AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

“War is not healthy for children and other living things.” These words were first written by mothers in the United States during the Vietnam War. They were concerned their children were being sent halfway around the world to kill the children of Vietnamese mothers. They put the statement on a postcard, and they sent it to Congress. Since then, the words have become a powerful description of wartime destruction, of not only people, but also of animals and the environment.

In the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon reportedly has enlisted dolphins, chickens, dogs, sea lions and pigeons. Plus, there are reports that Morocco gave the U.S. 2,000 monkeys to assist with de-mining projects.

Dolphins are scouting seaports in search of mines. The dolphins are equipped with cameras that transmit video images back to their handlers. When they find a mine, they’re trained to report back by playing with a so-called “I’ve found something” rubber ball. When the dolphins find a mine, their minder sends a group of human divers to the area to detonate it. The Washington Post reports that Atlantic bottlenose dolphin is the seafaring equivalent of bomb-sniffing dogs.

The Marines have been using chickens and pigeons in Kuwait to detect poison gas. But the Marines have admitted that dozens of the birds never made it to the Middle East after dying in transit. The deceased chickens and pigeons will hardly be the first U.S. animals not to return to the States after a war. According to PETA, 5,000 dogs served alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam. Only 140 came home. Some died in Vietnam, but most were abandoned by the military.

We’re joined right now by William Rivas-Rivas of PETA and David Helvarg. He’s the author of Blue Frontier: Saving America’s Living Seas. We tried to get someone on from the Navy, but they said they were not available.

William Rivas-Rivas, can you describe the extent of the use of animals, and your concerns?

WILLIAM RIVAS-RIVAS: Good morning, Amy. We are appalled to hear that the military has essentially drafted these animals, these animals that claim no nation, know nothing of Saddam Hussein or Iraq, and sent them to a war that they do not understand. They are using dolphins, as you mentioned, sea lions, pigeons and chickens to detect chemical weapons and search for mines. We believe that this is completely unethical, that the military should be using technology, the technology that’s available, instead of using animals to detect these chemical weapons or search for mines.

AMY GOODMAN: David Helvarg, you have looked extensively into this issue. Can you give us a history of the use of dolphins?

DAVID HELVARG: Sure, Amy. The program actually goes back to 1960. So, the Navy has had marine mammals for 43 years now, not only dolphins and sea lions, but they still have beluga whales. At one point they had four orcas, killer whales, in their inventory. They’re still the largest holder of captive marine mammals in the world right now. They’ve got 75 dolphins, 20 sea lions, two belugas. They at one point during the Cold War had over 140.

And they said that the deployment of the dolphins here in southern Iraq was the first operational deployment of mine-detecting dolphins, which is technically true, although in Vietnam I’ve talked to Navy veterans who worked with them in planting limpet mines in Haiphong Harbor, on wharfs and jetties there. They’re also used for swimmer defense. They’ve just tested, shown off a couple sea lions in Bahrain, who are trained to attach cuffs to divers’ legs, and then that’s linked with a line that they get pulled out of the water. They also did dolphin deployments in '86 — '87, rather, during the Iran-Iraq War in the Gulf. They call it swimmer defense program. And the swimmer defense is also a swimmer nullification. They’ve used them both in nonlethal and lethal ways, although the Navy denies its classified lethal activity. Swimmer nullifications range from killing divers during the Vietnam War, using hypodermic needles attached to CO2 cartridges, to more recent weaponization of both sea lions and dolphins with a .45 caliber small bang stick attached to their their snouts.

AMY GOODMAN: You wrote an article in response to The Washington Post’s piece, David Helvarg, about the use of the K-Dog, the dolphin, in Umm Qasr.

DAVID HELVARG: Yeah, sort of a point of view — I try to anthropomorphize a little and take the dolphins’ point of view, which is like, “Hey, dude, it’s not our war.” I mean, you know, they call it an all-volunteer military, but I don’t remember any of these dolphins who got gillnetted out of the Gulf of Mississippi volunteering. Now, of course, they have a breeding program within their system. And right now a couple of the beluga whales are off at SeaWorld breeding, which is certainly a better deployment than chasing after mines in southern Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask William Rivas-Rivas — you were in the Navy, before you became the campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA.

