I interviewed Ware at length on March 28, 2006, when he was working for Time. Here is the audio and transcript of that interview, originally posted at Radioblogger.com:
Tuesday, March 28
Time Magazine's Michael Ware from Baghdad.
03-28ware.mp3
HH: Joining me now live from Baghdad is Michael Ware, bureau chief for Time Magazine. Michael, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show.
MW: Thanks, Hugh.
HH: Michael, we met each other courtesy of CNN on a couple of editions of Anderson Cooper's program last week. And I was intrigued as I read up on you, our acquaintance, Tim Blair, a mutual acquaintance, speaks very, very highly of you. Of course, that stands you in great regard in the American blogosphere, as Blair is much loved there. Can you give us a little bit of...
MW: Yeah, well Tim's a great guy. He's a good journalist.
HH: Yes, he is. Can you give us a little bit of your background, how you ended up in Baghdad, so people can get you focused on where you're from? Because you're Australian, and that obviously comes through in your voice. But let's get you to Time Magazine. Where were you before then?
MW: I'm actually a lawyer or an attorney by training. But after graduating law school, I only stayed in practice for one year after working in our court of appeal, then fell into journalism, working for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation newspapers in Australia, where I eventually covered the conflict in East Timor. After that, I took a job with Time Magazine in Australia, and then after September 11, I was sent to Afghanistan, where I stayed for over a year. And then as the war in Iraq approached, I entered Iraq through Iran, into the Kurdish North, where I hooked up with U.S. Special Forces, and the Peshmerga militia, and covered the Northern front line. Ever since then, I have essentially been living in Baghdad.
HH: So you are a long traveled war correspondent, having covered Afghanistan, Iraq, before that East Timor. And I think you were at the encirclement of Osama bin Laden, were you not? I think I read some of your dispatches from that as well.
MW: Well, I was in the Battle of Shah-i-Kot, the Operation Anaconda, which was fought in March, 2002. So I was in many of the engagements involving al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. And in some of them later in Iraq.
HH: So Michael Ware, what do you think...and you've spent time with insurgents, too. That's very controversial reporting that I've read. Explain to the audience how you connected up with them, and how much time you spent with them in Iraq.
MW: Well, in the course of the past three years, I've had ongoing contact with different elements of the insurgency. It all began immediately after the fall of Saddam's regime in the early months of the occupation. I was doing a story which was looking at the invasion. I was trying to find out from the Iraqi commanders themselves what had happened on their side, what was the chaos like, what was it like as a dictatorship deteriorated, and dissolved before their eyes in the midst of this American attack. Now at that time, I met these men. They were Republican Guard commanders, members of the secret police, the intelligence service, the secret service, all manner of agencies, asking them what had happened to them during the war. Then as time went by, these men started to feel more and more disenchanted, more and more dishonored. And one by one, they started picking up arms, and in a very ad hoc fashion, started attacking passing American vehicles and so on. Then over time, they started to evolve. And I got to watch that with my own eyes, as they did take shape as the insurgency we've ultimately come to see today.
HH: Does that insurgency, in your opinion, have a command and control structure, a heirarchy that actually operates to give signals to attack? Or is it simply a series of guerillas that pulse attacks whenever possible?
MW: Well, it's very complicated in the sense that nothing is concrete. However, there are very clear command structures. The one thing to be said though is there's no one overreaching command, or supreme command. This is a very fractured insurgency. There's many different organizations fighting in many different ways, for many different reasons, from the Islamic Jihadis of al Qaeda, and the Islamic militants. So you see Iraq is but one theater in a global holy war. All the way down to former Iraqi army officers, you know, Baghdad's version of West Pointers, who are fighting what they see as a war of liberation against a foreign occupier, be he benign, or be he malevolent. Then you also have a mix in between, guys who fight today, but don't tomorrow. Some who fight for money, some who fight because their brother's just been killed, or their cousin has just been arrested. It's a very mixed bag, but yes, there's coordination. And even between these groups, even when there's rivalry, they still work together. And at the very least, they deconflict their operations, so as much as possible, they try to avoid overlap. That's the level of organization.
