههاي ديگران را خواند، فهميد که خيلي از نظرهاي پرهام پرت است. اما به حرفهايش گوش ميکرد. اگر نميکرد، جنجال به پا ميشد و فکر و ذهنش پريشان ميشد. کوتاه ميآمد و تغييراتي جزئي در قصه ميداد. گاه هم ميشد كه دست به ترکيب آن نميزد. لج ميکرد و دليل ميآورد که قصه ميخواهد اين طوري باشد. فرزانه دوست ندارد رابطهاش را با حميد ادامه بدهد. عاشق مهران شده. قصهها بخشي از زندگي و گفتگوهاي روزانهشان را پر ميکردند. و اين بگومگوها هم الهام را شاد ميکرد و به او انگيزه ميداد و هم دستوپاگير بود و خلاقيت را در او ميکشت. اما باز مينوشت. انگار نوشتن هم شده بود بخشي از زندگياش، مثل همان کاري که داشت، اتو کشيدن لباس بيماران بيمارستاني و پرستارها در كارخانهاي بزرگ. کاري که گاه نطفة داستاني را در ذهنش ميکاشت و گاه هم از فرط تکرار و خستگي، دلش ميخواست سرش را بگذارد و بميرد. اما زندگي به راه خود ميرفت. با داشتن دو دختر ده ساله و هشت ساله و شوهري که به هر کاري تن نميداد و منتظر بود کاري در حد همان مهندسي پيدا کند، چارهاي جز ادامه نداشت. از وقتي به کلاس قصهنويسي ميرفت و يکي دو قصهاش را سر کلاس در برابر يک جمع ده پانزده نفره و معلم کلاس خوانده بود و تشويق و تمجيد شنيده بود، زندگي رنگ و بوي ديگري گرفته بود. آينده گاه مثل رنگينکماني بالاي آسمان ابري خانهاش کمانه ميزد. ديروقت شب که به خانه آمد، حال خوشي داشت. معلم کالج تنها قصة او را براي شرکت در مسابقة قصهنويسي راديو انتخاب کرده بود و گفته بود پيرنگ قوي و زيبايي دارد. زندگي زن مهاجري که در دريايي از مشکلات دست و پا ميزند و ناگهان با حضور مردي که در ادارة کمک به پناهندگان کار ميکند، تغيير ميکند و به آرامش ميرسد. خانه مثل هر شب در اين ساعت، در آرامش و سکون شبانه، راه به صبح ميبرد. پرهام با لباس خانه ـ تيشرت ليمويي و شلوار راهراه ـ روي مبل بزرگ نشسته بود و روزنامه ميخواند يا نميخواند. الهام که در را باز کرد و سلام کرد، پرهام برنگشت نگاهش کند. الهام کفش از پا و کت از تن کَند و کنار پرهام نشست.«حدس بزن چي شد!» در چشمانش، در چهرهاش و در آهنگ صدايش شادماني و شعف موج ميزد.پرهام سر از روزنامه برداشت و نگاهش کرد. زيباتر شده بود. چشمانش برق ميزد و پوست صورتش شاداب بود. مثل کسي بود که از ديدار عاشقانهاي برگشته و ساعات خوشي را پشت سر گذاشته باشد. شک سوزني شد و بر قلب پرهام نيش زد. ـ مطمئنم نميتواني حدس بزني. اصلاً به فکرت هم نميرسد.پرهام بياعتنا به هيجان و شعف الهام پرسيد: «چي شده؟ بليتت برده؟»الهام بلند خنديد. چنان بلند که پرهام تکاني خورد و عقبتر نشست. روزنامه را روي زانو رها کرد.ـ بليتم؟ من که بليت نميخرم.ـ خُب بگو چي شده. ميخواهي جان مرا...ـ قصهام! قصهام براي مسابقة قصهنويسي انتخاب شده!ـ کدام قصهات؟ من خواندهام؟الهام کيف سياه کوچکش را که روي زانويش بود باز کرد و چند ورق کاغذ از آن بيرون کشيد و گفت: «نه! اين يکي را نخواندي. راستش...»حرفش را نيمهتمام گذاشت. نخواست بگويد اگر ميدادم ميخواندي، آنقدر ايراد ميگرفتي که قصه از چشمم ميافتاد. پرهام قصه را گرفت و شروع به خواندن کرد. الهام سري به اتاق بچهها زد که خوابيده بودند. بر گونة هر دو بوسه زد و رواندازشان را مرتب کرد. به دستشويي و بعد به آشپزخانه رفت. خوشهاي انگور توي زيردستي گذاشت و کنار پرهام نشست. پرهام آخرين صفحه را تمام کرد. الهام منتظر ماند. وقتي پرسيد: «ويليام ديگه کيه؟» حبة انگور توي دهان الهام تلخ شد و از گلويش پايين نميرفت. زبان در دهانش مثل چوب خشک شد. راستي ويليام که بود؟ «يک نجاتدهنده!» خواست همين جمله را به زبان بياورد که نتوانست. گفت: «مگر قصه را نخواندي؟ ويليام يک شخصيت است که تأثير مثبتي روي...»