Interview with Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, Washington Bureau Chief

July 9th, 2004
Transcription by Marion Paquin

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: All right. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself, and your role here at IPS.
JIM LOBE: I’m Jim Lobe. I’m Bureau Chief for Inter Press Service, which is an international wire service that deals mainly with issues and events of interest to developing countries and people who are interested in developing countries.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, in other words, your main audience are countries -- like super -- like big countries, or those small, developing countries?
LOBE: My main audience is very difficult to define. But in general I write for media -- subscriber media, in developing countries and also in northern Europe and some parts of southern Europe as well which subscribe. But our basic audience are -- is found in -- Sorry, let’s do that again. -- Our basic audience is found in -- among English anglophone papers in East Asia and a number of native language papers in South Asia, in particular, and to some extent Indonesia, in anglophone Africa, and in virtually all of Latin America. [Phone Interruption]

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: During the buildup to the war in Iraq what kind of stories were you covering for your audience then?
LOBE: Well, I would say that my audience broadened after 9/11 because I was particularly interested in the rise of neo-conservatives within the administration and the campaign I felt that they were waging outside the administration. So I started writing about the neo-conservative Project For The New American Century and so on within just a few weeks of 9/11 itself. Because it seemed to me that what the administration was doing in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 had very little to do with the war on Bin Laden or the Taliban, but was part of a much broader strategy. And a little research kind of confirmed my instincts about that. And so I started writing about The Project For The New American Century, for example, and neo-conservative thinking, and tilt toward Israel and so on. And as a result of that my audience expanded beyond my normal Inter Press Service kind of constituency. So I began writing for a number of different web sites, some in the United States, others abroad -- And at a certain moment for the Daily Star, which is an English paper in Beirut which has a large readership in the Middle East as well. Inter Press has never been very strong in that region, so it wasn’t really competitive -- I mean, I wasn’t traducing my responsibilities toward Inter Press. So I found that there was a much bigger audience for the kind of writing I was doing after 9/11.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you started to hear in late August Dick Cheney speaking about this threat from Iraq. And then the public relations campaign that launched in September -- What was your perception of what was happening? Did you trust a lot of what was going on? What were you reporting on?
LOBE: Well, I felt that they were going to go to war -- that to the extent that neo-conservatives -- [Interruption.] I had felt that just by reading back before 9/11, into the 90s -- I mean, I’d already looked at what a lot of key people who were obviously very influential within the administration were writing. It was pretty clear to me that Iraq was indeed probably already conceived of as the major target of the quote War on Terror back in late 2001 already. So, by August of 2002 it was very, very clear indeed. And I was writing essentially at that time on the conflict that had broken out within the administration as to whether there should be a war waged against Iraq. And if so, how it should be waged and how it should be prepared for -- That is, do you go through the UN or, you know, "What are the ways of preparing the ground for the war? " So a lot of what I was writing in the summer of 2002 -- or in the late summer of 2002 -- was about how clear it had become that you had Cheney and Rumsfeld and neo-cons around both of them are going for war. And how clear it was that Powell was dragging his feet. And I think in early August, I think around August 3, that was 3 days I think before Powell finally got a private audience with Bush to persuade him to go through the UN, I wrote an article that actually got some notice that said that I couldn’t understand why Powell remained Secretary of State. That I thought that, I mean, he really was being used as a fig leaf, a reasonable and trusted fig leaf, for really a group of extremists who were determined to take the United States to war.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So when you read the mainstream print media, such as the Washington Post or New York Times, do you see that they didn’t kind of see the same perspective as you, that the war in a sense was going to happen, that it was inevitable?
LOBE: Well, when you talk about the mainstream media you’re really talking about a kind of entity that’s larger than specific reporters or specific editors. And I’m certain that reporters, certainly for the Times or the Post or whatever, had as much information, or more, as I did about what was going on. But the -- I think the issue is that mainstream journalism, as practiced within a certain political framework or cultural framework, in which some things can be said and some things cannot be said. Or some dots can be connected and other dots cannot be connected. And I -- working for essentially an international new agency -- have much greater freedom to connect dots. Whereas, I think people who work for the Times and the Post, particularly those because they are kind of court newspapers, and as a result their relationship with people in power is a much more delicate kind of proposition. They cannot write things that may, on an individual basis, be pretty obvious to them after covering these people for a long period of time.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And you see the reason -- Is that kind of the constraints of the objectivity standard that the journalists here have? Or what do you attribute that to? Why don’t they connect those dots more?