HH: Have you spent time with the jihadis?
MW: I have. I have. It's certainly not something that's simple to do at any time, particularly now. However, in the past, though, I have actually been with Zarqawi's organization on different occasions. I once was taken to a Zarqawi training camp, although I was not told that that's where I was going, or for quite a while, that that's where I was. I've been to some of their safe houses. I've received some of their propaganda materials. By the same token, trying to film them secretly in Baghdad, I was kidnapped by them, dragged out of my car, and a group of Syrian fighters for Zarqawi were preparing to execute me on the street here in Baghdad. So I've been with Zarqawi's people in a number of different forms.
HH: What happened with the Syrians who were preparing to execute you? Did they get a Federal Express package from Zarqawi saying don't shoot the Aussie?
MW: No, I think if it was coming from Zarqawi, it would be very different. I mean, he's...or his official spokesman has threatened me on one occasion directly, and on another occasion, indirectly, publicly, as a result of things I've written. So if it was coming from Zarqawi, I don't think I'd be talking to you now. What eventually saved me was some Baathist fighters in the area, these former military officers. They see themselves as nationalists fighting this great war of liberation. Now they might work with these Islamic militants of al Qaeda, but they don't share the same goals, and they don't like to fight in the same way. It came down to a turf war, and I was very fortunate to fall between the cracks of these two organizations, where one group was saying if you want to kill this guy, you kill this guy. But understand, that starts a fight with us. And eventually, the al Qaeda Syrians decided it wasn't worth it, and through very gritted teeth, after having said a Westerner comes in here and you expect us to let him leave alive, they finally relented and set me free. It was not a pleasant experience.
HH: Michael, can you quantify for my audience the amount of time you've spent with the jihadis, and the amount of time you've spent with the insurgents? And then I want to ask you some questions about both of them. And the reason I'm asking for the amount of time is to give some sense of depth of experience with those two very distinct groups.
MW: Yeah, they are markedly different, and I guess principally, the bulk of any time I've spent dealing in any way with the insurgency, the vast majority of it has been with the Baathists, the former military officers, these men who identify as nationalists, or as Iraqi Islamists, dealing with the Islamists of al Qaeda. That's much, much more difficult, and it's only been a fraction of my time.
HH: Has it been a couple of days? A week with the Islamists? Or a few months with the insurgents? Again...
MW: I mean, I don't know how I'd add it up. I mean, it's a meeting here, it's a meeting there. It's a morning spent with him here, it's an afternoon spent with them there. It's...I'm told to meet on the street corner, taken to a restaurant for what looked like dinner, and then whisked out to go and see something for a few hours. And it's always very confusing. You're often blindfolded. You're often shoved down in the back of a car. You're often driven around for what seems like hours just to confuse you. You're shifted from place to place. You're constantly kept disorientated and confused, and you're constantly being challenged and tested. I mean, on three occasions, I was present when a discussion took place about whether I should be killed or sold, or goodness knows what else, and my fate has rested in their hands while they talk about this around me in a language I don't understand. So it's very hard to quantify the exact amount of time one has spent in these kind of circumstances.
HH: Okay, indulge me, a lawyer, and you're a lawyer, so you know. I'm just trying to get a sense of it. Has it been five different times out with the jihadists and 20 different times with the insurgents? I'm not looking for minute counts here, but I am trying to get a sense of how often you'll cross over to the other side and spend time with them.
MW: Well, I suppose it's a matter of how you look at crossing over, too. But I mean, I guess I've dealt with jihadis in one form or another perhaps a dozen, couple of dozen times, and the Baathists, many, many times. I mean, to constantly reassess where these guys are, I mean, as military intelligence does, trying to take their pulse of how sophisticated they are, how under pressure they are, how well financed they are or aren't, how organized they are, what morale is like. You constantly have to keep dipping into the well to see where they are. So with the Baathists, with the military types, it's many, many, many times.
