United States President Joe Biden authorised the Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage mission before his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, reiterated American investigative journalist Seymour M Hersh in an exclusive conversation with CNN-News18 on Thursday. He also panned mainstream US media and editors for being “partisan".
“A single-source story had never been a problem for reporters with credibility earlier because editors trusted them. I’ve published many important stories earlier with single anonymous sources and full credibility. Now the US media has become pro-Trump/anti-Trump/pro-Democrat/anti-Democrat. If 90% of the editors in America disappear, it’ll be better for the press," said the Pulitzer Prize winner.
The language of Washington under Biden has become very hostile to Beijing and Moscow, said Hersh, adding that it’s “inappropriate". “Blinken is so hostile that he won’t go to China because of a balloon," he said.
According to a blog published by Hersh recently, the CIA carried out the Nord Stream sabotage last September at the direction of President Biden. The 85-year-old journalist claims that US Navy divers, operating under cover of a NATO exercise, planted bombs to destroy three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, designed to carry Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. He quoted an anonymous source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning".
The White House has rubbished the article, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction".
A report in The New York Times this week said that US officials had seen new intelligence indicating a “pro-Ukrainian group" was responsible for the sabotage.
However, Hersh said, “Biden authorised the Nord Stream sabotage mission before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden went to the CIA and said ‘give me an option, what can I do to prevent Putin going to war’. But Putin went ahead anyway. Biden realises that the war for him has domestic political benefit. He also wanted to stop Europe-Russia benefits from Nord Stream. The US was worried about Russian influence on Western Europe, where they had ‘rebuilt democracy’ after World War 2."
He also slammed German chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Scholz is behaving like America’s lapdog. There’s remarkably little US media coverage of Scholz’s visit. Biden basically told Germany ‘I will go ahead and blow up Nord Stream because I want my war and I don’t care if you don’t have gas’. He took away Scholz’s option of not giving arms to Ukraine. The President of the United States took their gas away because he was worried that they weren’t putting enough money into a war he is not going to win. And God knows what’s going to happen, when it gets clearer that he is not going to win. And that’s why this story has traction because my country is really worried about this White House," he said.
While hinting at the role of a “pro-Ukrainian group", the NYT report has said US officials had no evidence implicating President Volodymyr Zelensky in the pipeline bombing, and it did not identify the source of the intelligence or the group involved. Intelligence suggested that the perpetrators behind the sabotage were “opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia", it added.
“The only thing I can say is that its story is crazy that… just what… a group of Ukrainians? Do you know what it takes to use the seafloor to blow up a pipeline that is covered by a concrete shield? You know that much power, the skill you have to have…the team that was involved that started working with the CIA and other agencies," said Hersh. “They practised for months and they got the best divers they can get from a very superior training centre in Florida. Blowing up something is easy but blowing it up correctly and safely is hard. The idea that Ukrainians could do it is silly stuff. You really think Putin who had shut down one pipeline is going to blow up the other one? Who thought that? Nobody. Who else could have done it? I can’t think of who? Pakistan? The problem with the story is they never acknowledge my story."
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