Transcript: Bill Moyers Talks with Chris Hedges
3.07.03
More on Chris Hedges and War Reporting
pbs.org
MOYERS: Some weeks ago we discussed on NOW the Pentagon's plan to attack Iraq with 'shock and awe.' That's the strategy first reported by CBS News of unleashing 3,000 precision bombs and Cruise missiles in the first 48 hours after President Bush gives the order.
Now the Chairman of the Joint Chief's of Staff has come forward with more details on how the strategy is expected to work. "The best way to get a short war", he says, "is to have such a shock on the system, that the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on, that the end was inevitable."
The General was admirably candid. Quote: "We need to condition people that this is war. People get the idea this is going to be antiseptic. Well, it's not gonna be. People are gonna die."
I read those words just after finishing this book, WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING. Its author, Chris Hedges, knows about war. Knows about people dying from close up experience. As a foreign correspondent for the NEW YORK TIMES, Chris Hedges covered the Balkans, the Middle East, including the first Gulf War where he was captured, and Central America.
Last year he was a member of the team of reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for the NEW YORK TIMES coverage of global terrorism. Chris Hedges now writes the column, "Public Lives." He's also, by the way, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School. Welcome to NOW.
HEDGES: Thank you.
MOYERS: When you hear the General describe an attack of 3,000 missiles on Iraq, what comes through your mind?
HEDGES: Well not images of shock and awe. Images of large numbers of civilian dead. Destroyed buildings. Panic in the corridors of hospitals. Families that can't reach parts of the city that have been devastated and are desperate for news of their loved ones. All of the images of war that I've seen for most of the past two decades come to mind.
complete interview cont. at...
pbs.org |
