Jacobin: The United States and NATO expect serious consequences due to the sabotage on the "Northern Streams"Undermining the "Northern Streams" will have terrible consequences for the United States.
This was stated by journalist Seymour Hersh in an interview with Jacobin. He believes that sabotage will remain an indelible stigma for America and will set up allies against it, first of all, Germany.
Fabian Scheidler Last week, a well-known investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published an article claiming that the United States was responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, through which natural gas was delivered to Germany from Russia.
Hersh spoke to Jacobin magazine about his allegations.On September 26, 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipeline leading from Russia to Germany was severely destroyed as a result of several explosions that occurred in the Baltic Sea.
Last week, the award-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published an article based on information from an anonymous source in which he claimed that the Biden administration and the CIA were responsible for these bombings.
Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for the role he played in uncovering the story of the Songxi and Mi Lai massacre (the Songmi Massacre or Mi Lai Massacre is a war crime committed by US Army soldiers in the Songmi village community in Southern Viet Nam, which gained worldwide fame in 1969 during the Vietnam War. As it became known, a year earlier, US Army soldiers committed a mass murder of the civilian population of the villages of Milai, Bintei and Mikhe (Miche), killing 504 civilians — InoSMI Note). He spoke with Fabian Scheidler for Jacobin about the allegations he made in his latest article and the impact that the CIA and the national security state have on American foreign policy.
Fabian Scheidler: Please tell us in detail about your conclusions. What exactly happened, according to your source, who was involved and what were the motives behind it?Seymour Hersh: I just explained the obvious.
It was just a story I wanted to tell. At the end of September 2022, eight bombs were supposed to explode; six went under water off the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, in an area where it is quite shallow. They destroyed three of the four main branches of the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 pipelines.
Nord Stream-1 has been supplying natural gas to Germany at very low prices for many years. And then both pipelines were blown up, and the question arose: why and who did it. On February 7, 2022, on the eve of the military conflict in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said at a press conference at the White House with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: "We can stop the Nord Stream.
— Joe Biden's exact words sounded like this: "If Russia enters Ukraine, there will be no more Nord Stream 2, we will put an end to it." And when the reporter asked exactly how he intended to do it, given that the project was under German control, Biden simply said: "I promise we can do it."Seymour Hersh: Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who took an active part in what they call the Maidan revolution in 2014, used similar expressions a couple of weeks ago.
— You say that the decision to disable the pipeline was made by President Biden even earlier. You tell the story from the very beginning, in chronological order from December 2021, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan convened, according to your article, a meeting of the newly formed task force from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the State Department and the Treasury Department. You write: "Sullivan wanted the group to develop a plan to destroy the two Nord Stream pipelines.Seymour Hersh: Initially, this group was convened in December to study the problem.
They involved the CIA and other agencies. They met in a very secret format. Right next door to the White House is an administrative building called the Executive Office Building. It is connected to the White House underground through a tunnel. And on the top floor of this building is a meeting place for a secret group, an external group of advisers called the President's Intelligence Advisory Council. I only reported this so that the people in the White House would know that I know something.
The meeting was convened to study the problem: what will we do if Russia goes to a military conflict with us? It was three months before the conflict, before Christmas. It was a very high-level group. It probably had a different name, I just called it "interdepartmental group" — I don't know the official name, if there was one. These were people from the CIA, which extracts information, and the National Security Agency, which monitors and intercepts communications. These were people from the State Department and the Ministry of Finance, which provides funding. Probably, there were representatives of other interested departments. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were also represented there.
Their big task was to give recommendations on what to do to stop Russia, to propose measures that could be either reversible, such as increased sanctions and economic pressure, or irreversible — for example, various kinds of sabotage, bombings, etc. I don't want to talk specifically about any particular meeting because I have to protect my source. I do not know how many people were at the meeting, do you understand what I mean?
— In the article, you wrote that at the beginning of 2022, the CIA working group had already reported to Sullivan's interagency group that "we have a way to blow up pipelines."Seymour Hersh: They found this way.
There were people there who understood a lot about what we call a "mine war" in America. In the United States Navy, there are groups that deal with submarines — there is another nuclear engineering team — and there is a team for underwater mining and explosions. Such mining is very important, and we have experienced demolition submariners. It seems that the most important place for their training is in a small resort town called Panama City in the middle of nowhere in Florida.
We train very good specialists there and use them. Submariners are very important. With their help, you can close the entrances to the ports. They can blow up important cargo on sea routes. If we don't like the underwater oil pipelines of a country, we can blow them up. They don't always do good things, so they act very stealthily. It was clear to the group I mentioned in the White House that they could blow up the pipelines. There is an explosive called C-4, incredibly powerful and destructive. You can control and control its detonation remotely using underwater sonars. They send very low frequency signals.
