Transcript of Press TV interview on war plans leak in Washington

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https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/133126
PressTV: 0:00
US officials in Trump’s administration are still caught up in a chat leak scandal. US national security advisor, Mike Walz has now taken responsibility for the leak that exposed sensitive military plans for bombing Yemen. Waltz called the leak embarrassing and admitted to creating the chat group himself on the Signal Messenger app. He also blamed Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist who was accidentally invited to the chat group in which the war plans were discussed. Goldberg has said that the US Defense Secretary posted the bombing plans shortly before the first wave of attacks against Yemen.

On March 15th, the White House has tried to downplay the leak as a minor glitch. Democratic senators however have slammed the breach as sloppy and careless urging intelligence leaders to address the risks to national security.

0:59
Well, for more on that story we’re now joined by independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow, who’s with us from Brussels. Mr. Doctorow, welcome to the program. What was your reaction when you heard about the leak and how the plans– and the manner that the plans were leaked. And also, are you shocked that no one has been held accountable yet?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:24
Well, Waltz held himself accountable. So in that respect, the buck stopped there on his desk, as they say in the States. Such a scandal is not surprising.

The Democrats have been in a state of total confusion. They have been racing to catch up with the flood of new initiatives which the administration of Donald Trump has put out since he took over the Oval Office. And here they have something which looks very good, because they can attack Trump for the amateurism of his top advisors, that he has not taken people with proven experience. The people with proven experience, Trump already had experience with them in his first administration. These were Pompeo at State and Bolton as national security advisor. These were people who were intent on leading the United States into forever wars and stabbing their boss in the back.

So it is not surprising that Mr. Trump has avoided the experienced, so to speak, warriors who are in great numbers on Capitol Hill, and has taken people from outside their ranks. The notion that this was proof of the inexperience and incompetence of Trump’s appointees was made a feature article in today’s issue of “Financial Times”.

2:56
That’s understandable. The “Times” hates Mr. Trump. They hate his policy of accommodation with Russia, they hate the fact that he is trying to break the cycle of forever wars and of the Cold War with Russia that’s been going on for 80 years. So that is the position of the opponents to Trump, particularly among the Democrats. [It explains] why there has been so much noise about this relatively minor issue. As regards the statement that JD Vance in the recorded chat shows himself to be hostile to Europe: well, there’s no surprise there.

But the statements that Vance has made are in no way comparable to the vulgar remarks that were made in the Obama administration by [Victoria Nuland] in her conversation with Mr. Pyatt, the American ambassador to Kiev, in the days just preceding the full coup d’etat. Those remarks were incredible. But people on the Democratic side would like to make a great deal out of the rather minor remarks critical of Europe for being a leech, a sponge for not paying its fair share for its own defense.

PressTV: 4:26
Okay, thanks a lot. Independent international affairs, analyst Gilbert Doctorow is speaking to us from Brussels.

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Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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