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Quote by Seymour Hersh

“The reality is that Qaddafi has been trying to talk to us about his weapons system for years, and we ignored him. The Libyans even came to me about two years ago and offered me a chance to go through their facilities because they couldn't get anybody's attention here.”

Quote by Seymour Hersh

Author

Seymour Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and author. He is best known for exposing the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, which earned him the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His career spans decades, focusing on uncovering U.S. government secrets and scandals, including the Abu Ghraib prison abuse in Iraq. Known for his deep-dive reporting and challenging official narratives, Hersh has profoundly influenced journalism. more

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“Journalism is a great profession. It's complicated now. People talk about the demise of investigative reporting. I was a judge in some award contest recently, and the stuff that is being done by major newspapers, and local, regional papers around the country, is great. Newspapers play an amazing role in our society, and I still think they are important. I'm sorry newspaper circulation is down. Ultimately, the importance of newspapers can't be replaced.”

“The general assumption, which I think is a valid one, is that a lot of the major media were on their heels a little bit and prone to share the grief of the nation and to give Bush all the support it could.”

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“In America, we met this guy who'd been in the army. He'd been over in the Iraq war. He said that our CD helped him get through a hard time in the Iraq war. It's amazing to know that we helped him in some way. It's definitely cool.”

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“Similarly, the press never tested many of the assumptions about WMDs. One of the great myths about the WMD issue is that everybody believed Iraq had them. Well, that's not true. There were a number of people in the intelligence community and the State Department who were skeptical, and many analysts in the Department of Energy were dubious about Iraq's nuclear capability. There were also people like Scott Ritter who were saying quite accurately what was going on.”

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“The funny thing is, this is what everyone assumes, that anybody who talks has an axe to grind. I've been around a long time, and yes, there obviously are people who disagree with policy who talk to me, but it's less axes to grind than people who are really motivated. One of the terrible things about this Administration is that nobody wants to hear bad news.”

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“Don't do what we did. Make sure it's right and make sure it's what you wanna do. Make sure it's actually a good deal, that you're not going to lose out too much on it.”

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“The neoconservatives are a small circle, and they're all sort of holding hands as they develop their policy, and outsiders aren't allowed. If you agree with the guys on the inside, you're a genius. If you disagree, you're a traitor, a pariah, you're an apostate, and you're not allowed in.”

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“They are people who, by and large, think the Administration's policy - and the Iranian case is a classic one - is very stupid. They can't get that view in, and so by talking to me, they accomplish something. It's a way of saying, this ought to be discussed, we got to get this out. That's a form of patriotism, in a funny way.”

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“Poets should speak out against what we see as the assault against our Constitution and the warmongering that's going on. I'm perfectly willing to lay down my life for my Constitution, but I am not willing to take a life for it or any other reason because I think killing people is counterproductive.”

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“I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center.”

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