PBS高端访谈:世界和平的代价是不是太高了?

 　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Next to the author of a new book on the costs, in lives and treasure, of the war on terror.

　　JAMES RISEN, Author, "Pay Any Price ": The war or terror, the global war on terror has become essentially¹ an endless war. It started with a search for justice. And I think, 13 years later, it's become a hunt for cash.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: It's a stark² conclusion James Risen has come to in the decade-plus since September 11. The veteran New York Times investigative journalist is best known for the explosive revelation that the Bush administration ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop⁴ on Americans without warrants after 9/11.

　　But now he has compiled examples of what he sees as that hunt for cash, greed for power, and lives wrecked⁵ in his new book, "Pay Any Price."

　　The title of the book comes from John F. Kennedy's inaugural⁶ address when he said, let every nation know…

　　PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: That we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe⁷, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Your argument is that that "any price" has been way too high a price. How so?

　　JAMES RISEN: Well, we have had 13 years of war now. A lot of people have gotten into the war on terror in order to make a lot of money or to gain status or power, both in the government and outside of the government.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Did it have to be this way? Could it have been at some point avoided before it all happened?

　　JAMES RISEN: Well, there's lots of points at which we made choices. We decided⁸ to invade Iraq. We decided to invade Afghanistan. We have occupied both those countries.

　　Then we began you know remote battles across other countries. And we built a huge infrastructure⁹ for what we call Homeland Security here at home. And so we have had an enormous, just hundreds of billions of dollars poured into national security, homeland security and what I call the — what I call the new homeland security industrial complex.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: That is a play on Dwight Eisenhower's famous phrase "the military industrial complex" coined amid the Cold War. Risen describes a new apparatus¹⁰ for a new war built in parallel, and almost entirely¹¹ in secret, but with a staggering price tag.

　　JAMES RISEN: There are estimates that the entire war on terror, if you count Iraq, Afghanistan, all of the other things we have done, both domestically and internationally, have cost about $4 trillion. And that is an enormous transfer of wealth into a new sector¹² of the economy, which is security.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: And you describe so many examples of how this has happened. You have got chapter after chapter.

　　Picking out a couple of them, there is one where you talk about certainly money stolen from Iraq. There is another, an operation called Alarbus, where — name for the shell company that was created by the Pentagon, their special operations command. They created their own spy agency.

　　JAMES RISEN: Right.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Why was that necessary? Why weren't they able to work with the CIA?

　　JAMES RISEN: Well, there's been all kinds of turf battles inside the government over control of intelligence. You know, intelligence has become kind of the crown jewel within the government. Everybody wants a piece of it over the last 13 years.

　　The Pentagon wants to get in on the CIA's turf. And so they created these front companies to act like the CIA does around the world. And in this case, there are all kinds of allegations about whether some of the people involved were taking advantage of the operation.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: At one point, they were talking about assassinating¹³ suspected…

　　JAMES RISEN: Right. And there — yes, and one of the foreigners involved in the operation tried to — allegedly tried to use the bank accounts, or wanted to use the bank accounts set up by Alarbus for money laundering¹⁴, for massive money laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: And so the government would have been engaged in this?

　　JAMES RISEN: Right.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: But it didn't — it didn't actually happen?

　　JAMES RISEN: No, no, but there was an FBI investigation¹⁵ that has been secret, until now, of what happened.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: In another chapter, Jim Risen, you write about millions of dollars spent on programs that were completely fraudulent.

　　One was run by a man named Dennis Montgomery. He had worked in computer software, but he was a gambler.

　　JAMES RISEN: Right.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: And he sold the CIA and the Pentagon on technology that turned out to be not at all what he said it was.

　　JAMES RISEN: Right.

　　There was — it's difficult to tell in some of these cases who is scamming who.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Montgomery was, in his attorney's words, a con³ man. He and his partners eventually procured¹⁶ more than $20 million in government contracts. One program had officials at the CIA convinced that Montgomery could uncover plans for the next al-Qaida attack.

　　JAMES RISEN: If you talk to Montgomery, he argues that the CIA wanted him to do what he was doing.

　　In this case, they began to believe, in this kind of war fever, that you could find al-Qaida messages hidden in Al-Jazeera broadcasts.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: The Middle East broadcaster was, at the time, al-Qaida's chosen outlet¹⁷ for broadcasting messages from Osama bin¹⁸ Laden¹⁹. Montgomery convinced intelligence officials that his software could decode²⁰ orders from the terror group to its operatives. So-called intelligence from his program about a new wave of airliner²¹ attacks was eventually delivered directly to President George W. Bush in December 2003, and led Mr. Bush to issue an extraordinary order.

　　JAMES RISEN: This highly secret program was used by the Bush administration to ground planes all over Europe and the United States.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: When actually there was nothing to it.