LOBE: Well, I think because there are political realities that are opposed to that kind of dot connection. That is just -- you just can’t say certain kinds of things in certain kinds of atmosphere and expect that your editors are going to let it pass and it’s going to be printed in a newspaper. I mean, I’m not saying there is active censorship. Most of it exists on a self-censorship level, I believe. And people become used to censoring themselves and feeling the political winds and figuring out what they can get away with and what they cannot get away with. I mean, I’ll give you an example -- I don’t know how interesting it may be to you. But if you take -- Sorry -- The fact that Knight Ridder -- which is on the 7th floor of this building -- was way, way ahead of the Times and the Post in terms of reporting on what was going on in the Pentagon, the way Cheney really was exercising a decisive influence within the administration -- the role of someone like Douglas Feith, who’d been really ignored by the Post and the Times for a long, long time. The fact that Knight Ridder was able to do this with a small investigative staff points out the difference between the court newspapers and regional newspapers -- or a chain that’s a little more independent of Washington kind of power circles. Because the same thing happened during the Iran-Contra period. Knight Ridder, whose team -- investigative team was then headed by a Mexican-born reporter, Alfonso Chardy, really had put the basic elements of Iran-Contra together long before the Times and the Post felt they could write about it on a consistent basis. Now, I’m sure that the Times and the Post had a lot of the information that Alfonso Chardy and his group had at the time. But it could not be put together because of the political framework in which the Times and the Post operate.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And do you think part of that framework is maintaining access with the highest officials in government? Do you see an influence there -- that the people who are outside of that access realm have to scramble a little bit more?
LOBE: I think a lot of it has to do with influence, but I think --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry, when you say a lot of it -- what has to do with what?
LOBE: Oh, sorry, yeah... They work in a different political milieu. And the prominence of the Post and the Times, and the way they set the news agenda for the rest of the mainstream media, puts them very much in the spotlight for the powers that be. Whereas Knight Ridder can scurry around the edges more and it doesn’t draw as much attention, and that gives them greater freedom. But -- You take the Post and the Times and they’re almost kind of institutions, institutions in the way arguably that Congress is an institution, and I’m sure you’ve come across the writings of someone like Dan Hallin at the University of California at San Diego who did kind of the best analysis of the Vietnam war and the relationship of the media to a change in the views to that war and so on. And for him, I’m oversimplifying, but the idea was -- That the reporters look to other institutions for, in a sense, what is permissible to report and what is not -- particularly elite reporters... If it’s a matter of, say, foreign policy, the institution they look to -- for in a sense "permission" as to whether they can publish dissent -- is Congress and the opposition party in the Congress. And I think the question they raise -- though again not on a conscious level, I think it’s part of the censorship process -- is "Is there a credible weight in the opposition party, a credible number of opposition party people who are raising these questions?" And if they find "Yes, there is," then they’ll begin dot connecting, and they can do that pretty efficiently. But if they find that there isn’t -- that the minority dissenting views in Congress are hardly heard -- the media will not go out on its own. The elite media, the real agenda-setters like the Post and the Times, won’t go out on its own and kind of plant the flag and say "Look what’s going on here -- this is awful." And what’s funny is I think that Congress, people in Congress, often look to the press for a similar signal as to whether they can go forward and plant flags and say, "This is really bad." And at the level of the Times and the Post you really are talking about kind of an institutional self-conception that’s like that -- looking for other institutions to validate what is okay and what is not okay.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And in the case of the war in Iraq after the resolution was passed in early October there was only a few dissenting viewpoints -- So do you see after that time period, since there wasn’t a lot of opposition, therefore that a lot of the press just followed suit?
