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"Iraq Has Already Disintegrated": ISIS Expands Stronghold as Leaks Expose U.S. Doubts on Iraqi Forces
Iraq remains on the verge of splintering into three separate states as Sunni militants expand their stronghold in the north and west of Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared itself a caliphate last month and now controls large parts of northern and western Iraq and much of eastern Syria. Recent advances by ISIS, including in the city of Tikrit, come amidst leaks revealing extensive Pentagon concerns over its effort to advise the Iraqi military. Iraqi politicians, meanwhile, are scrambling to form a power-sharing government in an effort to save Iraq from splintering into separate Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish states. We are joined by two guests: Reporting live from Baghdad is Hannah Allam, foreign affairs correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, and joining us from London is Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent and author of the forthcoming book, "The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Iraq remains on the verge of splintering into three separate states as Sunni militants continue to maintain their stronghold in the north and west of Iraq. On Tuesday, Iraqi security forces were forced to abandon an effort to retake the city of Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Fighters aligned with the Sunni insurgent group ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, seized Tikrit last month. Meanwhile in Baghdad, at least 27 people died Tuesday in a series of attacks including two car bombs. ISIS declared itself a caliphate last month and now controls large parts of northern and western Iraq and much of eastern Syria.
AMY GOODMAN: On the political front, Iraqi politicians are scrambling to form a power-sharing government in an effort so save Iraq from splintering into separate Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish states. In the first step, Iraqi politicians named the moderate Sunni Islamist Salim al-Jabouri to be Iraq’s new speaker of the Parliament.
To talk more about Iraq, we are going directly to Baghdad to speak to Hannah Allam, foreign affairs correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. She has been reporting from Iraq for the last two weeks. She served as the Baghdad bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers from 2003 to 2005.
Hannah, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the latest that’s happening in Baghdad right now, as well as the choosing of the Parliament leader?
HANNAH ALLAM: Sure. Hi. Well, for a country on the verge of collapse, the capital feels deceptively calm. People are going out. They’re going about their business. The restaurants are packed at night. Families are out. You can’t even find a space at the parking mall. That’s not to say people aren’t terrified. They are. They’re not immune to the violence that we already are hearing about—assassinations, car bombings, a massacre just the other day in a compound of several women. So, you know, Iraqis are aware of these things. Baghdadi residents hear these things. But, unfortunately, they’ve become so, I guess, acceptant or resigned to such a level of violence that it hasn’t yet spiraled into the kind of bloodshed that would keep most Iraqis indoors. Unfortunately, they don’t doubt that that moment will come, and they see it as a slow escalation that could explode at any moment. So, there’s just really the sense of unpredictability, and people are terrified.
Then you have this parallel reality, sort of, of the political process, where, you know, the Parliament has been delayed two or three times now before meeting yesterday to decide on a speaker. And, you know, Iraqis throw their hands up and say, "Yeah, sure, what’s the rush when you’ve got the country on the verge of collapse?" And we’ve got the Kurds in the north moving toward greater independence. We have, you know, the Sunni militants of the Islamic State having seized up to half of the country. And people are really concerned about this sort of glacial pace of government formation. Yesterday was a sign that there was some movement towards easing the political deadlock, but there’s still a long way to go, especially about the future of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who Jabouri is?
HANNAH ALLAM: Salim al-Jabouri, he’s the youngest speaker of Parliament ever named in Iraq. He is a moderate Sunni Islamist. And his nomination was delayed for a while because there was some brokering behind the scenes. And the supporters, the State of Law bloc of Prime Minister Maliki, they wanted to trade their support for Jabouri’s nomination for the Sunni bloc’s acceptance or backing of a third four-year term for the prime minister. He was named, in the end, yesterday. Overwhelmingly, Parliament voted in favor of his post as speaker. But that doesn’t mean that there is yet a broader political deal that will form the kind of power-sharing government that the United States and most Iraqis would like to see to get the country out of this crisis.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hannah Allam, after the Islamic State took over such large parts of Iraq, the Maliki government made a call for volunteers to help the Iraqi military, since much of the Iraqi military abandoned their posts. Could you talk about some of the people who are volunteering, the Shiite militias who are patrolling Baghdad, who these people are, how many volunteers there are, and what the impacts of the ISIS takeover have been, and how close they are to Baghdad, in fact?
HANNAH ALLAM: Sure, sure. Well, at some of their positions, they’re only a few miles from the capital. That doesn’t mean that they would have an easy way in. They’re certainly protecting Baghdad, is the government’s priority. They know the implications of what it would mean to have a concerted ISIS attack on the capital. But there’s also, again, this element of unpredictability. Will the Iraqi forces that are now backed by all these tens of thousands of volunteers, will they be able to defend the capital? So far they haven’t made really any military gains in the north to recapture some of the territory that ISIS seized. At best, they’re only fending off a further encroachment. So there’s that.
