Two Quick Hits On Those Iraqi Nuclear Plans

The Times is partnering with the IAEA to blow up the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress - gee, feels like 2004!

I have more below, but here are two quick hits:

(1) One of the Times' experts is a partisan flip-flopper.  Here is the Times today:

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, 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.”

Here is the same Dr. Zimmerman in a different political environment delivering a Bush Lied oped in the WaPo and belittling the Iraqi nuclear program:

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.

(2) The Times is ignoring the fine work of their own James Risen - in the same book which revealed the NSA warrantless surveillance program Mr. Risen reported that Clinton's CIA provided vital nuclear designs to the Iranians in a sting gone sour:

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.

An extensive book excerpt is in The Guardian.

MORE: Everyone who is anyone is at Memeorandum.

POIGNANT PANG OF PARTNERSHIP PAST:  Gregory Djerejian stood tall in 2004 when the Times teamed with the IAEA on the Al Qa Qa story.  Well, with any real candidate we should get him back for 2008.  Or he'll get us back.

 

Comments

[Sue]

Don't tell the moonbats at Kos what you just told us. They couldn't take it. Trust me!

::grin::

[roanoke]

Here is the first couple of lines from Thomas S. Blanton's online biography-

Thomas S. Blanton

Tom Blanton is director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington D.C., winner of the George Polk Award in April 2000 for “piercing self-serving veils of government secrecy,guiding journalists in search for the truth, and informing us all.”

Link

[roanoke]

Looks like he might have been grinding the axe for awhile if he is the same Thomas S. Blanton responsible for this book-

White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages the Reagan/Bush White House Tried to Destroy
by Tom Blanton (Editor), Thomas S. Blanton
Cover Image

* Paperback
* ISBN: 1565842766
* Pub. Date: November 1995

[roanoke]

italics off.

[MayBee]

NYT's article:

Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a private group at George Washington University that tracks federal secrecy decisions, said the impetus for the Web site’s creation came from an array of sources — private conservative groups, Congressional Republicans and some figures in the Bush administration — who clung to the belief that close examination of the captured documents would show that Mr. Hussein’s government had clandestinely reconstituted an unconventional arms programs.

“There were hundreds of people who said, ‘There’s got to be gold in them thar hills,’ ” Mr. Blanton said.

---
More from his bio at firstamendmentcenter.org:

Blanton is a founding editorial board member of freedominfo.org, the virtual network of international freedom of information advocates, and the co-chair of OpenTheGovernment.org, among many other professional activities.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
---

The republicans that wanted the documents available to the public were clinging to a belief, as opposed to defending the public's right to know.
Hilarious!

[anon]

I hope Tony Snow reads the blogs.

[dvorak]

Tim Russert told me Dick Cheney was wrong about Saddam's nuclear weapons program.

[mike in Houston]

OT: I've been looking at these notes from SOS's second blog, but can't figure out some of it. Please help if you can. Here are the notes:

my notes:

RO-VPN->HRC TLH s.c. beach JK XX XX & XX 2 what a friendly fritzy friendster 2 more 2 HRC2house close friends in high places fired b4? 202 hedge 834 hodge charleston 0275 rent's 843-XXX-XXXX tlanehudson@ 2 providers pwd inXX2fmf pronto 2 drink w/ special friend facebook

[roanoke]

Ray E. Kidder in letter to Bethe evidence in The Progressive case. His opinion here seems to be in conflict with the theme of the NYT article.

On the positive side, there are two advantages of declassifying the radiation implosion principle and the fact that this principle is used in H-bombs. The first is that the illusion of secrecy provides a false sense of security. If it were understood that the only real limitation on the spread of nuclear weapons is the availability of fissile materials, more emphasis would be placed on international control of these materials and nonproliferation would be helped rather than hurt.
Link

[Syl]

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.

Was the U.N. lying then, or lying now?

[Bob]

OT... but I think we need to have a thread for this: The
Acorn Indictments

So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board. But hey, who needs voter ID laws?

We wish this were an aberration, but allegations of fraud have tainted Acorn voter drives across the country. Acorn workers have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and investigations are still under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

The good news for anyone who cares about voter integrity is that the Justice Department finally seems poised to connect these dots instead of dismissing such revelations as the work of a few yahoos. After the federal indictments were handed up in Kansas City this week, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement that "This national investigation is very much ongoing."