ـ لازم نيست برايم فلسفه ببافي. قصهات را خواندم. اما تو هميشه شخصيتهاي قصهات را از واقعيت ميگيري. الهه در قصة تو خود توست. درست است که شکل و شمايلش را عوض کردي، اما هيچ فرقي با تو ندارد، همانطور شلخته و دستوپاچلفتي. اما ويليام من نيستم. اين را که ديگر نميتواني انکار کني. ويليام يک کانادايي است که آنطور که تو ميشناسيش و توصيفش کردي، از پدر ايرلندي و مادر اسکاتلندي است. از لحاظ چهره و حتي خصوصيات هم شباهتي به من ندارد. اما الهه عکسبرگردان توست. هست يا نه؟الهام خواست بگويد دستت درد نکند! اين تصويري است که تو از من داري؟ شلخته و دستوپاچلفتي؟ جا خورده بود. نميدانست چه بگويد. اگر قبل از آنکه قصه را تحويل بدهد، آن را به پرهام داده بود بخواند، حالا قصه چيز ديگري شده بود و احتمالاً براي مسابقة داستاننويسي انتخاب نميشد. پرهام اين بار تندتر و بلندتر گفت: «چرا جواب نميدهي؟ هست يا نيست؟»الهام با همان سردرگمي گفت: «آخر ميداني...»پرهام صدايش را بلند کرد و فرياد زد: «جواب مرا بده! هست يا نيست؟»سرخي چهرة الهام نشان ميداد که او هم خشمگين شده است، اما خودش را نگه داشت و آرام گفت: «چرا داد ميزني؟ خب، آره. يعني نه. چطور بگويم، قصه که واقعيت نيست. به قول مولوي، هرکسي از ظن...»پرهام دستش را به نشانة اعتراض و نفرت بلند کرد: «لطفاً براي من از مولوي و اين و آن دليل و برهان نياور. من از تو فقط يک سؤال ساده کردم و تو طفره ميروي. دليلش هم روشن است. ويليام مردي است که...»الهام نگذاشت حرفش تمام شود. ميدانست دچار وهم شده است. اين احساس هم او را شاد کرد و هم ترساند. گفت: «حرفت هيچ اساس درستي ندارد. ويليامِ توي قصه مردي است که به قول تو نجاتدهنده است، اما در واقعيت وجود ندارد.»آخرين بخش گفتة الهام در صداي بلند پرهام ناشنيده ماند. «اگر وجود ندارد، پس از کجا آمده؟ مگر خودت هميشه نميگفتي كه آدمهاي قصهات را از آدمهاي اطرافت ميگيري؟ خوب مچت را گرفتم.»الهام سري تکان داد و هيچ نگفت. فکر کرد توي بد هچلي افتاده. قصه را که همچنان در دستان پرهام بود گرفت و از وسط پاره کرد و با صدايي که گريه و بغض آن را خشدار کرده بود گفت: «ول کن بابا! ما را چه به قصهنويسي و شرکت در مسابقه؟ نخواستم. کلاس هم ديگر نميروم. لعنت به من اگر ديگر دست به قلم ببرم! براي هر يک جملهاي که مينويسم بايد مثل قرون وسطي و دادگاه تفتيش عقايد جواب پس بدهم.» بلند شد و به دستشويي رفت، تنها جايي که ميتوانست پناه بگيرد. گرية الهام آبي بود که بر آتش خشم پرهام ريخت. احساس گناه چند لحظهاي او را فلج کرد اما شک هنوز با او بود. اگر الهام جوابش را داده بود، مثلاً گفته بود خُب، ويليام تويي، تو که هميشه کمکِ من و خيليهاي ديگر بودهاي، تو که تشويقم کردي به کلاس قصهنويسي بروم و خودم را از دايرة محدود زبان فارسي که در خارج از کشور روزبهروز کوچکتر و تنگتر ميشود بيرون بکشم. آره، چرا نگفت ويليام منم. به جايش مدام ميخواست برايم فلسفهبافي کند و ثابت کند که ويليام يک شخصيت است. خيال ميکند خودم نميدانم. يا خيال ميکند من فکر ميکنم ويليام چهار دست و پا دارد و حيّ و حاضر توي کوچه و خيابان راه ميرود. آره، خودم ميدانم ويليام توي قصه است، ولي آدمِ توي قصه هم از يک جهنمي سر درميآورد. اينجور که توي قصه توصيفش کرده، مخصوصاً آن چشمهاي آبياش که گاهي به رنگ درياست و گاهي آسمان بهاري و آن دستهاي لاغر و انگشتهاي کشيده و آن لبخند مهربان و تسليدهنده و آن پيراهن يقه شوميز چهارخانه که دو دکمهاش باز است و الهه ميتواند موهاي کمرنگ سينة او را ببيند و لابد همانجا با موهاي سياه سينة شوهرش مقايسه کند، و احساسي که به او دارد و او را در خلوت مجسم ميکند، لابد ملاحظه کرده که الهه را در خيال يا واقعيت با ويليام به رختخواب نفرستاده. شايد هم فرستاده و نخواسته بنويسد. آره، تا آدم کسي را از نزديک نبيند و نشناسد، نميتواند با اين جزئيات توصيفش کند. ويليام نميتواند فقط توي قصه وجود داشته باشد. ويليام يک آدم واقعي است. ناگهان مثل کسي که کشفي كرده باشد، يقين کرد که ويليام يکي از شاگردان کلاس قصهنويسي است. همان که چند شب پيش حرفش را ميزد و گفت که شعري بلند گفته که وصف حال يک تبعيدي و يک پناهندة رانده از وطن و مانده در اينجا را به زيبايي فيلم رنگي نشان داده. آره، حتماً همان است. اسمش چي بود؟ هرچه فکر کرد، يادش نيامد. اسمي بود از امريکاي جنوبي يا اروپاي شرقي. فکر چنان از پا درش آورد که منتظر نشد الهام از دستشويي بيرون بيايد. مسواکنزده به بستر رفت. لحاف را روي سرش کشيد و مثل کسي که يک مشت قرص خواب خورده باشد، از هوش رفت. الهام که به بستر رفت، پرهام يا خواب بود يا خودش را به خواب زده بود. الهام فکر کرد چه بهتر! گوشة تخت مچاله شد و ساعتها خوابش نبرد. به ويليام فکر کرد. راستي ويليام کي بود؟ خودش هم نميدانست اين شخصيت را از کجا گير آورده بود. اما شخصيت دوستداشتنياي بود. کاش کسي مثل ويليام داشت که گاه و بيگاه به درددلش گوش ميکرد. کسي مثل برادر، دوست و يا پدر. آره، پدر! ناگهان ياد پدرش افتاد. دلش گرفت و بغضش ترکيد. اشکش روي بالش ريخت و زود خشک شد. به قصه فکر کرد. پرهام راست ميگفت، الهه خودش بود. پرهام همة آدمهاي قصههاي او را ميشناخت و قصه را که تا آخر ميخواند، شروع ميکرد به حدس زدن. حسام آقاي کمالي نيست؟ پروين نسترن، زن فرشاد، نيست؟ آقاي سهرابي سروش نيست؟ ناديا زن مستر براون نيست؟الهام لبخند ميزد و ميگفت: «خوب حدس زدي، اما به کسي نگو. اين شخصيتها فقط طرح کمرنگي از واقعيت دارند. نميتوانند صددرصد خودشان باشند. من اگر بخواهم دربارة تو يا بچهها يا خودم هم بنويسم، باز هم نميتوانم واقعيت را بازسازي کنم. واقعيت قصه با واقعيت فضاي واقعي فرق دارد.»پرهام خوشحال از کشف خود ميگفت: «اما بيشتر شخصيتهاي تو با آدمهاي واقعي يکياند.»دو سه ساعتي گذشت و خواب به چشم الهام نيامد، اما پرهام در خوابي عميق چنان خرناسه ميکشيد که الهام را کلافه کرد. بلند شد و به اتاق نشيمن رفت. پتويي از اشکاف توي راهرو برداشت. يکي از پشتيهاي کاناپه را زير سرش گذاشت و دراز کشيد. خواب کيلومترها با او فاصله داشت. انگار نه انگار كه روز درازي را پشت سر گذاشته بود. هشت ساعت سرِ پا پشت ميز اتوکشي، با بوي بيمارستان و پودر لباسشويي و پارچة داغ و گزگز درد در ساق پا و کمر، برگشتن به خانه و آماده کردن شام و نق و نوق بچهها و انتظار براي برگشتن پرهام که مثلاً رفته بود سيگار بگيرد که دير کرد و تا او رسيد سر کلاس، ده دقيقهاي گذشته بود و بعد هم آن خبر خوش مثل فيلم رنگي از جلو چشمانش ميگذشت.آره، همين خبر خوش بود که خواب را از چشمانش ربوده بود. آپارتمان در سکوت ساعات بعد از نيمهشب به او آرامش ميداد و دعواي سر شب را کمرنگ ميکرد. دلش هم براي بچهها و هم براي پرهام ميسوخت. هرسهشان قابل ترحم بودند. هرسه محتاج او بودند و او دلش جاي ديگري خوش بود، قصهها و ويليام. شادي و شعف واقعياش در قصهها و آدمهاي قصه و سطرسطر نوشتهاش بود. بچهها و پرهام از اين شادي و خوشبختي نصيبي نميبردند. شام شب نبود که بپزد و جلويشان بگذارد. بخورند و بگويند: «مامان، دستت درد نکند. خيلي خوشمزه بود.» لباس نو نبود که از بيرون بخرد يا خودش بدوزد. کاري كه گهگاه ميکرد. پرهام قصهها را ميخواند اما الهام يقين داشت که از آنها لذت نميبرد. اين يکي را مطمئن بود. بايد مثل خود او شيفته و عاشق کلمهكلمه و سطرسطر نوشته بود تا از خواندن لذت ميبرد. آدمهاي توي کتابها از آدمهاي واقعي برايش ملموستر بودند. وقتي ميگفت: «بيچاره اِما!» پرهام ميگفت: «طوري ميگويي بيچاره اِما که انگار مادر و خواهرت است.» و الهام نميگفت که مثل مادر و خواهر برايم عزيز است. الهام دلش براي پرهام ميسوخت که، به قول خود پرهام، ديوانگيهاي او را نداشت. اين ديوانگيها، اگر واقعاً ديوانگي بود، فقط به او تعلق داشت و او دلش ميسوخت که نميتوانست آنها را با خانوادهاش، با عزيزانش، با دختران کوچکش و شوهرش، که با جان و دل دوستش داشت، تقسيم کند.