Edison, N.J.: Sam, my wife and I saw your report yesterday on Frontline and were moved by the amount of sadness and destruction caused by Saddam Hussein -- and daunted by the challenge the Bush administration has in solving these ethnic disputes. I was struck by the similarities between Kirkuk and Kosovo. Do you think that the lessons of Bosnia and Kosovo can be applied in peacekeeping in the Kurdish north by the Bush administration?

Sam Kiley: Ummm, I suppose the first lesson from Kosovo and I don't know the exact figure, but the ratio of troops to population was far, far higher in Kosovo. I would guess five or six times greater than in Iraq. The lesson in Kosovo was that it wasn't an overnight success, it took extremely intensive police operations by the foreign armies and therefore, if there are lessons, in my view it would mean that it wouldh have to be a great more foreign troops in Iraq to bring the security that the Iraqis had before the war. They lived in terror from the regime, but relative security otherwise.

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Arlington, Va.: Sam, I read your interview on the Frontline Web site, complete with the recounting of your near execution. Good Lord. Do incidents like that give you pause with regards to telling a story? I realize it takes a lot of commitment to cover the things you do, and a willingness to be in those situations. But how close a call is too close?

Glad you're safe.

Sam Kiley: I am feeling a little nervous now because I'm flying to the Congo on Monday night. I don't want any more close calls. I've used about 18 of the 9 lives I was alotted. With a wife and two children I'm anxious to stay out of trouble. But there are a lot of stories that remain untold because of the grotesque hypocrisy and racism of people like Blair and Bush. I feel it is my job to give them a few more grey hairs.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: Among the Kurds you have met, how do they seem to feel the prospects are for their future? Are they worried about the directions the next Iraqi government might take towards them? Do they believe America will protect them (even though we have failed them in the past)? Do they think much about what Turkey might do? Are they optimistic they will be provided a fair degree of autonomy, or are they fearful they were be disappointed again? Or, is it too soon after the war for most Kurds to start thinking that far ahead?

Sam Kiley: Generally speaking, they're optimistic that they will get some federal autonomy. They remain extremely suspicious of the Turks -- who have threatened to invade N. Iraq to prevent a Kurdish state. But some are beginning to realize that a Kurdish state might not be the best answer -- they would be very vulnerable to Syria, Turkey and Iran. They are optimistic about the Americans because they have administrations in N. Iraq that have managed to function with some degree of democracy and respect for human rights. By no means perfect, but they realize that the areas under their control at the moment are the safest and best-run parts of Iraq.

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Maryland: Many academics have pointed out that Arab occupation of Kurdistan is totally unjustified, similarily to the Arab claim for "Palestine" -- which never existed in history under Arab rule. What are your thoughts on this?

Sam Kiley: I don't know what history books you're reading, but they're clearly ones written by people who do not have a peaceful two-state solution in mind for the Israel-Palestine conflict. THe Arabization under Hussein of areas around Kirkuk and his persecution of the Kurds should not be seen as an Arab plot to eliminate ethnic groups, but the actions of a despot who wanted to get control of Kirkuk's oil.

The argument that there has never been a country called "Palestine" is preposterous since there was a British protectorate of Palestine with coins minted. It would be more useful if people who were interested in these fields read more and thought more about how to achieve a solution than got themselves hung up misleading history.

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Washington, D.C.: Everyone's known for so long that Saddam Hussein is a bad, brutal guy with a horrible, savage regime. But I have to admit that I often thought that the Bush administration (and, to be fair, many others) were stretching a bit in the comparisons with Hitler. Then I saw the report about how meticulously the regime recorded its torture and executions, and the similarity hit home. What do you think is that common characteristic among really brutal leaders like them? Is it the pride they take in exercising such control, and the fear they use to rule? Do you find those comparisons hold up?

Thanks for your work.

Sam Kiley: I suppose despots who are successful -- able to remain in power several decades, or to expand their areas of control -- have to be extremely methodical and have a very strong understanding of organization. In order to get the machinery of state to react to the immediate whims of the despot, he or she would have to have a truly horrifying mechanism of enforcement, so use of secret police and gestapo type units. So, in those regards there are comparisons.

A much clearer one with Hussein would be with Stalin -- his hero and whose methodology he copied. Including his efforts to modernize Iraq, which by some standards were extremely successful, like increasing the rate of literacy.

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Caracas, Venesuela: It seems obvious that Turkey will invade Kurdistan as soon as the US pulls out. Are any actions being taken to prevent this?

