AMY GOODMAN: We continue our conversation with Arundhati Roy, the author of God of Small Things, as well as her latest book, War Talk, published by South End Press. And on the line with us from here in New York is Greg Palast, who is doing various investigations for the BBC. As we look at the new regime taking power in Iraq, you’ve been digging into who some of those people are, Greg.

GREG PALAST: That’s right, Amy. The question is: Who’s really going to win this war? And it looks like Madonna, I think, because there’s a whole team of people rewriting Iraq’s laws for them. This is the new democracy. In particular, Hilary Rosen, who is the lobbyist, for example, for the record industry of America, is rewriting Iraq’s intellectual property laws for them, so that — you know, before they used to have to fear Saddam Hussein; now they have to fear that Sony Records will chop off their hands if they bootleg a Madonna album.

The other is, you have Grover Norquist, who is the lobbyist for American Express and Microsoft on tax issues, helping rewrite the Iraqi tax laws — I’m sure for the benefit of the Iraqi people, not for Microsoft, but I guess we’ll have to see.

You’ve got — and then, Bob Zoellick, who is our trade representative, who came to the Bush administration from Enron, is talking about turning Iraq into a free trade zone, so rewriting all their trade laws for them, but, in addition, making kind of a point at which it becomes kind of the Trojan horse for free trade within the Mideast by becoming a free trade zone, where items transferred there will then be touched by the new free market wonder of the WTO.

So, there’s been a lot of discussion about Halliburton. But there are just a whole lot of other big winners in there, including — you know, no one’s asking about the $80 billion and where exactly that’s going at this moment. Very little of it is accounted for by the number of smart and dumb bombs we have to replace.

AMY GOODMAN: What about Barbara Bodine, the former ambassador to Yemen?

GREG PALAST: Oh, yeah. You know, most Americans don’t realize that democracy in Iraq means imposing a military junta on the people. There’s going to be under — the supremo, of course, the kind of viceroy, will be Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Armed Forces, who, by the way, will now pick up a vote in OPEC. That will play out in an interesting manner, Franks versus Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. But under Franks, there’ll be a triumvirate. And that junta will be made up of two used generals, two former generals, out of — who’ve gone on to industry, and Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who is the — who actually right now is our ambassador to Yemen.

She’s an interesting figure because she is the one who blocked John O’Neill, if you remember, from investing in al-Qaeda. John O’Neill was the head of the FBI unit investigating al-Qaeda. He was the chief investigator on the 1993 al-Qaeda attempt on the World Trade Center. He was trying to hunt down al-Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, and he was blocked at every step by Bodine. And that’s one of the reasons he quit the FBI. And then, you know, tragically, he took over in charge of security at the World Trade Center and was — you know, died in the building.

So, what’s interesting, there’s a great irony in this. You know, we’ve had a president who says he’s looking — you know, that he has evidence and he’s hunting for evidence that the Iraqi government has aided and protected and abetted al-Qaeda. So, if Barbara Bodine takes over as one of the three leaders of Iraq — and she’s scheduled take over the central Baghdad area — well, Bush will finally have his evidence that a member of the Iraqi government has been helping and protecting al-Qaeda.

AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t John O’Neill saying, most concerned about wanting to investigate Saudi connections to terrorism and saying he was blocked at every turn by the Bush administration from pursuing those investigations?

GREG PALAST: [inaudible] or a friend of al-Qaeda per se. What she is, is a — she was running interference for the Gulf royals. And because what O’Neill wanted to do is check out the links between Saudi money and oil companies and al-Qaeda, in direct and indirect funding mechanisms. And, of course, as you know, BBC had a — we’ve already broken the story about how Bush had put limits on investigations of the American bin Laden family and Saudi Arabian financing of al-Qaeda and other terrorist front organizations. So, it just fit right into the pattern.

So, once again, you know, O’Neill’s problem was that he believed that the Yemeni government was protecting al-Qaeda, as well as the Saudi government. If you remember, the USS Cole was attacked there, and American servicemen died. So, out of great frustration, he just quit.

But again, this is one of the problems we have, is that the question becomes, you know: Who’s won the war in Iraq now, or who’s winning the war? And is it the people of Iraq, or is it the record industry? Is it the Saudis, who will get more protection for their questionable activities and funding their choice of terrorist front?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Greg Palast —

GREG PALAST: And I don’t think anyone is looking at that at this moment, except for BBC.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Greg Palast, I want to thank you very much for sharing it with us. Your final thoughts, Arundhati Roy?

GREG PALAST: I’ll keep you informed as we continue our work.

AMY GOODMAN: Thanks, Greg.

GREG PALAST: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: And have a good trip. Arundhati Roy, in the last minute of our show?

ARUNDHATI ROY: My final thoughts are, you know, very, very frightened and chilled, because I think that, you know, we have managed to expose this game for what it is, and now we realize that that is just not enough, because they don’t care. You know, they don’t care. I mean, they don’t mind being exposed. They don’t mind being naked. They don’t mind being completely brutal. “So, what do we do next?” is my question to all of us who are fighting this. What do we do next?

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Arundhati Roy is speaking to us from Delhi, India.

And that does it for the program. Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Noah Reibel. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer. Also special thanks to Mark Friedberg, production designer; Mylene Santos, art designer; Alexandra Tager, design coordinator; Max Tarman [phon.] and Abe Constanza, production assistants; and painters Michael Green, Bethany McDonald, Jane Nelson, who have redesigned our set and brought us just a little closer to Heaven. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening.