Stuck for ideas on how to build a nuclear bomb? The US Government had a website that could help, and the Times is partnering with the IAEA (as they did for the Times 2004 October surprise, with rowback here) to tell us about it:
U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Guide
Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”
Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.
The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.
“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”
What knuckleheads wanted this on the web? Actually, it was an army of Davids knuckleheads:
The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who argued that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees told the administration that wide analysis and translation of the documents — most of them in Arabic — would reinvigorate the search for evidence that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence in Iraq.
The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents’ release.
In his statement last night, Mr. Negroponte’s spokesman, Chad Kolton, said, “While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again.”
Groan. The most reassuring comment from the experts surveyed comes from the anaonymous senior intel official who is still a team player, and we find a delightful flip-flop from another expert quoted:
The New York Times had examined dozens of the documents and asked a half dozen nuclear experts to evaluate some of them.
Peter D. Zimmerman [who comes off as a partisan Bush-basher in this WaPo live chat], a physicist and former United States government arms scientist now at the war studies department of King’s College, London, called the posted material “very sensitive, much of it undoubtedly secret restricted data.” [He had a different take three years ago, but the politics have shifted a bit - see MORE, below]
Ray E. Kidder, a senior nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, an arms design center, said “some things in these documents would be helpful” to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret.
A senior American intelligence official who deals routinely with atomic issues said the documents showed “where the Iraqis failed and how to get around the failures.” The documents, he added, could perhaps help Iran or other nations making a serious effort to develop nuclear arms, but probably not terrorists or poorly equipped states. The official, who requested anonymity because of his agency’s rules against public comment, called the papers “a road map that helps you get from point A to point B, but only if you already have a car.”
Let's go, virtual mongol horde.
MORE: Peter Zimmerman, quoted above, was less impressed by Iraq's program when he described it in 2003, as part of a Bush Lied oped in the WaPo which coincided with his live chat:
President Bush said that in the early 1990s Iraq "had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb." Not exactly.
Nuclear weapons experts serving as inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called the bomb "design" more of a parts list than a description of a buildable device. The five ways to enrich uranium really boiled down to two -- electromagnetic separation and gas centrifuges, neither working well. Iraq's crude experiments in the 1990s showed that it was a very long way from nuclear success.
Presumably Dr. Zimmerman had seen in 2003 the Iraqi documents which have become so worrisome to him in 2006, since they were based on a UN submission.
GEE, THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A USEFUL SURPRISE: Why is the IAEA worried about the Iranians relying on partial, dated Iraqi plans when, according to the Times very own James Risen, it was Bill Clinton's CIA that gave Iran key nuclear blueprints. The short version is this:
In January 2006, James Risen, a New York Times reporter, alleged in his book State of War that in February 2000, a U.S. covert operation - code-named Operation Merlin - had backfired. It originally aimed to provide Iran with a flawed design for building a nuclear weapon, in order to delay the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Instead, the plan may have accelerated Iran's nuclear programme by providing useful information, once the flaws were identified.[11]
The extended excerpt is here:
...Deep in the bowels of the CIA, someone must be nervously, but very privately, wondering: "Whatever happened to those nuclear blueprints we gave to the Iranians?"
The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna's winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb.
To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a "firing set", for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.
The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn't believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organisation created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology.
The Russian was a nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, which had arranged for him to become an American citizen and funded him to the tune of $5,000 a month. It seemed like easy money, with few strings attached.
Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front line of a plan that seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the US, and it had taken a lot of persuading by his CIA case officer to convince him to go through with what appeared to be a rogue operation.
The case officer worked hard to convince him - even though he had doubts about the plan as well. As he was sweet-talking the Russian into flying to Vienna, the case officer wondered whether he was involved in an illegal covert action. Should he expect to be hauled before a congressional committee and grilled because he was the officer who helped give nuclear blueprints to Iran? The code name for this operation was Merlin; to the officer, that seemed like a wry tip-off that nothing about this programme was what it appeared to be. He did his best to hide his concerns from his Russian agent.
The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognise their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran.