LOBE: Right. I mean -- They had a lot of options. They could really dig, as Knight Ridder did. I’m citing Knight Ridder because it did the best and consistently the best job of really investigating what were the roots of this policy, and what was going on that was highly unusual in the policy making process -- Sorry, I lost the beginning of the sentence.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Yeah. Just kind of recap, after October --
LOBE: Yeah. I remember. Yeah. The media had a lot of options as to how it was going to cover the run-up to what was almost certainly going to be a war. And they could have done as Knight Ridder did, which was really putting a lot of investigative resources and good people into finding out what was going on behind the scenes -- Why were we going to war? What was the root of all of this? What was going on in the Pentagon in terms of doing the strangest things with intelligence? What was outside of kind of accepted rules of institutional behavior that made this so extraordinary? Or they could decide, as most of the media did, that they would really get involved in kind of the mechanics of war preparation -- Embedding their journalists into parts of the Army that would then be involved in the invasion. And obviously the latter was the easier course, particularly when the only person who was trying to raise hell in Washington, D.C. was Robert Byrd, and to some extent Al Gore and Senator Kennedy. I mean, these such small voices, although prominent people, but nonetheless the fact that people weren’t following them made them easy to marginalize in the mind of mainstream media. -- I should also back up for a second. I’ll say something very ... off-the-wall in a sense. I’ve studied a lot on my own about foreign policy coverage by the mainstream US media in the last century -- and particularly the foreign policy coverage of the third world. And I kind of concluded, not that I’m the master of this, but in looking at a number of different crises or foreign policy issues over long periods of time, I kind of concluded that people fundamentally misunderstand the function of mainstream media, and indeed journalists themselves I think misunderstand it. I think the function of mainstream media is by and large to confirm people’s existing prejudices each day about how the world works. As opposed to providing new information that would challenge those fundamental prejudices -- or as Walter Lippman called them "stereotypes" that all of us carry around inside of us, and that are mostly culturally defined. I think you can only come to that conclusion when you see the existence of the same story lines, the same stereotypes, brought up again and again and again over long periods of time with respect to this or that enemy -- rather than serious challenging of those kinds of stereotypes or story lines.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, when you’re covering it you’re working outside of those blinders in a way. Do you try to challenge the viewpoints of a lot of the cultural biases?
LOBE: Well, I mean, I’m a product of the culture too, and to that extent my coverage is going to be affected by what my -- you know, what my cultural upbringing says is possible or impossible. I mean -- To me, for example, it is inconceivable that the Bush administration would have been behind the 9/11 attacks. Now, if I were brought up in an entirely different culture I might not be nearly as dismissive of the notion. But being American-born and American-bred and having watched Mickey Mouse Club and read standard US texts in the 50s and early 60s -- It’s just inconceivable to me that an American administration would do an atrocity like that deliberately. I just can’t get my mind around it. But others, I’m willing to accept that others outside the culture, who didn’t watch Mickey Mouse Club, would think that "Well, it could be possible."

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Going back to the dot connecting leading up to the war in Iraq. It seems to me that the mainstream media wasn’t asking a lot of questions as to why -- the root causes. You know, looking beyond what the administration was saying with the weapons of mass destruction. So from your vantage point -- from what you’ve looked at -- from the connections with Israel, for example, or oil? What do you see as some of the reasons as to why this war happened?
LOBE: I viewed it -- I viewed the notion that the Bush administration wanted the oil in Iraq as pretty ridiculous from the beginning. If for no other reason that it was very clear that oil companies, or the people who were very closely associated with big oil, like James Baker, were raising all kinds of red flags about the decision to invade Iraq. I mean -- or for that matter Brent Scowcroft who was probably the most articulate and influential. I mean he represents a lot of big interests that are associated with oil, and he was very clearly opposed to the whole idea. So to me -- I can’t remember when I wrote an article, but I wrote an article I think called something like "Of Israel and Of Intimidation." And I saw the primary motives for going to war as 1) An effort to kind of decisively reshape the balance of power or forces within the Middle East in Israel’s favor. And that I think was the principal motive of what is called the mainline neo-conservative movement and the Christian right, which pretty much has deferred to the neo-conservatives on the issues having to do with Israel. But I also saw it as part of a larger geostrategic strategy that dates back to a paper that was written by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, who is Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and a very smooth operator -- a paper that they wrote while they were both serving in the Pentagon in 1992 -- which essentially calls for the United States to ensure that – Sorry. I’ll go back -- In 1992 Wolfowitz and Libby, Libby being Scooter Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, wrote a notorious kind of paper which was then kind of quashed by the older Bush administration, proposing that strategically the United States maintain its dominance -- its military dominance over Eurasia and prevent the rise of any conceivable rival -- not just on a global basis but even on a regional basis. And that the key to doing that was to assert a mastery or a dominance of vital-- of areas that held vital natural resources that would be needed by any rival in order to develop to an extent that it could threaten US power. And in that respect, I think the decision to go into Iraq was an attempt to be a kind of demonstration project, particularly to China to say, "You desperately need oil, and local sources will not give you enough oil for your development. You will have to rely on Gulf oil, and we can cut it off if absolutely necessary. So it is much better to deal with us and to take fully into account what we want than to try to challenge us, because we can really do to you and your economy immense damage if we feel that it is in our interest." So I think it was serving a kind of regional purpose in favor of Israel’s military dominance of the region and hopefully political acceptance by the region and its ability to dictate terms of a final peace agreement between it and the Palestinians and it and the Arab world in general. And then a more global strategy which was to show that potential rivals really could not hope to threaten the United States in any way. Because the United States was able to strike them where it hurt the greatest -- where it would hurt their economy the most.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So just to kind of summarize that point. What I get is -- Is it’s about oil, --
LOBE: It’s really long, huh?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: -- but it’s about preventing other people from getting that oil, not necessarily the United States using it for our own economy. --
LOBE: Right.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: -- So if you could just summarize that.