Down in Najaf, even more important than the prime minister’s call to arms was the fatwa issued by the Shia highest authority in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He issued a call to arms that asked all Iraqis to come and help in the defense of the nation. And he and his office and officials around him have stressed several times that that was not a sectarian call to arms, that it was a patriotic national duty. But that’s not how it’s been interpreted on the ground, and it’s not how it’s playing out on the ground. It has given religious cover to the remobilization of militias that the government spent—and the U.S. military, when it was here, spent—the past several years trying to disband. So we’re talking about groups like Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, which was a splinter group of the Mahdi Army trained by Iran, close ties to Iran, and several other Iranian-backed Shia Muslim militias. And then, on top of that, you’ve got tribes that are offering up tens of thousands of their members, and you’ve got these just ordinary teenagers, you know, and young men who are answering the call on religious grounds. So, it’s this hodgepodge of forces. They really sort of lack a central command. So far they’ve said that they would all play fair and answer to the government and work within the government structure. But that’s just simply not the case. There are just too many people with arms roaming around with disparate leaders.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, last month Democracy Now! interviewed former U.N. special envoy for Syria, Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi. He was previously the U.N. special representative for Iraq. He suggested that sectarianism in Iraq was fostered in the early years of the U.S. invasion and occupation.
LAKHDAR BRAHIMI: The impression one had was that the people that were preferred by the occupying powers were the most sectarian Shia and the most pro-Iranian Shia, so, you know, that Iran—that Iraq is now very, very close to Iran. Again, from the point of view of somebody who looks at things from outside, I have absolutely no knowledge of what went on in the high spheres of power in Washington. The impression we had is that these people were put in charge either out of total ignorance—and that is extremely difficult to accept—or intentionally. But the fact is, you know, that the system that was established was very sectarian.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hannah Allam, that was Lakhdar Brahimi, the former U.N. special envoy for Syria. He was previously the special representative, the U.N. special representative for Iraq. Could you comment on what he said and also on reports of the Islamic State’s violence and atrocities, really, against Sunni Muslims, in addition to Shia and Kurds?
HANNAH ALLAM: Sure. I think it’s important to note that the Islamic State is not doing this land grab, this insurgency alone. It has a lot of support, really crucial support, especially for holding territories that it seized, from, again, this mixture of former Baathists, ex-military and intelligence from the old regime, some tribes. And the reason they’ve been able to cultivate some support among those community—well, some are just, you know, against the whole political system that was established under the U.S. occupation. Some haven’t come to terms with the loss of their former power and prestige. But then there are a wide swath of Sunni communities who are simply fed up with the sectarian policies they’ve seen under this administration of Nouri al-Maliki. And I think we should point out he first ran on a platform that was considered nationalist. He went after Shia militias in the south, and people thought, OK, maybe this isn’t going to be as sectarian as we feared. Unfortunately, as most analysts or observers of Iraq could tell you, that has changed, and he’s pursued an increasingly authoritarian and sectarian agenda that has led to what we have now, which is this simultaneous Sunni uprising, that preceded the ISIS offensive of last month, and then on top of that you’ve got the ISIS offensive, that’s created these strange bedfellows that when they’ve worked together in the past, it hasn’t lasted very long because their ideologies and goals are so different. For now, they are working in tandem in some of these areas. But we’re already seeing signs of the fraying of that fragile alliance because ISIS has already targeted and executed former Baathists and a whole village of tribe—the Jabouri tribe, where they only suspected that they were forming a rival force. So, we are seeing now incidents of some Sunni pushback against ISIS, but I think it’s also important to remember that that does not equate support for the government of Nouri al-Maliki. They still have their set of grievances. They’d still like to see this sectarian political system abolished. And for now, you know, ISIS is turning out to be the means to that goal, in their eyes.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to continue to talk about this after break. Hannah Allam is foreign affairs correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. She’s been reporting from Iraq for the last two weeks, but has been there for years covering Iraq. Her most recent piece talks about how Baghdad residents are trying to maintain a semblance of normal life as the conflict approaches Baghdad. We will also be joined by Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent, just back from Iraq. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guests are Hannah Allam, who is in Baghdad, Iraq, right now, and Patrick Cockburn also joins us from London. He’s the Middle East correspondent for The Independent. He just returned from 10 days of reporting in Iraq and has a new book just coming out called The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising. Patrick, you, in your latest piece, say that as much of the world attention is focused on the bombardment of Gaza, that ISIS has captured much of eastern Syria. Can you explain?