The lead author of the first Lancet study was Les Roberts, who also instigated the second study and assisted throughout it. He is an epidemiologist and is also politically involved. He entered a Congressional race in January of this year but dropped out in May, throwing his support to the other Democratic candidate.
Here is an interview he gave while running:
An Interview With Les Roberts
- January 25, 2006
Earlier this month, Les Roberts formally announced his candidacy to gain the Democratic nomination for New York State's 24th District seat in the United States House of Representatives. Although other Democrats in the 24th District have started rumors suggesting that they might also be running as candidates for the nomination this year, Les Roberts is the only candidate who has made an official announcement and begun campaigning.
Les Roberts became internationally known and respected when he published an influential study assessing the likely extent of civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of the American invasion and occupation. In order to ensure that the study had methodological validity, Roberts went himself to Iraq in 2004, putting his life at risk in order to provide the world with an accurate, politically disinterested picture of the impact of the Iraq War. His similar experiences in places like Afghanistan and the Congo are the stuff out of which adventure novels are written.
The international experience Les Roberts brings to his Upstate New York campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Sherwood Boehlert caught my attention, and I attended Roberts's announcement speech, and spoke to him there. He graciously agreed to an interview, and so I spoke to him earlier this week. The transcript of our interview follows.
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What I'd like to know about, to start out with, is what you think of Al Gore's recent speech.
Let me start out by saying that I think that if Al Gore had given this speech, or one like it, in 2000, he would be President today. In general, I agree with virtually everything that he said. Al Gore is a much better historian and a much better legal scholar than I, so I can't really comment on a grander scale except to say that in my work, I see exactly what Al Gore is saying.
For example, I did a study about how many civilians had died in Iraq in 2004. It was funded by Johns Hopkins University. I had worked for them for eleven years at that point. I had a bank account here in Cortland that I have had for the last four and half years, and when Hopkins wired $20,000 to pay for the expenses of that study to me, my bank called me up and said, "We'd like you to come in here, physically, and explain to us why you just got $20,000 from Johns Hopkins with a note that says, 'RE Iraq Study', and we have to inform the federal government before we can deposit this into your account."
You know, here, in Cortland, New York, the Big Brother phenomenon had extended down to my relationship with my bank. So, I agree with Gore about civil liberties being impinged upon by our national security concerns.
Well, I took that $20,000 and I flew to Jordan. I paid someone to smuggle me into Baghdad. He was an officer in Saddam's military. He had been in the military more than 20 years, and the Americans came, and now he was driving a car. For a host of reasons, the people on the border would kill any American they could, so I was smuggled in lying on the floor of an SUV.
I had been back there for hours, and my driver, Wahid, who spoke a little English, said, "Abu Ghraib! Abu Ghraib!" And I looked up, and I said, "Do you mean Abu Ghraib the prison?" And here, this forty something year old guy, a hard nosed military officer, looked back from the front of the car, and I could see that he was crying.
I think we cannot overemphasize how important it is that we are perceived abroad as widespread abusers of human rights, widespread abusers of our international legal obligations. When Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights organization, can cite our abuse of prisoner as the second most pressing human rights problem on the planet, we are in big, big trouble. Congressional oversight is a minimal first tool we have to start exploring several issues that have gone very wrong for America at large, and for our long term interests, including, how did we get into this war, and how has the Executive expanded its rights with regard to our individual liberties.
I just think that Al Gore was spot on.
I want to ask you about one of the specific things that he called for, which was a special counsel, and I'll just read from the transcript. Gore said, "A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the Attorney General to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the President." Then he goes on to talk about the wiretapping as the subject of that.
Do I recall that he used Patrick Fitzgerald as the example of a successful counsel?
Yes, that's correct. On Thursday, Jerrold Nadler followed up on this call from Al Gore and sent a letter, a formal request, to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, requesting that such a special counsel be created to investigate the President on these matters. Would you support the appointment of such a special counsel?
I am completely in support of that.
Gore's fifth point in his speech was related to what you talked about in terms of Big Brother. He is calling for any telecommunications company that has provided the government with access to private information concerning the communications of Americans, without a proper warrant, to "immediately cease and desist their complicity in this apparently illegal invasion of the privacy of American citizens." Now, on Friday, we all learned that Alberto Gonzales and President Bush have been asking Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, America Online, to provide a huge amount of information about Americans' search engine habits, not even relation to terrorism, but in relation to patterns of pornography viewing. What's your opinion of how that would be related to the wiretapping investigating, in terms of the domestic spying laws, the FISA courts, and what would be an appropriate remedy for that?