HH: Okay, let me put a floor on it then. At least 18 times with teh jihadists, and 30 or 40 times with the insurgents.
MW: Yeah, you could easily say that.
HH: That's a lot of time.
MW: Yeah.
HH: All right. So we've got a good grounding here. Now this brings me to the interesting issue that we talked about on CNN, and that is the morality of doing that. Why do you do that?
MW: Well, there's a number of reasons. I mean, you can look at it very, very cynically. One is know thy enemy. Now I cannot begin to tell you how much the American people, not to mention the Brits and the Aussies back home, have been significantly misled about the nature of the enemy. I mean, I've been at press conferences under the CPA. I've been at press conferences under the interim Iraqi government. I've been to press conferences under the current regime. I've listened to all manifestation of U.S. military spokesmen, of diplomats, of ambassadors, discuss and describe the enemy. And so often, it has been wrong. And it's either because these people don't understand what they're up against, or more likely, it's that these people are not telling the public the truth about them, about the fact that they're not just one homogenous group, that there are many different motivations. And that was a very, very valuable thing to come to understand, because it's led to the point now, that we see, where we have this Bush administration opening dialogue and negotiations with the more nationalist, or Baathist elements of the insurgency. So learning that this was not one homogenous, scary boogeyman was vital to not just my and the public's understanding, but also to military intelligence and this administration's. Look what it's led to.
HH: Do you think it's true that everyone has understood from the beginning that there were Iraqis who were nationalists, and that there were jihadists who were Islamists, who just simply want to kill? I think that distinction has been there, my gosh, going back to the first blows of the insurgency against the coalition forces.
MW: Well, that's not entirely correct. Remember these famous glib, sad excuses for expressions like the dead-enders who are out there fighting us. Well, these dead-enders are still putting 15-20,000 men in the field on any given day. You know what? Today the current average for attacks on coalition forces is about 74 attacks a day. Now only about one in four of those attacks is what anyone would consider effective. But nonetheless, there's 74 odd attacks, any given day, right now. You know how many there were a year ago? Pretty much the same. And the year before that? Not that much different. So this enemy that is out there, these dead-enders of 2003, are still putting something close to a division in the field, and maintaining their tempo of attacks.
HH: But I go back to the distinction...
MW: So I mean, we've been misled many, many times. And for the public to understand this, I think, is important.
HH: Now see, I don't want to...I'm actually interviewing not to quarrel with you, but just to get it understood.
MW: Yeah, I know.
HH: But I do think that that distinction between Islamists and insurgents has been well understood, and for a very long time. And I'd look for you to tell me when were you misled about that. But more importantly, going to the Islamists, about whom...you'll agree with me, they're evil. Won't you, Michael?
MW: Well, I certainly...I mean, one has to be careful that as the Islamic army of Iraq reminded just last week on Al Jazeera, the insurgent groups study very closely everything that we hear, say and write. And given that we're within their grasp, one always must be diplomatic. Suffice to say, it's very hard to relate to the goals or tactics that the hard-line Islamists employ.
HH: Now that's very interesting, because that would indicate that...and I understand it, but that fear is affecting your reporting, or your candor level.
MW: Well, it certainly affects the way you couch things. It doesn't stop you saying things. I mean, like I said for example, I came across a tape once of Zarqawi himself, on an audio cassette, instructing or giving a seminar to some of his recruits and fighters, somewhere outside of Baghdad. Now this was a tape that was meant purely for internal consumption, for ideological or for training purposes. Now by one means or another, that fell into my hands, and I published it. I published its contents. Now within that discussion, Zarqawi himself showed that there was great division between his organization and one of the leading Iraqi Sunni organizations, and you're hearing him criticizing this very important Iraqi leader. Now by me publishing that, that aired their dirty laundry. As a result of that, he threatened, or his organization threatened to kill me. I mean, one has to be careful about how you couch things, but it doesn't stop you reporting the facts.
