Hersh did not say Cheney ordered Bhutto assassination
Published: May 18, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
UPDATE (below): Wall Street Journal removes links
Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator linked phony reports
In a telephone conversation with RAW STORY, Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh refuted reports that he told an Arab television network that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Numerous Internet and mainstream publications picked up the story on Monday. Even The Wall Street Journal linked to unverified sources carrying the story. (Screenshot.) U.S. conservative magazine The American Spectator also published a blog with the false information. (Screenshot.)
Hersh told RAW STORY Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna that he made no such statements.
Following RAW STORY’s Monday evening report, the Journal removed the links from its Web site. (Screenshot.)
“We’ve tried to reach out to people in the media that we know and correct this,” confirmed Alexa Cassanos, director of public relations at The New Yorker, speaking to this reporter. “We’re not even sure where this came from.”
Web sites which appear to be based in India and Pakistan reported that Hersh made the allegation during an interview with “an Arab television channel.” Outlets which reported this include thenation.com.pk (no affiliation with U.S. news magazine The Nation), webindia123.com, thaindian.com and dawn.com.
The stories also falsely allege Hersh said former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was key to the plot.
The only Arab television channel to interview Hersh recently is Gulf News, which spoke to him during the Arab Media Forum in Dubai. In the interview, Hersh does not even mention Bhutto’s name, but does condemn former Vice President Cheney for running an “executive assassination ring” which carried out operations all over the world.
A video of Hersh speaking to Gulf News reporter Abbas Al Lawati is available on the Internet.
“In Cheney’s view this isn’t murder, but carrying out the ‘war on terror,’” he said. “And in the view of me and my friends, including people in government, this is crazy. The vice president is committing a crime. You can’t authorize the murder of people. And it’s not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s in a lot of other countries, in the Middle East and in South Asia and North Africa and even central America.”
Hersh originally alleged Cheney oversaw the activities of an assassination ring while speaking at the University of Minnesota in March.
“If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight,” said Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), in reaction to the allegation. “Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth.”
Kucinich wrote Congressman Edolphus Towns (D-NY), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, to request an investigation into Hersh’s claims. None has been announced.
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That doesnt mean Cheney didnt order it, just because Hersh didnt finger him for it.
Cheney does have (had?) those assassination squads.
Hmmm… Now that ya mention it … and the way rice loured Bhutto back to Pakistan … The plausibility of cheney’s involvement can not be ignored !
On the other hand there was the Dan Rather setup . . .
~
First of all, the point of planting the false story about Hersh is to attempt discredit him since he’s damn near the only real investigative reporter of any note left in the media and he’s already uncovered too many embarrassing stories and has plenty more to tell in the new book and continued reporting. Way more people will always see the first story than the retractions.
Second of all, if Cheney was involved this would be a pretty good preemptive strike to put out a discredited story ahead of what you’re afraid or know will come out to cast the whole thing into doubt. Hersh didn’t say he knows it’s not true, just that he didn’t say it.
Thirdly, regardless of this story, all evidence points to Musharraf and should probably be assumed until proven otherwise, and who’s puppet is Musharraf? So it really doesn’t matter whether Cheney personally used his own hit squad or if “we” ordered it in some other fashion or simply gave Musharraf permission or cover after the fact. Somewhere in that mess is the truth and it’s all just different degrees of bad.
Lastly, the most important things have little to do with Bhutto specifically as much as the larger truths about the assassination squad overall, the illegal wars, mass murders approaching or constituting genocide, the massive illegal arrests and wide spread systematic torture, rape and abuse and the wholesale economic rape of the taxpayers… not to mention the total destruction and subversion of every department of government and the justice system, and much of the constitution…. I wish those things would be tackled holistically and seriously.
But clearly the plan is to suppress as much talk about as much of that as possible, deal with things piece by piece and control framing and discussion of each part in such ways as to cast doubt, cloud the issues and diminish the seriousness of the crimes. Too many Democrats are bought and paid for also and the “media” is a well disguised PR firm for the ruling class and corpratocracy. Well, not really well disguised, but well enough because they’ve had a monopoly on the eyes and ears of the vast majority of the US public long enough that they’re too ill-informed and too disinterested and too distracted to know any better if they even care.
rumors in the Muslim world ? your kidding…
did you see “where in the world is osama bin laden” by Morgan Spurlock?
He gives you a pretty good idea about the “Arab in the street”
hint: they know more than the avg. American does about American foreign policy.
This is much like the counterfeit document about Bush being AWOL while in the National Guard. Even though the document was bogus, everything said in the document was true.
Therefore, I would not be surprised if Cheney did order the assassination of Bhutto.
I’m really less concernced with what Cheney didn’t do in the past in our war and more concerned with what is currently happening today in our war, and what’s going on in the world that will help end it.
Bhutto died almost 2 years ago, last month we created a 500 pound pile of dead children in an airstrike that’s gotten a pitiful amount of news coverage. Maybe if the children were all gay and planning on getting married to Ann Coulter, their 500 pound pile of rotting stench would be a story.
In related news, Seymour Hersh has also denied that he told Al Jazeera that Dick Cheney ordered the demolition of the World Trade Center as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.