LOBE: Yeah -- There was this regional strategy, and then there was this larger, global strategic strategy, which was essentially to prevent the emergence of a rival power by demonstrating to such potential powers that it could cut off their supply of oil and gas -- supplies that they desperately needed to really become competitive with the United States. This strategy of denying possible rivals energy resources has a history. We now know that plans for intervention in Saudi Arabia during most of the Cold War were not so much based on the idea of securing that oil for the United States as it was of actually destroying oil wells or capping them in ways that the Soviet Union could not use them, ever. So the sense of the denying of resources that rivals would need doesn’t just date from the Gulf war.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Can you kind of talk about the neo-conservative viewpoint of wanting to maintain a superpower status economically and militarily and the importance of that to the neo-conservative movement?
LOBE: I think it’s a complicated -- The notion -- The larger geostrategic strategy is not just a neo-conservative notion. I see neo-conservatives -- the core of the movement as revolving around and being based upon certain ideas around the fate of Jews after the Holocaust -- a very important aspect of which is Israel. And I should say these are neo-conservatives who are both Jews and Gentiles -- feel a special kind of moral obligation around that issue. The larger geostrategic issues -- or strategy is, as I say, is not solely neo-conservative. It’s people like Donald Rumsfeld, who’s certainly not a neo-conservative. They’re enthusiastic about this. Aggressive American nationalists have always favored the idea of American domination or supremacy at the global level if possible. So to me this is not a particularly neo-conservative idea. However, in a sense, the search for the kind of security that is supposed to come with the idea of military supremacy and dominance, I think does come -- is also at the core of the neo-conservative movement. And personally, I believe also comes out of the experience of Jews -- particularly in the 20th century and particularly as relating to the Holocaust. There is a kind of need for absolute security, which they believe is ultimately -- will be determined by military force. That is one of the lessons they take from the rise of Nazism, Munich and the Holocaust itself -- That you really need to -- That ultimately the only real way to really protect yourself is through force. And by having military power and military dominance, because then potential Hitlers will never dare to challenge you. And I think a part of that also, for the neo-conservatives, is the belief that the United States is morally superior -- That is, it’s better to have a dominant -- to exercise -- It’s better for there to be a dominant military power of the morality of the United States than to have a kind of multi-polar world in which powers that are not nearly as moral as the United States -- like France, like China, like Russia -- can actually get their way -- that that’s necessarily going to be bad for the world. They equate American influence with goodness in the world. To me, neo-conservatives have a much, much more of a moral vision of foreign policy than a political vision. They exist in a moral world rather than in a world of politics -- although they play the political game very well -- I didn’t explain that very well, did I?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well, I guess -- To me, what I’m getting is that -- There seems that there’s a lot of emphasis on military security, and then a de-emphasis of international law -- trying to abide by international law... Can you talk about the military versus international law perspective?