The plan had been laid out for the defector during a CIA-financed trip to San Francisco, where he had meetings with CIA officers and nuclear experts mixed in with leisurely wine-tasting trips to Sonoma County. In a luxurious San Francisco hotel room, a senior CIA official involved in the operation talked the Russian through the details of the plan. He brought in experts from one of the national laboratories to go over the blueprints that he was supposed to give the Iranians.
The senior CIA officer could see that the Russian was nervous, and so he tried to downplay the significance of what they were asking him to do. He said the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find out where the Iranians were with their nuclear programme. This was just an intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them. It was all a game. Nothing too serious.
On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran's goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran's reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran's weapons programme, which has been shrouded in secrecy.
The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.
In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw."
"Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter."
The CIA case officer couldn't believe the senior CIA officer's answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission.
After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA's instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game.
The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.
In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn't tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again.
The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA's operation in the only way he thought would work.
The Russian soon found 19 Heinstrasse, a five-storey office and apartment building with a flat, pale green and beige facade in a quiet, slightly down-at-heel neighbourhood in Vienna's north end. Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: "PM/Iran." The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity. An Austrian postman helped him. As the Russian stood by, the postman opened the building door and dropped off the mail. The Russian followed suit; he realised that he could leave his package without actually having to talk to anyone. He slipped through the front door, and hurriedly shoved his envelope through the inner-door slot at the Iranian office.
The Russian fled the mission without being seen. He was deeply relieved that he had made the hand-off without having to come face to face with a real live Iranian. He flew back to the US without being detected by either Austrian security or, more importantly, Iranian intelligence.
Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian mission, the National Security Agency reported that an Iranian official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule, making airline reservations to fly home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear blueprints were now in Tehran.
The Russian scientist's fears about the operation seemed well founded. He was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the "axis of evil".
Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states.
Several former CIA officials say that the theory behind Merlin - handing over tainted weapon designs to confound one of America's adversaries - is a trick that has been used many times in past operations, stretching back to the cold war. But in previous cases, such Trojan horse operations involved conventional weapons; none of the former officials had ever heard of the CIA attempting to conduct this kind of high-risk operation with designs for a nuclear bomb. The former officials also said these kind of programmes must be closely monitored by senior CIA managers in order to control the flow of information to the adversary. If mishandled, they could easily help an enemy accelerate its weapons development. That may be what happened with Merlin.
Iran has spent nearly 20 years trying to develop nuclear weapons, and in the process has created a strong base of sophisticated scientists knowledgeable enough to spot flaws in nuclear blueprints. Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.
"If [the flaw] is bad enough," warned a nuclear weapons expert with the IAEA, "they will find it quite quickly. That would be my fear"
© James Risen 2006
Did the NYT forget than in Jan their very own James Risen reported that in its worst blunder ever, the CIA in 2000 (Clinton) GAVE IRAN plans for a nuclear bomb.
If there are any logical thinkers left in the editorial offices of the Gray Lady they'd realize that they just tore the heart out of the anti-war movement.
http://tks.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTJjYzYzYmMwNjY3N2YwNWE5NDQ3ZTQzZDczZWU5N2Y=
As out own dear Boris notes here, if the plans were so advanced that they were useful to Iran, he was an imminent threat, n'cest pas?
Posted by: clarice | November 02, 2006 at 11:09 PM
So Iran is going to try to piece one together using some docs from a guy who never built one rather than ask for Kim to fax or e-mail on over the plans to one that just went off. Sounds like a CIA threat analysis.
Posted by: Barney Frank | November 02, 2006 at 11:19 PM
clarice- Clinton was not actually President during the parts of 1992-2000 when Iran was given the blueprints and Iraq was declared to be a threat working on WMDs.
Clinton was the President of Peace and Prosperity. Any conflict has retroactively been placed under Bush's watch.
Posted by: MayBee | November 02, 2006 at 11:19 PM
WMD Smoking Gun. Thanks NY Times.
Posted by: danking70 | November 02, 2006 at 11:23 PM
“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”
An utterly confounding statement to read in the NYT's. I'll repeat, this gives me perspective on why Adam Calame suddenly felt bad for printing the SWIFT program....he couldn't hold the moral high-ground had he not?
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 02, 2006 at 11:24 PM
Isn't it funny how and when the NYTs gets interested in the documents that are being translated?
