Libby & Destruction of CIA Counter-Proliferation
Cheney Libby & Destruction of CIA Counter-Proliferation
Outing The CIA: Cheney, Libby and the Attempted Destruction of CIA Counter-Proliferation
By Mark G. LeveyIn the course of listening to testimony in the Libby case, it has become clear that Vice President Cheney initiated and directed a criminal conspiracy. But, that's not the only bombshell in this case.
The illegal "outing" of Valerie Plame is only part of a much bigger backstory. From virtually the day it took office, the Bush-Cheney Administration systematically dismantled the nuclear arms control regime and counter-proliferation programs it inherited from the Clinton Administration.
By outing Plame, Cheney also outed the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD), a secret unit within the Agency's covert Directorate of Operations. This was to have disastrous effects, including an illegal invasion of Iraq, the detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea, the redoubling of Iran's program, and the destruction of a highly-classified CIA monitoring program that had sabotaged and sidetracked nuclear programs in at least five countries considered to be most threatening to the United States. But, in the end, the Intelligence Community fought back, and Cheney will soon be facing a federal prosecutor.
PART 1
We now know beyond a reasonable doubt the Vice President provided the inspiration and primary guidance for others involved in the criminal "outing" of Valerie Plame. Libby was carrying out Cheney's detailed, immediate instructions when he revealed Plame's identity to Judy Miller and confirmed her role as a CIA officer to Time Magazine's Matt Cooper. Libby, in turn, instructed Ari Fleischer to leak Plame's identity to several reporters aboard AF-1 during the week before Robert Novak's column appeared.
Many have asked why Cheney and Libby outed Valerie Plame. The answers about an alleged personal vendetta by the Vice President, or retaliation against Ambassador Wilson, have not been fully satisfactory.
A more complete explanation, more fitting the grave seriousness and huge scale of the crimes committed, has to do with an attempt by the Administration to destroy the CIA's ability to resist exaggerated claims being made about the WMD programs of three countries that had been slated for destruction.
In order to do that, the Bush-Cheney Administration had to "out" a CIA deception campaign that the CPD was running through the A.Q. Khan network. The outing of A.Q. Khan's network - which was working, more or less wittingly with the CIA, until it was publicly revealed by a senior State Department official in 2001 -- is intimately linked to the outing of Valerie Plame, who had been hired by CIA in 1997 to monitor the nuclear program of Iran, which is alleged to been dealing with A.Q. Khan from the late 1980s until 2002.
There's a strange symetry to this part of the story, but the same man who has admitted to initially "outing" Valerie Plame to reporters (Bob Woodward) was also the Bush-Cheney Administration official who first publicly revealed that a "retired" Pakistani nuclear official had been trading uranium enrichment and missile technology with North Korea.
Yes, that's right. Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage outed Plame in a May 2003 conversation after he outed A.Q. Khan in a June 1, 2001 article in the Times of London.
During the 1990s, there were intermittent clues from
intelligence that AQ Khan was discussing the sale of nuclear
technology to countries of concern. By early 2000,
intelligence revealed that these were not isolated
incidents. It became clear that Khan was at the centre of an
international proliferation network. By April 2000, the UK
Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was noting that there was
an evolving, and as yet incomplete, picture of the supply of
uranium enrichment equipment to at least one customer in the
Middle East, thought to be Libya, and evidence linking this
activity to Khan. A.Q. Khan's official career came to an
abrupt end in March 2001, when he was suddenly forced out as
director of the nuclear lab by order of President Pervez
Musharraf. Though Kahn was made a special adviser to the
government, the reason for his dismissal reportedly
coincided with concerns about financial improprieties at the
lab as well as general warnings from the United States to
the Musharraf about Khan’s proliferation activities.
