Seymour Hersh: USA Returned to Nord Stream Explosion Site to Remove Unexploded Bomb

For the first time on a German YouTube channel, Seymour Hersh talks about his research and the background of his famous Substack article and together with journalist Marc Friedrich, they get to the bottom of it.

***

by Richard Abelson

Speaking to German reporter Marc Friedrich, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline Sept. 26, 2022 "a major operation to blow up 4 pipelines" run by the CIA.

The United States was the first country to return to the scene of the crime, Hersh said, and removed the unexploded charge along the fourth pipeline, which failed to detonate.

Hersh scoffed at reports in the New York Times and German weekly Die Zeit that 6 unidentified "pro-Ukrainians" in a yacht blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. "These pipelines are steel, Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II, with two pipelines each. They're protected by a concrete shell. Obviously, you don't want to have a pipeline sitting in water full of salt."

The Nord Stream pipelines were "as tall as a man", Hersh said. "The concrete is easy to blow up, but you have to have a charge directed so it blows through the concrete and takes out the pipeline."

They only got three of the four pipelines", Hersh said. "One didn't go off. It was in the water for months. We don't know why it failed. But guess what country was the first to go there and recover the bomb that hadn't gone off? (It was) A country called the United States of America. We were there within a day or two, and picked it up and took it away, so nobody could see what kind of evidence there might be of the weapons used.

C4 explosive is "a very tricky thing", Hersh said, "very dangerous… The (underwater) miners we used were terrific."

Hersh knows "a lot more than I've written", he said, including the fact "the story about a yacht is a complete hoax." Die Zeit spoke to the (German Federal Police) BKA, not to the German intelligence service BND, he said. "They talked to the Federal police, who gave them a tip", Hersh said. "The German police decided to… go and look for every ship that could have been near (the site of the explosions)… The problem with that thesis is that any yacht that could do it would not have its directional finder (AIS) on… They went looking for vessels that had been there and they found one. The only way they could have found it is if it had its beamer on. Which is insane" for a team planning a sabotage attack, Hersh said.

The German federal police was involved in concocting a cover story, Hersh noted. "There's no way the national police decide they're going to go to every port and look for a ship", Hersh said. "A yacht? That's so crazy", Hersh said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz "is certainly complicit, and that's bad. His business is protecting the people of Germany."

Referring to so-called OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) researchers attempting to "debunk" his story, Hersh pointed out the US intel agencies would not leave any signals OSINT amateurs could track from their computers. "You use Open Source as a cover. You don't have the plane ID'd, and whatever ship was there, they're not seeing because it's not running its AIS. It's running blind. That's why they couldn't find it."

Hersh said it's "one of the things media like to do, is knock down a story." But "if you get past that, who else could have done it? You know how hard it is to go below (with) only two divers. One diver for each pipeline. They were so good, and so skilled."

"Of course you use the Norwegians", Hersh said. "The Alta class boat was there. There's two different (Alta-class minesweepers). One of them has a big bay, big enough that you can put a decompression unit in it. The divers have to make stops. It's 260 feet… and they're breathing oxygen, nitrogen and helium. Every 80 or 90 feet they have to stop, so it takes time" Hersh said.

So "you have a decompression chamber hidden in the Alta-class boat that's not seen by anyone", Hersh said. "The CIA flew a special flight with the decompression chamber."

Mr. Biden knows what I can do", Hersh said. "There was a time he wanted me to (work) for him. He knows I have competence, He's been in the Senate since 1972, and I've been there, too. He knows what I can do. And so does Mr. Blinken. They don't like everything I do.