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:27 PM
Sue
No kidding...and lefty bloggers will be interesting too!...can't wait for the tortured twisted pretzels on HOW IRRESPONSIBLE it was for the Admin. to give into pressure to release these to the public...documents they pooh poohed, mocked and at the same time tip toe around the origin..IRAQ and NUKES and then there is that cheerleading of "leaking" and so on.
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 02, 2006 at 11:32 PM
Wasn't there a Tom Clancy novel that had a lot of detail about building a bomb? We should probably burn all of those. And if it is bad to put secrets online or in print, I guess we should shut down the NYT. they have done more damage to our security. Sheesh....
Posted by: Specter | November 02, 2006 at 11:32 PM
Jim Geraghty just nails it:
"I think the Times editors are counting on this being spun as a "Boy, did Bush screw up" meme; the problem is, to do it, they have to knock down the "there was no threat in Iraq" meme, once and for all. Because obviously, Saddam could have sold this information to anybody, any other state, or any well-funded terrorist group that had publicly pledged to kill millions of Americans and had expressed interest in nuclear arms. You know, like, oh... al-Qaeda."
His whole post is great.
Posted by: Keith | November 02, 2006 at 11:32 PM
What is Risen, anyway, chopped liver? Their own guy told them we gave Iran the nuclear bomb plans.
Posted by: clarice | November 02, 2006 at 11:34 PM
Specter,
The Sum of All Fears. At the end, Clancey makes a point of telling us that nothing is in his book that isn't available at your local library, etc. He changed some minor things, for his own piece of mind.
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:36 PM
A casual read of the history of the Manhattan Project suggests the hard part about a nuke is getting suitable fissionable material, and anyone with the technical know-how to do that can almost certainly handle the engineering for a basic weapon. Probably shouldn't post the plans, but it really doesn't have much effect on the threat.
Wasn't there a Tom Clancy novel that had a lot of detail about building a bomb?
The Sum of All Fears. The afterword said something like "I changed some details in the design, not expecting it would have any real effect, but to assuage my own conscience." Good read.
Posted by: Cecil Turner | November 02, 2006 at 11:37 PM
Keith,
You left out the best quote from your link:
Let's go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM.
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:39 PM
The timing of the dangerous web postings has been
..in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves
So Iran hasn't really been a threat before because they didn't have this particular knowledge. But just a few weeks prior to the US Elections, the admin screwed up so much that Iran just might be a threat now.
Has the NYTs been reading this document website all along, or did someone call them and say, "Whoops! Look what I just posted!"
Posted by: MayBee | November 02, 2006 at 11:40 PM
You know, Clarice, why does the NYT need a November surprise anyway? There is this really big, tsunami-sized Democrat "wave" coming in this election.
Don't they have absolute faith in their own polls?
Posted by: centralcal | November 02, 2006 at 11:40 PM
This is the part of the NYT article that leaps out at me-
The Iraqi document is marked “Draft FFCD Version 3 (20.12.95),” meaning it was preparatory for the “Full, Final, Complete Disclosure” that Iraq made to United Nations inspectors in March 1996. The document carries three diagrams showing cross sections of bomb cores, and their diameters.
Let's get a perspective here-and not let the NYT drive the analysis-what level of credibility do they have anymore?
Seriously-it has been corroded.
Here we have a regime that actually had the supposed three nukes or diagrams there of, that was in the midst of Terrorism Epicenter looking to be pre-iminent in that arena competing against the likes of Iran, and Syria and winning by gassing Kurds, invading sovreign countries and playing bravado against any and all international forces,-uncomrimising and irrational. All this while having the same neighborhood and cultural interests of the inabling AQ Khan network. Saner actors decided that the risk was not worth it, did the ugly numbers calcuation and came to the sobering conclusion that it wasn't a bet America could afford to lose.
Saddam had this, and if we hadn't of stopped him what would the New York Times have to complain about like the tiresome theatre critics that they are?
One can only fathom...
So they-the NYT- weren't upset or didn't believe that Saddam was "capable" but now they get Apocalyptic about somebody having access to his "drawings" and "failures".
On November the Third.