Musharraf's restraint in dealing with A.Q. Khan has been
said to have resulted from the lack of incontrovertible
evidence of proliferation activities. Nonetheless,
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in an article
which appeared in the Financial Times on 01 June 2001,
expressed concern that, "people who were employed by the
nuclear agency and have retired" may be assisting North
Korea with its nuclear
program.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/pakistan/khan.htm
AQ KHAN: Father of Pakistan's nuclear Program, and CIA Asset
It is widely acknowledged that A.Q. Khan has had a relationship of some kind with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for a long time, according to the BBC that extends back for more than thirty years. The BBC reported in 2005:
Pakistan pardoned AQ
Khan, despite his dramatic revelations Ruud Lubbers said the CIA had asked the
Netherlands in 1975 not to prosecute Abdul Qadeer Khan, who
is now dubbed the father of Pakistan's atom bomb. Mr Khan
admitted last year that he had leaked nuclear secrets to
North Korea, Libya and Iran. He came under suspicion while
working for a Dutch uranium firm, Urenco. He has been
under close guard at his home in Islamabad since his public
confession. According to Mr Lubbers, US intelligence
wanted to find out more about Mr Khan's contacts while he
was working as an engineer at the top secret Dutch uranium
enrichment plant at Almelo. "The Americans wished to
follow and watch Khan to get more information," he told
Dutch radio. Mr Khan returned to Pakistan in 1976 . .
.SNIP
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4135998.stm
CIA 'let atomic expert Khan go'
Pakistani nuclear
expert AQ Khan was not arrested when living in the
Netherlands as the CIA was monitoring him, an ex-Dutch prime
minister says.
In 1983, Khan was
convicted in absentia by a Dutch Court for his role in
smuggling gas centrifuge equipment and plans from a nuclear
enrichment where he had worked.
http://www.ebearing.com/news2004/050601.htm
Khan remained at large at large, however, the reason given that Pakistan refused his extradition. Despite an outstanding INTERPOL warrant, the U.S. did not act to alert the Dutch authorities when Khan was observed travelling abroad on his frequent missions. According to an article in Foreign Affairs,
"a joke is making
the rounds of the nuclear anti-proliferation community: "If
you want to know who's a proliferator, follow A.Q. Khan's
travel schedule." Khan has long argued that Muslim countries
are entitled to the bomb. He traveled freely for years,
meeting with officials in other countries. Experts warn that
many of these nations are now potential proliferation
suspects, including: Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, one of
the Gulf emirates, which experts say both helped finance the
Pakistani nuclear program;
http://www.cfr.org/publication/7751
Algeria and Syria, which have
expressed nuclear ambitions;
Malaysia and
Indonesia;
Myanmar (Burma), where Khan reportedly met
with officials;
Egypt.
IRAN AND THE A.Q. KHAN NETWORK
For more than a
quarter-century, various sources have been warning that Iran
was on the nuclear threshold, and would be able to build an
atomic bomb "within five years." From the mid-1980s until
2002, Khan was the principal supplier of Iran's nuclear
enrichment technologies. During that period, until the Bush
Administration dismantled the Khan network, the CIA knew
exactly what was going into Iran and had a picture of Iran's
program. That knowledge didn't necessarily make it into the
public statements, however, which tended to exaggerate the
progress that Iran was making. Surprisingly, the Agency's
most recent estimate in 2005, written in the light of its
disastrous over-statement of Iraq's WMD in 2002, is far more
cautious and nuanced, estimating a 10-year lead time until
Iran could build an actual, working nuclear
bomb. "The Iranians may have an atom bomb within two
years, the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly warned. That
was in 1984, two decades ago. Four years later, the world
was again put on notice, this time by Iraq, that Tehran was
at the nuclear threshold, and in 1992 the CIA foresaw atomic
arms in Iranian hands by 2000. Then U.S. officials pushed
that back to 2003. And in 1997 the Israelis confidently
predicted a new date: 2005...." SOURCE: AP February 27,
2006 - Ever a `threat,' never an atomic power..." Even
after the Clinton Administration, we still heard official
predictions that never quite happened. Late 1991: In
congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States
estimates that there is a `high degree of certainty that the
government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the
components required for the construction of two to three
nuclear weapons.' A February 1992 report by the U.S. House
of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear
weapons will be operational between February and April
1992." "February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says
that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to
produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from
abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier." "January
1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb
by 2003." "January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William
Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from
building an atomic bomb, although `how soon...depends how
they go about getting it.'" "April 29, 1996: Israeli prime
minister Shimon Peres says `he believes that in four years,
they may reach nuclear weapons.'" "October 21, 1998:
General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says
Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons
within five years. `If I were a betting man,' he said, `I
would say they are on track within five years, they would
have the capability.'" "January 17, 2000: A new CIA
assessment on Iran's nuclear capabilities says that the CIA
cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess
nuclear weapons. The assessment is based on the CIA's
admission that it cannot monitor Iran's nuclear activities
with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect
that Iran may have nuclear
weapons."