راستي ويليام کي بود که اينهمه به او انرژي ميداد و وادارش ميکرد مثل اسب عصاري بدود و بدود و بدود و خسته نشود و حالا بعد از پانزده شانزده ساعت سر پا بودن، باز هم اينچنين سرشار از انرژي و شادماني باشد. و حتي بگومگويش با پرهام هم از شادي و هيجانش نکاهد. خوشبخت بود و خوشبختياش نام و نشاني نداشت. با هيچکس هم از خوشبختياش حرف نميزد، حتي با پرهام. ميفهميد؟ نه، نميفهميد.خوابش برده بود؟ مطمئن نبود. خواب يا بيدار، ويليام را ديد که در را باز کرد يا از راهرو آمد. اين يکي را بهياد نداشت. اما ويليام بود، مطمئن بود که ويليام است. کنارش نشست. دست روي دستش گذاشت که از پتو بيرون مانده بود. دست او را توي دستش گرفت و گفت: «از پرهام دلخور نباش. دست خودش نيست. تو را دوست دارد. خيلي هم دوست دارد. اما...»الهام بلند شد و نشست. شرم بود يا رودربايستي، نميدانست. ويليام کارمند ادارة پناهندگي بود. و او...ويليام دست روي شانهاش گذاشت و گفت: «راحت باش. من و تو که با هم...»در کلامش يک نوع آشنايي بود که الهام سرخ شد. اما همانطور نشست و بياختيار سر روي شانة ويليام گذاشت و صدا در گلويش شکست. مثل کسي که غمخواري پيدا کرده باشد، گفت: «چکار کنم؟ من هم دوستش دارم. من و او عاشق و معشوق بوديم. با عشق ازدواج کرديم. مشکلي با هم نداريم و يا نداشتيم.»ويليام موهاي الهام را نوازش کرد. بر انگشتان دستي که در دست داشت بوسه زد و گفت: «ميدانم. اگر هم نميدانستم، اين انگشتها و اين دستها...»اشک گونة الهام را شست و روي دست ويليام چکيد. گفت: «پرهام هم همين را ميگويد. او هم گاهي دستهايم را ميگيرد و بر انگشتهايم بوسه ميزند و ميگويد دلم براي دستهايت ميسوزد. بدون اين دستها ...» بعد بياختيارخنديد.ـ انگار دارم قصه مينويسم. حرفزدنم شده مثل قصه نوشتن.ـ همة ما قصه مينويسيم.ـ پرهام هم هميشه همين چيزها را ميگويد. او هم اگر بخواهد ميتواند قصهنويس باشد. اما تن به کار نميدهد. زيادي وسواس دارد. به قول شما پرفِکشنيست است.ـ نگران او نباش. تو بهجاي او هم مينويسي.ـ پرهام هم همين را ميگويد.انگار به صرافت افتاده باشد که ويليام را از نزديک نگاه کند، سر بلند کرد. به چهرهاش دقيق شد. چقدر شبيه پرهام بود. يکه خورد. بلند خنديد و گفت: «پرهام بدجنس، باز مسخرهبازي درآوردي؟»با صداي زنگ ساعت که از اتاقخواب ميآمد بيدار شد. پرهام بغلش کرده بود. چشم که باز کرد، پرهام هم بيدار شده بود. به روي او خنديد. دهانش را باز كرد كه چيزي بگويد... پرهام نگذاشت ادامه بدهد. گفت: «ميدانم، خواب ويليام را ديدي. ويليام نبود، من بودم.»■
Thursday, December 28, 2006
How the brain decides what to focus conscious attention on
Coming to Attention
How the brain decides what to focus conscious attention on
By Andreas K. Engel, Stefan Debener and Cornelia Kranczioch
As cognitive neuroscientists, we would like to know what is behind such phenomena: What happens in our brains when we deliberately concentrate on something? Does some mechanism inside our heads decide which information reaches our consciousness--and which does not? And do our intentions, needs and expectations influence what we perceive? Recent research offers some fascinating insights.