LOBE: Yeah. This also -- The question of international law and multilateral institutions that are supposed to be reciprocal in nature and create international law together is a notion that illustrates the moral dimension of neo-conservative thought, in any event. I think again, the neo-conservatives took the lessons of the Nazi period and the Holocaust as meaning that ultimately international law doesn’t mean anything -- That ultimately it is just a piece of paper that can be torn up, and that what really matters is military force. And if Britain and France would have had overwhelming military power in the mid-to-late 30s and were willing to exercise that power, then Hitler would have gone nowhere. And they derive -- Therefore, they believe that it is the responsibility of democratic states -- which because they are democracies are already considered superior to autocratic states or totalitarian states in a moral sense -- it is for them to become militarily very powerful, to deter potential autocrats or Hitlers from getting anywhere. And as to the international law part -- or the multilateral institutions, I think their view is based more or less again on the sense of morality. They believe that the United States and Israel -- whose fates they say explicitly are kind of linked on a moral plane -- are bringers of good to the world. And that the United States on its own has the highest morality. And the more it extends its influence in the world the better off the rest of the world will be -- in a moral sense. And therefore, they would think that it’s kind of "immoral" for the United States to constrain its freedom of action -- its freedom to bring goodness to the world by agreeing to restrain its actions by lesser powers who are not as moral as the United States -- Didn’t explain it very well--

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Just to recap that point where you’re talking about, you know -- Bringing democracy at gunpoint essentially in Iraq. They’re going to go bring good and democracy to Iraq with a gunpoint, but yet --
LOBE: Well, you see, I think that’s really a difficult issue -- Well, because -- An aside -- They use democracy, I think, primarily as a way of rallying opinion behind them. I’m not sure they care that much about democracy. They prefer it to other forms. If all their other interests will be taken care of, democracy is really -- is a good thing. But they’re more -- But again, I think they’re operating on a somewhat different plane. And the issue is -- By definition, if the United States extends its influence, the world will be a better place in a moral sense -- the world will be more redeemed, to use a Puritan word that dates from the beginning of the country. This isn’t just a neo-conservative idea about America’s goodness and its mission in the world, but the neo-cons really adopted this in a big way -- or jumped on it. If the United States agrees to a piece of paper -- to abide by a piece of paper that, for example, would lead to its inability to have the most powerful weapons in the world -- It is, by definition, an immoral proposition. Because it means that the United States is constrained from being more powerful -- from being militarily dominant. And ultimately the world will be better if the United States is militarily dominant. I think that is one of the points I made -- or I would make. If the United States agrees to constrain its action with the UN Security Council -- that it will only go to war if the UN Security Council votes to approve the war -- that is, by definition, immoral. And they have a point in a way, because let’s take the example now of Darfur in the Sudan. And let’s assume that we can all agree that genocide is taking place in Darfur at the moment. But China gets a lot of oil from Sudan, and China will not be happy about the idea of an intervention in Sudan. And would probably be willing to veto a Security Council resolution. Should the United States defer to China’s calculation of its national interest in vetoing the Security Council? No. If you accept there is a genocide going on, you have an obligation to intervene -- a moral obligation to intervene -- that takes us right back to the Holocaust. Right? So they’re saying the idea that the United States should sacrifice its moral greatness to a Security Council that consists of moral lessers -- or amoral countries like France, they always cite France, or Russia or China -- is, by definition, immoral.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When I talked to Human Rights Watch they make a distinction where they actually support humanitarian interventions when there is an imminent genocide or one ongoing. But in the case of Iraq, there was no imminent genocide -- It happened ten years ago. And when they tried to indict Saddam as a war criminal -- it didn’t happen -- so there’s legal options there. But in the case of Iraq, it wasn’t just a simple veto. It was the majority of not only the Security Council, but the world.
LOBE: No, I mean, I’m not necessarily saying the neo-conservative position on this is right. I’m trying to depict what I think is their world view, and the best way to defend their world view about the question that you raised about international law and constraining US behavior to multilateral institutions. I mean, I think that’s right. The United States went to war for aggressive purposes. And that the UN Security Council could see that and was prepared to vote in a majority, and a pretty overwhelming majority, against approving the US going to war -- I think makes the case that it was an aggressive war even stronger than it would otherwise be. But again, if you are of a mindset -- And I’m not saying that this is the case with Iraq, if you are -- [Interruption]

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So, you were talking about neo-conservative thought in a way towards the UN in regards to Iraq.