Maybe some of our trolls can tell us why they think it's the Republicans that are trying to steal elections!

[MayBee]

Mike in Houston- I'm not sure what SOS's second blog is. Where is it?

The hedge hodge stuff are LH's addresses, I believe.

[Patton]

You have to be doing some serious drugs or drinking tons of BDS koolaid to grasp and have the nerve to report that the WMD information in the hands of a hostile regime like Iraq would be a serious danger to the United States if it got into the hands of a hostile regime, ehh,......... like Iraq.

[Davis]

Americans realize that the Iraq WMD threat was as serious as the Administration claimed, even though the White House at times has done an inadequate job of explaining it. Democrats have no clear plan for Iraq. Republican candidates who stand with the President on Iraq will be reelected to majorities in both the Senate and the House. A few Republicans who have been wavering will lose their seats, but not enough to affect control.

[Neo]

We all know that Iraq had no nuclear program and had disposed of all materials related to previous attempts, so how could there be any documents that would help the Iranians ? I mean "Bush Lied" .. didn't he ?

Well, somebody is lying.

Besides, the Clinton Administration, in an obvious example of "smarter" foreign policy, had previous given some nuke plans to the Iranians, with some intentional flaws included. The Iranians had their Russian experts quickly identify and correct these flaws, of course. A true multilateral effort.

Now thanks to the help of the NYT the North Koreans, who flubbed their first attempt, now know that they can read about nuclear triggering devices that were most likely the reasons for their less than spectacular results.

[nittypig]

This "secret" information was known to Iraq in the late 80's. And it was put on the web 15 years later. Is there any chance that
-copies of these documents survived the invasion and did not end up in the hands of the US government?
-some of the individuals who had access to these documents are not in US custody?
-the Iraqi government, after it's program was shut down in the early 90's shared this information with other countries? Like say North Korea, with whom they had a pretty good collaboration on missile technology.

[Patton]

Does anyone seriously believe that if the Iraq liberation had not occurred and Saddam was still in power today; and lets say the Bush adminstration had published Libya's Nuclear bomb building plan ....THAT TODAY THE NYT WOULD BE EDITORIALIZING HOW BIG OF A DANGER IT WAS FOR LIBYA'S PLANS TO FALL INTO THE HANDS OF A TYRANT MADMAN LIKE SADDAM HUSSEIN WHO IS PURSUING WMD.

[Neo]

Bob:
ACORN has also been under investigation in Berks county PA for similar activities.

The dots seem to be appearing.

[JM Hanes]

Let me get this straight: the NY Times is blasting the Administration for publishing sensitive material?

[Neo]

JMH:
No, the NY Times is blasting the Administration for publishing "non-existent" sensitive material.

[Noe]

But of course, these "non-existent" sensitive materials went throught an extensive declassification procedure. "Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified".

[Pofarmer]

Acorn got busted in St. Louis a few weeks ago. They attributed it to a "disgruntled former employee." There must be a bunch of em.;0)

[JM Hanes]

I'm begining to see through a glass darkly here. Maybe Republicans should take this story and run with it as though the Times had planned an election surprise for the Democrats:

Bush/Cheney Vindicated on Danger Posed by Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Programs! IAEA confirms that in 2003, Saddam was two years closer to operational nukes than Kim Jong Il.

[Pofarmer]

Time for Texas Toast and the other lefties to move the goalposts, or, preferably change fields, maybe even switch games.

[Pofarmer]

Ya know, I've had the argument all along that the administration knows more than we do, and that's proper. Saying they are lying or whatever while not having access to all the information is disingenuous. Seems I was right. I don't expect any apologies, though.

[azredneck]

Bush/Rove duped us again!!! Didn't they??

[nittypig]

Just for fun, another of the quoted experts, Ray Kidder, was the star defense witness in United States vs the Progressive (1977?)- the first time the US ever used prior restraint to prevent publication. This was an article about how to build an H-bomb. The Times, of couse has Kidder saying:
"'some things in these documents would be helpful' to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret."

