Pubdate: Wed, 19 Apr 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/
Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX
Author: Connie Cass, Associated Press

U.S. DRUG CZAR AIMS TO HEAD OFF 'DEFAMATORY' ARTICLE

McCaffrey's Conduct In Gulf War Questioned

WASHINGTON -- White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey is striking 
back at a prize-winning investigative reporter he accuses of spreading 
"defamatory" allegations about McCaffrey's conduct as an Army general in 
the Persian Gulf War.

In an unusual twist, McCaffrey's efforts are bringing to the public's 
attention an assortment of allegations against him before they are published.

He is trying to head off an article that is being prepared by Seymour Hersh 
for The New Yorker  magazine.

McCaffrey said yesterday that Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing 
the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, has been spreading a range of false 
accusations during interviews with friends and former military colleagues.

Among them: assertions that troops led by McCaffrey killed Iraqi prisoners 
of war, that McCaffrey committed unspecified crimes in the Vietnam War and 
that he has acted inappropriately in pushing a $1.6 billion anti-drug aid 
package for Colombia.

McCaffrey wrote New Yorker  editor David Remnick last month to warn against 
publishing false and libelous statements. He accuses Hersh of malice and 
"journalistic stalking."

"I've gotten calls from dozens of friends over the last three months 
reporting a series of accusations by Mr. Hersh ranging from bike theft at 
age 11 to atrocities in the Gulf War," McCaffrey said. "They are defamatory 
and sort of frightening to my friends and family."

Hersh said yesterday he would not comment on reporting that has yet to be 
published.

In a letter to McCaffrey's Office of National Drug Control Policy, made 
available by a McCaffrey spokesman, Hersh denied that he was acting 
maliciously.

"I am simply going about my business, as I have for the past 35 years, 
asking questions, listening to answers and trying to verify and assess what 
I've been told," Hersh wrote.

New Yorker  spokeswoman Perri Dorset declined to discuss the contents of 
Hersh's article but said it was going through normal fact-checking procedures.

Although he is not sure what Hersh is writing, McCaffrey said he is 
convinced that the reporter is biased against him, and McCaffrey has 
refused him an interview.

McCaffrey said he began discussing how to handle the situation with a few 
journalists after reporters working on other stories asked him about rumors 
that Hersh was pursuing the allegations.

He said he was especially alarmed by suggestions that, under his command, 
the 24th Infantry Division killed POWs and committed other war crimes in 
the Persian Gulf.

"It is only fair to give notice that I cannot accept publication of false 
statements by Mr. Hersh that would dishonor the 24th Infantry Division," 
McCaffrey wrote to Remnick, specifically warning against "libelous attacks" 
that would damage the good names of the division's 19,000 soldiers who, 
unlike McCaffrey, are not public figures.

Marc Raimondi, spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, said 
Hersh had requested and received records of investigations of allegations 
of wrongdoing at the end of the Gulf War.

"There was no criminal wrongdoing found," Raimondi said.
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