The New York Times wants to be the Fat Lady that sings at the death of the Republican Party, and the gullible public might just do their bidding.
If there is an ounce of justice left this shoud be the denouement of The Gray Lady.
Posted by: roanoke | November 02, 2006 at 11:42 PM
Again, from Keith's link above...
Geraghty asks: "Is this sentence referring to 1990, before the Persian Gulf War? Or 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq? Because "Iraq is a year away from building a nuclear bomb" was supposed to be a myth, a lie that Bush used to trick us into war.
Well, which is it NYTs? 1990 or 2002?
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:42 PM
The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.
The implication being than they wanted to “manufacture” dangers instead of looking for the proof of what they already had a good idea about.
Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.
So Iraq had manuals for making tabun and sarin, tons of chemical agents, the equipment for processing it, chemical suits and factories but didn’t actually put it all together? I am not buying it.
The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who argued that the nation’s spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion.
Why aren’t ALL media outlets interested? Is this a reflection more on conservatives being more interested in history or proving liberal media bias? Also, those in the know will confirm that recovered boxes have absolutely not been adequately analyzed and I don’t know of anyone even pretending that they have been.
The Web site, “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal,” was a constantly expanding portrait of prewar Iraq. Its many thousands of documents included everything from a collection of religious and nationalistic poetry to instructions for the repair of parachutes to handwritten notes from Mr. Hussein’s intelligence service. It became a popular quarry for a legion of bloggers, translators and amateur historians.
Correct, a full blackout from the mainstream media who has acted curiously uninterested in the documents.
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
Saddam was a year away in the 90’s or in 2002?
European diplomats said this week that some of those nuclear documents on the Web site were identical to the ones presented to the United Nations Security Council in late 2002, as America got ready to invade Iraq. But unlike those on the Web site, the papers given to the Security Council had been extensively edited, to remove sensitive information on unconventional arms.
So information about Iraq’s weapons programs, that wasn’t turned over to the proper authorities, was only discovered post invasion?
In Europe, a senior diplomat said atomic experts there had studied the nuclear documents on the Web site and judged their public release as potentially dangerous. “It’s a cookbook,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his agency’s rules. “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.”
Obviously the Iraqis were farther along than everyone knew or this wouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Right????
Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist now at the war studies department of King’s College, London, called the posted material “very sensitive, much of it undoubtedly secret restricted data.”
Ray E. Kidder, a senior nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, an arms design center, said “some things in these documents would be helpful” to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret.
So the public has never been told of Saddam’s full nuclear capabilities? When were we going to find out? Wouldn’t that information change the way people view the war?
Some intelligence officials feared that individual documents, translated and interpreted by amateurs, would be used out of context to second-guess the intelligence agencies’ view that Mr. Hussein did not have unconventional weapons or substantive ties to Al Qaeda. Reviewing the documents for release would add an unnecessary burden on busy intelligence analysts, they argued.
Talk about CYA. What’s more important, the truth or the reputation of our intelligence agencies?
Some of the first posted documents dealt with Iraq’s program to make germ weapons, followed by a wave of papers on chemical arms.
But...but....I thought Iraq didn’t ever have or know how to make such things? In all seriousness, these manuals being passed to terrorists were one of the major reasons for removing Saddam.
At the United Nations in New York, the chemical papers raised alarms at the Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which had been in charge of searching Iraq for all unconventional arms, save the nuclear ones.
If UNMOVIC knew what was going on then none of these findings should be a surprise. Apparently they didn’t.
In April, diplomats said, the commission’s acting chief weapons inspector, Demetrius Perricos, lodged an objection with the United States mission to the United Nations over the document that dealt with the nerve agents tabun and sarin.
Soon, the document vanished from the Web site. On June 8, diplomats said, Mr. Perricos told the Security Council of how risky arms information had shown up on a public Web site and how his agency appreciated the American cooperation in resolving the matter. What else has been suppressed in the name of unknown international bureaucrats?
Posted by: Mark | November 02, 2006 at 11:44 PM
The Iraqi document is marked “Draft FFCD Version 3 (20.12.95),” meaning it was preparatory for the “Full, Final, Complete Disclosure” that Iraq made to United Nations inspectors in March 1996. The document carries three diagrams showing cross sections of bomb cores, and their diameters.