Sam Kiley: I'm not sure that it's obvious. It's my understanding that Turkey is still very preoccupied with attempts to join the EU, remain inside NATO and there are diplomatic efforts in Europe to have a Muslim country in the EU and NATO.

But the Turks are extremely nervous because the have a Kurdish minority. If Kurds establish an independent state, they think they would try to attempt some kind of confederation. They efforts trying to prevent Turkey are diplomatic, but I must say the American green berets did identify Turkish special forces already operating. That is the sort of thing that ought to be exposed much more by the administration and people on the ground, so Turkey can be persuaded to act with more caution.

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Alexandria, Va.: Wow, I just want to say that reporters like you are the real heroes of our society. You sacrifice so much to report what goes on in the world in the face of adversity, and to bring knowledge to people that is the first, necessary step in ensuring that justice is preserved. I'm so thankful that we have people like you, and please send my gratitude to your family (who endures all these long, dangerous trips, as well).

Sam Kiley: That's a very kind remark. I think the real heroes are the little people -- the headmasters, nurses, doctors and the ordinary decent human beings who manage to preserve a faith in humanity and a personal dignity in the face of truly horrific challenges and I hope in my next film to be able to celebrate some of that true heroism.

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Rockville, Md.: What will you be doing in the Congo?

Sam Kiley: I don't want to go into too much detail, don't want to give the competition a head start. But, really, how it is a region of the world can have the highest level of conflict related death since WWII and the rest of the world ignore it. The roots of the Congo conflict go back to the Rwandan genocide and the British administration deliberately turned their faces away from a genocide that they knew was coming, could easily have stopped and did nothing to bring justice to the perpetrators of it. They are among the causes of the horrors that are now being visited on the Congo.

Let's face it, we all know why they didn't do anything.

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Milwaukee, Wis.: How come we never saw or heard about these horrors in Iraq before the war? This so-called evidence must have been planted by the Bush administration to justify the war.

Sam Kiley: The fact that you didn't hear about it doesn't mean it wasn't going on. I refer you to two previous films by Gwyn Evans, also for my main employer, Channel 4, made in 1991 or '92 that looked at Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish area. I would share a great deal of skepticism with you about the motives for this war, but just cause you think the war was a bad idea doesn't mean that these other events did not occur. I challenge any spook anywhere in the world to plant a story on me.

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Washington, D.C.: Mr. Kiley, how many Saddam Hussein horror stories did you hear from Iraqis outside of the presence of U.S. troops? And were there any actual signs of weapons of mass destruction, or has the whole thing been a massive lie from the White House?

Sam Kiley: All of the stories of -- every single interview with victims of Saddam Hussein -- were very far from American troops. I was not an embedded reporter. I just happened to have travelled into Kirkuk. In other words, I was not a propoganda machine. Were there any WMDs? Since the Falklands war, I've always argued that the concept of British Intelligence was an oxymoron. The grotesque and, in my view, criminal, displays by Blair in parliament of a dossier which had been plagiarized from a masters thesis on the Internet. And the use of the CIA of conspicuously forged documents from Nigeria suggest that American intelligence is now also an oxymoron. I have a strong suspicion that the British and Americans would be the last to find them.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Sam. Thanks for your amazing work. Do you have a sense that democracy is likely to be built and hold in Iraq? Do you think the U.S. is/was expecting too easy a ride in terms of nation building and the kind of atmosphere that would greet them when Saddam Hussein was finally deposed?

Sam Kiley: I thought the Iraqis would be much more welcoming of the demise of Saddam than they have been. However, looking at the situation now, I think it's perfectly clear that the American forces are miles out of the berth in terms of comprehending what at the end of the day might be the incomprehensible political mosaic of Iraq. The Iraqis seem incapable of getting to grips with the realities of what democracy seems. Iraq may get to an election, but all the groups in Iraq see that as an opportunity to take power and hold it.

Iraq has to feel like a better place, where free thought and media can flourish first.

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Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: What's the security situation like in Iraq now for both citizens and occupiers? Does it vary from locale to locale or have the occupiers stamped the country with the same degree of safety? Security has to include aspects like: clean water, electricity, food distribution, police protection, traffic control, sewage and waste handling. How are these functions of modern socity being operated and maintained. Thanks much. Signed.