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, I mean, the caliphate that they declared so recently has just got a lot bigger. And rather amazingly, the world hasn’t paid much attention, because of Gaza. They have attacked towards Deir ez-Zor, which is a big province with a lot of oil wells in eastern Syria. They probably hold about 98 percent of it now. There’s a bit of the capital city which is held by the Assad government, but otherwise they’ve routed the opposition, Syrian opposition, Assad, from themselves. And they’ve also launched another offensive towards one of the Kurdish enclaves right up on the Turkish border—there are about half a million people there—to Kobani. They’re using—I was talking to people in the enclave yesterday, and the ISIS have about 5,000 fighters there, but they’ve also got tanks and artillery that they captured in Iraq. They’re driving around in American Humvees, also captured. And they’re putting a lot of pressure on. So they’re really taking the whole sort of eastern side of Syria, to the east of the city of Aleppo. And they probably will advance towards that in the future. But it’s a major success for them, following their takeover of Mosul and northern and western Iraq, and rather surprisingly, given publicity after the fall of Mosul, that this really hasn’t gathered much attention in the rest of the region or in Europe or America.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Patrick Cockburn, Hannah Allam was speaking earlier about the support that ISIS, or the Islamic State, has among disenfranchised Sunnis who feel that they were marginalized under the Maliki government. And you’ve suggested, in a piece you wrote earlier, that you feel that ISIS, or the Islamic State, is likely to get much more mass support than al-Qaeda did. Could you explain why that’s the case, given that they are so—have been so brutal?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, they’re also victorious. I mean, they’re the vanguard of the Sunni community. You have five or six million Sunni in Iraq, and oppressed by the government, feeling persecuted, and they may not like the methods employed by ISIS, but, one, there isn’t much they can do about it, but ISIS so far has delivered victory. I think down the road they’re going to find they’ve made a pact with the devil, that they can’t get rid of ISIS, that their areas become impoverished, that this is an extraordinarily pathologically violent movement. But for the moment, the ISIS movement is attracting a lot of young Sunni. They get paid. And they also feel that they’re joining a victorious army. And the same is true in eastern Syria. They’re recruiting people from the other rebel movements. So, nothing is really succeeding like success.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is and talk about the declaration of the caliphate and what that means?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Al-Baghdadi comes out of the al-Qaeda movement. There’s some evidence that he was in Afghanistan. He joined with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who set up al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time of the American U.S. invasion. It was against the occupation, but it was, above all, against Shia. It’s a deeply bigoted movement, very sectarian. It’s somewhat similar to Wahhabism out of Saudi Arabia, but its method was the suicide bomber, and its targets were often civilians. So he’s come out of that. He was in jail under the Americans for a bit. He took over al-Qaeda in Iraq when it was at a very low point in 2010. But, above all, what made him the success that he is now is the start of the revolt in Syria, the Sunni revolt there, which destabilized the situation in Iraq, and the fact that al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, successfully alienated the whole Sunni community, so they were willing to unite. These very different movements and groups that you’ve described were willing to unite under the banner of ISIS. Maybe they want to get rid of them in future, but they’ll find that that’s real difficult.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to go back to Hannah Allam in Baghdad. Hannah, could you talk about the U.S. military advisers who were sent to Iraq last month and Major General Dana Pittard, who is overseeing this advisory effort? What exactly are U.S. military advisers doing there? How many are there? Could you say a little about that?
HANNAH ALLAM: Sure. There are a couple of hundred U.S. military personnel in country. They are trying to decide what the U.S. role should be, going forward.
I should note that when the U.S. was preparing to withdraw and wanted to tout all its successes in training and equipping the Iraqi army, press access was great. There were plenty of spokespeople around. In 2010, I did an imbed along the Iranian border. And you’d hear rank-and-file soldiers say, "We’re not sure that our Iraqi counterparts are ready. We are worried about corruption. We’re worried about" all the things that have since come to light in the collapse last month. However, that wasn’t the vision or the outlook that you got from Washington at the time. They said, "Training is on track. We are going to be able to turn this thing over to the Iraqis, and everything will be fine." Now, I’ve asked for an interview with Major General Pittard here, and I was told that all press inquiries must go through the Pentagon in Washington, even though I’m just a couple of miles from the U.S. advisers who are in the Green Zone.
So, you know, the Pentagon assessment of this, there have been leaks from that, and it’s shown that there are very deep concerns that even if there is a decision to advise these forces in a more meaningful way, going out with them, trying to rebuild them, there are—only half of the operational units are able to even accept that kind of help from the U.S., and only about half of the forces are operational. Certainly, they melted away in the north. And there’s also a great fear of infiltration among the forces, according to the Pentagon, and that’s a fear that’s on both the Shia militia side, with the Iranian-backed militiamen infiltrating the security forces, as well as Sunni insurgents.
AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Cockburn, do you see Iraq disintegrating, dividing into three parts? And also, what is the role of Saudi Arabia in all of this?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, Iraq really has disintegrated already. I mean, it’s still called Iraq. It may go on being called Iraq, but if you’re in Baghdad, particularly if you’re a Shia, or you’re anybody in Baghdad, you can’t move far north or west of the city without being in ISIS-controlled territory where you might be killed. And if you’re in ISIS-controlled territory, you can’t move to Baghdad or you can’t move into the Kurdish-controlled area, which has just expanded. So it really has disintegrated. I mean, it’s always rather amazing that people talk about, you know, we’re on the edge of disintegration. I mean, it’s a fact. It’s already happened.
The role of Saudi Arabia, I think, has been crucial in the past, that Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies, also Turkey, but above all Saudi Arabia, has never really accepted a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. They have given support to jihadis in the past. Private donors in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have supported these movements. These days, they may be regretting it. I mean, there was always a division in Saudi policy between those like Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was formerly ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence, who had a very forward policy for supporting jihadi movements in Syria, and those who in Saudi Arabia said, "No, no, no, this is a disaster. We’re supporting the people who basically want to get rid of the House of Saud and to remake the Middle East." Now it’s the latter group who seem to have turned out to be right, but it may be too late, that ISIS is very strong now. It doesn’t need the money. It doesn’t really need the weapons, as it’s captured so many weapons inside Iraq. And it’s advancing on all fronts. And it has created—it’s established the caliphate. So, it’s really questioned the legitimacy of the Saudi monarchy and of all the other governments in the region. So I think the Saudis are very much regretting their policy in the past, but there isn’t much they can do about it at this stage.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Patrick Cockburn, do you think that the Islamic State is going to advance onto Baghdad?
PATRICK COCKBURN: I think that they don’t necessarily have to try and take Baghdad, which is difficult. It’s a city of seven million people. The majority are Shia. But there are various things they can do they haven’t done yet. There are big Sunni enclaves. Those could rise up. And some of them are very close to the center of the capital. They could have a car bombing campaign, suicide bombing. We’ve had bombs today. But they could increase that many times over. Or they could try and encircle the capital, cutting the roads to the south, or Sunni towns and villages south of Baghdad. So there are a whole range of things they can do.
One of the things that I find most chilling and impressive is that they haven’t done it yet. As Hannah was saying, you know, after the initial panic, after the fall of Mosul, life in Baghdad sort of in some ways has a curious normality about it. But that means that nobody has pressed the button yet on the ISIS side to unleash violence on Baghdad. And that really underlines the degree of command and control and good organization that ISIS has in parallel with being a ferocious and fanatical organization.
AMY GOODMAN: Hannah Allam, there was a report in the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month that ISIS leaders are on a U.S. kill list. Given the Pentagon’s leaked doubts about the capacity of the Iraqi army, that the U.S. is advising, do you expect these U.S. strikes to start happening in Iraq?
HANNAH ALLAM: I think it’s still too early to tell. I think there are some very, very serious concerns among U.S. military leaders about getting back involved, you know, getting involved again in this conflict. So, I think it’s still too soon to tell. As I understand, these assessments are ongoing in Washington, as well as from advisers here on the ground. And so far, what they have done is ramp up U.S. surveillance along key routes, in particular, Airport Road, the road to the Baghdad International Airport, which of course would be key for any mass evacuation effort, for security of the capital. Also, Airport Road, from some of the ISIS positions, is a route through which you could, if you cross that, go straight to the Green Zone, the heart of the government power and home to the U.S. Embassy. So, those are very strong concerns they’re weighing.
AMY GOODMAN: Hannah, as we wrap up, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern about the number of European and U.S. citizens going to fight in Iraq and Syria. Are you seeing that?
HANNAH ALLAM: Well, we certainly see the videos. ISIS definitely likes to put these videos out of fluent English speakers or Europeans who have committed to this cause, and in, I think, part to send a message of terror to the West, that we can recruit there, and also to drive recruits and say that "this is a caliphate for all Muslims; here in this caliphate, it’s a land where we don’t see race and nationality. What’s important is the Muslim nation." And by Muslim, they mean Sunni. They exclude Shia from this and, in fact, mark them for death as heretics. So, that is part of the recruitment drive. And it certainly is chilling to governments in the West, particularly if they see any sort of return flight of these—of some of these volunteers from Western countries.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Hannah Allam, we want to thank you for being with us, foreign affairs correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. She is reporting from Baghdad, Iraq. And we also want to thank Patrick Cockburn, who just returned from Iraq, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent. His new book, that is coming out in a few weeks, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll look at the Iran nuclear talks. Stay with us.