Am I wrong in assuming this document was not included int the UN disclosure?
Was this bomb core strictly hypothetical? No physical tests were being done, no materials gathered, nothing being built?
Are we to believe this was all being done on paper, and only on paper?
Posted by: MayBee | November 02, 2006 at 11:49 PM
I do so hope that Gingrich is named point man to deal with this tomorrow.
Posted by: clarice | November 02, 2006 at 11:49 PM
Mark,
I know some of what you posted was quoted material from a site I've already read. I can't tell if you have inserted your own points in there. In the future, maybe you could provide a link to the quoted material and put it in quotes or something? Thank you.
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:49 PM
$5.00 says the NYT will claim this stuff is from the OLD Saddam regime, BC (before Clinton) so, like the chemical weapons, unless there is proof he was ginning it up AC, there is no smoking gun. You know ... his nuke secrets were like contained or something.
Posted by: capitano | November 02, 2006 at 11:52 PM
Maybe the NYTs will tell us tomorrow why these documents could be helpful for Iran to build a nuclear weapon but were not dangerous in the hands of Saddam. I certainly can't figure it out on my own.
Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 11:52 PM
Paul, posting at Wizbang is writing Tony Snow's lead in for his next gaggle:
The talking point:
"Let's remember, if what the New York Times says is true, if President Bush hadn't invaded invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein would still be power and have a nuclear weapon by now."
Simple. Concise. Deadly.
Posted by: centralcal | November 02, 2006 at 11:53 PM
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
Well, I know that history has a bit of a time warp for 1992-2000 in NYTsworld.
But in the real world, a regime that still has the plans from 1991 sitting around in 2003-- still has the plans!
If they could be helpful to Iran in 2006, they could have been helpful to Saddam in 2003. When they were written is of no consequence.
Posted by: MayBee | November 02, 2006 at 11:57 PM
About Risen's story, Ledeen noted that to sell the Clinton administration on the goofy scheme to give the Iranis the plan, they had to show--what they publicly denied--that Iran had a nuclear plan underway.
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200601060708.asp
Posted by: clarice | November 02, 2006 at 11:57 PM
...Has the NYTs been reading this document website all along, or did someone call them and say, "Whoops! Look what I just posted!"...
Um and why does the IAEA go to the NYT's?
IF this was such a concern of the IAEA...why didn't they A- protest the initial release therefore giving the Admin. the cover they needed in keeping these docs. out of the pubic like they wanted and B- GO TO the Admin. NOW instead of the NYT's to protest the website and so the Admin. could close it down -- if they are really concerned and care
Notice the NYT's says:
Hmm.
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 02, 2006 at 11:58 PM
Obviously the NYTs put this story out there to hurt Bush and republicans. But they are going to have to explain how to me. I'm not getting it. They have just told us Saddam had plans that will help Iran build a nuclear weapon, without telling me how those plans wouldn't be used by Saddam.
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:00 AM
I've read the Slimes piece.
They're making it look like the Republicans were so incompetent they posted this stuff at the site.
The intelligence services VETTED THE STUFF, not the Republicans in Congress.
The Slimes are saying that Saddam had nothing for us to worry about therefore what was the point of releasing any documents at all! Some of this stuff could be sensitive!!
What a bunch of friggin' hypocrites!
Posted by: Syl | November 03, 2006 at 12:02 AM
MayBee --
In the real world nobody would be second guessing the WMD issue at all. I think the NYT's argument is that Saddam wasn't going to give his old nuke research to Iran and he was too "contained" to exploit it himself.
Posted by: capitano | November 03, 2006 at 12:05 AM
--Posted by: Sue | November 02, 2006 at 08:42 PM--
Yep...that's a NAIL.
Maybee says
--But in the real world, a regime that still has the plans from 1991 sitting around in 2003-- still has the plans!--
Isn't that what denying inspectors is all about? /sarcasm off
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 03, 2006 at 12:06 AM
Unless of course he was able to get yellowcake from Niger.
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:08 AM
a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy,
The DoE is a joke in the intelligence community. They were given all the oversight for classification/declassification of anything to do with nuclear back in the day.