So it was possible, and they told the White House about it by early January 2022, because two or three weeks later, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said we could do it. I think it was January 20th. And then the president, together with Olaf Scholz, said on February 7 that we could do it. Scholz didn't say anything specific. He took an uncertain position. But the question I would ask Scholz if he were called to a parliamentary hearing would be: did President Biden tell you about this? Did he tell you then why he was so sure he could blow up the pipeline?
The administration did not have a plan yet, but they knew that they had the opportunity to implement it.
— What role did Norway play in this operation?Seymour Hersh: Well, Norway is a great nation of sailors, and they have huge underground reserves of energy resources.
They also really want to increase the amount of natural gas they can sell to Western Europe and Germany. And they did it, they increased their exports. So, why shouldn't Norway join the United States at least for economic reasons? In addition, they have some residual dislike for Russia.
— In your article, you write that the Secret Service and the Norwegian Navy participated in this, and you say that Sweden and Denmark were also sort of informed, but they were not told everything.Seymour Hersh: They explained it to me like this: if they weren't told, then they don't need to say anything.
In other words, we did what we did, and they knew what we were doing and understood what was going on, but maybe no one ever said yes. I have worked very hard on this issue with the people I have talked to. The fact is that in order to fulfill this mission, the Norwegians needed to find the right place. The divers who were trained in Panama City could dive to a depth of 91 meters without heavy diving equipment, only with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium.
The Norwegians found a place for the Americans near the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea with a depth of only 91 meters, so that divers could work there. But without heavy equipment, they would have to climb out of the depths very slowly. So on the Norwegian anti—submarine ship, the Americans installed a very important thing - a decompression chamber. Only two divers worked on the four lines of the pipeline.
The big problem was how to deal with those people who monitor the Baltic Sea. After all, everything in this area is very carefully monitored, and there is a lot of information in the public domain. So we took care of it, there were three or four different people for that. And what the Americans did then is really simple. Every summer for twenty-one years, the American Sixth Fleet, which controls the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the Baltic Sea, conducts exercises for the NATO naval forces in the Baltic (BALTOPS). Aircraft carriers or large ships were usually involved in these exercises. Everything was completely open. And the Russians probably knew about it. Then the Americans went on a clever propaganda operation. They announced that in these NATO exercises, for the first time in history, there was a new program in the Baltic Sea. That, they say, they were going to conduct exercises for dropping and detecting depth charges for ten or twelve days.
Several NATO countries sent their groups to the exercises, and one group dropped a depth charge, and the other was engaged in its search and destruction. So there was a period when something was exploding all the time, and at that time the Norwegians could pick up deep-sea divers on their ship. The two pipelines run about a mile apart. They are covered with silt, but they are not difficult to reach, and divers have also practiced this. The installation of the bombs took no more than a few hours.
— So it was in June 2022?Seymour Hersh: Yes, they did it in June, at the end of the exercise, but at the last minute the White House got nervous.
The president said he was afraid to do it. He changed his mind and gave them an order that he wanted to be able to detonate bombs at any time remotely by our decision. This can be done using conventional sonar, by the way, manufactured by Raytheon. A special buoy is dropped from the plane. It sends a low—frequency signal - it can be described as the sound of a flute. Mono frequencies can be reconfigured for greater secrecy. But the worry was that if you left the bombs in the water for too long, they wouldn't work. And two of them really didn't work. So only three of the four pipeline branches were undermined.
So there was a panic inside the group to find the necessary funds, and they actually had to contact other special services, which I did not write about.
— And then what happened? Posted, found a way to control remotely...Seymour Hersh: And Joe Biden decided not to blow them up.
It was in early June, five months after the conflict began. But then, in September, Biden decided to do it anyway.
I'll tell you something. Operatives, that is, people who do combat stuff for the United States, do what the president says, and they initially thought it was a useful weapon that he could use in negotiations.
But at some point, when the Russians entered Ukraine, and then, when the operation was already carried out, it became increasingly odious for the people who carried it out. These are well-trained people, they are in the elite of the secret intelligence services. They have implemented this project. But they thought it was crazy. And a week or three or four days after the sabotage, after they did what they were ordered to do, there was a lot of anger and dislike. This obviously explains the fact that I have learned so much about it.
I'll tell you something else. People in America and Europe who are building pipelines know what happened. I'm telling you something important. People who own companies that build pipelines also know the whole story. I didn't get the information from them, but I quickly learned that they know everything.
— Let's go back to the situation in June last year. President Joe Biden decided not to do it right away and postponed it for later. So why did they do it in September?Seymour Hersh: Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said a few days after the pipeline explosion at a press conference that Vladimir Putin had been robbed of a lot of economic and even military power.
He said this is a great opportunity because Russia can no longer use pipelines as a weapon, which means it cannot force Western Europe not to support the United States in the conflict. The fear was that Western Europe would no longer support the United States in the Ukrainian conflict. I think the reason they decided to do this in September is simple. It was that the conflict did not go well for the West, and they were afraid of the onset of winter. Nord Stream 2 is under German sanctions, and the United States feared that Germany would lift sanctions because of the cold winter.