Homing in on Attention
Psychologists began seeking answers to such questions as long ago as 1890, when American philosopher and psychologist William James wrote about important characteristics of attention in The Principles of Psychology. James concluded that the capacity of consciousness is limited, which is why we cannot pay attention to everything at once. Attention is much more selective: it impels consciousness to concentrate on certain stimuli to process them especially effectively. James and others also distinguished between types of attention. Some of them are "self-created": a penetrating odor, a loud siren, a woman in a bright red dress amid people clad in black. (Many researchers now call this process "bottom-up," because the stimuli battle their way into our consciousness automatically because they are so striking.) Alternatively, we can actively and deliberately control our focus (called "top-down," because higher brain regions are involved at the outset). For example, at a noisy party, we can tune out background noise to listen to the conversation at the next table.
Neuroscience did not take up this topic until much later. In 1985 a research team led by Robert Desimone at the National Institute of Mental Health was first to observe how single neurons in the visual cortex of rhesus monkeys changed their activity depending on what the primates were looking at. Desimone and his collaborator Jeffrey Moran discovered that certain neurons in the V4 area of the visual cortex--an area important for the perception of color--fired more frequently when the test animal gazed fixedly at a colored target. The same nerve cells exhibited much weaker activity when the ape noticed the target but did not look right at it. Other researchers later discovered that active attention was not only reflected in the higher levels of visual processing, such as in the V4 area, but could also be traced down to stimulus processing in the lowest levels in the cortical hierarchy.
Synchronous Firing All these studies linked attention to an increase in the firing rate, or activity, of neurons. Now the latest neurobiological research points to another significant factor in attention: huge numbers of neurons synchronize their activity. Many neuroscientists believe that study of this phenomenon will provide the answer to one of the biggest riddles of attention research, the so-called binding problem.
Imagine that a grasshopper suddenly lands on the table in front of you. Before the insect can arrive in your consciousness as a fully realized, three-dimensional entity, several different areas of the brain must be active. One processes the insect's color, another its size, yet another its location, and so on. How does the brain bind all these individual characteristics together into a single impression of a green grasshopper?
Twenty years ago Christoph von der Malsburg, a computer scientist and brain theorist, now at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, suggested a solution. By synchronizing their activities, nerve cells could join into effectively cooperating units--so-called assemblies. Subsequently, a number of research teams, among them the group at Wolf Singer's laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, have demonstrated that this "ballet of neurons" in fact exists. Peter Koenig, Singer and one of us (Engel) carried out an especially decisive experiment at the end of the 1980s. We presented a cat with various targets to observe. When we showed it a single object, neurons in its visual system responsible for analyzing characteristics synchronized their activities in a pronounced way. When we gave the animal two separate objects to look at, however, the common rhythm broke down. The synchronization changed to a pattern of rapid oscillatory fluctuations at characteristic frequencies between 30 and 100 hertz, a region that brain researchers call the gamma band.
Then, in the early 1990s, Nobel laureate Francis Crick (who died in 2004) and computational neuroscientist Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology expanded on Malsburg's hypothesis with a then provocative idea. The two scientists posited that only signals from "teams" of neurons that cooperated especially well possessed enough strength to reach the consciousness.
Recent findings lend empirical support to the Crick-Koch hypothesis. Between 1995 and 1998, Pascal Fries--now at the F. C. Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, the Netherlands--and Singer, Engel and others at Max Planck carried out some of these experiments. The investigators took advantage of an effect called binocular rivalry: if the right eye and the left eye are equipped with special glasses that let each see only one of two very different images, the subject cannot meld them into a single perception. The brain resolves this dichotomy by favoring input from one eye and suppressing input from the other. As a result, the volunteers always saw just one of the pictures at a time. First they would see one image and then, a few seconds later, the other.
Two Eyes Vying How is binocular rivalry waged at the neuronal level? We compared two groups of nerve cells in the visual cortices of cats: one group dealt with the characteristics of the left image, the other with those of the right. From an animal's behavior we could tell which image it was looking at during any given moment. Whichever side occupied the feline's attention showed superior neuronal synchronization. In contrast, when we then compared the neurons' firing rates, we observed no difference. This result demonstrated that the degree of neuronal synchronization decisively influences which incoming signals are further processed and thus becomes relevant to the consciousness's perception.
