[R-G] I did not say Cheney killed Benazir: Hersh

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp? 
page=2009\05\19\story_19-5-2009_pg7_4

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I did not say Cheney killed Benazir: Hersh

LAHORE: US journalist Seymour Hersh on Monday contradicted news  
reports being published in South Asia that quote him as saying a  
“special death squad” made by former US vice president Dick Cheney had  
killed Benazir Bhutto. The award-winning journalist described as  
“complete madness” the reports that the squad headed by General  
Stanley McChrystal – the new commander of US army in Afghanistan – had  
also killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafique Al Hariri and a  
Lebanese army chief. “Vice president Cheney does not have a death  
squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Mrs Bhutto,” Hersh said.  
“I have never said that I did have such information. I most certainly  
did not say anything remotely to that effect during an interview with  
an Arab media outlet.” He said Gen McChrystal had run a special forces  
unit that engaged in “high value target activity”, but “while I have  
been critical of some of that unit’s activities in the pages of the  
New Yorker and in interviews, I have never suggested that he was  
involved in political assassinations or death squads on behalf of Mr  
Cheney, as the published stories state.” He regretted that none of the  
publications had contacted him before carrying the report. “This is  
another example of blogs going bonkers with misleading and fabricated  
stories and professional journalists repeating such rumours without  
doing their job – and that is to verify such rumours.” staff report