The great American reporter Seymour Hersh is at war with the American military over his j’accuse in the New Yorker that a much-lauded general, now a member of President Clinton’s cabinet, ordered his troops to fire on retreating Iraqis on the eve of the Gulf war ceasefire in 1991.
Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, has denied accusations such as the machine-gunning of 350 disarmed Iraqi prisoners. “Why are we shooting at these people when they are not shooting at us?” says one of his men on a tape quoted by Hersh. “It’s murder,” says another.
The allegations against McCaffrey suggest he was a bad apple. In fact, the enduring open secret of the Gulf war was that it was not a war at all, rather an epic act of homicide. A great deal of propaganda has been devoted to covering up this truth and promoting so-called smart weapons, as if war has finally become a science. The bombing of the Al-Amiriya bunker in Baghdad in February 1991, incinerating more than 300 people, mostly women and children, was a case in point; it was blamed on Saddam Hussein and said to be a “military
— source johnpilger.com | john pilger | 26 Jun 2000