What happens in our brains when we deliberately concentrate on something?
Fries also showed that active, intentional control of attention can influence gamma synchroniza-tion. He worked in Desimone's lab with macaques that had learned to direct their attention to a particular spot on the monitor screen in response to a signal; a stimulus would appear at that location after a short delay. If this stimulus appeared at the expected location, the gamma oscillations were clearly stronger. Synchronization immediately weakened, however, as soon as the research animals switched their attention to other stimuli.
For humans, such experiments using implanted electrodes are possible only during brain surgery. As a result we usually measure gamma activity by means of electroencephalography (EEG). We recently carried out an attention experiment in which subjects read letters that flashed briefly on a computer monitor. Most of the letters were black, but now and again we inserted a few green letters, which we asked the subjects to count. Analysis of the EEG signals taken during the tests showed that only the unexpected appearance of green letters produced an increase in the high-frequency part of the gamma band.
Expectant Neurons
The effect of expectation reveals itself especially clearly in an experiment using acoustic stimuli. We asked listeners to pay particular attention to high tones in a series of more or less similar tones. When they heard the target tone, a high-frequency gamma-band activity appeared in the brain; in contrast, unexpected loud noises, which automatically call attention to themselves, did not elicit this effect.
Regardless of which sensory system is -involved, the reinforced rhythmic synchronization in the gamma band that we measured seems to be a good indicator of active attention. When a person deliberately directs attention to a stimulus, not only do the firing rates of individual neurons in the brain change, but the synchronization also improves for all the neurons taking part in the coding for the same stimulus. We liken the effect to a symphony orchestra that soon arrives at a common tempo after the individual instruments begin playing.
In what ways might intentions and needs influence attention? With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we wanted to locate brain regions involved in conscious perception of a target stimulus. To do so, we needed a research technique to compare two conditions: one that led from active attention to conscious awareness of a stimulus, and a second, in which the same stimulus did not penetrate the consciousness. We used a phenomenon called attention blink. In the experiment we once again displayed a series of letters to subjects while we observed them with fMRI. This time, however, only a single green letter appeared among rapidly changing black letters, and the subject had to tell us, at the end of the test run, whether or not it was a vowel. At the same time, the subject was to look for a black X that popped up at different times after the green -letter.
During the experiment, the attention of our subjects showed clear gaps--the "blinks"--as a result of their intentional, conscious focus on the task. If the black X appeared very soon--within a third of a second--after the green letter, about half the time the participants did not notice it. If there was a longer period after the first stimulus, their recognition rate improved.
At the end of the experiment, we compared the fMRI values for each run-through in which the subjects perceived the X with those in which it was shown but not noticed. We saw clear differences in activity in a few brain regions, all in the frontal and the parietal cortices. Scientists have been aware of these regions' importance in controlling attention for a long time: for example, some patients who suffer damage to certain parts of their parietal cortex from a stroke can no longer pay attention to any stimuli in certain areas of their visual fields, which means they cannot consciously perceive them. We were surprised, however, when we found a difference in the limbic system--in the amygdala, to be precise, which is normally involved in processing emotional reactions. The state of our emotional system probably influences the control of attention and which sensory signals are allowed to reach consciousness.
The experiments we describe provide another puzzle for researchers who are seeking the neuronal basis of consciousness: the gamma oscillation that is closely associated with conscious perception does not just depend on external stimuli but also on the flexible inner dynamic of the brain. We theorize that neurons are constantly and actively predicting where the visual stimuli they expect will appear. Fries and other researchers have in fact measured the synchronization effect in the visual area of animals even before they were presented with an expected stimulus. Probably, brain regions such as the frontal cortex or the limbic system exercise influence over synchronization in the sensory areas.
All incoming stimuli set their own temporal coupling patterns in motion. If these stimuli correspond to those that the expectation has created, the incoming signals are reinforced by a resonance effect and conducted onward. If the expectations are not met, however, the brain suppresses the incoming neuronal messages. This process was at work in the gorilla experiment. The subjects were not looking for a person in a gorilla suit. Their brains were engaged in tracking the moving players in white. Any information about an ape that hit their retinas was out of sync with neuronal expectations, found no resonance and went unnoticed.
Neuronal synchronization brings order to the chaotic mental world. In fact, cognitive deficits and disordered thoughts among schizophrenic patients appear to be connected to disturbed gamma-band coupling. The healthy brain is, however, anything but a passive receiver of news from the environment. It is an active system, one that controls itself via a complex internal dynamic. Our experiences, intentions, expectations and needs affect this dynamic and thus determine how we perceive and interpret our environment.
ANDREAS K. ENGEL is director of the Institute for Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Hamburg in Germany. STEFAN DEBENER is senior scientist at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research in Southampton, England. CORNELIA KRANCZIOCH is a clinical neuropsychologist in the Epilepsy Center of Saxony in Radeberg, Germany.
