BBC's "Five Live?Up All Night" interview program again had American Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche as its guest on June 9. discussing the LaRouche campaign press release calling for Cheney's impeachment. After requesting a six-minute taped interview, BBC expanded it to twelve minutes, and aired the entire thing. The interview immediately followed an ABC News report from the United States, discussing the false intelligence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Host Rhod Sharp concluded the interview by saying, "That was Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. There's lots of LaRouche on the web, and you should read about it."
BBC Host Rhod Sharp: Well, first of all, you know, I'm really curious; I'm delighted to talk to you. What have you been up to all these years? Because you've been out of the public limelight for some time.
LaRouche: Well, that's only in the press. I've been, actually, quite active: As you probably know, at the last accounting, I was the number-one candidate for the 2004 Democratic Party Presidential nomination?
BBC: By whose count is that, Mr. LaRouche?
LaRouche: Well, it was done on the basis of the calculations of the number of financial supporters I have, which exceeds that of my putative rivals.
BBC: Good grief! So, you have more financial support right now, than, say, Senator Kerry?
LaRouche: Well, not totally, but more than most. But actually, I'm fourth in total finances, but some of the other fellows have what are called "big-pocket" supporters, and that's the difference. But, in terms of popular support, financial support, I have the largest number. I think that says something, actually.
BBC: What is it that's made you declare yourself, what you call a pre-candidate for 2004?
LaRouche: Well, I did that, actually, at the beginning of the year 2001, when, by a very peculiar set of circumstances, Mr. Bush was becoming our President. And I saw what was coming; and I saw two things of interest: first of all, that Mr. Bush would be incompetent on economic policies, which I think he's fairly well proven, so far; and that he might be a subject for somebody trying to pull something like a February 1933 Reichstag [Fire] on the United States?something like what happened.
BBC: What a minute! That's scary talk!
LaRouche: Of course it is. It was scary then, in 1933. As a matter of fact, we're living through a period in which, from the standpoint of the United Kingdom, you've been looking back to the cooperation between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the very difficult time, in 1939-40, and so forth, in which there was danger that some fellows in the United Kingdom would collaborate with Hitler and some people in France, which would have been a disaster. And we're in a similar type of situation now, though not the same pattern.
In the United States, we have people who unfortunately have the kind of mentality which Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt abhorred at that time.
BBC: I mean, are you comparing George Bush, or any of the people around him, to Goebbels and Himmler, and all that gang?
LaRouche: Not Bush. I think Bush is a man known to be of limited mental capabilities, and not capable of very elaborate conspiracies, let alone, reading a map. Whereas, Mr. Cheney, who is the Vice President, is, very much under the gun right now, with a possible very serious charge presented against him?not only by me, but by some other people, such as coming from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, headed by Mr. Brent Scowcroft.
BBC: What is that charge?
LaRouche: Well, first of all, as you know, Cheney, on receipt of a report processed out of the Rome Embassy of the Niger government, was investigating a charge that "yellow cake" was being solicited for assistance in a uranium weapons program in Iraq.
BBC: And "yellow cake" is the most primitive form of uranium, is that right?
LaRouche: Right, precisely. And Cheney had an investigation of this done, and found out shortly, in February of 2002, that the whole thing was a hoax cooked up by some fellow inside the Rome Embassy, in particular. But, nonetheless, on the 24th of September 2002, the "yellow cake" thing was pushed. And on the same day, the office of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a dossier based on this false information.
Subsequently, Mr. Cheney, in times when the question of the Iraq war was being heavily debated, pushed this "yellow cake" story, consciously, knowing that he had received information that it was a hoax!
BBC: And that dossier?I mean, the dossier that Tony Blair issued?was quite largely discredited, in a matter of weeks, wasn't it? It was very, very quickly discredited.
LaRouche: Absolutely. But this thing kept going. And it was used, particularly at a time when the Congress was very reluctant to give its consent, or acquiescence?I wouldn't say consent?acquiescence to an Iraq war, and the yellow cake story?the charge that Iraq was about to have mass production of nuclear weapons?pushed a number of Senators over the edge. And now we have Congressman Waxman, in the past year, has sent out two memos to the President on this issue, the most recently on June 2 of this year. And this coincides with the PFIAB investigation by Brent Scowcroft of this, under our law. We don't have a treason law of the type that you find in Europe, because we're very sensitive about defining treason in the form of the Constitution.
But, nonetheless, what Mr. Cheney is accused of would be tantamount to treason under many European governments. That is, lying to official institutions of government, to manipulate them into launching a war, as?
BBC: Can't you argue, or couldn't you argue on Mr. Cheney's behalf, that he was getting a great many intelligence reports, and he had to take them as he found them, because he had to trust his intelligence?
LaRouche: Well, the problem is this: Mr. Cheney's motives are very much in doubt. He, since 1991, had been pushing, unsuccessfully early on, for an extended war against Iraq, and a general Middle East war, of the type that has occurred recently. He committed to push that when he was out of office, into 1996. And then, immediately after, or, on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, brought the whole thing up again, and Afghanistan was used for drawing European forces into collaboration for what was intended to become an Iraq war.