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/08/24/bad-intelligence-but-in-which-direction
As the Bush-Cheney Administration came into office, the official CIA estimates of Iran’s nuclear program showed that Iran was 7-10 years away from being able to build an A-bomb. Similarly, until early 2002, Colin Powell and Condie Rice were repeating intelligence estimates that said Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed no serious threat to either its regional neighbors or the U.S.
But, the CIA's Iraq estimate changed with the
appearance of the October, 2002 NIE. As everyone later
realized, it was wrong. It wasn't just wrong in the details,
it got the most important facts about Iraq's alleged nuclear
program was dead wrong. CIA,
October 2002, pp.1-2: "Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain
proscribed high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant
concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking
nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a
centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists
assess this to be the intended use, but some believe that
these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons
programs. Based on tubes of the size Iraq is trying to
acquire, a few tens of thousands of centrifuges would be
capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a
couple of weapons per year."http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB
http://www.traprockpeace.org/iraqweaponsn.html
The current CIA NIE for Iran completed in 2005 is by comparison, a model of balance and "carefully hedged assessments", estimating it would take Iran at least a decade or longer to produce a bomb, if it determined to do so. That doubled the amount of time projected in the 2001 assesment it replaced. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/01/AR2005080101453.html
That's not very different in its conclusions from the one in 2000, when the non-enrichment agreement was still in place. If a new NIE were to be ordered, or were to appear that significantly shrank that time estimate, that would be a significant and ominous development.
Given the level of vitriol we hear from the White House about Iran's program, and that which gets echoed back from President Ahmadinejad, it is surprising that the current consensus of the intelligence community is that things haven't changed much in Iran. How can that be? The evidence shows that Iran was never really serious about making atomic bombs, and that its program today is still a screwed up mess because it started out with junk peddled by a con man.
Following quiet negotiations with the Clinton Administration, in 1995 Iran’s President Khatemi agreed to allow inspectors from the IAEA to monitor the country’s known nuclear sites, and to suspend research that potentially had dual use of developing weapons. That agreement didn’t actually go into effect until 1998.
After that accord was reached, however, Khan brokered a deal for delivery of some 500 centrifuge component sets, old units that Pakistan had used and discarded from its own enrichment program. That breach was, of course, known at the time, but rather than force a renewed conflict with Iran – and knowing that these machines were not adequate in number or quality to produce sufficient quantities of bomb-grade material -- Washington chose not to make a public issue of it at the time. The Clinton White House took this approach toward other countries it was monitoring through the Khan netwwork.
As was foreseen, a decade later, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is plagued by breakdowns, materials shortages, and an inability to produce centrifuges on an industrial scale. A report by the UK Guardian describes that program today:
Nuclear plans in chaos as Iran leader
flounders Observer Iran's
uranium enrichment programme has been plagued by constant
technical problems, lack of access to outside technology and
knowhow, and a failure to master the complex
production-engineering processes involved. The country
denies developing weapons, saying its pursuit of uranium
enrichment is for energy purposes. Despite Iran being
presented as an urgent threat to nuclear non-proliferation
and regional and world peace - in particular by an
increasingly bellicose Israel and its closest ally, the US -
a number of Western diplomats and technical experts close to
the Iranian programme have told The Observer it is archaic,
prone to breakdown and lacks the materials for
industrial-scale production. The disclosures come as Iran
has told the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic
Energy Agency , that it plans to install a new 'cascade' of
3,000 high-speed centrifuges at its controversial
underground facility at Natanz in central Iran next
month. The centrifuges were supposed to have been
installed almost a year ago and many experts are extremely
doubtful that Iran has yet mastered the skills to install
and run it. Instead, they argue, the 'installation' will
more probably be about propaganda than reality. The
detailed descriptions of Iran's problems in enriching more
than a few grams of uranium using high-speed centrifuges -
50kg is required for two nuclear devices - comes in stark
contrast to the apocalyptic picture being painted of Iran's
imminent acquisition of a nuclear weapon with which to
attack Israel. Instead, say experts, the break-up of the
nuclear smuggling organisation of the Pakistani scientist
Abdul Qadheer Khan has massively set back an Iran heavily
dependent on his network. A key case in point is that