Is an Iran Nuclear Deal Within Reach? Dissecting the Latest Talks over a "Manufactured Crisis"
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Secretary of State John Kerry says he’s returning to Washington, D.C., to consult with President Obama following talks with his Iranian counterpart over Iran’s nuclear program. Speaking on Tuesday, Kerry cited, quote, "tangible progress" on key issues but said, quote, "very real gaps" remain ahead of a Sunday deadline. In an interview with The New York Times, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran could agree to freeze its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief. But Kerry refused to say if the United States would accept that deal.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Gareth Porter, historian, investigative journalist, specializing in U.S. national security policy. His new book is called Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. He has just returned from a trip to Tehran, Iran, where he interviewed Iran’s foreign minister and the nuclear chief. His most recent article in Inter Press Service is called "U.S. Demand for Deep Centrifuge Cut is a Diplomatic Ploy."
Gareth Porter, why do you say that? And can you assess the latest developments in the Iran nuclear talks? Kerry just returned from Vienna.
GARETH PORTER: Well, you know, this set of negotiations has been portrayed for the last few months, particularly by the Obama administration, as very, very difficult, because the United States has been making its most extreme demands, really, on Iran in terms of the level of enrichment capability that would be allowed under the agreement. The United States has been conveying the idea that Iran would have to accept very, very deep cuts in its enrichment capability under the deal, and that has really portrayed the talks as very difficult to reach agreement on. And I think that has been the—that’s been the dominant impression conveyed by the news media, of course, over the last few months. But those signals have changed dramatically just in the last few days. And what has now appeared to be true is that the United States and Iran are really close enough to a deal so that if the United States were to make a political decision in the next few days, I think that it’s still possible they could reach agreement by the deadline on Sunday. So I think that situation has really changed quite dramatically.
And the problem that we have seen in the past few months has indeed been that the United States has made demands for as few as 500 to a thousand centrifuges out of a total of nearly 20,000. That, of course, would have been unacceptable to Iran. But the reality is that Iran has always been ready to make a deal for roughly 10,000 of its centrifuges remaining in operation under the deal, because that is how many have actually been operating for the last couple of years. Half of their centrifuge force has been, in fact, inoperable; it has not been hooked up. And it’s clear that the Iranians have always been ready to make a deal, really, to trade off roughly half of its centrifuges in return for being able to, in the longer run, have an industrial-strength centrifuge force. And that is really the question that remains unresolved: How long is this deal going to last? I think that’s the final question that has to be negotiated. I think that the United States and Iran have, in effect, already agreed that they can come to a compromise roughly at around 10,000—maybe a little bit less—centrifuges, or what they call separative work units, which is the equivalent of the work of the primitive IR-1 centrifuges that Iran now has in operation.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, speaking to NBC News, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif reaffirmed Iran’s claim to a peaceful nuclear program and defended building underground facilities in light of repeated threats from the U.S. and Israel.
MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF: I will commit to everything and anything that would provide credible assurances for the international community that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, because we are not. We don’t see any benefit in Iran developing a nuclear weapon. When the United States talk about bombing Iranian facilities out of existence, what do you expect Iran to do? Iran would create a facility that is not susceptible to being bombed. That is what any rational country would do.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif speaking to NBC. So, as we begin to wrap, Gareth Porter, could you give us a sense of how much Iran’s negotiating position has shifted since the Rouhani government came to power, and also give us a parallel sense of the shift in the U.S. position with the Obama administration on these nuclear talks?
GARETH PORTER: Well, first of all, the Iranian government, as I suggested earlier, was already clearly thinking about a deal for trading off roughly half of their centrifuges in return for, you know, sort of recognition of its nuclear rights in a deal. That was before the Rouhani government came to office. But what the Rouhani government has added to that is a proposal that Zarif told me about when I was in Tehran last month, which would guarantee that there would be no buildup of any stockpile of low-enriched uranium that could then be used to enrich at weapons-grade level to achieve what the United States has been calling a breakout to the ability to build a nuclear weapon or to have enough uranium at high levels, high level of enrichment, for a nuclear weapon.
That proposal was put on the table in June when the negotiations reached the stage of drafting, so the United States has been aware of that for some weeks now. And the problem with the news media coverage is that that has never been made public until The New York Times covered it just a couple of days ago. So, I think that really is a proposal that makes it possible for the United States to be assured that there won’t be a breakout to a nuclear weapon for years, because the Iranians have been prepared to send off the low-enriched uranium in the form of oxide powder to Russia to be converted into fuel plates for the Bushehr reactor. That’s going to happen for the next seven years, at least. And the real question is: Will the United States accept a relatively short period of duration for this agreement, as little as perhaps 10 years, rather than the 20 years that the United States had proposed, or at least announced that it was proposing, some months ago?
AMY GOODMAN: Gareth Porter, we’re going to—
GARETH PORTER: I think the chances of that—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you for being with us, author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, as we move into our last segment right now.
