AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera is reporting that Saddam Hussein is dead. They say Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was killed during the night of April 7th, 8th as a result of a bombing raid on the al-Mansour district of Baghdad. This was announced yesterday evening in an interview with Al Jazeera television by Amr Naffah, a well-known Iraqi journalist, close ties to the Iraqi government circles. Naffah said that Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, also died during the U.S. bombing raid, as well as half of the Iraqi leadership. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that this announcement may be deliberate disinformation, circulated in order to bring an end to the search for Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders. Again, that latest report is from Al Jazeera. You are listening to Democracy Now!, as we turn now to the writer Arundhati Roy. She is in New Delhi, and she joins us now. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Arundhati.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. As you listened to the first half-hour of our program, one of the pieces that has been swirling around the internet, that you wrote, that was published in The Guardian is called “Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates. How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilisation.” Can you talk about your thoughts now, three weeks after the invasion, at a time when the U.S. is claiming almost total victory over Iraq?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I mean, first of all, the idea of the U.S. being a country that has no past and has its roots in the future makes a lot of sense suddenly, you know, that utter disrespect for the fact that — how is it that it is not the business of the U.S. Army, occupying army, to protect the security of the Iraqi people, to protect the security of their homes, to protect those museums? But it certainly is, or seems to be, their business to, first of all, secure the oil fields. You know, that is what I can’t — I mean, I don’t understand. How does this break down? You know, the oil fields are secured, and oil production is going to start almost immediately. And OPEC has decided how to control the prices and all that. And this, the business of people’s lives, the business of an ancient civilization, we’re told, is none of their business.

And all that remains now is for the ultimate humiliation, which is that we are going to be told that the Iraqi people are now on their knees begging America to, you know, give them security. In order to do that, you must have a regime at least as repressive as Saddam Hussein’s, I’m sure, you know, with guns and tanks and humiliation all around. And, you know, while we’re all treated to these fake spectacles of statues being brought down, and, you know, suddenly, a population that has been under sanctions for 12 years with no water and no food and no medicines seems to have been hoarding American flags to wave, it’s just so insulting to the intelligence of the world that, you know, how does one — how does one describe it?

AMY GOODMAN: We have this information. The Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes is warning that Pakistan is a prime case for preemptive strikes. He said he’s endorsing the foreign minister’s recent comments that India had, quote, “a much better case to go for preemptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq,” and argued that Pakistan was, quote, “a fit case for U.S. military action, because it had weapons of mass destruction and terrorists.” This warning coming just hours after Colin Powell said Washington would work to ease tensions between nuclear enemies Pakistan and India. What do you think of the example that’s being set right now?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, know, I mean, before the pieces of the Mesopotamian civilization have been swept up, we are being told that now Syria has chemical weapons, and, you know, Syria is basically in the target, in the gun sights now. So, obviously, you know, all governments all over the world are opportunistic. And, you know, this statement by the defense minister is designed to provoke the reaction that it will provoke, you know, which is that, I mean, the only thing is that it has nothing to do — America attacking countries has nothing to do with whether they have weapons of mass destruction or not. You know, it’s just they attack people because they can and because they want something from there. And India is not the U.S. government, and Pakistan is not Iraq. So, at stake are the lives of billions of people — I mean, more than a billion people. But, of course, why would that — why would that deter Mr. Rumsfeld or Mr. Bush or Colin Powell? Because, you know, we’re just the Native, dispensable people.

AMY GOODMAN: As you listen to what happened to the museum, can you comment on what you heard?

ARUNDHATI ROY: I wake up in the middle of the night and watch what’s happening. And at one point, I heard Donald Rumsfeld briefing the press in the Pentagon, saying, “You know, the press keeps showing the same man running out of the building with a vase, and they show the same thing over and over again 20 times, 'til you have to wonder, ‘Jesus, how many vases do they have out there in Iraq?'” And the press room just burst out laughing at this amazing wit. So, you know, you think you’re talking to humanoids or you’re dealing with humanoids, not people who understand history or know that there is such a thing as history or there is anything that ought to be respected in that.

So, you know, you create a situation where, because people have been so deprived of just ordinary, you know, medicines and food and pencils and water and, you know, books — you read about how during the sanctions, you know, professors were selling books on the street, just in exchange for, you know, food. So, you create a situation like that, and then you go in and destroy the regime. OK, it was a bad regime. But do you have a plan? No, because all you’re interested in is the oil fields. All you’re interested in are those reconstruction contracts. And so, why does all this matter? You know, I mean, the fact is that the humiliation of these people is so complete now. It is complete. You know, all the exits have been sealed.

AMY GOODMAN: What were your thoughts as you watched the U.S. marines in Baghdad pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein, first the American flag put like a noose around his head, and then that was — then the marine took that down, and they put up an Iraqi flag?