Sam Kiley: The short answer is bad and badly. The Americans have a problem in that they haven't gotten those things anything like under control. They don't have enough troops. They also have a lot who fought their way into the city and have gone from combat to patrolling. These are people who are in mechanized units who have no training in that sort of environment which makes it difficult to cope with the remains of the Ba'ath party and ordinary armed crime. The Brits have an advantage in that regard because they have been dealing with N. Ireland for years. So it's just rotten luck on the Americans that they don't have those skills. It is different from place to place and the areas under Kurdish control are by and large a little more stable, but that may not last forever and they remain explosive.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I have two related questions. In your responses you have been a strong critic of U.S. foreign policy and intelligence gathering in the Middle East. What do you see as a remedy for these shortcomings, particularly with intelligence? Secondly, I am not clear on your response to Rockville on why the British pulled out of Congo intervention. You say we all know why, but I must have missed that memo.

Sam Kiley: I'm not an expert on intelligence, but it does seem clear to me that there's a catastrophic dearth of human intelligence -- of old fashioned spies. And it's my hunch that there are probably too many analysts too easily led into believing what they want instead of offering objective works. I'd refer you to Seymour Hersh's works.

In terms of why the West turned its face away from the Rwandan genocide, it was because they're black, African and poor.

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Quebec, Canada: Why is there no international effort to create an independent state of Kurdistan, free of illegal Arab occupation when there's such a strong drive to fabricate an Arab state of Palestine, which would only be rewarding the terrorist front who's goal is to destroy Israel? It seems Arabs are only interested in statehood and right of return when they are on the receiving end.

Sam Kiley: As I said to the previous person who raised a similar point, northern Iraq is not actually occupied by any Arabs. This was not some part of some pan-Arab plot -- it was one despot's desire to put an end to a group's claim to a city and it's oil reserves. In the case of the Palestinian claims to statehood, it is clear to anybody who has an open mind that the only solution would have been a two-state solution and that will have to come with explicit guarantees that Israel will not fall victim to some Arabs of ending the the Jewish state.

It seems to me that the reason there isn't international support for a Kurdish state is that the more strategically important countries are opposed to it. So, why was Czechoslovakia allowed to break up? Why was Israel brought into being? There does seem to be a double-standard. There is no clear policy in terms of international affairs as to whether or not statehood claims should be properly entertained. In the case of the Kurds, people seem to wish they would shut up and go away.

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Washington, D.C.: Would you like to back up your claims of racism on the part of Bush and Blair? Those are pretty loaded words to toss off without any direct evidence.

Sam Kiley: The racism is in the following. In Feb. 1994 the UN, British and AMerican intelligence were made aware of the genocide plan. That began on April 6, 1994. For the first week in London and Washington, government spokesmen were ordered to delete the word "genocide" from references to this. 37,500 were killed every day for the next few months. The UN withdrew troops rather than boost them and nothing was done. I rest my case.

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Re: The truth of the horrors: My family is from the Middle East, and although I was born and raised here, I know a lot of Iraqis. For years, as long as I can remember, since I was a little girl, they would tell of their sadness for having to leave Iraq and all of the horrible things Saddam did there to my parents and later me and my sister. Interestingly enough, they always spoke hushed tones because even here, they were still afraid. My family is from Iran, and I personally know of many Iranians with family members among the tens to hundreds of thousands who died in or are still suffering from the chemical attacks Saddam perpetrated during their war in the 80s. I was against the war too, but I've always tried to let people know about these things. However, sometimes it's surprising how the U.S., turning a blind eye for so long (both the government and the media), has convinced even the most open-minded people that it couldn't have been as bad as it was, or we'd have heard something about it before.

Sam Kiley: I would take your mind back to the gas attack on Halabja, which was brought to international attention by the Iranians who were "blamed" in an off-the-record briefings for having perpetrated it themselves because Washington and London at that time considered Hussein an ally in the campaign against Iran and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Friends of mine who were in Halabja have never forgotten the mendacity that went with the support of Saddam in the 1980s. Lets not forget that one D. Rumsfeld was an occasional guest of the Iraqi regime.

In fairness to the media at that time were probably too easily seduced into thinking the same way as diplomats. I'm not proud of the media's record on Iraq at all. I say this as someone -- I would agree with critics of the media that over the last 10 years we failed to truly portray the Iraqi regime -- at least from the ground. They would kick you out and never let you back in if you stepped over their line. I can't think of one news organization that actually called the Iraqis on that. As a result there was very little coverage of human rights issues from inside Iraq and I think we should all be ashamed of that, and I include myself in that.

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Rosslyn, Va.: I was wondering if you can shed any more light on the disastrous friendly fire incident that killed so many of our Kurdish allies. How could the pilot mistake a Kurdish convoy for an Iraqi formation? Weren't there any precautions taken?

Sam Kiley: I actually was very nearly killed in a similar incident on the road into Kirkuk. I wasn't present for this one, though, but all I know is that they called an airstrike on an Iraqi tank and they somewhat foolishly did this standing next to an abandoned Iraqi tank and the pilot simply bombed the wrong tank.