WILLIAM RIVAS-RIVAS: I was. After high school, I joined the military and spent about eight years in the military and was actually sent to the Persian Gulf twice. That’s something that David mentioned about the military, that the U.S. military is an all-volunteer force. And it should continue to be an all-volunteer force. And these animals did not volunteer for this war. War is a human endeavor. A person or a political party or a nation can, in fact, choose to go to war; the animals cannot.

And David mentioned the inventory that the military has. According to the Navy’s own Marine Mammal Inventory Report, over 96 dolphins have died in this program, for a number of reasons, one of which that I thought was particularly interesting, and the cause of death was failure to adapt, drowning, jaw fractures. I mean, these animals have been suffering before they even reach the Persian Gulf.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about your letter to Rumsfeld?

WILLIAM RIVAS-RIVAS: Excuse me. Yes, we wrote to Donald Rumsfeld, you know, telling him exactly that, that this war is a human endeavor and that all these animals should be given an honorable discharge and be released and allowed to do natural things, allow them to live their own life and not to go into shark-infested, mine-infested waters in the Persian Gulf and search for mines.

DAVID HELVARG: Yeah, it’s interesting. At the end of the Cold War, there was a lot of talk of closing the program down. And then the Navy got into literal warfare, specifically shallow water warfare, as their post-Cold War strategy, in which they got very interested in using the dolphins in mine warfare and ordnance recovery. And so the program continues. Even though they now have AUVs, autonomous underwater vehicles, that could do mine detection and other technical means for working, they talk about keeping the animals for this foreseeable future.

Recently, when I was out visiting with the dolphins in San Diego, when I was working on the book, they had been testing them for response to low-frequency sonar. And they did find a response: temporary hearing loss from the use of the Navy’s new low-frequency sonar system, that’s been linked to the deaths of beaked whales and other animals in the wild.

So, it’s kind of interesting the Navy is always promoting, you know, its marine mammal as a partnership in the sea; at the same time, it’s looking for exemptions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, so that it can kill more cetaceans, dolphins and whales, with the use of this active sonar system, this $350 million program they say is to pursue quieter, diesel-powered submarines, although, in fact, there are other technical means that could be used — airborne remote sensing — to find those submarines. But again, the Navy is, you know, claiming that it’s great partners with these weaponized animals, and at the same time looking for exemptions from the one act that was passed specifically to protect marine mammals.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you say that this makes animals targets, David Helvarg?

DAVID HELVARG: Absolutely. I mean, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an entire counter-dolphin program that included anti-dolphin dolphins, dolphins trained to kill dolphins that came into — U.S. dolphins came into their waters. And clearly, with the appearance of mine-hunting dolphins and swimmer defense dolphins, any shallow water environment where there’s a hostile nation is going to start killing dolphins and sea lions if they see them, if they expect the U.S. to get involved in these areas. And yeah, this is a problem. We’re putting animals in harm’s way. And, you know, I’ve covered four wars. I’m, unfortunately, thinking that we’re going to continue having wars as long as we function as — the way we do as a species. But, you know, the use of marine mammals to fight our wars, the destruction of their prey sources and habitat in the world’s oceans just doesn’t reflect well on us as a species.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. We’ve been speaking to William Rivas-Rivas of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and David Helvarg, author of Blue Frontier: Saving America’s Living Seas.

And that does it for today’s program. If you’d like to get a copy of the show, video or audio, you can call 1-800-881-2359. That’s 1-800-881-2359. Our website is www.democracynow.org. We’re going to go out with Dana Lyons’ song “Cows with Guns.” Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer, with help from Rich Kim. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening.

[End of Hour 1]

AMY GOODMAN: From Pacifica Radio, This is Democracy Now!

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims have converged on the Iraqi holy city of Karbala. They’re demanding U.S. troops get out of Iraq. We’ll go to Iraq to speak with an Al Jazeera reporter covering the pilgrimage. We’ll hear Columbia University professor Edward Said speak on his classic work Orientalism and the invasion of Iraq. And lawyers in Louisiana say DNA evidence proves another man on death row is innocent.

