As the NYT reports new allegations on the Nord Stream sabotage, Seymour Hersh takes the "pro-Ukrainian group" intel with a pinch of salt. Here's the reason.
Liu Xin: But you think it's not possible for a "pro Ukrainian group" to carry out this explosion?
Seymour Hersh: I know that the few things I know about the Ukrainian navy is they are capable of dropping mines. I'm not an expert on it. I just happen to ask questions after that story came out. They don't have a working decompression chamber.
We're talking about four pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2, each has two.
They're steel tubes covered by a concrete cover to protect themselves from the salinity, the salt in the water.
So, you have to have people that know, that are the experts in underwater diving and experts in using the most, the plastic C4, the most volatile stuff there is.
And also, they have to be able to go quick. They have to be sure they get the bomb, their weapon and the bomb in the right place that triggers, destroys everything.
They have to practice like, they practice for weeks and months on this, I would say, in the waters of the Baltic Sea.
"The U.S. is trying to divert attention away from my story," says Seymour Hersh, after the NTY reported intel pointed at a "pro-Ukrainian group" on the Nord Stream sabotage.
Liu Xin: The fact that the U.S. government officials leaked this intelligence to the New York Times at this particular moment. What do you think they are trying to send as a message?
Seymour Hersh: They are trying to divert attention from the story that I wrote, which included enormous specifics. I was describing a process that began before Christmas of 2021. It involved the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan of the White House for the President. They had a series of meetings at a secret room in the White House. They gave clues, I know the title of the room.
They were asked to come up with both reversible and irreversible concepts, ideas.
A reversible concept would have been more sanctions. Something irreversible would have been kinetic, a bomb. And then eventually it turned out what they really wanted was a hit on the pipelines.
And in this government, the concern has always been that Germany has been getting so much gas at such a cheap price from Russia that it would be very hard to wean them away from Russia.
Slamming U.S. foreign policy as "complete idiocy," Seymour Hersh told Liu Xin he believes American hegemony and the hatred of "all things Putin & communism" are driving the Biden Administration to do dumb things.
Liu Xin: You have also called a part of the called this planning "stupidity." And you on several occasions you laughed at the intelligence level of the Biden.
Seymour Hersh: I was not questioning their intelligence. These are all people, Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, the one who didn't go to China to meet his counterpart because of a balloon and Jake Sullivan, who's the National Security Advisor, and the Undersecretary of State, all have high degrees of, plenty of intelligence.
It's just what they're so driven by, I think, hatred of all things particularly Putin, and also communism per se. They're so cold warriors. They're really out of sorts. It makes them do dumb things.
I just think his foreign policy is too complete idiocy, alienating a lot of people around the world.
This notion of American hegemony, if you will, it just doesn't work anymore. That's what I object to.