So, the point was, there was an intent to get an Iraq war, in defiance of every procedure of international law, including United Nations provisions on such wars. And Mr. Cheney was the most active proponent of this. And he was pushing, actively, false information, personally and publicly, which he knew to be false at the time.
Now, this is a very serious matter. As I said, it's an impeachable charge against the Vice President of the United States. And right now, I think, there are some people in the United States who are of a disposition, if not to impeach Mr. Cheney, at least to persuade him that it would be time to go out and take care of his potato patch, and leave government alone.
BBC: How do you find people are responding to you? Because it's fair to say that you've always been on a extreme wing of the Democratic Party, indeed, if some people have viewed you as a Democrat at all. Now, you're also regarded as a arch-conspiracy theorist, so this kind of follows, in a way, doesn't it?
LaRouche: Well, the propaganda concerning my reputation does not always correspond to reality. But I essentially could be classified as?in European experience?as a Franklin Roosevelt follower. I'm not a carbon copy of Franklin Roosevelt, but I share the same philosophy of government, and the same view of certain key issues of our times, which he expressed in his Presidency.
BBC: What do you think the 2004 Presidential election is going to show, right now?
LaRouche: I don't know, because I don't know if we're going to get there. If we were to continue on the course which the Iraq war and the fight in the United Nations Security Council portended, under the conditions of the present financial crisis, I think we're headed for some particular kind of Hell. My hope is that, before then, hopefully this year, we shall correct some of our opinions, avert this danger, and get on to the idea of a world which is run by a group of responsible, but respectively sovereign nation-states, in which no one tries to exert imperial power. If we do that, then I think we will get safely into 2004. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd win. Certainly, I don't think Bush would.
BBC: How do you assert that, over the mechanisms of American government, powerful as it is, right now?
LaRouche: Well, it's a mess, because there's a very small minority which is bamboozling?as we say in the United States?is bamboozling a lot of the institutions of government, who are acting in a way I personally consider cowardly. I'm a much more outspoken person, and get into trouble on that account sometimes, but I think it's the best way to be.
And so, it's like a cabal of special interests that have suddenly seized hold of a limp and incompetent government, and are using it for their own purposes.
I think that the financial crisis, which is now about to accelerate beyond anyone's?except a few of us?belief, is going to turn things around. I'm afraid, however, that if you have a war spirit of the type that Cheney expresses, in the United States, that these crazy fellows will actually go and seek wars as a diversion, or a part of a diversion from the financial crisis we have to face. If we face up to the financial crisis, I'm sure we can get out of it. But if we don't face up to it; if we continue with these war games, I think we can get into something way beyond anything we can cope with.
BBC: Lyndon LaRouche, thank you very much for talking to us.
LaRouche: Thank you.
BBC Host Rhod Sharp: Well, first of all, you know, I'm really curious; I'm delighted to talk to you. What have you been up to all these years? Because you've been out of the public limelight for some time.
LaRouche: Well, that's only in the press. I've been, actually, quite active: As you probably know, at the last accounting, I was the number-one candidate for the 2004 Democratic Party Presidential nomination?
BBC: By whose count is that, Mr. LaRouche?
LaRouche: Well, it was done on the basis of the calculations of the number of financial supporters I have, which exceeds that of my putative rivals.
BBC: Good grief! So, you have more financial support right now, than, say, Senator Kerry?
LaRouche: Well, not totally, but more than most. But actually, I'm fourth in total finances, but some of the other fellows have what are called "big-pocket" supporters, and that's the difference. But, in terms of popular support, financial support, I have the largest number. I think that says something, actually.
BBC: What is it that's made you declare yourself, what you call a pre-candidate for 2004?
LaRouche: Well, I did that, actually, at the beginning of the year 2001, when, by a very peculiar set of circumstances, Mr. Bush was becoming our President. And I saw what was coming; and I saw two things of interest: first of all, that Mr. Bush would be incompetent on economic policies, which I think he's fairly well proven, so far; and that he might be a subject for somebody trying to pull something like a February 1933 Reichstag [Fire] on the United States?something like what happened.
BBC: What a minute! That's scary talk!
LaRouche: Of course it is. It was scary then, in 1933. As a matter of fact, we're living through a period in which, from the standpoint of the United Kingdom, you've been looking back to the cooperation between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the very difficult time, in 1939-40, and so forth, in which there was danger that some fellows in the United Kingdom would collaborate with Hitler and some people in France, which would have been a disaster. And we're in a similar type of situation now, though not the same pattern.
In the United States, we have people who unfortunately have the kind of mentality which Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt abhorred at that time.
BBC: I mean, are you comparing George Bush, or any of the people around him, to Goebbels and Himmler, and all that gang?
LaRouche: Not Bush. I think Bush is a man known to be of limited mental capabilities, and not capable of very elaborate conspiracies, let alone, reading a map. Whereas, Mr. Cheney, who is the Vice President, is, very much under the gun right now, with a possible very serious charge presented against him?not only by me, but by some other people, such as coming from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, headed by Mr. Brent Scowcroft.