LOBE: Right. I think I just made the point that the fact that the Security Council voted -- or was prepared to vote so overwhelmingly against intervention makes stronger the notion that this was indeed a war of aggression. But, that said, again you have to ask yourself, "Well, what do you do about a situation like Sudan with respect to the US obligation to either defer to or to defy the UN Security Council?" I mean, I think it’s hard to defend the notion that the United States should at all times defer to the UN Security Council, but many people believe -- who oppose this war, believe that should be the US position.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. Yeah, I think I --
LOBE: I mean, there is also an argument that I’ve heard, especially in Europe, is that -- I think Human Rights Watch is right that there should be -- to say that there is a number of criteria that should be satisfied before you decide to defy the UN Security Council. But ultimately you should defy the UN Security Council if the moral situation requires it. Again, a lot of the human rights movement, I think, exists in a kind of moral world that was largely defined by the Holocaust. But, the cost to international law and to the health and strength of multilateral institutions of that is potentially very great.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you talk about the moral motivations of the neo-conservatives -- or even the conservatives, if you want to -- everyone who supported --
LOBE: I wouldn’t use the word "conservatives" with respect to the Iraq war. Because I think most American conservatives in the true sense opposed it.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so -- And I’ve notice you’ve done some writing for Lew Rockwell …
LOBE: No, I don’t write for Lew Rockwell. He republishes stuff that I write.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Oh. Okay. So you yourself are not necessarily a libertarian?
LOBE: No, I’m not a libertarian.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, so you make that distinction between kind of a libertarian perspective versus the true conservative perspective on military intervention?
LOBE: No, I mean -- Again, I think the true conservative -- I think neo-conservatives are radicals in a lot of ways in that they don’t have much respect for history -- that to the extent that they take history into account at all in assessing what to do or what not to do in a given situation -- It’s completely dominated by the rise of Nazism in Germany and what followed from that. And that they’re just not that sensitive to the particularities of regions and different cultures and different histories that makes up the complexity of the world. I think that’s one of the reasons they have made mistakes constantly over the last 30 years in assessing different crisis areas -- and so on. I think conservatives tend either to be realists of the Scowcroft and Baker variety, which is a very pragmatic assessment of how to maintain stability in any particular region so that you do not -- so that your national interests in that stability are not prejudiced in any way -- or who are more conservative than that in the sense that "We really should respect national and cultural traditions that we don’t understand. And we shouldn’t try to radically alter them overnight, least of all through military intervention." I think that’s what conservatism -- or conservative foreign policy would normally be. But what we’ve seen in the last -- since 9/11 is a much more radical approach to foreign policy. I mean, never in American history has the idea been that you need overwhelming military force at all times to be able to project anywhere in which your interest may be affected, has that held much sway. You can argue that when the United States first began looking overseas and fought its first kind of imperial war, which was 1898 to 1902, the Spanish American War -- You can say that with respect to the Caribbean basin there was a desire to assert military supremacy in that way, but that was a relatively brief period. As you know, most times after major wars in the United States there’s been a major -- huge demobilization and so on. We’ve never really demobilized. We’re in Terra Incognita now. Under no circumstances would I call the means that have been used to pursue US foreign policy since 9/11 "conservative."

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at how the administration tried to manufacture consent and the different persuasion tactics that they used -- you know, links with Al Qaeda and directly with 9/11 -- insinuating that. But also with weapons of mass destruction. When you are evaluating these claims during the buildup -- How did you cover that? Were you skeptical? Or did you believe that they had weapons of mass destruction? Or what were your thoughts during that time period?
LOBE: I think on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, I was surprised that none were found. I think I had pretty much accepted that, in part because I never really focused on the issue in my coverage. I mean, I talked with Scott Ritter a couple of times, but I think that came after the war. I was paying a little attention to what he and a few others were saying. But probably not as much as I should under the circumstances. On the question of Al Qaeda -- Yeah, I was writing stuff that said that the case looked full of holes, and I was very attentive to that part of the equation. I was just never persuaded. And at one point, I did a rather long article -- quite long article for my purposes -- on how this notion of the Al Qaeda connection -- and particularly with respect to 9/11, you know -- how it originated. How it got into the media. And it was clearly people who were neo-conservatives who were both outside the administration and inside the administration had access -- very excellent access to the administration, including classified data. I mean, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Bill Kristol were -- the first two were on the Defense Policy Board, and Bill Kristol who’s very close to both of them. They were all saying within 24 hours that -- you know, basically saying, ‘Iraq must have played some role in this.’ And it was very clear to me that there was an orchestrated campaign to link the two. So I was very suspicious of it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. When talked a little bit about the institutional irregularities at the Pentagon, such as the "stovepiping" and Office of Special Plans -- Was that on your radar as … against the war or even after? What kind of insights do you have on the "going outside of the regular rules" of intelligence flow up the chain of command?