HH: No, but it does, however, get to the question of whether or not media from the West should be...what's the right word, Michael Ware? It's not assisting, but providing information flow to the jihadis about whom I'm quite comfortable, and I think most Westerners are quite comfortable, just declaring to be evil, because they kill innocents, and that killing of innocents is evil, is it not, Michael?
MW: Well, absolutely. And I think you'll find that that's the source of one of the greatest divisions amongst all the insurgents here.
HH: And so, is it easy for you to do good journalism with the threat of reprisal hanging over your head, perhaps even greater, because you've been given access over and over again to the bad guys?
MW: Well, yeah, it's still more than able to be done. Nothing is easy in this country. But it's just like how when you're writing about, let's say, an American unit that you're embedded with. You get into some very heavy, some very nasty combat. And I've done that so many times, I can't even begin to count. And something happens, something that may not exactly play well back home. And yet, it's something that you know, well, people outside of this experience would never understand that. I mean, how do you relay that without betraying the trust and the confidence of the troops? And for some journalists, they have to bear in mind well, if I write a negative story about the military on this embed, will they give me another embed? So there's always these pressures from all the players. For example, I wrote a story last year that reflected very, very badly on the Iraqi government, or very significant parts of the Iraqi government. And I was discussing and exposing through documents smuggled out of Iran, their links to the regime in Tehran. Now that resulted in elements of the government showing up at my house, demanding the production of these documents, which clearly we refused to do. So you're always at risk from everyone, either directly or indirectly, through self-censorship or through direct intervention.
HH: Michael Ware, what is the difference between what you've been doing, especially with the jihadists, though to a certain extent with the insurgents as well, and say a World War II-era reporter making numerous trips to the German side to talk with the Nazis, and then coming back and being ambivalent about reporting on the Nazis, or being candid about the Nazis.
MW: Well, I mean, I think we're talking about very markedly different experiences. I mean, for example, during World War II, there was very clearly delineated front lines that simply were not crossed in a fashion like that. It wasn't a guerilla war. It wasn't an insurgency that's fought amongst the mix of a civilian population. So that simply wasn't able to be done. Plus, there was also a very great understanding about the nature of German expansionism, and German nationalism. Hitler had very much outlined his intentions for a decade before the war. So I don't think there was any great mystery there. There was no great unknown to the extent that there is here, that people just don't know what this war is really about. And getting to the bottom of that is extremely difficult, and requires you sifting through any number of filters that all of these players want to throw at you.
HH: But as you said at the beginning, the jihadis consider this to be one battlefield of a vast war. And the jihadis...
MW: Yeah, as does the West. Exactly.
HH: And the jihadis are very prolific in their statements from Osama through Zawahiri down to Zarqawi. So we really know what they're about. Given that you're arguing geography is the reason you do this, I want to go back to the nature of actually doing it, and whether or not if, in fact, in World War II, someone had been offered in Portugal an assistance from the Abwehr to go back and forth to Germany to visit various Nazi encampments or policies, would that have been acceptable in World War II, Michael Ware?
MW: Well, I think the values would be different back then. But let's think about it. What would be the value of doing that? I mean, imagine, okay, we know what we know about the German regime, or the Nazi party. We are inundated with their propaganda. We're listening to their chatter. We're getting their side of the story. Could you imagine having an objective view, go in and come out, and say this is what is really looks like? this is what it really feels like? This is what people in their quiet moments behind closed doors will actually tell you. Now imagine the value of that.
HH: So you would have encouraged such reporting, had it been possible in World War II?
MW: Well, I don't know. I wasn't around in World War II, so I'm not sure I'm really in a position to determine. All I can talk to about are the circumstances that have presented themselves to me, and the wars I've found myself in.
HH: I'm really fascinated by the question of whether or not it's ever good journalism to consort with the enemy in search of interesting stories. And there's not denying, Michael, where you get scoops. It's fascinating to read. You've got a great deal of courage, of physical courage, in doing this. So no one's denying that. I'm just wondering whether or not there's a line that you have in your mind reconciled yourself to crossing not once, but scores and scores of times, to report on the enemy, and whether or not that's a good thing. And you think it is, I think I hear you saying, because the public will not otherwise know what it is that you're reporting. Is that a fair summary?