In my own case, it was a similar screw-up. An American called in an airstrike on a position where we'd been ambushed and described the target and it looked rather like -- he thought the plane was flying in one direction and it was flying in another direction, so he was led into bombing our position. But luckily they missed the target -- where I was standing, and didn't kill the air controller.

The did make an awful lot of effort to avoid these incidents, but they do happen. So obviously they need to work with it, but they try not to do that -- I hope.

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Paramus, N.J.: How well did the Special Forces soldier and the U.S. Army do to maintain the peace in the dispute between the Arabs and the Kurds in Kirkuk so far?

Sam Kiley: I left Kirkuk in the relatively early stages of this conflict. Since I left there have been occasional clashes. It's my understanding that the casualties have been equal and most of the Iraqis have been Ba'athists. So far, the lid has been kept on Kirkuk because the PUK, which is in de facto control there alongside the Americans, is trying its best to behave and make sure that there isn't a surge in ethnic killings.

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Re: Intelligence: In support of your claims regarding a dearth of old fashioned spies and also politicians' propensity for "fabricating" intelligence or implying certain things are true based upon little or no documentation, you should read/talk to National Intel Officer for Mid East and South Asia at the CIA, Dr. Paul Pillar. He's a big advocate of giving the American people more real facts and knowledge, rather than implying things that aren't true (the non-existent link between al Qaeda and Iraq is a big one for him), believe it or not.

Sam Kiley: I would agree. I have been stunned by the extraordinary for the democratic processes shown by the Bush and Blair administrations in making the argument for war. I remain shocked that a document presented to parliament appears to have been cobbled together by a secretary at 10 Downing street. Americans should also be astounded at the arguments made for war that haven't stood up for scrutiny.

Without making these eggregiously extravagant claims, they could still have put together a good argument for war, but it may not have convinced the public that war was necessary.

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Breckenridge, Tex.: Watching reports from the major "news" organizations leaves you feeling like something does not quite make sense, details do not seem to originate from a comprehendable context.

Sam Kiley's report covers what is missing from the mainstream news, the view from a basic human level. This is journalism at its finest.
Thank you

Sam Kiley: That's very kind. I had the luxury of a half-hour's television. News networks may get a maximum of three minutes. I would hope that the two forms complement one another. I am flattered by your remarks, but am painfully aware that many of my colleagues could do my job with much more aplomb.
---
I saw the BBC documentary about Jessica Lynch and know the man who filmed it. He's an excellent journalist. I put my faith in the BBC.

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Sam Kiley: I am slightly concerned that on both sides of the Atlantic there is a danger that news coverage is becoming entertainment and that news readers are telling the public what it wants to hear -- not the balanced truth. It's a matter of great debate in the U.S. and here.

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Beaumont, Tex.: Let me, if you will, make a change in the questioning here -- my son is talking about going into your line of work. He will be a senior in high school next year after which he wants to work on his degree in journalism. Any words of advice for him and his parents?

Sam Kiley: Yeah, don't do a degree in journalism. It's slightly different in America, but in Britain I've never met a journalist with a degree in journalism. I would learn another language.

But I'd suggest you go be a banker. You live rich, die happy and can provide for your children.

I earn, for reporting from 25 different wars, and earn no more than the person living beside me. It ain't worth it, but it's difficult.

If you still go ahead and do it, you're probably cursed with the journalism gene.

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Sam Kiley: Also have him ask himself if he's in the presence of world leaders, university vice chancellors and people who set themselves up in leaderships. What is his instinct? To listen with respect or pull their trousers down.

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Manassas, Va.: People need to stop whining about whether the Bush administration lied about WMD. Wolfowitz knows what he's doing. He just cast about for the reason that would make everyone do the right thing. So what that we're after the oil and lied about Saddam -- the bottom line is we took out Saddam and that's a good thing (for the Iraqis, the world, and my energy stock holdings).

Sam Kiley: There is some, crazy as the statement sounds, legitimacy in this. But did Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld know what they were doing or just think they did. There was never much doubt that it would be an easy war to win. It is increasingly clear that the peace will be difficult to win. Are the consequences going to make the world a safer place for you to spend your oil profits or is it going to result in more instability?

Therefore the reasons given for intervention do matter, because the people who organized the intervention might have believed them. Did they know that what they were saying was or wasn't accurate or did they just want to believe it and delude themselves? And will they delude themselves about the future.

I don't want the propagandists to believe their own stuff. That is the most dangerous thing.

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washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

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