How the brain decides what to focus conscious attention on
By Andreas K. Engel, Stefan Debener and Cornelia Kranczioch
As cognitive neuroscientists, we would like to know what is behind such phenomena: What happens in our brains when we deliberately concentrate on something? Does some mechanism inside our heads decide which information reaches our consciousness--and which does not? And do our intentions, needs and expectations influence what we perceive? Recent research offers some fascinating insights.
Homing in on Attention
Psychologists began seeking answers to such questions as long ago as 1890, when American philosopher and psychologist William James wrote about important characteristics of attention in The Principles of Psychology. James concluded that the capacity of consciousness is limited, which is why we cannot pay attention to everything at once. Attention is much more selective: it impels consciousness to concentrate on certain stimuli to process them especially effectively. James and others also distinguished between types of attention. Some of them are "self-created": a penetrating odor, a loud siren, a woman in a bright red dress amid people clad in black. (Many researchers now call this process "bottom-up," because the stimuli battle their way into our consciousness automatically because they are so striking.) Alternatively, we can actively and deliberately control our focus (called "top-down," because higher brain regions are involved at the outset). For example, at a noisy party, we can tune out background noise to listen to the conversation at the next table.
Neuroscience did not take up this topic until much later. In 1985 a research team led by Robert Desimone at the National Institute of Mental Health was first to observe how single neurons in the visual cortex of rhesus monkeys changed their activity depending on what the primates were looking at. Desimone and his collaborator Jeffrey Moran discovered that certain neurons in the V4 area of the visual cortex--an area important for the perception of color--fired more frequently when the test animal gazed fixedly at a colored target. The same nerve cells exhibited much weaker activity when the ape noticed the target but did not look right at it. Other researchers later discovered that active attention was not only reflected in the higher levels of visual processing, such as in the V4 area, but could also be traced down to stimulus processing in the lowest levels in the cortical hierarchy.
Synchronous Firing All these studies linked attention to an increase in the firing rate, or activity, of neurons. Now the latest neurobiological research points to another significant factor in attention: huge numbers of neurons synchronize their activity. Many neuroscientists believe that study of this phenomenon will provide the answer to one of the biggest riddles of attention research, the so-called binding problem.
Imagine that a grasshopper suddenly lands on the table in front of you. Before the insect can arrive in your consciousness as a fully realized, three-dimensional entity, several different areas of the brain must be active. One processes the insect's color, another its size, yet another its location, and so on. How does the brain bind all these individual characteristics together into a single impression of a green grasshopper?
Twenty years ago Christoph von der Malsburg, a computer scientist and brain theorist, now at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, suggested a solution. By synchronizing their activities, nerve cells could join into effectively cooperating units--so-called assemblies. Subsequently, a number of research teams, among them the group at Wolf Singer's laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, have demonstrated that this "ballet of neurons" in fact exists. Peter Koenig, Singer and one of us (Engel) carried out an especially decisive experiment at the end of the 1980s. We presented a cat with various targets to observe. When we showed it a single object, neurons in its visual system responsible for analyzing characteristics synchronized their activities in a pronounced way. When we gave the animal two separate objects to look at, however, the common rhythm broke down. The synchronization changed to a pattern of rapid oscillatory fluctuations at characteristic frequencies between 30 and 100 hertz, a region that brain researchers call the gamma band.
Then, in the early 1990s, Nobel laureate Francis Crick (who died in 2004) and computational neuroscientist Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology expanded on Malsburg's hypothesis with a then provocative idea. The two scientists posited that only signals from "teams" of neurons that cooperated especially well possessed enough strength to reach the consciousness.
Recent findings lend empirical support to the Crick-Koch hypothesis. Between 1995 and 1998, Pascal Fries--now at the F. C. Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, the Netherlands--and Singer, Engel and others at Max Planck carried out some of these experiments. The investigators took advantage of an effect called binocular rivalry: if the right eye and the left eye are equipped with special glasses that let each see only one of two very different images, the subject cannot meld them into a single perception. The brain resolves this dichotomy by favoring input from one eye and suppressing input from the other. As a result, the volunteers always saw just one of the pictures at a time. First they would see one image and then, a few seconds later, the other.
Two Eyes Vying How is binocular rivalry waged at the neuronal level? We compared two groups of nerve cells in the visual cortices of cats: one group dealt with the characteristics of the left image, the other with those of the right. From an animal's behavior we could tell which image it was looking at during any given moment. Whichever side occupied the feline's attention showed superior neuronal synchronization. In contrast, when we then compared the neurons' firing rates, we observed no difference. This result demonstrated that the degree of neuronal synchronization decisively influences which incoming signals are further processed and thus becomes relevant to the consciousness's perception.
What happens in our brains when we deliberately concentrate on something?