MW: That is fairly accurate, and let's look at it this way. I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.
HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.
MW: If anyone has a right...
HH: Michael, one second.
MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that's what...
HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.
MW: Absolutely, and I think that's really the reason that a lot of us are doing what we're doing. I mean, it's because of that horror that so much has ensued. It is because of this fight that these people came and picked, that so much has happened. But I mean, what I'm saying to you is that if you think anyone would have the right to complain or to take umbrage at what I do, it would be the troops here on the ground. It would be U.S. military intelligence. It would be the U.S. military. You'd think that they wouldn't give me embeds, wouldn't you? You'd think that they wouldn't grant me backgrounders, or wouldn't take me out on special events. You'd think that they wouldn't give me access to the generals, or to military intelligence. You know, in this war alone, I've been in combat with virtually every kind of U.S. fighting force there is, from the SEAL's, to the Green Berets, to Delta, to Infantry, Airborne, Armored, Mechanized. I mean, I've been there, done that in combat. I've been in every major battle of this war, except from Najaf and the first battle of Fallujah. That includes the battle of Tal-Afar, the Battle of Samara, and the Battle of Fallujah, with front line units. I witnessed an event that the Pentagon subsequently asked me to write about as a witness, which is now a matter for the Congressional Medal of Honor nomination. And I am mentioned in that citation. So if anyone would have a problem with what I do in exploring the issues of this war, you'd think it'd be the military. Yet strangely, they don't.
HH: Michael Yon, as you recall on CNN, paid you great compliment for the way you've covered the war, in a way that he is frankly admiring of, as I am. But I would prefer that you not report on the insurgents, and I'm troubled by your insistance on many occasions that the coalition forces, the military, are lying to people. I'd like you to expand on that.
MW: Well, as I said, I've sat in briefings where...and I will describe for example, events that...this is the thing. What's the title of Phillip Knightley's book, that great time of journalism, the first casualty...and how the first casualty of war is always truth. I mean, for a start, even with the best of intentions, not everything on a battlefield is clear. A lot of things are very fuzzy, particularly at the end of it. Don't forget also that this is an information war. This is a propaganda war. This war, as, you know, insurgents said way back in 2003, isn't going to be won on the battlefield. It's going to be won on the air waves. It turns out it's going to be won or lost on the internet. So these things become critically important.
HH: Michael Ware, I'm interested in your...and stepping back for a second, because I'm fascinated by this. You've been there for five years. Did you think it was wise to invade Afghanistan? And did you think it was wise to invade Iraq, knowing everything that you know now?
MW: Okay, I don't think there was any choice whatsoever about Afghanistan. It simply had to be done. You could not allow an organization that had reached out and attacked Western interests like that to sit in its safe haven. Even if it could not be destroyed, and let's face it. Al Qaeda has not been destroyed, and some could argue it's morphed and evolved and changed, and in some ways, is stronger, and in some ways, is weaker. It could not continue to have that sanctuary. It had to be ousted. It had to have pressure put on it. And that's been done. But let's look at Iraq. Iraq is an entirely different kettle of fish. From the reasons publicly stated and privately expressed for the removal of this regime, to the manor of the planning, and then that execution itself. All of them, I believe, went awry, or were poorly done, the consequences of which we are now living with, three years down the track into this war, with more than 2,300 American men and women who have been killed here in uniform, with what? $250 billion dollars. At the end of the day, what do we have? We have the shakiest of governments here, which is more aligned to our stated enemy of the United States, a member of the axis of evil, than it is with the American forces who liberated them. So Iran has actually become stronger as a result of this invastion. Who else has become stronger? Well, al Qaeda. It's got a whole new branch here in Iraq it never had, hundreds if not thousands of new members it never had, and Zarqawi, who was a nobody in Afghanistan, is now the superstar of international jihad, and that's been acknowledged by the administration when they put a $25 million dollar price tage on his head, the same as Osama. The Iraq war stands markedly different to Afghanistan.