How Do We Define American? Jose Vargas, Symbol of Undocumented Immigrant Struggle, Detained in Texas
Jose Antonio Vargas, one of the country’s best-known undocumented immigrants, was detained by the U.S. Border Patrol on Tuesday. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Vargas came to the United States from the Philippines in 1993 at the age of 12. After reporting for The Washington Post and other outlets, he revealed his undocumented status in a widely read essay in 2011. Vargas recently traveled to the Texas border to document the crisis of thousands of migrant children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America. But he soon realized he might have trouble leaving due to the heavy presence of Border Patrol agents and checkpoints. On Tuesday, Vargas was arrested at McAllen-Miller International Airport and held for about eight hours. His detention became a top U.S. trend on Twitter, with hundreds using the hashtag #IStandWithJose. As the country watched, Vargas was eventually released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. In a statement after his release, Vargas said, "With Congress failing to act on immigration reform, and President Obama weighing his options on executive action, the critical question remains: How do we define American?" We broadcast video of Vargas speaking in McAllen, Texas, about the U.S. treatment of child migrants just days before his arrest. "These children are not illegal; they are human beings, and they are not a national security threat," Vargas says. "The only threat that these children pose to us is the threat of testing our own conscience."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the country’s best-known undocumented immigrants has been released following his detention at a Texas airport. Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, first came to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1993. In 2011, he became a leading undocumented activist after revealing his status in a widely read essay. Vargas had recently traveled to the Texas border to document the crisis of thousands of Central American children fleeing poverty and violence. But he says he soon realized he might have trouble leaving with just his Philippines passport due to the heavy presence of Border Patrol agents and checkpoints. On Tuesday, as he attempted to fly to Houston en route to Los Angeles, Vargas was arrested by immigration authorities for the first time in his life and held for most of the day. The Department of Homeland Security eventually released Vargas, saying he did not have a prior record, and their priority was to remove, quote, "criminal individuals."
AMY GOODMAN: Five days before his arrest, on July 10th, Vargas spoke at a news conference in McAllen, Texas, in front of the Sacred Heart Church, where immigrant children are being sheltered. He began by telling his story.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: When I was 12, my mother put me on a plane with a coyote and sent me to America. It took me many years to kind of face and grapple with that experience, the journey of being with a strange man that I’ve never met before, who my family paid off to accompany me on my first plane ride, the sacrifice of my mother, whom I have not seen in person for almost 21 years, that traumatic experience of being uprooted as a 12-year-old and being told by my mother that if anybody ever asked me when I got here where I was going, I should tell them that I was going to Disneyland. And my border—this is probably one of the closest times I’ve been to the border—my border was the Pacific Ocean; I got here from the Philippines on a plane.
So in these past, you know, few days and weeks, seeing the images of these Central American children, listening to the story of Jose Luis, I cannot fully imagine—I cannot fully imagine the treacherous, dangerous, desperate and long trek to safety, freedom and some kind of peace that these children are going through. When you’re nine or when you’re 10—when you’re nine or 10 or 11, you worry about summer camp and PlayStation. But right now, when you’re nine or 10 or 11, you don’t know what it means to be called "illegal," and you don’t understand how your life is being played with by the political crossfire that is happening. But that is exactly what’s been happening. The way many news organizations and the way many pundits in the media and the way many politicians, particularly in the Republican Party, are talking about this humanitarian crisis is an affront to America and to Americans. A few days ago, a headline story on CBSNews.com, the headline was: "Is the Surge of Illegal Child Immigrants a National Security Threat?" That was the headline. These children are not illegal; they are human beings. And they are not a national security threat. The only threat that these children pose to us is the threat of testing our own conscience. I just heard that Senator Coburn from Oklahoma just said that we should fly all these kids first-class seats. I said, "They managed to make this trek and walk from where they come from, so they can get on a plane to get a first-class seat? Shame on you, Senator."
And since, you know, we are here in Texas, we cannot speak up today without talking about Governor Perry, who has been in the news quite a lot in the past few days now. Like many Republican leaders, like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Cornyn here from Texas, Governor Perry has been saying that a directive called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, is accountable for the surge of these Central American children—knowing, by the way, this is the same governor, Governor Perry, who has said that this surge has been happening for years, right? Before DACA, before deferred action was even instituted. And they’re saying—a lot of these Republican leaders are saying that this is happening because President Obama is not enforcing immigration law. You mean the same President Obama that has deported nearly two million immigrants in five years? If that is not confusing to you—if that is not clear to you, then you’re not paying attention.
