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Page 2 of 2 AMY GOODMAN: You mean the interview that he did with Bush, Sr.?  MARY MAPES: In 1988, where he was pressing him on questions about Iran-Contra, and it turned into sort of a yelling match. And I think there has been bad blood on the part of the Bush folks for a long time. AMY GOODMAN: And remind folks what Iran-Contra was. MARY MAPES: Oh, good lord. AMY GOODMAN: You come from the corporate media, which is the specialist in stripping us of historical context, so I think you have a special responsibility. MARY MAPES: Don't say that. Don’t say that. Iran-Contra was a controversy within the Reagan administration, involving the funneling of funds to Contras in Nicaragua -- AMY GOODMAN: From selling weapons to Iran. MARY MAPES: Right. I mean, it’s one of those typically difficult things to explain, that I really do think we lose historical sight of completely. We just move onto the next catastrophe, and we really don't recognize it. And I think there are a lot of people who vote now or have certainly political feelings now who don't remember our history, very fundamental history, whether it's Watergate, Iran-Contra, or anything. But -- so I think Dan was very much in their crosshairs. I do think they were tremendously unhappy with the Abu Ghraib story, which I didn't really view as an attack on the Bush administration. I viewed that as a moral story, a story about morality, always, and about fairness. And I thought ultimately it was a story that was -- I know some people would wildly disagree with me -- but I thought it was helpful to American troops, because I think -- I had one father of a special operations soldier, and this man was also a former special ops guy, and he said, it was absolutely imperative that the story get out, because people, soldiers, were being killed because of what was happening in Abu Ghraib, not -- and that the Iraqi people already knew about this. It was the American people who didn't know, and it was imperative that this stop. And I felt that way. AMY GOODMAN: Even in that case, in the case of you breaking the Abu Ghraib story, CBS held onto that story for weeks. Can you explain what happened? MARY MAPES: Two weeks. We were ready to go. We were ready to a certain point two weeks before we aired it. On April 14, we were ready. But we did not have an official Pentagon response, even answering any kind of question, from a low-level person answering any kind of question about what was going on. AMY GOODMAN: Where had you gotten the pictures? MARY MAPES: Where had I gotten the pictures? Well, now I can't tell you that, Amy, because then I'll never get anything again. But we had worked very hard on getting the pictures. We had gotten a tip in February that this investigation was under way, how extensive it was, and how serious it was. And we just worked like demons, to not just to understand the story, but to get the pictures, because it was one of those stories that I felt if you didn't have the pictures to prove it, you didn't have the story. It was also interesting the day after we aired the Abu Ghraib story. We got phone calls saying the pictures were fakes. So this is a favorite technique. But I think the pictures were real enough, and by that time, the Pentagon had stepped up and owned up to the truth of it. But the story was held for two weeks, certainly not the year that the New York Times held the N.S.A. story. And I think holding the story actually helped us get more information, more context, and ultimately, we got a very high-ranking general to come on camera and say, ‘Yes, this is true.’ AMY GOODMAN: And that is Mary Mapes, author of the book Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power. She broke the Abu Ghraib prison story and then was fired for the Bush National Guard story, still maintains until now that these documents have never been proven false. Recommend this article...
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