After the revelation: Hersh in first interview with a mainstream media
What is at stake?
The problem for the uncritically pro-NATO part of the mainstream media and others in the NATO camp is that the Nord Stream bombing by definition is a conspiracy, so you can’t use the buzzword ”conspiracy theorists” to get people to stop thinking about who might have carried out the attack.
There can only be various conspiracy theories about the matter and since no one claims to be able to point out Russia anymore and the motives for Russia to have carried out the explosion are the most far-fetched, claiming Russian guilt is a violation of that principle, Ockham’s razor. Ockham’s razor states that if two or more explanations are pitted against each other, the simplest is usually the most probable.
Therefore, this deal has now landed in the lap of the country that has the strongest motives for the explosion, economically and militarily, i.e. the United States. The US also has the easiest access to the crime scene via allies who would never reveal the perpetrator either. So the question that remains is only how far can the Western Europeans go in restricting the matter? That they are content with the whole thing remaining unsolved and how much the media can convince them that it was probably Putin anyway. It has to be so that Westerners can maintain their world view.
What Hersh tells us is something that means that we in the West must reevaluate our view of the world order. Something that the people who work at for instance as here in Sweden the biggest daily, DN probably don’t even consider as an option regardless of what facts would emerge? At least the newspaper, as a journalistic body, will not ask any questions in the direction that might insinuate unpleasant truths about the explosion of the Nord stream. That is a question that should be asked of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Do they try to reach out for the swedish security branch : Säpo that is head of the investigation. Do the paper try to get answers from the Government?
In Hersh’s article, as the editor-in-chief of Filter pointed out, that there are many details that can be followed up and investigated, and that the article’s wealth of detail could indicate the validity of the information. Here follows a translation of the interview with Hersh. From Berliner Zeitung : 14.02.2023 | 17:58 Uhr
Interview with Seymour Hersh: Joe Biden blew up Nord Stream because he didn’t trust Germany
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published a controversial investigation into the Nord Stream attack. We talked to him. An interview.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published an investigation according to which the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines were orchestrated by the US government with the support of Norway. The US government and the CIA, at Hersh’s request, have denied his account. Many media outlets have accused Hersh of not disclosing his anonymous source, making his claims unverifiable. Criticism was also formulated that the research was inconsistent. Berlin publicist Fabian Scheidler spoke to Seymour Hersh for the Berliner Zeitung.
Hersh, please describe your results. According to your source, what exactly happened, who was involved in the Nord Stream attack and what were the motives?
It was a story that begged to be told. At the end of September 2022, eight bombs were to be detonated near the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, six of which went off in a fairly flat area. They destroyed three of the four major Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline has supplied Germany and other parts of Europe with very cheap natural gas for many years. And then it blew up, like Nord Stream 2, and the question was who did it and why. On February 7, 2022, just over two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said at a White House press conference he held with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that the US would stop Nord Stream.
Biden literally said: ”If Russia invades, there will be no Nord Stream 2, we will put an end to the project.” And when a reporter asked exactly how he planned to do that, since the project was primarily under German control, Biden only said, ”I promise we will be able to do it.”
His Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was deeply involved in the events of the Maidan Revolution
, had made a similar statement a few weeks earlier.
You say the decision to shut down the pipeline was made even earlier by President Biden. You write in your report that in December 2021, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called a meeting of the newly formed Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, State Department and Treasury Department task force. You write, ”Sullivan wanted the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines.”
This group was originally convened to study the problem. They met in a very secret office. Right next to the White House is an office building, the Executive Office Building, which is connected to the White House through an underground tunnel. And at the top is an office for a secretive outside group of advisers called the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. I brought this up to signal to the people in the White House that I have information. So the meeting was called to examine what we would do if Russia went to war.