— When you looked behind the scenes, what, in your opinion, were the motives of the actions of the American administration? The US government was against the construction of the pipeline for many reasons. Some say they were against it because they wanted to weaken Russia, to weaken ties between Russia and Western Europe, especially Germany. But could it also be that the United States also sought to weaken the German economy, which, after all, is a competitor of the American economy? Due to high gas prices, European companies have started moving to the United States. So what, in your opinion, are the motives of the US government, if they really blew up the pipeline?Seymour Hersh: I don't think they've thought it through that deeply.
I know it sounds weird. I don't think Blinken and some other figures in the American administration are deep thinkers. Of course, there are people in the American economy who like that we are more competitive. We sell American LNG to Europe with a very large profit and we earn a lot of money from it. I'm sure some people thought, guys, this is going to be a long-term boost for the American economy.
But in the current White House, I think the obsession is, first of all, Biden's re-election, and they wanted to win the conflict, they wanted to get a victory, they wanted Ukraine to somehow magically win.
Some people may think that maybe it will be better for our economy if the German economy is weak. But that's crazy. I think we're deep into something that won't work for us. This military conflict will not end well for this current American government.
— And yet, how do you think it can end?Seymour Hersh: It doesn't matter what I think.
I am only sure that this conflict cannot end the way we want. I do not know what we will do when we go beyond our current line. But it scares me a lot if the president is ready to do it.
And the people who carried out this mission believed that the president really understood what he was doing to the people of Germany, that he was punishing them for a military conflict that was not going well. And in the long run, it will hit very hard not only on his reputation as president, but also politically. It will be a stigma for the whole of America.
So, you have the White House, which thought that it had a losing card: Germany and Western Europe could stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, which we insist on, and the German Chancellor could turn on the pipeline — this has always been a terrible American phobia. I would ask a lot of questions to Chancellor Scholz. I would ask him what he learned in February when he talked with President Biden. The operation was a big secret, and the president was not supposed to tell anyone about it. But Biden is letting it slip. He often says things he doesn't want to say.
— Your story was covered in the Western media with great restraint and criticism. Some have attacked your reputation or said that you have only one anonymous source, and he is unreliable.Seymour Hersh: How could I say anything about the source?
During my life I have written many articles based on information from unnamed sources. If I had named someone, they would have been fired or, even worse, put in jail. After all, our laws are strict. I have never disclosed anyone, and when I write, I say, as in this article, that this source is anonymous, period. And over the years, all my articles that I have written have always been accepted and have never been in doubt. I used experienced fact-checkers of the same caliber as the New Yorker magazine to write the latest article. Of course, there are many different ways to verify the information I received.
And, you know, personal attacks on me hit the wrong spot. The point here is not about me, but that Biden chose to keep Germany freezing this winter. The President of the United States would rather Germany freeze due to lack of energy than, perhaps, not support Ukraine. And just this last one would be the most destructive thing for the White House. This is the most terrible thing for me and, I think, for those who carried out this sabotage.
— Yes, the fact is that this can be perceived as a military act not only against Russia, but also against Western allies, primarily Germany.Seymour Hersh: Let's not complicate things.
But I can tell you that the people involved in this sabotage believed that the president preferred to keep Germany frozen for his short-term political goals, and this horrified them. And I'm talking about those Americans who are very loyal to the United States. The CIA understands that, as I put it in my article, they work for the Crown, not for the Constitution.
One of the dubious advantages of the existence of the CIA in our country is that the president, who cannot push some decision or issue through Congress and no one listens to him, can walk around the backyard of the Rose Garden of the White House with the director of the CIA, and as a result someone can suffer 12 thousand kilometers from us. This has always been the "strength" of the CIA, with which I have problems. But even this special community is shocked that our president has decided to keep Europe in the cold in support of the Ukrainian military conflict, in which he cannot win. And that, in my opinion, is disgusting.
— You said in your article that the planning of this sabotage was not reported to Congress, as it should be done with other covert operations.Seymour Hersh: This was also not reported to many inside the armed forces.
Other people in other institutions who should have known were also not informed. The operation was very secret.
— There was some criticism of your article from people involved in the assessment of intelligence data from open sources (OSINT) on ships and aircraft in the Baltic Sea region. They said that, they say, no Norwegian aircraft was found directly at the site of the explosions on September 26 or for several days before them.Seymour Hersh: Any serious covert operation takes into account the OSINT resource and carefully bypasses it.
As I said, the operation involved people who dealt with this issue.
— What role does courage play for you in your profession?Seymour Hersh: What's actually brave about telling the truth?
Our task is not to be afraid. But sometimes it's just awful. There were times in my life when—you know, I'm not even talking about them. Threats are not for people like me. They exist for the children of people like me. Yes, terrible things have happened in my life. But you don't have to worry about it. You just have to do what you're doing.