Kidder testifies that no weapon in the US arsenal worked in the same way as that described in the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._The_Progressive

Wikipedia claims "He is best known for his outspoken views on nuclear weapons policy issues, including nuclear testing, stockpile management, and arms control."

[Cecil Turner]

If it were understood that the only real limitation on the spread of nuclear weapons is the availability of fissile materials, more emphasis would be placed on international control of these materials and nonproliferation would be helped rather than hurt.

Dead on, balls accurate. And impossible for non-state actors (and remaining so for the immediately foreseeable future). In Clancy's Sum of All Fears, he gets around the obvious problem by having terrorists find an accidentally-jettisoned Israeli nuke and reworking the pit. I'm philosophically opposed to publishing the plans, but it really has no effect on the risk.

[Martin]

Before it gets too nutty in here (too late I'm sure) here's a post from REDSTATE back in the day by Smagar, a retired Army intelligence officer, explaining exactly why posting this stuff was stupid and the right wing blogosphere should back off:

http://smagar.redstate.com/story/2006/3/11/121911/616

[Florence Schmieg]

How could Iraq know how to make a nucler bomb in 1991 but not know how to make the same thing in 2003? Just asking.

[Martin]

Ok from the top- states knowing how to build a nuclear bomb is one thing (some states -Pakistan-sell the know-how)-building it another. Saddam wasn't close to building one.

e.g. a hobbyist can get the plans for a 747-good luck on the weekend construction project.

Now thanks to the USA, cheered on by bloggers but opposed by the intelligence chief, no one has to pay Pakistan for plans anymore!

[Cecil Turner]

How could Iraq know how to make a nucler bomb in 1991 but not know how to make the same thing in 2003?

They tell a compelling story: they had learned it earlier, but had forgotten it, and that when the website published, learned it as if it were new.

[Martin]

We invaded Iraq because Saddam KNEW how to build a nuclear bomb?

Whats depths of stupidity are you prepared to plumb?

[boris]

Whats depths of stupidity are you prepared to plumb?

Don't worry, nobody is trying to challange your record.

[Martin]

Those comebacks are funnier when you run spellcheck first. Otherwise-it's like a teacher's strike with bad grammar on the protest signs.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Iraq WAS close to building a nuclear weapon...in 1990. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait destroyed what chance Iraq did have for building their own nuclear device. Upon the semi conclusion of the first gulf war, the UNSC sanctions made it almost impossible for Iraq to acquire a nuclear device. They were still trying to build one during the sanctions era, but they were severly hampered by the inspectors. They continued to work on a bomb, but the inspections made the process incredibly slow. Starting, stopping, starting, stopping, hiding, moving, startig, stopping; this is basically what the Iraq nuke program was like after the inspections regime was created.

If the Internet was as big in the 80s as it is today Iraq would already have a nuke. They were a couple years away from having one in 1990, but with today's Internet they would have breezed around many of the obstacles that slowed them during the 80s.

Read Mahdi Obeidi's "The Bomb in my Garden". It's by far the best book on Iraq's nuclear program. Obeidi is the godfather of the Iraq Atomic Energy Project.

[SaveFarris]

We invaded Iraq because Saddam KNEW how to build a nuclear bomb?

We also KNEW, thanks to Joe Wilson's report to the CIA, that Iraq was shopping around looking to buy yellowcake.

Yellowcake + instructions = Bye Bye Speaker Pelosi.

[Sue]

We invaded Iraq because Saddam KNEW how to build a nuclear bomb?

Why is it threat for Iran or other rogue nations to have the knowledge but Iraq having the same knowledge was not a threat?

I understand why we wouldn't want the information on the internet. I get that. What I don't get it is if this stuff is so freaking dangerous, why was it not also dangerous for Saddam to have it?

[boris]

Otherwise ..

Actually it adds to the point. If the comment were formatted like this ... even better.

[Sue]

Those comebacks are funnier when you run spellcheck first. Otherwise-it's like a teacher's strike with bad grammar on the protest signs.

OMG! Another one!

[Martin]

Ok Savefarris-this information was so dangerous we had to invade Iraq but the fact that Bush posted it on the internet (in Arabic!) is no big deal?