But, you know, politics aside, Texans across this great state have defined American by opening up their hearts and, in some instances, their homes. I was just told that a judge from Dallas County is defining American by making a place for 2,000 refugee children in Dallas. That’s how I define America. Three years ago, Governor Perry, in defending in-state tuition for undocumented Texans, Governor Perry said, quote, "If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart." So I think the question now here is: When it comes to these refugee children, Governor Perry, where is your heart? Where is your compassion? These children are not coming here to go to Disneyland. They are coming here for their lives. Thank you so much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, one of the country’s best-known undocumented immigrants, speaking last week. Yesterday, he was detained by the Border Patrol. He had traveled to the Texas border to document the crisis of thousands of immigrant children from Central America fleeing poverty and violence. After reporting for The Washington Post and other outlets for years, Vargas revealed his undocumented status in an essay for The New York Times Magazine in 2011. Vargas issued a statement after his release, saying, quote, "I want to thank everyone who stands by me and the undocumented immigrants of south Texas and across the country. Our daily lives are filled with fear in simple acts such as getting on an airplane to go home to our family. With Congress failing to act on immigration reform, and President Obama weighing his options on executive action, the critical question remains: How do we define American?" he said. Special thanks to Bryan Parras and Liana Lopez for that footage.
And that does it for our show. I’ll be speaking at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, July 21st; in Martha’s Vineyard, Saturday, July 26, at 7:00 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Auditorium in Vineyard Haven, special reception 5:00 at the Beach Plum Inn in Menemsha. Check our website, democracynow.org.
Headlines:
•Israel Resumes Gaza Bombings After Ceasefire Fails
Israel has resumed airstrikes on the Gaza Strip following the collapse of an Egyptian ceasefire. Israel had accepted the Egyptian proposal, but Hamas never formally responded. The group’s members say the plan was a nonstarter because it would have maintained the status quo of before the ongoing assault, when Israel maintained a crippling siege on Gaza and bombed it at will. Hamas also wants the release of prisoners initially freed as part of a 2011 prisoner swap but who were re-arrested in Israeli raids last month. Hamas officials also criticized the Egyptian government for failing to consult with them in formulating the proposal. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is an avowed Hamas opponent, and critics have called his ceasefire effort a ploy to give Israel an added pretext to continue the bombings.
•Gaza Militants Continue Rocket Fire; 1st Israeli Killed since Assault Began
Militants in Gaza have fired more than 150 rockets into Israel since Tuesday. One Israeli civilian was killed as he volunteered handing out food to Israeli soldiers stationed near Gaza. He was the first Israeli to be killed by rocket fire since the conflict began. A paramedic described his death.
Uri Shacham: "Unfortunately, 30 minutes ago, an Israeli citizen working near Erez crossing border was hit by shrapnel due to a mortar attack on the crossing. He was severely injured, treated at the scene by paramedics of Magen David Adom and evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, where they unfortunately had to pronounce his death."
•U.S. Drone Strikes Kill 15 in Pakistan
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have reportedly killed up to 15 people. The attack hit a vehicle and adjacent compound in the North Waziristan tribal region. It is at least the fifth U.S. drone strike in Pakistan since the Obama administration ended a six-month pause last month.
•Philippines Hit with Strongest Typhoon Since Haiyan
At least 10 people have died in a typhoon churning across the Philippines. Nearly 370,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes as the cyclone makes its way to the capital Manila. Typhoon Rammasun is the strongest to hit the Philippines since Typhoon Haiyan last year, one of the worst ever recorded. The official death toll from Haiyan stands at more than 6,100.
•89 Killed in Afghan Market Bombing; Worst Attack on Civilians Since 2001
The death toll from Tuesday’s massive bombing in Afghanistan has reached 89 people, all civilians. The blast hit a crowded market in the eastern province of Paktika. It is said to be the deadliest militant attack on Afghan civilians since the U.S. invasion of 2001.
•BRICS Countries Launch Development Bank Alternative to U.S.-Dominated System
A group of five countries have launched their own development bank to challenge the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Leaders from the so-called BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — unveiled the New Development Bank at a summit in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza. The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai. Together, BRICS countries account for 25 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world’s population.
•Guantánamo Nurse Refuses to Force-Feed Hunger-Striking Prisoners
A Navy medical officer stationed at Guantánamo Bay has become the first known prison official to refuse to force-feed hunger-striking detainees. The unidentified officer’s stance was revealed in a phone call from a Guantánamo Bay prisoner to his attorney. The prisoner, Abu Wael Dhiab, says the nurse refused to force-feed the hunger strikers sometime before July 4. The Navy says the officer has been re-assigned to "alternative duties," away from the prison’s detention center.
•Judge Stays Execution of Missouri Prisoner
A district court judge has stayed the execution of a Missouri prisoner convicted of three murders. John Middleton was scheduled to die by lethal injection just after midnight. But Judge Catherine Perry issued a stay after ruling he meets the standard for mental incapacity "showing that he is incompetent to be executed."