It was three months before the war, before Christmas 2021. It was a high-level group that probably had a different name, I just called it the Interagency Group, I don’t know the official name if there was one. They were the CIA and the National Security Agency, which monitor and intercept communications, the State Department and the Treasury Department, which provide money. And probably some other organizations that were involved. The joint chiefs of staff were also represented. The point was to make recommendations on how to stop Russia, either with reversible measures such as additional sanctions and economic pressure or with irreversible, ”kinetic” measures, e.g. explosions.
I don’t want to go into more detail here or talk about a specific meeting because I need to protect my source. I don’t know how many people attended, you know what I mean?
In your article you wrote that in early 2022 the CIA task force reported to Sullivan’s ”Interagency Group” and said, quote, ”We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”
They had a way. There were people there who knew what we in America call ”mine warfare.” In the US Navy there are units that deal with submarines, there is also a nuclear command. And there is a mining group. The area of underwater mines is very important and we have trained specialists in it. A central location for their education is a small resort town called Panama City in the middle of nowhere in Florida. We train very good people there and employ them. Underwater miners are of great importance, for example to clear blocked entrances to ports and blow up things in the way. You can also blow up a specific country’s underwater petroleum pipelines. It’s not always good things they do
It was clear to the group in the White House that they could blow up the pipelines. There is an explosive called C4 that is incredibly powerful, especially at the level they use. You can control it remotely with underwater sonar devices. These echo sounders emit signals at low frequencies. So it was possible, and it was communicated to the White House in early January, because two or three weeks later, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said we could do it. I think it was January 20th. And then the President, when he held the press conference together with the Chancellor of Germany on February 7, 2022, said that we could do it.
The German chancellor did not say anything concrete at the time, he was very vague. One question I would ask Scholz if I were conducting a parliamentary hearing is this: Has Joe Biden told you about this? Did he then tell us why he was so sure he could destroy the pipeline? As Americans, we didn’t have a plan in place at the time, but we knew we had the ability to do it.
You write that Norway played a role. To what extent was the country involved – and why should Norwegians do such a thing?
Norway is a major shipping nation and they have deep energy sources. They are also very keen to increase their natural gas supplies to Western Europe and Germany. And that’s what they did, they increased their exports. So why not join forces with the US for economic reasons? In addition, there is a pronounced hostility towards Russia in Norway.
In your article you write that the Norwegian intelligence service and the navy were involved. You also say that Sweden and Denmark were informed to some extent, but did not know everything.
I was told: They did what they did and they knew what they were doing and they understood what was going on, but maybe no one ever said yes. I have done a lot of work on this topic with the people I have talked to. Anyway, for this mission to be accomplished, the Norwegians had to find the right place. The divers, who were trained in Panama City, could dive up to 100 meters deep without heavy equipment. The Norwegians found us a place off the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea that was only 260 feet deep to operate there.
The divers had to slowly go back to the top, there was a decompression chamber and we used a Norwegian submarine hunter. Only two divers were used for the four pipelines. One problem was how to deal with the people who monitor the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is monitored very closely, there is a lot of data freely available, so we took care of it, there were three or four different people on it. And what was done next is very simple. For 21 years, our Sixth Fleet, which controls the Mediterranean and also the Baltic Sea, has conducted an exercise for NATO fleets in the Baltic Sea every summer ( BALTOPS, ed.). We send an aircraft carrier and other large ships to these exercises. And for the first time in history, the NATO operation in the Baltics had a new program. A 12-day mine dumping and mine detection exercise was to be conducted. A number of nations sent out minesweepers, one group dropped a mine and another mine group went hunting and detonated it.
So for a time during the exercise, things blew up, and that’s when deep-sea divers who laid the mines on the pipelines could work. The two pipelines are about a mile apart, they’re a little under the seabed mud, but they’re not hard to get to and the divers had been training. It only took a few hours to place the bombs.
The German chancellor did not say anything concrete at the time, he was very vague. One question I would ask Scholz if I were conducting a parliamentary hearing is this: Has Joe Biden told you about this? Did he then tell us why he was so sure he could destroy the pipeline? As Americans, we didn’t have a plan in place at the time, but we knew we had the ability to do it.