HH: Christopher Hitchens rejects in every particular the argument you just made about Iran being stronger now, and Zarqawi having been a nobody. But rahter than get bogged down, I just wanted to make you aware that people dispute you on that. I want to ask you...
MW: That's fine.
HH: Because we talked about this on CNN. Do you think Iraq is better off today, just...than it was under Saddam? Do you think that...
MW: Well, I was never here under Saddam. My period during Saddam's regime was in the Kurdish North, where with U.S. air cover, they've forged their own autonomous sanctuaries. So I never lived under Saddam, and I can only imagine what the horrors were like, and what the restrictions were like. All I can tell you that life here right now is extraordinarily difficult, and there's a lot of killing going on, and there's a lot of deprivation going on, and to be able to compare that to something I never saw is a bit difficult for me.
HH: Well, do you think the Russian people were better under Krushchev than they were under Stalin? Neither of us saw Kruschev or Stalin, but both of us...
MW: Yeah, I wouldn't have a clue, you know?
HH: You wouldn't have a clue? Really?
MW: No, not really. I mean, Stalin was the beast of all beasts, but you know, I'm not a student of Russian modern history, nor of the Cold War, on where the broad brush strokes...and I certainly don't hold myself out as expert enough to be able to comment on something like that. All I can tell you about is what I see, and what I experience. And what I know is the reality on the grounds here. Now was a vicious dictatorship removed? Absolutely. On a human rights basis, it has to have been a good thing. However, as the result of which, we've let a horrific genie out of the bottle, where 50 or 60 people are showing up dead every morning from an undeclared civil war that even the American ambassador now acknowledges is killing more people than the insurgency. Now that's something that was not here before, yet is here now. So I mean, it's an entirely different problem set that I really don't think can be competently compared like that. It's not that simple.
HH: Now this raises a question of whether or not American journalists generally, and perhaps you specifically, Michael, have an investment in describing this as a genie out of the bottle, have an investment in ignorning, say, the benefits the Marsh Arabs have achieved, the benefits the stability, relative stability in Mosul...they just had an attack in Mosul, so it's relative stability, not great stability. What is it? 13 out of the provinces are generally sedate. It is Baghdad, Anbar, the Syrian desert there, that are the terrible places of great conflict. And while 50 to 60 bodies a day is a horrible toll, Mark Steyn argues that on a net, there are 100,000 Iraqis more alive every year that Saddam is gone, than every year this insurgency goes on. Does that not make a difference in your understanding of the conflict?
MW: Well, I mean, like I said, it's very hard to compare. If 100,000 more people are alive, then clearly, that's a blessing. How we come to those numbers I wouldn't have a clue. But I mean, what I can say is that I, for one, certainly have no investment in beating one administration, or favoring one party over the other. I'm an Australian who reports for an American magazine. I have no stake in your political process whatsoever. I just call it as I see it. I mean, there's nothing to be gained for someone like me. And look, there's enough people here that I've certainly come across in the three years, and who have been writing or publishing or broadcasting, that would be more than happy to tout the successes. Yet those people either can no longer be here because of the security, or I found that a lot of them like some of the soldiers I know, are just being warn down by the horror and drudgery of this place, to the point where that perhaps their views have changed. So I mean, I can't speak for every journalist. All I can say is that I don't personally have a liberal, anti-administration bias. And I can't say that I say that many of my colleagues do.
HH: I want to let you go, because you've stayed up late. I've just got three quick more questions. CNN's Eason Jordan wrote a piece after the war began, apologizing for the conduct of CNN under Saddam, not reporting on his horrors, having been afraid of getting people killed, having been in essence, a hostage to Saddam's regime. Some of the stuff we discussed earlier in this has a hint of you're being a hostage of the insurgents at this point, because they're watching you very clearly. Under those circumstances, Michael Ware, shouldn't you come home?
MS: Well, I don't know. Have you been listening to what I said? I mean, I said to you that regardless of any of these difficulties, I've still reported in such a way that Zarqawi's given me treatment that he's given no other journalist. And I don't know how many other journalists he's directly threatened. So I don't know that I'm exactly that hostage to him or his agenda.
HH: Well, CNN was also given access, and it was also threatened, and it was also affected, but it was only revealed by Jordan after Saddam was toppled, the extent to which CNN had been impaired in its journalistic integrity. So you're telling me we don't have to worry about you pulling an Eason Jordan on us, and telling us down the road you couldn't quite cover what the insurgents were doing, because they were...not just for you, but for your staff. That's what Eason Jordan said. It was his Iraqi stringers that would have been executed. There's no issue like that with you?
MW: Well, actually, in the course of this war, we've had a translator assassinated four blocks from our house. Our house has been hit by, or subject to car bombs twice. I've had two of my stringers who deal with the insurgency kidnapped, one of whom was rescued by the Marines when they overran Fallujah in November, 2004. The other one was tortured for five days as al Qaeda tried to get information on me before he was finally released, when they became convinced that he was innocent of any kind of crime. I had another translator of mine, who when al Qaeda targeted him to get information on me and our operation and he refused, they blew up his car. We had to fly him to Jordan, get last ditch surgery to save his arm, and he's now been granted refugee status in Australia. My staff have been in firefights. Their lives have been threatened. I'm not sure that that's been an easy ride.
HH: I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that it might weigh very heavily, and in fact, so heavily upon you, even as did similar circumstances upon Eason Jordan, that it might impair your ability to report. And you're telling me it doesn't?
MW: Well, it hasn't so far, and after all that we've been through, we're still out there revealing things about the insurgency that no one else has been able to reveal, and that is still being recognized by the U.S. military. So despite it all, we're still in there punching.
HH: My last question. Zarqawi.
MW: Yeah.
HH: He was there before the war began. He had come back and forth to Afghanistan. In your dealings with the insurgents, had they dealt with him prior to the war?
MW: No. I did uncover some documents, however, that referred to his presence, here in some form. Now it seemed to be covert and unofficial, and one can only guess. However, I did receive a document written by one of his right hand men, a man who was killed in 2004 by a U.S. JDAM in his vehicle, who wrote an after action report of the first battle of Fallujah, in the course of which he said well, you know, Abu bil-Bloggs (phonetic spelling) was killed at this point. You know Abu bil-Bloggs. He was the one who saw Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war.
HH: Did you publish that?
MW: Yeah.
HH: In Time Magazine.
MW: Yeah.
HH: Oh, that's interesting. I missed that one. I have to go back and find that. That's a very significant find. What about the weapons of mass destruction...I lied. I got one more. The weapons of mass destruction, Michael Ware. What do the insurgents tell you about what happened to them, or what the story is there?
MW: Well, I did a weapons of mass destruction story back in 2003, and back then, most of the people I was dealing with were not insurgents. I believe some of them probably went on to become insurgents. But back then, they were former Republican Guard, officers, former scientists, former secret police of intelligence officers, whose job was to monitor the U.N., or monitor the scientists. Basically, what all of them tell me was that all the stuff had been destroyed in the early 90's, just as Saddam had told the U.N., and the CIA subsequently found to be true, that whatever wasn't destroyed was so rotten it was unusable, that if we'd had it, by goodness we would have used it. The other thing was that the whole weapons industry, including the WMD industry that Saddam had mothballed, was riddled with corruption. So a lot of these guys were saying, you know, some of these big characters in the regime, were selling Saddam on the idea of this wonder-weapon, that actually never really existed. They fired once, it didn't really work. They dodgy up the report. He throws $10 million at them, which they all pocket. So that was what I learned from regime figures about WMD.
HH: Michael Ware, I've kept you up late, and now I want to let you go. But I hope we can get a return conversation. It's been fascinating. I appreciate your candor, and wish you God speed, and safe travels around Baghdad.
MW: Thank you very much. It's been a great pleasure. Take care, Hugh.
HH: Thank you, Michael.
End of interview.