•Journalist, Undocumented Activist Jose Vargas Detained at Texas Airport Checkpoint
One of the country’s best-known undocumented immigrants has been released following his detention at a Texas airport. Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, first came to the United States from the Philippines in 1993. In 2011, he became a leading undocumented activist after revealing his status in a widely read essay. Vargas had recently traveled to the Texas border to document the crisis of thousands of immigrant children from Central America fleeing poverty and violence. But he says he soon realized he might have trouble leaving with just his Philippines passport due to the heavy presence of Border Patrol agents and checkpoints. On Tuesday, as he attempted to fly to Houston en route to Los Angeles, Vargas was arrested by immigration authorities for the first time in his life and held for most of the day. As the whole country watched, the Department of Homeland Security eventually released Vargas, saying he did not have a prior record, and their priority was to remove "criminal individuals." He has been given a notice to appear before an immigration judge.
•Blackwater Guards Testify Against Former Colleagues at Nisoor Massacre Trial
The trial of four former Blackwater guards accused of massacring 17 Iraqi civilians at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square is continuing this week with former employees offering an inside account of the killings. One witness described how one of his colleagues shot an unarmed Iraqi who was holding his hands up in an apparent gesture of surrender. Another said he saw people hiding in their cars, trying to shield their children, while a third recalled waving to Iraqis, telling them to duck down as his own colleagues showered the area with bullets. The trial for the 2007 massacre began last month after years of delay. The private security firm Blackwater has undergone several renaming and rebranding attempts, most recently merging with former competitor Triple Canopy under the name Constellis Holdings.
•U.N. Report Details Concrete Steps to Counter Global Warming
Global experts have submitted a report to the United Nations on how the world’s top economies can help avoid climate disaster. The study for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon details specific steps that countries can take to help keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the target level for staving off devastating global warming. The Pathways to Deep Decarbonization Project is being billed as the most comprehensive of its kind to outline practical measures to counter climate change. Project member Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, said that if countries do not adapt, the world is on pace for a temperature hike of 4 degrees or higher.
Jeffrey Sachs: "What’s concerning about this report is that we are way off track, and to get on track will require major cooperative efforts that are right now not in place. Two degrees Centigrade limit is not easily achieved. We’re on a trajectory of some 4 degrees Centigrade or more, depending on exactly the assumptions that one makes. And all of the evidence is that the business-as-usual path would be an absolutely reckless and unforgivable gamble with this planet."
The United Nations will hold a climate change summit in New York in September as part of negotiations for a global agreement by the end of next year.
•Swedish Court Weighs Assange Challenge to Arrest Warrant
A Swedish court is holding a hearing today to decide whether to lift the arrest warrant on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is wanted in Sweden for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have been filed. Visit our website for the latest details on the hearing and to watch our extended interview with Assange from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London where he has political asylum.
•Netanyahu: With Hamas Rejection, "No Choice" but to Expand Gaza Assault
In response to Hamas’ rejection of the Egyptian ceasefire plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he now has no choice but to expand the attack on Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "It would have been preferable to have solved this diplomatically, and this is what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, but Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it."
•Israeli Strikes Target Hamas Leaders; Funerals Held for Slain Civilians
Israel resumed the bombing of Gaza several hours after the ceasefire was to take effect. At least seven Palestinians have been killed in attacks earlier today. One strike destroyed the home of top Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. It was the first apparent targeting of a Hamas leader since the assault on Gaza began over a week ago. More strikes on the homes of Hamas figures have followed today. The Palestinian death toll stands at more than 200, including 31 children. On Tuesday, funerals continued for the victims in Gaza, including a 10-year-old boy. Two members of the al-Hajj family, a son and an uncle, spoke out about an Israeli bombing of a home that killed eight family members, including two parents and five siblings.
Yasser al-Hajj: "After losing both my parents and my brothers and sisters, I am now all by myself. I have no one except a sister who is married and lives in Rafah, and that’s far away. Life is going to be difficult from here on out."
Mohammad al-Hajj: "Imagine the feeling when someone carries his sister and her sons and daughters, who are children, 18, 16 and 14 years old. I carried them when their bodies were ripped apart. It was horrifying."
•Red Cross: Israeli Bombings of Gaza Infrastructure Threaten New Water Crisis
In addition to bombing Gazan homes, Israel’s attack has further decimated a civilian infrastructure already in crisis after years of a crippling blockade. On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned the more than week-long Israeli bombings have pushed Gaza to the brink of a new water crisis.
Nada Doumani: "Water is a problem, and it can quickly turn out into a catastrophe. We do have hundreds of thousands of people without water in Gaza. So water repairs have been conducted in very difficult conditions. Water engineers have been killed, and this obviously hampered a lot the work. Gaza has already a very difficult deteriorating infrastructure, 1.5, 1.7 million people living in a very small area, and the infrastructure is already bad. With all the shelling and the bombings and the fighting going on, it can only be even worse."
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