[Sue]

Martin,

I think that is my point. You are trying to have it one way and one way only. I think it goes both ways.

[Martin]

Sue-that's why we had weapon inspectors in Iraq and a no fly zone etc. We were actually doing a damn good job of keeping him from weaponizing.

No we have destabilized the entire country, strengthened the terrorists, and handed out instructions in Arabic!

If Bush was a double agent actively trying to harm U.S. interests, I don't see what else he could do.

[Tara]

This is interesting. Ray Robinson has been analyzing the documents for Fox News and he says his inquiry to the IAEA about one of the documents may have triggered the Times article.

http://rayrobison.typepad.com/ray_robison/2006/11/nyt_article_on_.html

[Sue]

Sue-that's why we had weapon inspectors in Iraq and a no fly zone etc. We were actually doing a damn good job of keeping him from weaponizing.

For how much longer? The sanctions were falling apart. I don't want to rehash why we went to war with you, we obviously disagree on that point. What I don't understand, and you still haven't explained, is why Saddam having those same documents in his possession were not as much of a risk to the US and the world as Iran having them? Iran is pursuing peaceful nuclear technology.

[arrowhead]

Bravo Boris!

[clarice]

Martin, Saddam was shooting at those planes; the UN sanctions program (thanks in large part to substantial OFF bribes and offers of lucrative petro concessions) was on a six month deathwatch and was about to be killed.

**

[quote]
The big "scoop" on today's front page will be deconstructed at length. Our own professor Geraghty has already done a fine job, and Ed Morrissey has added some further thought and analysis. The bottom line is that the Times has apparently embraced the position taken by Senators Santorum and Roberts, and Representative Hoekstra: that much valuable information was contained in captured Iraqi documents, and that the Intelligence Community was far too slow in translating and evaluating the documents, and that it would be a Very Good Thing to start posting the documents online so that they could be evaluated. Santorum and Hoekstra were up against determined resistance from DNI Negroponte and his people, and many in the White House were, let us say, very slow to respond. The president always said he supported the move, but somehow it never got done. After drafting legislation that would have compel led the executive branch to start declassifying and posting the documents, Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra finally got the process going earlier this year.

I will discuss the whole thing with Angleton over the weekend, if the ouija board works, but this story is probably a leak from intelligence people trying to embarrass the Senators and the Congressman, protect the Intel Community's "right" to classify and declassify at its own will and on its own schedule. and make the president out to be an idiot (surprise!). But, just like Senator Kerry, it is the leakers (and, insofar as the Times shares their objectives, the Times itself) who have exposed their own consumate stupidity. For the story asserts that a) Iraq was on the verge of mastering nuclear weapons technology and b) that Iran is trying to build atomic bombs. Or, "Bush didn't lie."

And in case you were wondering, Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra always insisted that nothing that could possibly compromise national security should be posted.

Furthermore--and here you have only to look at Ed Morrissey's excellent blog--by implication the Times has given enhanced credibility to the many other explosive contents of the Iraq documents, heretofore ignored by William Broad and other Times sleuths. Those include the close working relationship between Saddam and Al Qaida[/quote]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/print/

[Martin]

"Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra always insisted that nothing that could possibly compromise national security should be posted"

And until they were all translated-how could this "possibility" be negated?

Except the point was to get the whole blogosphere a'crackin' on the translation and not wait for the stodgy agency, right?

[clarice]

It was one of the chief translators who caught what the agencies had overlooked in the documents (jveritas) that brought it to the agency's attention--unlike the NYT they had no interest in compromising national security.

There was no reason to keep this stuff (but for this one doc) under cover except to add to the Bush lied meme and at this point in time any reasonable person has to concede that the nomenklatura poses at least as great a danger to our security as the terrorists. (See Risen's story, for example.)

[Sue]

Except the point was to get the whole blogosphere a'crackin' on the translation and not wait for the stodgy agency, right?

Why was that necessary? Why the rush? Could it have been because people like you were saying Bush lied? Tell me again which meme you prefer? Bush lied? Or do you prefer the one where Bush told the truth about the threat posed by Saddam and screwed up by allowing Saddam's nuclear weapons documents to be posted on the internet? You want both and it isn't going to work that way.