PHYLLIS BENNIS
A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of several recent papers on Iraq at the above web page, Bennis said today: “Having a little sovereignty is like being a little pregnant. Either a country has sovereignty or it doesn’t. Under the U.S. plans, Iraq will not have real sovereignty.”
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DENIS HALLIDAY
Former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and assistant secretary general of the U.N., Halliday resigned in protest in 1998. Currently in New York, he is available until Friday for interviews on developments in Iraq. On the oil-for-food program, he said today: “The real scandal is the sanctions that continued for over a decade. About $20 billion of the oil-for-food money went to Kuwait while Iraqis were dying.”
JONATHAN SCHWARZ
Author of the recent article “Business As Usual,” Schwarz said today: “Many are belatedly conceding that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. But he couldn’t do that now, right? Actually during his recent prime time news conference, he said ‘[Iraq] had long-range missiles that were undeclared to the United Nations.’ Unfortunately for President Bush, that wasn’t true. According to all the information released by the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group, Iraq possessed the same number of undeclared long-range missiles as I do: zero.” Schwarz edits the web page “A Tiny Revolution,” inspired by George Orwell’s statement that every joke is a tiny revolution. For false statements by Bush, Cheney and other administration officials, see: www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record.
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ANDREW RICE
Rice’s brother was killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11. He said today: “What’s the explanation for Bush and Cheney going before the commission together? If they don’t want people to wonder about what they have to hide, then why are they acting like they have something to hide? They said they took the threat seriously before 9-11. If so, why did they not connect the dots well that morning? Why did Bush say ‘that must be some bad pilot’ when he saw the first tower on fire, a generally known terrorist target?” Rice is the chair of the 9-11 Commission Committee for Peaceful Tomorrows.
STANLEY KUTLER
Professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin and author of The Wars of Watergate, Kutler said today: “The White House is saying how magnanimous it is for the president to sit down with the 9-11 commission, to talk before a legislative body, but in fact, everyone on the commission was appointed by the president. It’s political necessity for him to go. Still, he is calling the tune on how this is done, there’s no transcript, so we won’t even know what he said. He clearly doesn’t want to expose himself to public scrutiny.”
SCOTT C. DAVIS
Author of the book The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria, Davis has just recently returned from Syria. He is available to comment on developments there including the recent violence.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