All that and more, coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims have converged on the Iraqi holy city of Karbala. They’re demanding that U.S. troops get out of Iraq. The numbers could surpass 1 million this week as the pilgrimage reaches its climax. According to a front-page report in today’s Washington Post, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the organizational strength of the Shiites. They’re concerned the Shiites could establish a fundamentalist Islamic, anti-American government in Iraq, and are unprepared to prevent it.

This comes as U.S. officials told The New York Times that Iranian-trained agents have crossed into southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and are working in the cities of Najaf, Karbala and Basra to promote friendly Shiite clerics and advance Iranian interests. Meanwhile, U.S. troops detained and later released a senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Modarresi, leader of an Iraqi exile group, after he crossed the border from Iran to attend the pilgrimage in Karbala.

And in Baghdad, a thousand Shiites yesterday staged demonstrations outside the Palestine Hotel for the second straight day. They demanded the release of Baghdad’s leading Shiite cleric, Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi, who they said had been arrested by U.S. forces. More on that in just a few minutes.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is reporting hundreds of flourishing gun fairs have sprung up around Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Under him, Iraqis needed to go through strict background checks by the secret police before they could obtain a gun license. Now anyone who has money can buy a gun. At one market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, an oil company worker told The Wall Street Journal, “People are buying weapons to kill U.S. soldiers if they don’t leave Iraq.”

Meanwhile, in the north, The Independent of London reports Americans are accused of turning a blind eye to killings and even ethnic cleansing. Organizations representing the Turkmen population say the U.S. is failing to protect them from the Kurds, who were victims of oppression under Saddam Hussein. In Kirkuk, the city near the richest oil wells in the country, around a dozen people are reported to have been killed. Dozens of families, mainly Turkmen but some of them Arab, are said to have been driven from their homes by Kurds. This comes as The New York Times published on its front page a picture of the new Iraq ruler, General Jay Garner, receiving a, quote, “rapturous welcome” in northern Iraq from the Kurds. The Times reports Garner worked the crowds like a gleeful political candidate.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers poured into central Mosul in tanks and armed trucks yesterday. The show of force was aimed at ending resistance to U.S. troops, as well as intimidating heavily armed rival factions and taking control of the divided Iraqi city. Marines have had a series of gunfights with local people in the past several days.

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said yesterday the U.S. case for an invasion of Iraq was built on false intelligence reports. Referring to false documents purporting to show that Iraq had imported tons of uranium, he told the BBC it’s disturbing that U.S. and British intelligence agencies did not discover that the documents were falsified, and asked who falsified them. Blix also accused U.S. officials of deliberately seeking to discredit his team in the run-up to the invasion in a bid to win political support for military action. In a briefing to the U.N. Security Council, Blix said that without U.N. verification, U.S. post-invasion inspections lack credibility.

Secretary of State General Colin Powell told the Charlie Rose show yesterday France will suffer consequences for opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He would not say what those consequences will be. News of his comments came after the French ambassador to the United Nations proposed the immediate suspension of U.N. sanctions against Iraq. But Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sablière also said that the lifting of sanctions are, quote, “linked to the certification of the disarmament of Iraq.” He said the Security Council should look for ways to combine the work of U.N. and U.S. inspectors so that the Iraqi disarmament can be internationally verified. Russia and Germany are also saying U.N. inspectors should be allowed to join the U.S. weapons hunt.

The U.S. weapons contractor Lockheed Martin yesterday announced a jump in first quarter profits and raised its forecast for the coming year. Sales at the company’s aeronautics division more than doubled. Lockheed makes the F-16 and F-22 fighter jets used in the invasion of Iraq. And Raytheon revealed a jump in sales at the unit which manufactures the Tomahawk cruise missile.

Meanwhile, the New York Post is reporting four U.S. soldiers have been arrested for trying to make a profit on the war. They attempted to take nearly $1 million U.S. from the huge stash found hidden in the grounds of several estates of Baghdad. The four men face court-martials.

Talks between the U.S., North Korea and China began today in Beijing. They are the first negotiations since North Korea announced it’s resuming its nuclear program last October.

