“You know, I just came in from Baghdad, and there are now over 100 newspapers in the free press in Iraq in a free Iraq, where people are able to say whatever they wish. People are debating, people are discussing — something they have not done for decades.” — Donald Rumsfeld, in response to protesters, Sept. 10. VICTORIA CUNNINGHAM Cunningham is national coordinator for Code Pink. She was among a group of protesters who interrupted Donald Rumsfeld at a Sept. 10 speech in Washington. She said today: “Rumsfeld made an attempt to divert attention from the substance of protests calling…

JAMES PAUL Paul is executive director of the Global Policy Forum, which monitors policy-making at the UN. More Information PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis and the recent article “Back to the UN.” She said today: “Still committed to its war drive in Iraq, Washington stands more isolated than ever. Its trade aims were defeated at the World Trade Organization in Cancun. It faces international outrage following its veto of the mildly worded Security Council resolution challenging Israel’s threat…

PETER HART Hart, who works with the media watch group FAIR, said today: “A review of his statements before, during and after the war reveals that Clark has taken a range of positions — from expressing doubts about diplomatic and military strategies early on, to celebrating the U.S. ‘victory.’” More Information ZOLTAN GROSSMAN Grossman is assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and author of the recent article “Was Gen. Clark Also ‘Unprepared’ for the Postwar?” He said today: “Clark waged a war against Yugoslavia that had similarly shaky motives and consequences as the Iraq…

President Bush is visiting the Detroit Edison coal-burning power plant in Monroe, Mich., this afternoon to promote his air pollution plan called the “Clear Skies Initiative.” [See: abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030915_1081.html] The administration is being criticized by public health, environmental, labor and public interest leaders for recent EPA changes to the Clean Air Act. Among those available for interviews are the following: MEGAN OWENS Field director of the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan, Owens said today: “The government’s own data show that nearly 300 people a year will die prematurely from this plant’s pollution alone, and thousands will suffer asthma attacks, hospital…

ADAM SHAPIRO Shapiro is an activist and organizer with the International Solidarity Movement based in Washington, D.C. In March, 2002 he entered Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound escorting an ambulance during the Israeli siege of Ramallah and ended up trapped inside under attack with President Arafat and over 300 men by Israeli forces. Shapiro spent the first two years of the current Intifada working with Palestinians using nonviolent resistance to the occupation. Shapiro, who is Jewish, is now barred from entering Israel or the occupied territories. During the month of July, Shapiro was in occupied Iraq working on a documentary. More…

On Sept. 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup brought down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The coup began a repressive dictatorship under Gen. Augusto Pinochet that lasted until the end of the 1980s. The following Chileans, living in Northern California, are available for interviews: HECTOR SALGADO A few days after the military coup 30 years ago, Salgado — then a high school student in Chile — was abducted by the secret police for three months. After that, Salgado spent three years imprisoned in the concentration camp of Isla Quiriquina in the south of Chile. Today, Salgado is…

MEG BARTLETT Bartlett is founder of the group Ground Zero for Peace — First Responders Against War. As an emergency medical technician, she responded to 9/11. She said today: “We do not want our experiences to propagate further violence. No one should have to see what I’ve seen. But people around the world have seen it for years. If our job is to protect life, it doesn’t make sense for us to support violence against anyone. The inside of a body looks the same no matter what continent it’s found on. We’ve begun a letter-writing campaign with people who do…

JOEL KUPFERMAN Kupferman is the executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project. He said today: “On September 19, 2001, one day after the EPA declared that the ‘air was safe to breathe,’ we took samples in lower Manhattan and sent them to two respected labs — the results came back with alarmingly high levels of toxins such as asbestos and fiberglass. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the EPA, resulting in 800 pages of raw data which revealed that — in spite of their assurances to the contrary — EPA, OSHA and the…

DAVID POTORTI Potorti is the primary author of the new book September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace. His brother was killed in the World Trade Center. He said today: “With the worst kind of cynicism, George W. Bush continues the hallucinatory link of Iraq to the deaths of our loved ones on Sept. 11…. Calling the invasion of Iraq ‘one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history’ is not just a lie, but a damned lie. Between 6,000 and 10,000 civilians have been killed — two to three times the…

Two senior specialists with the federal Environmental Protection Agency commented Thursday on emerging information about the White House role in early press releases from the EPA about potential health hazards in lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. The comments, by Cate Jenkins and Hugh Kaufman, were released by the Institute for Public Accuracy on Sept. 4, a day after an NBC News interview with Nikki Tinsley, the Inspector General for the Environmental Protection Agency. During the NBC interview, in response to a question about whether an EPA news release soon after 9/11 was misleading, Tinsley said: “It was surely not…