@@ New York Times: Stupidity and LIES all over again @@
Arash
November 17, 2005
The New York Times, Nuclear Weapons and Iran: Stupidity, Laziness or Déjà vu All Over
Again?
By John McGlynn
You would think that after the fiasco of non-existent weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) in Iraq, the "New York Times" would be more careful in its reporting on alleged
WMD development programs, especially anything of a nuclear weapons nature, in other
countries in the Middle East.
You would think that after two major UN agencies, the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission, found no evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear WMDs prior to the
March 2003 Iraq invasion and the US-created "Iraq Survey Group"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group) turned up nothing after the
invasion, the New York Times would exercise greater skepticism about Bush
administration claims that Iran is determined to develop its own atomic bomb.
You would think that based on the kinds of analysis offered up by nuclear arms expert
David Albright, investigative report Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, John Prados in
his book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War"
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1565849027) and others, the New York
Times might have learned a lesson or two about fact-checking and how to better
uncover the truth by maintaining distance from an administration blinded by dreams of
remaking the Middle East in their own self-made image of democracy.
Think again.
Déjà vu All Over Again? . . .
On November 13, 2005, the New York Times published a report by William J. Broad
(http://www.annonline.com/interviews/970422/biography.html) and David E. Sanger
(http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/aroundthetable/sanger.html) headlined,
“Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims”.
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/f552c361c6d02dfc
The report contains allegations of secret Iranian plans to obtain a nuclear warhead
based on information contained in a "stolen laptop" computer. The allegations are
made by anonymous U.S. “officials”, in the mode of former New York Times reporter
Judith Miller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29), whose
fabulously wrong pre-Iraq invasion September 2002 report on Iraq’s quest for aluminum
tubes for use in a clandestine nuclear weapons program set the stage for Bush
administration heavies Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice to start talking about
aluminum tubes + Saddam x 9-11 = mushroom clouds over America.
Like Judy Miller before them, in their story Broad-Sanger rely heavily on anonymous
“American officials”, “American intelligence officials”, “officials” in the Bush
administration, etc. to roll out the “strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's
insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a
compact warhead”.
What is the evidence found in the laptop? “More than a thousand pages of Iranian
computer simulations and accounts of experiments” that show “a long effort to design
a nuclear warhead”.
Where did the laptop come from? “American officials have said little. . . about the
origins of the laptop, other than that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a source in
Iran who they said had received it from a second person, now believed to be dead”. Is
the evidence (or intelligence) convincing? “While the intelligence has sold well
among countries like Britain, France and Germany, which reviewed the documents as
long as a year ago, it has been a tougher sell with countries outside the inner
circle”.
What is Iran’s response? Not in the Broad-Sanger article but in a Reuters article,
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said: “The baseless claim made us
laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents''.
http://www.mfa.gov.ir/output/INDEX.HTM
Sound solid enough to you? If you don’t think so, and you’re eager to avoid a re-run
of Iraq, you’ll have trouble challenging the Broad-Sanger account, because no U.S.
official went on the record with a statement that can be checked.
The really big question: Why is the New York Times reporting on this evidence now?
One answer may be a politically timed "propaganda" campaign.
By now, the whole world knows that the Bush administration is out to get Iran one way
or another (sanctions? bombing attack?).
One way they are going about this is through the IAEA.
On November 24, the IAEA Board will convene in Vienna, and Iran’s nuclear program
will be on the agenda. At its last meeting in September, the Board passed a "bogus"
resolution (to see why it was bogus, read Dr. Gordon Prather at
http://www.antiwar.com/prather) stating that Iran was effectively in “non compliance”
with its IAEA nuclear safeguard requirements (not, as the Times and other media
outlets would have it, its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,
which the IAEA has no responsibility for enforcing).
But it’s unclear how much mileage the U.S. can get out of the Broad-Sanger story or
the laptop discovery itself. The documents that were stored on the laptop have been
kicking around since mid 2004 and had been shopped around prior to the IAEA Board’s
September meeting, mainly to IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei (winner of this year’s
Nobel Prize and the falsifier of pre-Iraq war claims that Saddam was close to getting
a nuclear weapon) and other top IAEA officials, along with a select group of U.S.
allies.
What was ElBaradei’s verdict? As reported by Broad-Sanger, “ElBaradei said his agency
was bound to ‘follow due process, which means I need to establish the veracity,
consistency and authenticity of any intelligence, and share it with the country of
concern’. In this case, he added, ‘That has not happened’”.
Moreover, Broad-Sanger describe the U.S. as being reluctant to share intelligence
“outside a small circle of close allies”. Thus, even if the evidence is
incriminating, hardly anyone is allowed to see it, including countries on the IAEA
Board who hold the sword of Damocles -- a possible UN Security Council referral --
over Iran’s head.
Remember this when U.S. officials someday use the pretext of “all governments had the
same intelligence” to excuse themselves for battering Iran under false pretenses.
Another possible reason for the timing is that Broad-Sanger are simply late
reporting. The Washington Post ran an article by Dafna Linzer in August
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091405F.shtml) that touches on some of the same
story elements in the New York Times piece. More importantly, Dafna Linzer reaches an
opposition conclusion: “Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered
proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal”.
. . .Or Just Plain Stupidity or Laziness?
End of story? Not quite.
Returning to Judith Miller, the beauty of her articles is that they had a thumping
insistence that something had to be done to stop Iraq. That insistence managed to
live on long after the reported facts themselves were disproved or shown to lack
credibility or logic.
The Broad-Sanger story also has a thumping insistence, but bad as Judith Miller’s
articles were on the facts, the stolen Iranian laptop story appears to be a real
stinker.
Within 24 hours of the appearance of the Broad-Sanger piece, David Albright, a
nuclear arms expert and president of the Institute for Science and International
Security (ISIS), weighed in to say that Broad-Sanger got the basic facts seriously
wrong. In fact, Albright went so far as to accuse Broad of journalistic malpractice.
Here's what Albright had to say:
“William J. Broad and David E. Sanger repeatedly characterize the contents of
computer files as containing information about a nuclear warhead design when the
information actually describes a reentry vehicle for a missile. This distinction is
not minor, and Broad should understand the difference between the two objects,
particularly when the information does not contain any words such as nuclear or
nuclear warhead”.
How embarrassing!
So next time Broad-Sanger write about a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, be
afraid, be very afraid - - of their grasp of the facts and reliance on anonymous
sources with agendas. And maybe check in with the Washington Post, David Albright, or
Dr. Gordon Prather (http://www.antiwar.com/prather).
* John McGlynn lives and writes in Tokyo.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1117-30.htm