And they have a different philosophy about keeping secrets than the rest of the govt. To the DoE something is not a secret unless you make it so. To the rest of the community, something is a secret until you make sure it does no harm to release the info.
When you hear of all the secrets getting out of Livermore--THESE are the guys in charge. They are sloppy beyond belief.
Posted by: Syl | November 03, 2006 at 12:09 AM
Yes, wasn't it just last week that really secret nuclear information in DoE jurisdiction from Livermore (or was it Los Alamos) was found in the trailer of a meth dealer?
Posted by: clarice | November 03, 2006 at 12:11 AM
I don't mean to be repetitive, but, let's just summarize here:
- the New York Times is concerned because the Administration posted the information about Saddam's WMDs...
- that Saddam didn't have and Bush is a liar...
- and that six months ago there was a fuss because the Administration declassify...
- and that having been declassified by the Administration, the NY Times...
- which just has run four or five of its own free-lance declassifications ...
- is now concerned because these documents, from Saddam's WMD program ...
- which Saddam didn't have, no body found a thing, and Bush is a liar...
- might have given some hints to Iran
- which has a peaceful nuclear program and certainly CERTAINLY isn't part of any Axis of Evil ...
- which, after all, Bush made up because he's a liar and just wants the oil for his oil company buddies
- and which couldn't have possibly found out any of that stuff before.
Does that sort of sum it up?
Does anyone remember the Cheech and Chong routine about the war movie and the kamikaze pilot?
Posted by: Charles Martin | November 03, 2006 at 12:12 AM
ah, hell.
Did that work?
Posted by: Charles Martin | November 03, 2006 at 12:13 AM
The Captain is weighing in...
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:13 AM
HEH!
Capt Ed notes the NYT has just authenticated the docs--
(excerpt):
"This is apparently the Times' November surprise, but it's a surprising one indeed. The Times has just authenticated the entire collection of memos, some of which give very detailed accounts of Iraqi ties to terrorist organizations. Just this past Monday, I posted a memo which showed that the Saddam regime actively coordinated with Palestinian terrorists in the PFLP as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On September 20th, I reposted a translation of an IIS memo written four days after 9/11 that worried the US would discover Iraq's ties to Osama bin Laden.
(snip)
That appears to indicate that by invading in 2003, we followed the best intelligence of the UN inspectors to head off the development of an Iraqi nuke. This intelligence put Saddam far ahead of Iran in the nuclear pursuit, and made it much more urgent to take some definitive action against Saddam before he could build and deploy it. And bear in mind that this intelligence came from the UN, and not from the United States. The inspectors themselves developed it, and they meant to keep it secret. The FMSO site blew their cover, and they're very unhappy about it.
What other highlights has the Times now authenticated? We have plenty:
* 2001 IIS memo directing its agents to test mass grave sites in southern Iraq for radiation, and to use "trusted news agencies" to leak rumors about the lack of credibility of Coalition reporting on the subject. They specify CNN.
* The Blessed July operation, in which Saddam's sons planned a series of assassinations in London, Iran, and southern Iraq
* Saddam's early contacts with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda from 1994-7
* UNMOVIC knew of a renewed effort to make ricin from castor beans in 2002, but never reported it
* The continued development of delivery mechanisms for biological and chemical weapons by the notorious "Dr. Germ" in 2002
Actually, we have much, much more. All of these documents underscore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and show that his regime continued their work on banned weapons programs. We have made this case over and over again, but some people refused to believe the documents were genuine. Now we have no less of an authority than the New York Times to verify that the IIS documentation is not only genuine, but presents a powerful argument for the military action to remove Saddam from power.
The Times wanted readers to cluck their tongues at the Bush administration for releasing the documents, although Congress actually did that. However, the net result should be a complete re-evaluation of the threat Saddam posed by critics of the war. Let's see if the Times figures this out for themselves."
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
Posted by: clarice | November 03, 2006 at 12:15 AM
--They have just told us Saddam had plans that will help Iran build a nuclear weapon, without telling me how those plans wouldn't be used by Saddam.--
I said this at ACE, but goes tot heart of why the NYT's and the biggies are hemorrhaging BUSINESS wise.