LOBE: Well, I mean -- To me it is pretty clear. I mean, I had a couple of sources myself, but for reporting on this thing us, you tip your hats to in this case Knight Ridder --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay, I’m sorry, when you say "this," --
LOBE: Sorry. On the question of the misuse of the intelligence and the Office of Special Plans, and the other groups -- I mean, What pretty much helped me understand it of course was Sy Hersch’s article in the New Yorker and the coverage of Knight Ridder, and then I had a long interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, who obviously had kind of an inside look at all of this. And I still think a great deal remains to be made public about how this worked. But for me it was an issue that was naturally interesting, just because I’ve naturally been interested in neo-conservatives for almost 30 years. And this seemed to be an example of how they would work. I mean, essentially what they were creating was another "Team B" within in the government. Team B being a reference to the mid-70s, which was used to discredit the CIA’s estimates about the Soviet Union. I mean, that was a classic kind of neo-conservative maneuver in conjunction with people like Donald Rumsfeld, to marginalize what the professional intelligence people were telling the Ford administration. And make the Soviet Union look much more dangerous than it really was. And the way in which they kind of replicated this in the run-up to the war within the administration -- within the Pentagon and the Vice President’s office effectively -- just kind of matched that perfectly. And it was also reminiscent of Iran-Contra. I mean, if you don’t like what the professionals or Congress is telling you, then create your own institutions to tell you the things you want to hear -- or what you want to do in the case of Iran-Contra. And in fact, there was overlap between some of the personalities who were involved in Iran-Contra and these guys, like, you know, Ledeen being a consultant to the Pentagon during this period and that he helped facilitate contact with Manucher Ghorbanifar, who is one of the central people in the Iran-Contra period. I mean, it was like too good to be true.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: [Interruption] ... Can you talk about -- A lot of the framing of the issue now is that it was an intelligence failure. Can you talk a little bit about your sense of what’s happening with that? And does it go beyond "Just being presented with bad information?"
LOBE: Well, I think the story of the day today is that the CIA failed massively, and particularly on the weapons issue. And I don’t think there is much question of this. But again, this is an institution -- We’re talking about institutions which consist of people who make decisions. And they make decisions within a larger political framework. And the degree to which the political framework on this said, "You’ve got to find reasons for going to war." I think was a little overwhelming to an institution, even one that is supposed to pride itself on its independence, like the CIA. And particularly when you’ve got a very political head of the CIA like George Tenet, who will not -- has proven that he would not stand up to political pressure on behalf of his analysts. I think as we find out more about how the White House used intelligence and what intelligence it got from what sources -- We’ll find again that the professionals were much more on target about the actual state of affairs in Iraq or with relationship with Al Qaeda or even on weapons of mass destruction than the amateurs who were brought in by the Pentagon -- by Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz to find the intelligence that they needed to justify what they wanted to do.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you mentioned Israel earlier, I think one of the challenges as a filmmaker is -- Since it’s not covered at all -- the issue of Israel is hardly ever gone into in depth. Could you give kind of an overview of why we support Israel and why we would have gone to war in Iraq to protect Israel? -- kind of link those two in the context of the buildup to the war in Iraq.
LOBE: Well, I think Israel is a very sensitive issue in public discourse in this country -- Israel and anti-Semitism. And if you say certain kinds of things, you will undoubtedly be accused by people of being "anti-Semitic" Or in a case like mine "a self-hating Jew." I think, I mean, for one -- Well -- I think that the question of "Why it’s so sensitive" is a very difficult and politically charged one to answer. But I mean I can say, just as an example, I got a call from an assistant producer of a major network public affairs show -- which I cannot -- it was one of the commercial networks -- quite early, well before the Iraq war -- saying that this person had been reading my stuff and said that -- you know, she’s pretty persuaded by what I was writing -- that the neo-conservatives were driving the policy, that one of their main goals was their notion of enhancing the security and power of Israel in the region, and ending one of its alleged threats to its existence. But when that person took it up as a potential story, I mean it was immediately knocked down as -- either a kind of a preposterous notion that had conspiracy theory elements to it -- although I don’t see necessarily any conspiracy -- and -- Or b.) that it was just to politically sensitive to raise because the costs for raising it would be severe. I mean, General. Anthony Zinni made that abundantly clear in his famous interview -- of what? 6 weeks ago -- on 60 Minutes that, you know, just by suggesting that those people who favored the war might have the interests of Israel as well as the United States in mind -- just for even suggesting that he was labeled an anti-Semite and even a traitor in certain circles. So the costs can be