Of course, I'm not a legal scholar, but what I saw Al Gore asking for in that fifth point was actually just for companies to stop being complicit in illegal activities. He didn't ask them to reveal what the government has done in the past. He didn't do anything that could conceivably threaten our intelligence agencies' operating procedures. He just said, if you've been asked to do something without a warrant, and it's illegal, stop doing it. So, that seems to me an extremely modest request, and I think what he's done is to remind the public that just because Big Brother asks for something doesn't mean that it's necessarily legal. That is actually a separate issue from having either an independent counsel or a congressional committee look into the issues of whether telecommunications monitoring activities have superceded the legal authority of the Executive Branch.
Let's go on from Al Gore and his obvious knowledge and intensity in this area to you. What I'm wondering is how you would perceive your role as a member of Congress in dealing with issues like these. What kind of perspective would you take?
I think that, at the moment, the greatest way to correct all of these civil liberty related errors, all of these judgments, is to first get our troops out of Iraq, and that could be done easily, and secondly, get a Congress that plays an oversight role. That just can't happen with three bodies controlled by one party in Washington. It just can't happen.
We need oversight from Congress rather than rubber stamps, and getting our troops out of Iraq, because we can't really hold the President accountable when he is playing that Commander-In-Chief card. It just sells too well to the American public, and the American public can be made to feel vulnerable by the most modest of manipulation efforts. When we get our troops out, I think we'll be able to have a serious dialogue in this country, and serious investigation into all of the security related oversteps that have occurred in recent years.
You mentioned going back to the subject of getting out of Iraq, and how we could do that. Could you briefly express your opinion on that?
Sure. I spent the month of September, 2004 in Iraq. I never was protected by anyone with a gun. I stayed healthy and free, just by trying to be invisible and by the good will of the Iraqi people. Of every Iraqi I spoke to who could communicate in English, or when my driver was there and I could communicate with them through my driver and he felt it was safe for me to speak English in public, I would ask, "Why do you think the coalition came?" No one, not one person said anything related to Saddam. They thought we had come for two reasons: We came for oil and we came to create a setting of anarchy so that every nefarious element in the region would come and fight us there, rather than fighting us in North America or fighting us in Israel. When, a few months ago, the British military commissioned a poll, they found 82 percent of Iraqis want the coalition gone now, I think it shows us that we do not have either the moral high ground or the minimal support required to be a force of stabilization.
So, I basically agree with John Murtha's assessment that the coalition is the fuel on the insurgency. I think that we could defuel that anger by severing the appearance that we're there for oil. The first and most important thing we could do to get out of Iraq is to, for a five year or a ten year period say that no American corporations will remove any mineral resources or will make any profit from Iraqi minerals or mineral resources. We've done that in Libya and we've done that in Cuba and we've done that elsewhere. It would be easy to do, and it would do so much to remove the perception that those soldiers that they see on the street there are there today actively to loot their oil.
Once that's done, we should set a timetable to get out, and a short timetable, of eight months, twelve months, and make that very public. That will also defuse the impression that we are there just to create a setting of anarchy at the expense of the Iraqi people. I think those two things done in tandem could allow us to exit. It's not going to end with a unified democracy that's feeling wonderful about their government. This can't end well. The issue is would an expedited removal like I just described make things end more peacefully and stably than if we draw out more slowly over the next five years. I think that the answer is yes, that we would end up with a better Iraq, a safer Iraq, and less Iraqis dead by getting out quickly.
I want to turn to your campaign in the 24th District. What I want to understand is, given that there is the potential for as many as five other Democrats vying for the nomination, how you plan on convincing Democrats that you're the right candidate to take on Sherwood Boehlert in the fall. How do you differentiate yourself from the other Democrats who may be running in the district?
Of the five or so candidates who are running at present, I think that, by background and experience, I am quite different than the others. First of all, I'm a public health scientist. That's different in its fundamental nature and in terms of the skills I would bring to Congress. Secondly, I've worked as a local science teacher. I've worked for a State Department of the Environment. I've worked for the Center for Disease Control. I've worked on every level of the federal government. I have testified before Congress. I have briefed the National Security Council repeatedly. I did a study in the Congo that induced a UN resolution within a week of its release. I have worked on the highest level to effect environmental laws and issues of peace and justice.
I think that my national experience and international work have put me in good stead to go toe to toe with any Republican that they put up on the big issues facing the 24th District, which in my mind are the need for a balanced budget, the need for a coherent energy policy, and most importantly, the need for health care reform and particularly the need of everybody in the country to have health insurance. As public health scientist who as an officer for my country has worked in five wars, I think I'm in good standing to address those and the issues of national security that interweave with all of them these days.