They are so invested in the election you'd think NYT's was on every ballot...I think they think if the DEMS win it validates their very existence...and hides the fact they are agending themselves out of a JOB --the bottomline, sales? They don't care!
In their effort to cover to Kerry they actually sacrificed sales ignoring the most markable image on their front pages -- the GI picture would sell papers...NYPOst did...that's why they have INCREASED circulation.
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 03, 2006 at 12:16 AM
Sue,
Sorry, I did post it elsewhere. Will just link next time.
Posted by: Mark | November 03, 2006 at 12:20 AM
Has anyone checked the moonbats? How are they receiving this news? I'm too tired to venture into their swamp.
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:21 AM
Mark,
I wasn't complaining (not much anyway ::grin::). I just wanted to be sure what was your points and what points belonged to someone else.
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:23 AM
I remember during the the "box turtle Ben" dustup there were some translated Docs that lefty commenters at least were just down right mocking of...pluk? They were peacock feather dismissive of any importance.
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 03, 2006 at 12:29 AM
Oh the other thing does anyone remember the Liberal arguments about why we didn't have to bother with the Strategic Defense Initiative?
This was all suppose to be impossible.
Here is what the Liberals and the theatre critc NYT have in common-for a long time now the Republicans have owned the longer vision and have been the party of ideas-particularly on what a government primarily owes its citizens and bases its legitimacy on-the ability to do what no individual can do for himself, the very reason nation states exist-to protect and insure the continuation of the society.
This is the pre-iminent duty the Democratic party wants to have the luxury of passing on time and time again.
They'd rather in the short term buy and bribe the public vote. Leaving defense for someone else to invest in ,they want the quick pay -off, and defense doesn't provide the instant gratification.
The press and Liberals have something in common they both are born from the land of no.
We have two leaders in Iran and North Korea who are working towards gaining nuclear capabilities while at the same time seeming little interested in reassuring the world that they are rational actors. Liberals in the Eighties gave a litany of excuses as to why it was not to be-claiming that a irrational actor could never become a leader of a state that could afford the resources and technology needed and relied heavily on the fact that someone of the suicidial ideological mindset could never come to power and MAD would be the only insurance needed to protect against the worst case scenario-a policy-nothing else was worth the investment.
Now in this current environment can the press ask any Democratic candidate what their position on National Ballistic Missile Defense would be? No because the Democratic answer would be laughable particularly when considering the recent historical context. The Democrats were always the party of excuses and criticisms when it came to missile defense.
The press doesn't want to ask the question the public most deserves to know in these times because it would reveal that the Democrats are unprepared.. The media's preferred agenda is to sand bag candidates to prove that they still have influence.
Posted by: roanoke | November 03, 2006 at 12:30 AM
Syl-
If there is a disagreement between DOE and DOD guess who wins?
Posted by: roanoke | November 03, 2006 at 12:32 AM
Let me put this another way: You cannot simultaneously hold the position that Saddam did not have WMD programs and that he had advanced knowledge of nuclear weapons that would be of use to Iran. You cannot simultaneously believe Iran has a peaceful nuclear program and a need for advanced knowledge of nuclear weapons.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:34 AM
Sue..
Most "respected" leftists blogs?
It's all abuot Lamont.
DU on the otherhand didn't get the memo...that they were ONCE for sensitive information in the public domain...(the funny part...I am sure a internet digger could find about 30 or so DU subject posts making fun of the Gov't doc posting and documents themselves as worthless Bush ass saving attempts)
kpete (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-02-06 10:50 PM
Original message
NYT - BUSH Admin Put Dangerous NUKE SECRETS On Web!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2557448
Posted by: topsecretk9 | November 03, 2006 at 12:37 AM
Wish me luck. I'm going in. ::grin::
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:41 AM
This story may be the NYT's get-out-of-jail free card. I expect they have been feeling the heat from the government investigations over the NSA and Swift stories. This story should come in handy for their defense; the gov't publishes damaging information too. Why should they be held liable by an organization that can't police itself.
Posted by: sammy small | November 03, 2006 at 12:41 AM
::grin:: And boy, am I glad I did...
KOS
Just to be perfectly clear, the above is not KOS's personal post...
Posted by: Sue | November 03, 2006 at 12:43 AM