BBC: What is that charge?
LaRouche: Well, first of all, as you know, Cheney, on receipt of a report processed out of the Rome Embassy of the Niger government, was investigating a charge that "yellow cake" was being solicited for assistance in a uranium weapons program in Iraq.
BBC: And "yellow cake" is the most primitive form of uranium, is that right?
LaRouche: Right, precisely. And Cheney had an investigation of this done, and found out shortly, in February of 2002, that the whole thing was a hoax cooked up by some fellow inside the Rome Embassy, in particular. But, nonetheless, on the 24th of September 2002, the "yellow cake" thing was pushed. And on the same day, the office of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a dossier based on this false information.
Subsequently, Mr. Cheney, in times when the question of the Iraq war was being heavily debated, pushed this "yellow cake" story, consciously, knowing that he had received information that it was a hoax!
BBC: And that dossier?I mean, the dossier that Tony Blair issued?was quite largely discredited, in a matter of weeks, wasn't it? It was very, very quickly discredited.
LaRouche: Absolutely. But this thing kept going. And it was used, particularly at a time when the Congress was very reluctant to give its consent, or acquiescence?I wouldn't say consent?acquiescence to an Iraq war, and the yellow cake story?the charge that Iraq was about to have mass production of nuclear weapons?pushed a number of Senators over the edge. And now we have Congressman Waxman, in the past year, has sent out two memos to the President on this issue, the most recently on June 2 of this year. And this coincides with the PFIAB investigation by Brent Scowcroft of this, under our law. We don't have a treason law of the type that you find in Europe, because we're very sensitive about defining treason in the form of the Constitution.
But, nonetheless, what Mr. Cheney is accused of would be tantamount to treason under many European governments. That is, lying to official institutions of government, to manipulate them into launching a war, as?
BBC: Can't you argue, or couldn't you argue on Mr. Cheney's behalf, that he was getting a great many intelligence reports, and he had to take them as he found them, because he had to trust his intelligence?
LaRouche: Well, the problem is this: Mr. Cheney's motives are very much in doubt. He, since 1991, had been pushing, unsuccessfully early on, for an extended war against Iraq, and a general Middle East war, of the type that has occurred recently. He committed to push that when he was out of office, into 1996. And then, immediately after, or, on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, brought the whole thing up again, and Afghanistan was used for drawing European forces into collaboration for what was intended to become an Iraq war.
So, the point was, there was an intent to get an Iraq war, in defiance of every procedure of international law, including United Nations provisions on such wars. And Mr. Cheney was the most active proponent of this. And he was pushing, actively, false information, personally and publicly, which he knew to be false at the time.
Now, this is a very serious matter. As I said, it's an impeachable charge against the Vice President of the United States. And right now, I think, there are some people in the United States who are of a disposition, if not to impeach Mr. Cheney, at least to persuade him that it would be time to go out and take care of his potato patch, and leave government alone.
BBC: How do you find people are responding to you? Because it's fair to say that you've always been on a extreme wing of the Democratic Party, indeed, if some people have viewed you as a Democrat at all. Now, you're also regarded as a arch-conspiracy theorist, so this kind of follows, in a way, doesn't it?
LaRouche: Well, the propaganda concerning my reputation does not always correspond to reality. But I essentially could be classified as?in European experience?as a Franklin Roosevelt follower. I'm not a carbon copy of Franklin Roosevelt, but I share the same philosophy of government, and the same view of certain key issues of our times, which he expressed in his Presidency.
BBC: What do you think the 2004 Presidential election is going to show, right now?
LaRouche: I don't know, because I don't know if we're going to get there. If we were to continue on the course which the Iraq war and the fight in the United Nations Security Council portended, under the conditions of the present financial crisis, I think we're headed for some particular kind of Hell. My hope is that, before then, hopefully this year, we shall correct some of our opinions, avert this danger, and get on to the idea of a world which is run by a group of responsible, but respectively sovereign nation-states, in which no one tries to exert imperial power. If we do that, then I think we will get safely into 2004. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd win. Certainly, I don't think Bush would.
BBC: How do you assert that, over the mechanisms of American government, powerful as it is, right now?
LaRouche: Well, it's a mess, because there's a very small minority which is bamboozling?as we say in the United States?is bamboozling a lot of the institutions of government, who are acting in a way I personally consider cowardly. I'm a much more outspoken person, and get into trouble on that account sometimes, but I think it's the best way to be.
And so, it's like a cabal of special interests that have suddenly seized hold of a limp and incompetent government, and are using it for their own purposes.
I think that the financial crisis, which is now about to accelerate beyond anyone's?except a few of us?belief, is going to turn things around. I'm afraid, however, that if you have a war spirit of the type that Cheney expresses, in the United States, that these crazy fellows will actually go and seek wars as a diversion, or a part of a diversion from the financial crisis we have to face. If we face up to the financial crisis, I'm sure we can get out of it. But if we don't face up to it; if we continue with these war games, I think we can get into something way beyond anything we can cope with.
BBC: Lyndon LaRouche, thank you very much for talking to us.
LaRouche: Thank you.
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