Veteran American investigative journalist asserts that US attacked Nord Stream pipelines

Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has written an extremely detailed report which ends with the conclusion that the US carried out the Nord Stream attack. White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson, responded to the story when Russian news agency TASS reached out her for a comment. Her response? "This is utterly false and complete fiction". It is worth mentioning that on January 26th, when Victoria Nuland, the under-secretary of state for political affairs, addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a reply to Senator Ted Cruz, she said that "Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea."

In the backdrop of this and the escalating conflict in Ukraine, Hersh's report is being circulated widely in certain niche corners of social media, dedicated to geopolitics. It is quite difficult to overstate the importance of Seymour Hersh's report. Why? Well, to know why, one must first take a look at Seymour Hersh's career before getting into the claims made in his Nord Stream article.  

Context

Hersh is the investigative journalist who investigated and broke the My Lai massacre story. He won a Pulitzer prize for his work. As this event happened decades ago, it would be presumptuous to assume everyone knows about My Lai massacre. What was the My Lai massacre? The My Lai massacre was a horrific event that took place on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. The massacre was carried out by U.S. soldiers of the Army's Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division.

On that day, the soldiers entered the small Vietnamese village of My Lai, located in the Quang Ngai province. The soldiers had been told that the village was a Viet Cong stronghold, and that the villagers were providing support to the enemy. However, the village was in fact populated by innocent civilians, including women, children, and elderly people.

The soldiers proceeded to systematically murder hundreds of villagers, including women, children, and the elderly, in what has been described as a brutal and senseless slaughter. Some of the villagers were shot and killed on the spot, while others were rounded up and executed in groups. Women and girls were raped, and bodies were mutilated. Homes and crops were also destroyed.

The massacre was eventually discovered and exposed by the press, leading to public outrage and a series of investigations and court-martials. However, only a small number of soldiers were ever held accountable for their actions at My Lai. Lieutenant William Calley was the only person to be convicted for his role in the massacre and he was sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was later reduced and he was released after serving just three and a half years under house arrest.

The My Lai massacre is widely considered to be one of the worst atrocities of the Vietnam War and a stain on the reputation of the United States military. It was a turning point in the war, leading to increased scrutiny of U.S. actions in Vietnam and fuelling anti-war sentiment. The massacre has also been the subject of numerous books, films, and other works of art, and is widely studied as a case study in war crimes and the failure of military leadership.

Hersh, broke not only the My Lai massacre story, but also the Abu Ghraib torture story

Seymour Hersh also broke the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse story. So, what was the story? Well, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse and torture scandal was a significant event that took place during the early years of the War in Iraq. Abu Ghraib was a prison located near Baghdad, Iraq, and it was used by the US military as a detention facility for Iraqi prisoners of war and other security detainees.

The scandal came to light in 2004, when a series of graphic photographs were made public that showed US military personnel engaging in abusive and degrading treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The photos depicted soldiers physically assaulting prisoners, forcing them to engage in sexual acts, and staging them in humiliating poses. Some of the prisoners were also subjected to various forms of torture, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and extreme isolation.

The release of the photos sparked widespread public outrage, both in the United States and abroad. The US military launched several investigations into the matter, and several soldiers were court-martialed and sentenced to prison for their involvement in the abuse and torture of prisoners.

The Abu Ghraib scandal had far-reaching consequences, both for the US military and for the US government as a whole. It severely damaged the reputation of the United States, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, where the images of abuse and torture fuelled anti-American sentiment. The scandal also raised serious questions about the US government's adherence to the Geneva Conventions and its commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

Hersh's story on Nord Stream

Hersh has been out of the public eye for quite some time. Considering the fact that he was reporting on the Vietnam war, one can obviously assume that he is quite aged now. Yet, yesterday, 22 hours ago to be precise, Hersh made an announcement on a platform called Substack. Substack is platform where journalists publish their stories and many well known American journalists use the platform. The readers have to pay a subscription free to read the stories. The goal is to go towards a Netflix like model for journalism instead of a Facebook like model. 

Hersh explained his decision to use Substack in a post on the platform. "I’ve been told my stories were wrong, invented, outrageous for as long as I can remember—but I’ve never stopped. In 2004, after I published the first stories about the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a Pentagon spokesman responded by calling my journalism “a tapestry of nonsense.” (He also said I was a guy who “threw a lot of crap against the wall” and “expects someone to peel off what’s real.” I won my fifth George Polk Award for that work)," Hersh writes. 

"I’ve put in my time at the major outlets, but was never at home there. More recently, I wouldn’t be welcome anyway. Money, as always, was part of the problem. The Washington Post and my old newspaper, The New York Times (to name just a few), have found themselves in a cycle of dwindling home delivery, newsstand sales, and display advertisements. CNN and its offspring, like MSNBC and Fox News, battle for sensational headlines over investigative journalism. There are still many brilliant journalists at work, but so much of the reporting has to be within guidelines and constraints that did not exist in the years I was turning out daily stories for the Times," he adds. 

Hersh's claim

An hour after the announcement, Hersh published his story on Nord Stream, which took three months of research. As he is an old hand in the world of journalism, a fair amout of research was talking to people he knows in the intelligence agencies. Of course, to protect his source, he chose not to name her/him. It is important to flag that Hersh's entire story falls apart if his source turns out to be someone who is passing inaccurate information. 

Hersh's report, based on inside information from someone within the intelligence community, asserts that the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea were blown up by the Central Intelligence Agency (formerly known as the OSS), after an order from the White House. According to him, US deep sea divers used NATO military exercise as a cover to plant explosives (C4 explosives to be precise) along the pipelines. These were detonated later remotely. The source of Hersh's information is someone with direct knowledge of the operational planning. The people who undertook the operation were reportedly trained at the U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City. This center apparently has the second largest indoor pool in America. 

"There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership," writes Hersh. CIA allegedly informed Jake Sullivan, the American NSA, in early 2022 that they have figured out a way to blow the pipelines. Some time later, they got the greenlight. “This claim is completely and utterly false," the CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp said in response to Hersh's article when Hersh reached out to her for a comment. It is too soon to tell who is telling the truth, Hersh or US government. Hersh has done groundbreaking journalism in the past, but does that mean his report on Nord Stream is true? No. On the other hand, does the US government always tell the truth? No.