ARUNDHATI ROY: You see, the thing is that you — now we’ve come to a stage where, you know, you’re living in a nuthouse. So, when you see something like that on CNN again and again and again and again, you know, you no longer have any guidelines, you know? You can believe anything. Like, we can believe anything now, you know, that — of course, now I know that the people who pulled down the statue were Chalabi’s people, that the square was half-empty, that most of the mob was, you know, journalists. All that comes out later. But, of course, even before it comes out, your political intuition tells you that this must be so. You know, half the world — I’d say three-quarters of the world is waiting for, you know, some chemical weapons to be planted there now, and then to be discovered with a flourish. And in a world like that, you know, as they say, to be paranoid is to be in full possession of all the facts, because this is the situation that people have been put in. Now you believe what you want to believe, because you can’t believe what you’re told by the media, certainly. You know? So, it’s a way of driving everybody completely crazy, you know? You just pick on some one person.

And, you know, I live in a very poor country, and I know that when there’s a situation where there’s rioting or looting, people are opportunistic, you know. So, poor people know, all you’ve got to do is say, “Bush, very good,” or, you know, throw something at some portrait of Saddam Hussein and then run off with a sofa or run off with whatever it is that you want, and you’ll be allowed to because, you know, you’re doing the right thing. So, it’s just so — it’s so demeaning for everybody, you know, for everybody.

And I was reading Robert Fisk talking about how the whole thing is boiling up into a civil war between Shias and Sunnis, because, you know, the Shias have been historically deprived, the Sunnis are the landed people. So, one community becomes the looters, the other becomes the looted. And this kind of hatred, I can tell you from what goes on in India between Hindus and Muslims, is not something that Rumsfeld or Bush have any idea about. You’re sowing the seeds of something that will rot and decompose for years and years.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the response of people around you right now in Delhi, your friends, the Indian papers? How are they covering what’s happening in Iraq, Arundhati Roy?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I mean, certainly, I haven’t — you know, with the exception of people, like, who are the equivalent of Fox News here, there isn’t — I haven’t actually spoken or met with a single person — and I meet people across the board, mind you — who has any sympathy whatsoever with the U.S. government position. It is completely clear what’s going on. But now this brings one to a very frightening place, which is that, you know, before they even begin to lie, the lie is exposed, but it doesn’t seem to matter. You know, it doesn’t seem to matter at all. The contempt with which Bush administration treats its own people, its own media — now even the media in America, you know, comes out with things which give lie to what you say. Doesn’t seem to matter. They are on a roll, you know? And public opinion, they have realized, is as primitive as it was from the time democracy began, which is, all you have to do is start a war, and then everybody defects onto your side. Everybody kind of aligns themselves behind you, and you’re up and running, you know. So, I mean, my bet is, everybody here thinks that the, you know, Syrians will be attacked closer to the American elections, because that’s the time when he’ll need a boost in his popularity. So, it goes on.

AMY GOODMAN: What will you be writing now about what you’re watching in Iraq?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, Amy, I mean, that’s a difficult question, because, you know, I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to write, you know? Like, I just hate to be haunted and consumed by this, because, of course, we all know that this is also what is being put in front of us, while equally, you know, people are being massacred in Chechnya and repressed in Tibet, and all that is still happening in the world. And it has nothing to do with, you know, ideology. It has to do with repressive government machinery at work. And so, I think all that one can say is that, you know, you begin to feel — I begin to feel that it’s important and right for you or for me or for every one of us that’s engaged in what we do to keep on exposing it, to keep on telling the story.

But that’s not enough anymore. You know, it is important to take it beyond that. It is important to get into expanding the universe of civil disobedience. It’s important to understand that now everywhere, in the poorest, poorest places, like India, you know, this thing of “you’re with us or with the terrorists” has taken on such terrible meaning. You know, the poorest people, thousands of them are in jail today as terrorists because they’re resisting being thrown off their land or protesting some development project. In America, I mean, civil liberties are just — you know, don’t seem to mean anything anymore, apart from the fact that, you know, the highest number of people in jail are American. And, you know, the idea of President Bush going around distributing Purple Hearts and citizenship — citizenship — to people who have died fighting in the American Army, what is it going to be? The reconstruction contracts to, you know, big American companies, while the battles are being fought by Black people and immigrants, you know, while the soldiers are those. It’s unthinkable, you know, what’s happening. And I think we need to understand that, you know, they are really pushing the envelope now. And so, unless we do something more than just expose it, we’re in for a lot of trouble, for a lot of terror, for a lot of terrified lives of people who are going to just disappear, who are — you know, surveillance, eavesdropping, spying, all that.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Arundhati Roy. We’re going to break, and when we come back, we’ll also be joined by Greg Palast talking about the new rulers of Iraq who the U.S. military is putting in place, in addition to the retired general, Jay Garner, who comes out of the U.S. military-industrial complex, SY Industries. Stay with us.