What I'd like to know about next is your campaigning style, strategy and organization, and how you see that comparing to the other Democratic candidates, just in terms of your viability for taking on Sherwood Boehlert.
I'm not a professional politician. I'm a scientist. So, first of all, I've hired a professional staff to help me out with all of these processes related to running. So, that's an advantage I have at the moment.
Secondly, I have six more weeks of teaching at Columbia this year, and I have declined all of my work for the rest of the year. I have probably refused $50,000 in contracts for the next calendar year because all I am doing is running for Congress and going out and meeting and greeting people in as many small venues as I can between now and next November.
Finally, I think that as a scientist, I think that as someone who has influenced the world through the things that I have written, I'm going to lay out a series of position papers on how do we get health insurance for all, how do we get out of Iraq, and lay out some pretty detailed plans that could be easily transmitted into legislation for people to struggle with. I just don't see Sherwood Boehlert, or, if he doesn't run, any of the other Republicans actually coming up with their own coherent policies for insuring all or getting us out of Iraq.
thatsmycongress.com
Here is an article about Roberts dropping out of the Congressional race - contains some quotes:
Roberts drops out of 24th District race
Democrat’s decision leaves Arcuri and three Republicans remaining
By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
Chenango County Democrat Les Roberts, 44, withdrew Wednesday from the 24th Congressional District race.
Roberts, of German, said it had become clear to him that Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri was better-funded and supported by Democratic leaders in the district.
"Michael Arcuri is a strong candidate, and I came to the realization that my staying in the race would only make it more difficult for him to win in November," Roberts said Wednesday morning. "I think it’s critically important that we elect a Democrat and that Democrats take control of the House of Representatives."
Roberts said, "Republican control of the Congress and White House in recent years has given us the most destructive governance since the Vietnam War."
The pre-emptive war against Iraq and record deficits fueled by "tax gifts for the richest few" have left the United States greatly weakened, he said.
In recent years, "one-party rule has degraded the Constitution and American civil liberties dramatically," Roberts continued. "We need to do something about that this year."
Roberts said he would try to help Arcuri win in November, and later in the morning, Arcuri had kind words for his former opponent.
"Although it’s helpful to be the only candidate from my party, I’ll miss Les Roberts on the campaign trail," Arcuri said. "He’s very intelligent, very honest, and I know he brought our campaign up a few notches."
Roberts was the third Democrat to leave the race to succeed retiring Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford. Earlier, former Cortland Mayor Bruce Tytler and Utica attorney Leon Koziol ended their campaigns. Koziol is now running for the New York state Senate.
Roberts’ withdrawal leaves four declared candidates in the race: Arcuri and three Republicans: state Sen. Raymond Meier, R-Western; Brad Jones, general manager of ITT Industries-Gould Pumps of Auburn, and Robert "Ken" Camera, an energy consultant from Geneva.
In response to Roberts’ comments, Meier said, "You know, the Democrats in this district continually try to make this race about Washington, but it’s not: It’s about who best reflects the desires and aspirations of the people in the district.
"They’d like to run against Tom DeLay, but they’re not," he said. "They’re running against me."
Meier said he already has been endorsed by Republican committees in Oneida, Cortland and Ontario counties, and by Republican executive committees in Seneca and Herkimer counties.
Jones, the first candidate to enter the race, said, "It looks like that leaves us with two lawyers and me in the race. One lawyer is a career politician, and the other one wants to be. Then we have one businessman who’d like to restore some fiscal responsibility to the federal government."
Camera said, "I can understand the problems Les encountered because it’s tough to run against big money. In my race, I tell people the Republicans have a choice between a candidate with few ideas and lots of money like Ray Meier, and one with lots of ideas and little money, like me."
Typically, GOP leaders have opted for money over ideas, Camera said, but he will stay in the race nonetheless to force a primary, campaigning mostly from his website,
kencamera.us.
Roberts, an epidemiologist whose study of deaths in the Iraq War was published in the British medical journal Lancet, said he doesn’t regret his foray into politics in central New York.
"I’ve found that the Democratic Party of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower are still alive at the grass-roots level, and that’s heartening," he said. "Our local governments are far better and more honestly run than the federal government, and that’s good to see, too."
However, Roberts said he also is more convinced that ever that American elections need immediate reform:
"I think it’s very important that we take the private money out of elections, so candidates can discuss the issues in depth, and voters can find out who they’re really voting for."
thedailystar.com |