You write that Norway played a role. To what extent was the country involved – and why should Norwegians do such a thing?
Norway is a major shipping nation and they have deep energy sources. They are also very keen to increase their natural gas supplies to Western Europe and Germany. And that’s what they did, they increased their exports. So why not join forces with the US for economic reasons? In addition, there is a pronounced hostility towards Russia in Norway.
In your article you write that the Norwegian intelligence service and the navy were involved. You also say that Sweden and Denmark were informed to some extent, but did not know everything.
I was told: They did what they did and they knew what they were doing and they understood what was going on, but maybe no one ever said yes. I have done a lot of work on this topic with the people I have talked to. Anyway, for this mission to be accomplished, the Norwegians had to find the right place. The divers, who were trained in Panama City, could dive up to 100 meters deep without heavy equipment. The Norwegians found us a place off the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea that was only 260 feet deep to operate there.
The divers had to slowly go back to the top, there was a decompression chamber and we used a Norwegian submarine hunter. Only two divers were used for the four pipelines. One problem was how to deal with the people who monitor the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is monitored very closely, there is a lot of data freely available, so we took care of it, there were three or four different people on it. And what was done next is very simple. For 21 years, our Sixth Fleet, which controls the Mediterranean and also the Baltic Sea, has conducted an exercise for NATO fleets in the Baltic Sea every summer ( BALTOPS, ed.). We send an aircraft carrier and other large ships to these exercises. And for the first time in history, the NATO operation in the Baltics had a new program. A 12-day mine dumping and mine detection exercise was to be conducted. A number of nations sent out minesweepers, one group dropped a mine and another mine group went hunting and detonated it.
So for a time during the exercise, things blew up, and that’s when deep-sea divers who laid the mines on the pipelines could work. The two pipelines are about a mile apart, they’re a little under the seabed mud, but they’re not hard to get to and the divers had been training. It only took a few hours to place the bombs.
How did you check your facts?
I worked with the same experienced fact-checkers I used to have at the New Yorker for the current story. Of course, there are many ways to verify obscure information shared with me. The personal attacks on me also miss the point. The point is that Biden has decided to let the Germans freeze this winter. The President of the United States would rather see Germany freeze than Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine, and that, to me, is a devastating thing for this version of the White House.
The point is also that this could be perceived as an act of war not only against Russia but also against Western allies, especially Germany.
I would put it more simply. Those involved in the operation saw that the president wanted to freeze Germany for his short-term political goals, and that horrified them. I’m talking about Americans who are very loyal to the United States. The CIA, as I put it in my article, works for power, not the Constitution.
The political advantage of the CIA is that a president who can’t get his plans through Congress can join the CIA director in the White House Rose Garden to plan something secret that’s on the other side of the Atlantic – or anywhere in the world – can meet a lot of people . That has always been the CIA’s unique selling proposition — which I have a problem with. But even that community is appalled that Biden has decided to put Europe out in the cold to support a war he won’t win. This is unfortunate for me.
You said in your article that the planning of the attack was not reported to Congress, as is necessary with other covert operations.
The matter also went unreported to many in the military. There were people elsewhere who should have been informed but were not. The operation was top secret.
What role does courage play for you in your job?
What is brave about telling the truth? It is not our job to be afraid. And sometimes it gets ugly. There have been times in my life when… – you know, I don’t talk about it. But threats are not directed at people like me, but at children of people like me. It was horrible stuff. But you don’t worry about that, you can’t. You just have to do what you do.
Seymour Hersh, born April 8, 1937 in Chicago, has been one of the world’s most influential investigative journalists for more than half a century. In 1970, he received the Pulitzer Prize for exposing US war crimes in the village of My Lai, Vietnam, which caused a major international outcry. He was instrumental in investigating the Watergate scandal for the New York Times. In 2004, he reported on US torture practices at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, for which he received the prestigious Polk Award.
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