　　JAMES RISEN: Right. Right.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: It was a hoax²².

　　JAMES RISEN: It's this very complicated story about a man recognizing an opportunity who had never been involved in national security before, and the CIA and the military all just hungry for whoever could come with the latest idea.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: At the end of the day though, yes, money may well have been wasted,in the million, hundreds of millions, and beyond, outlandish things happened, but the country hasn't had another huge terror attack, the way we did on 9/11.

　　So, could it be argued, could the government argue, we have done our job, even if we made some mistakes?

　　JAMES RISEN: I think that's probably their argument.

　　So, the question is, what — did we overestimate²³ the threat and build up this huge infrastructure while hyping a threat, or has the — has this massive amount of money really had an effect?

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: Is there any way to dial it back? Are you saying…

　　JAMES RISEN: I think the country has to begin to get out of the constant state of fear over terrorism that we have been in since 9/11.

　　To me, it reminds me a little bit of the McCarthy period, when we had this abstract threat of Russia. Everyone knew that Russia was a threat, but we didn't know that much about Soviet²⁴ communism at the time. And so, because it was sort of abstract, we were able to think that the Russians were 10-feet tall.

　　I think we have had something similar happen in the post-9/11 world where, because al-Qaida and Islamic terrorism are kind of new and unknown threats to us, we have made them 10-feet tall, when, in fact, they are not 10-feet tall.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: James Risen, author of "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War," thank you very much.

　　JAMES RISEN: Thank you for having me.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: There's much more from the interview on our Web site, including James Risen speaking on his refusal to identify a confidential²⁵ source, in defiance²⁶ of a federal subpoena²⁷.

1 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

2 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

3 con   

n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的

参考例句：

• We must be fair and consider the reason pro and con.我们必须公平考虑赞成和反对的理由。
• The motion is adopted non con.因无人投反对票，协议被通过。

4 eavesdrop   

v.偷听，倾听

参考例句：

• He ensconced himself in the closet in order to eavesdrop.他藏在壁橱里，以便偷听。
• It is not polite to eavesdrop on the conversation of other people.偷听他人说话是很不礼貌的。

5 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

6 inaugural   

adj.就职的；n.就职典礼

参考例句：

• We listened to the President's inaugural speech on the radio yesterday.昨天我们通过无线电听了总统的就职演说。
• Professor Pearson gave the inaugural lecture in the new lecture theatre.皮尔逊教授在新的阶梯讲堂发表了启用演说。

7 foe   

n.敌人，仇敌

参考例句：

• He knew that Karl could be an implacable foe.他明白卡尔可能会成为他的死敌。
• A friend is a friend;a foe is a foe;one must be clearly distinguished from the other.敌是敌，友是友，必须分清界限。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

10 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

11 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

12 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

13 assassinating   

v.暗杀( assassinate的现在分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏

参考例句：

• They struck a blow for freedom by assassinating the colonial governor. 他们为了自由而奋力一博，暗杀了那位殖民地总督。 来自互联网

14 laundering   

n.洗涤（衣等），洗烫（衣等）；洗（钱）v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的现在分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入）

参考例句：

• Separate the white clothes from the dark clothes before laundering. 洗衣前应当把浅色衣服和深色衣服分开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was charged with laundering money. 他被指控洗钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

16 procured   

v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条

参考例句：

• These cars are to be procured through open tender. 这些汽车要用公开招标的办法购买。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• A friend procured a position in the bank for my big brother. 一位朋友为我哥哥谋得了一个银行的职位。 来自《用法词典》

17 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

18 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

19 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

20 decode   

vt.译（码），解（码）

参考例句：

• All he had to do was decode it and pass it over.他需要做的就是将它破译然后转给他人。
• The secret documents were intercepted and decoded.机密文件遭截获并被破译。

21 airliner   

n.客机，班机

参考例句：

• The pilot landed the airliner safely.驾驶员使客机安全着陆。
• The passengers were shepherded across the tarmac to the airliner.旅客们被引导走过跑道去上飞机。

22 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。

23 overestimate   

v.估计过高，过高评价

参考例句：

• Don't overestimate seriousness of the problem.别把问题看重了。
• We overestimate our influence and our nuisance value.我们过高地估计了自己的影响力和破坏作用。

24 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

25 confidential   

adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的

参考例句：

• He refused to allow his secretary to handle confidential letters.他不让秘书处理机密文件。
• We have a confidential exchange of views.我们推心置腹地交换意见。

26 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

27 subpoena   

n.（法律）传票；v.传讯

参考例句：

• He was brought up to court with a subpoena.他接到传讯，来到法庭上。
• Select committees have the power to subpoena witnesses.特别委员会有权传唤证人。