very great, and that has an intimidating effect on public discourse. And I think neo-conservatives in particular have been very effective at making that -- making talk of that very difficult -- or the consequences very severe. I mean, I can tell you before the war and during the war, I was interviewed by Australian Broadcasting Company, by British Broadcasting Company, which produced a very big documentary that created enormous controversy even within the UK, but in the case of those two, as well as a couple of others, the principal issue was "Who are the neo-conservatives? What do they think? What is their relationship, if any, with Israel? What kind of -- I mean, not in terms of a subversive relationship or an underhanded relationship. But how does Israel fit into their world, and particularly into their enthusiasm for this war?" -- and so on. And even in those two countries, the programs that resulted from that created considerable controversy. And I understand from the BBC program that ran, in which I was one of probably seven or eight people who were interviewed, Richard Perle and a couple of other people at American Enterprise Institute said they would never talk to the BBC again because they considered it so anti-Semitic. And that’s a very -- To be charged with anti-Semitism is essentially to be charged with evil. I mean, it’s about as bad an epithet in the post-Holocaust environment as one can be accused of. And it makes people reflect and feel very bad about any notion that they may have leant succor to anti-Semites or anything like that. It’s a heavy, heavy charge. And I think that rules over a lot of this.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I just want to get that -- You know, clarify and just get that as a -- you know, encapsulate the idea that a major network came to you and wanted to do a story on some of the writing that you were doing --
LOBE: Well, not a network qua network, right? But a person who worked in the network. Before the Iraq war --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay. So just recap that again. And the reason why it got killed -- Because you think that Israel was too controversial of an issue -- it’s too conspiratorial. It’s not in the New York Times or Washington Post so it’s outside the mainstream.
LOBE: Well, I mean, I can’t say why it was killed. But an assistant producer came and said that that person had been reading my material, and had become persuaded that really ‘This was a war that --’ as Tom Friedman in the New York Times told an Israeli newspaper, ‘If you had taken 24 individuals and put them on a desert island in early 1982, this war would not have happened.’ I mean, Friedman said as much as that. And I was arguing at the time that -- If you look at the writings of Project for a New American Century and other groups of people -- who signed the Project’s statements and so on -- are affiliated with, you can see that there is a relatively small group of people -- some of whom are in the administration and some of whom are outside the administration -- who really want this war, for these reasons. One of them having to do with enhancing the security of Israel, and changing the balance of power in the region in its favor in a decisive manner. And this person was persuaded by what I was writing apparently. And raised the possibility of taking on this question of "What is the Project for the New American Century? And who are the people who are involved in it? And what have they said to higher-ups in the organization?" And it was immediately quashed. And this was before the war. Now I think it would probably get more of a hearing, particularly when you have Zinni on "60 Minutes." I mean, people would take it more seriously in the mainstream press because it’s more respectable to say that. But I would also argue that the Post and the Times have still not really dealt with that question of "What is the Project for the New American Century? Who are these people? And what other associations have they been involved with? And what positions have they and these associations taken over the years with respect to the Middle East? -- or even respect to the Israel/ Palestinian issue and so on." Do they -- Are their views consistent with that of the Bush administration, that the Palestinians should have their own viable state? In many cases the answer is "No." -- as an example. And again, it is just a matter of connecting dots. But you don’t have to be conspiracy-minded. They have left a very public paper trail. It’s very easy to put the dots together. This is certainly not a conspiracy, because it’s all on the record -- which raises the question of why can’t the Post and the Times still, after all this time, really examine that record?

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So you see that they’re really only doing day-to-day events and not looking at the record over time or history in general? Like there’s not a lot of investigative reporting going on? --
LOBE: -- They’re choosing not to look at a history of which they -- some of them must be aware. I mean, you know, Look at the Judith Miller, which I’m sure you’re spending a lot of time on. But look, they’re -- As you probably know, there is this public relations firm that was put together in 2001. Elena Benador, whom I interviewed and who is a perfectly charming person, she runs essentially a public relations firm for a Who’s Who of prominent neo-conservatives. It’s amazing who she’s lined up. And all of them are kind of polemicists. I mean, they are people whose positions are very well known. But in the middle of this list, as of as late as mid-2002, there was Judith Miller. She was the only straight journalist in the entire group that consisted of people like Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle and James Woolsey, and all of the people outside the administration who were cheerleading the war. [END OF TAPE]