The city of Beijing has closed all its primary and secondary schools for at least two weeks. An announcement in this morning’s papers told the 1.7 million students to study at home. Hundreds of travelers wearing white masks are thronging Beijing’s railway stations desperate to flee the Chinese capital. The panic comes as the government has finally allowed state media to fully report on the disease, this according to Reuters. On Monday, China’s top official in charge of Beijing released a statement taking responsibility for providing late and inaccurate data on the epidemic. The Financial Times called the statement an act of contrition not seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Liu Qi’s statement came a day after the mayor of Beijing and China’s health minister were sacked. China acknowledged over 150 more infections yesterday, and Hong Kong authorities say there have been five more deaths. Meanwhile, China’s top genomics institute discovered that the virus is rapidly mutating. Hong Kong has announced a $1.5 billion package to help businesses reeling from the impact. In Singapore, the government threatened to jail people who are violating the quarantine. A team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has arrived in Canada, after Canadian health workers in two Toronto hospitals were exposed to the virus, despite taking all the precautions, including wearing goggles, gowns and a double set of gloves. About 7,000 people have been quarantined in Canada, where 14 people have already died from the virus.

Israel radio reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Yasser Arafat by phone Tuesday that the international community will halt its efforts to bring the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to an end if Abu Mazen is not confirmed as prime minister. Arafat and Abu Mazen have been unable to reach an agreement on the makeup of the new Palestinian Cabinet and have not spoken since Sunday. Haaretz reports Abu Mazen has prepared a letter of resignation but has not delivered it to Arafat yet.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that neoconservatives, led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have launched a campaign to undermine the U.S.-backed roadmap to peace and criticize the State Department. Speaking before the American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich urged the president to, quote, “take on transforming the State Department as its next urgent mission.”

Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is ignoring calls he apologize and resign from his Senate leadership post for comments he made comparing homosexuality to incest. Santorum’s remarks came as he talked about the Supreme Court’s review of laws in Texas which ban consensual sodomy in the privacy of one’s home. He told the Associated Press, quote, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”

Two women yesterday sued the Justice Department, FBI and Transportation Security Administration for maintaining a secretive no-fly list. Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams publish the newspaper War Times, which is critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They were stopped at San Francisco’s airport last August and held for 20 minutes by police before they were allowed to board. Gordon and Adams were arrested several times in the 1980s for civil disobedience but did not understand why they would be on a no-fly list today. There have been many similar reports of journalists being detained at airports when entering and leaving the country, and then being told their names were on a list. The suit seeks access to records on no-fly lists and the payment of legal fees. The ACLU has joined the suit, and a spokesperson said over 300 people have been stopped and questioned at San Francisco’s airport alone. Also yesterday, The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story which reported that airline reservation systems flag names even if they only resemble a suspect’s. U.S. officials say they will review the no-fly list policy, now that they’ve been sued.

The judge in the case against Zacarias Moussaoui has ordered the Justice Department to provide Moussaoui’s lawyers with any statements by captured leaders of al-Qaeda that could exonerate their defendant. The ruling is a major victory for Moussaoui. Bush administration officials have acknowledged that in recent interrogations, some captured Qaeda members had suggested that Moussaoui was not involved in the September 11th attacks but was sent to the United States on a different terrorist mission.

And this news from the music world: Paul McCartney has called for a ban on cluster bombs. The former Beatle told the BBC that after the fighting is finished, it’s civilians, mainly women and children, who are blown up. The interview will be broadcast on Monday to coincide with the release of a new album featuring McCartney, David Bowie, Cat Stevens and other artists. Profits will go towards charities aiding children in Iraq.

And rock star Bruce Springsteen has lashed out against critics of the Dixie Chicks and radio stations which have banned the group’s songs because they criticized President Bush’s stance on Iraq. Springsteen yesterday posted a statement on his website reading: For the Dixie Chicks to be, quote, “banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American. … The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about — namely, freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create free speech in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.” Again, the words of Bruce Springsteen. He himself has come under some criticism recently for opening his concerts with a cover of Edwin Starr’s antiwar anthem “War.”

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AMY GOODMAN: Bruce Springsteen, singing Edwin Starr’s “War,” here on Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report.