Fries also showed that active, intentional control of attention can influence gamma synchroniza-tion. He worked in Desimone's lab with macaques that had learned to direct their attention to a particular spot on the monitor screen in response to a signal; a stimulus would appear at that location after a short delay. If this stimulus appeared at the expected location, the gamma oscillations were clearly stronger. Synchronization immediately weakened, however, as soon as the research animals switched their attention to other stimuli.
For humans, such experiments using implanted electrodes are possible only during brain surgery. As a result we usually measure gamma activity by means of electroencephalography (EEG). We recently carried out an attention experiment in which subjects read letters that flashed briefly on a computer monitor. Most of the letters were black, but now and again we inserted a few green letters, which we asked the subjects to count. Analysis of the EEG signals taken during the tests showed that only the unexpected appearance of green letters produced an increase in the high-frequency part of the gamma band.
Expectant Neurons
The effect of expectation reveals itself especially clearly in an experiment using acoustic stimuli. We asked listeners to pay particular attention to high tones in a series of more or less similar tones. When they heard the target tone, a high-frequency gamma-band activity appeared in the brain; in contrast, unexpected loud noises, which automatically call attention to themselves, did not elicit this effect.
Regardless of which sensory system is -involved, the reinforced rhythmic synchronization in the gamma band that we measured seems to be a good indicator of active attention. When a person deliberately directs attention to a stimulus, not only do the firing rates of individual neurons in the brain change, but the synchronization also improves for all the neurons taking part in the coding for the same stimulus. We liken the effect to a symphony orchestra that soon arrives at a common tempo after the individual instruments begin playing.
In what ways might intentions and needs influence attention? With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we wanted to locate brain regions involved in conscious perception of a target stimulus. To do so, we needed a research technique to compare two conditions: one that led from active attention to conscious awareness of a stimulus, and a second, in which the same stimulus did not penetrate the consciousness. We used a phenomenon called attention blink. In the experiment we once again displayed a series of letters to subjects while we observed them with fMRI. This time, however, only a single green letter appeared among rapidly changing black letters, and the subject had to tell us, at the end of the test run, whether or not it was a vowel. At the same time, the subject was to look for a black X that popped up at different times after the green -letter.
During the experiment, the attention of our subjects showed clear gaps--the "blinks"--as a result of their intentional, conscious focus on the task. If the black X appeared very soon--within a third of a second--after the green letter, about half the time the participants did not notice it. If there was a longer period after the first stimulus, their recognition rate improved.
At the end of the experiment, we compared the fMRI values for each run-through in which the subjects perceived the X with those in which it was shown but not noticed. We saw clear differences in activity in a few brain regions, all in the frontal and the parietal cortices. Scientists have been aware of these regions' importance in controlling attention for a long time: for example, some patients who suffer damage to certain parts of their parietal cortex from a stroke can no longer pay attention to any stimuli in certain areas of their visual fields, which means they cannot consciously perceive them. We were surprised, however, when we found a difference in the limbic system--in the amygdala, to be precise, which is normally involved in processing emotional reactions. The state of our emotional system probably influences the control of attention and which sensory signals are allowed to reach consciousness.
The experiments we describe provide another puzzle for researchers who are seeking the neuronal basis of consciousness: the gamma oscillation that is closely associated with conscious perception does not just depend on external stimuli but also on the flexible inner dynamic of the brain. We theorize that neurons are constantly and actively predicting where the visual stimuli they expect will appear. Fries and other researchers have in fact measured the synchronization effect in the visual area of animals even before they were presented with an expected stimulus. Probably, brain regions such as the frontal cortex or the limbic system exercise influence over synchronization in the sensory areas.
All incoming stimuli set their own temporal coupling patterns in motion. If these stimuli correspond to those that the expectation has created, the incoming signals are reinforced by a resonance effect and conducted onward. If the expectations are not met, however, the brain suppresses the incoming neuronal messages. This process was at work in the gorilla experiment. The subjects were not looking for a person in a gorilla suit. Their brains were engaged in tracking the moving players in white. Any information about an ape that hit their retinas was out of sync with neuronal expectations, found no resonance and went unnoticed.
Neuronal synchronization brings order to the chaotic mental world. In fact, cognitive deficits and disordered thoughts among schizophrenic patients appear to be connected to disturbed gamma-band coupling. The healthy brain is, however, anything but a passive receiver of news from the environment. It is an active system, one that controls itself via a complex internal dynamic. Our experiences, intentions, expectations and needs affect this dynamic and thus determine how we perceive and interpret our environment.
ANDREAS K. ENGEL is director of the Institute for Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Hamburg in Germany. STEFAN DEBENER is senior scientist at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research in Southampton, England. CORNELIA KRANCZIOCH is a clinical neuropsychologist in the Epilepsy Center of Saxony in Radeberg, Germany.
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