Tehran originally procured the extremely high-quality
bearings required for the centrifuges' carbon-fibre 'top
rotors' - spinning dishes within the machines - from foreign
companies in Malaysia. With that source closed down two
years ago, Iran is making the bearings itself with only
limited success. It is the repeated failure of these crucial
bearings, say some sources, that has been one of the
programme's biggest setbacks. Iran is also believed to be
critically short of key materials for producing a centrifuge
production line to highly enrich uranium - in particular the
so-called maraging steel, able to be used at high
temperatures and under high stress without deforming - and
specialist carbon fibre products. In this light, say some
experts, its insistence that it will install 3,000 new
centrifuges at the underground Natanz facility in the coming
months is as much about domestic PR as reality. The
growing recognition, in expert circles at least, of how far
Iran is from mastering centrifuge technology was underlined
on Friday by comments by the head of the IAEA, whose
inspectors have been attempting to monitor the Iranian
nuclear programme. Talking to the World Economic Forum at
Davos, Switzerland, Mohamed El Baradei appealed for all
sides to take a 'time out' under which Iranian enrichment
and UN sanctions would be suspended simultaneously, adding
that the point at which Iran is able to produce a nuclear
weapon is at least half a decade away. In pointed comments
aimed at the US and Israel, the Nobel Peace prize winner
warned that an attack on Iran would have 'catastrophic
consequences'http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2000303,00.html
Boasts of a nuclear programme are just
propaganda, say insiders, but the PR could be enough to
provoke Israel into war
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs
editor
Sunday January 28, 2007
Iran's
efforts to produce highly enriched uranium, the material
used to make nuclear bombs, are in chaos and the country is
still years from mastering the required technology.
Going back decades, the Agency’s nuclear experts had been waging an internal war, of a sort, for control over the Iran NIE. During the Clinton years, Director Tenet had resisted pressures to substitute data provided by an unnamed third country and Iranian exile groups considered to be unreliable.
In August 2002, as Pakistan came under mounting U.S. pressure to suppress A.Q. Khan's network after the Administration publicly revealed the trade with North Korea and Libya, Iran was again accused of building a bomb. The Iran allegations this time came from the MEK, an exile group with ties to Michael Ledeen at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and other neoconservatives.
Iran was said to be secretly enlarging an uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and building a plutonium reactor at a site near the city of Arak. The MEK accusations proved to be exaggerated. Iran was not, as alleged, already on the nuclear threshold, and did not have thousands of centrifuges spinning out bomb-grade enriched uranium. A planned heavy water reactor at Arak was at that point nothing but plans on paper. Construction of the reactor did not actually start until late 2006, and Iran cannot hope to produce significant amounts of plutonium for at least seven years, according to the IAEA.
The type and number of centrifuges isn’t just an academic issue. Depending upon the type – Iran is known to have two models, the P-1 and P-2 -- production of enough Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) to build one bomb requires between 2000 and 9000 devices spinning continuously for one year. Reasonable estimates for the amount of time it would take Iran in an all-out, crash program to produce a bomb range from a low of 3 years (Albright and Hinderstein) to the 7-10 year estimate of the CIA. See, http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/945/iran-focus-part-1-how-close-is-iran-to-the-bomb
A centrifuge cascade of 164 machines was already known
and under UN seal. International inspectors, however,
confirmed that Iran had acquired components for an
additional 500 centrifuges, the P-1 device, acquired from
Khan. A report for the Arms Control Association
found: Tehran is developing a
gas-centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment program and
constructing a heavy-water moderated nuclear reactor. Both
programs could potentially produce fissile material for
nuclear weapons. Iran has a
pilot centrifuge facility, which so far contains a cascade
of 164 centrifuges, and is constructing a much larger
commercial facility. Tehran has told the IAEA that the pilot
facility will eventually contain approximately 1,000
centrifuges and the commercial facility will ultimately
house more than 50,000 centrifuges. Iran also has a
uranium-conversion facility, which converts uranium oxide
(lightly processed uranium ore) into several com pounds,
including uranium tetrafluoride and uranium hexafluoride.
Heinonen reported that the country’s current "conversion
campaign," which began in November 2005, is expected to end
this month. Tehran claims that it wants to produce LEU for
its light-water moderated nuclear power plant currently
under construction near the city of Bushehr, as well as
additional power plants it intends to construct. Iran says
that its heavy-water reactor, which is being constructed in
Arak, is intended for the production of medical isotopes.
But the IAEA is concerned that Iran may use the reactor to
produce plutonium, and the board has asked Iran to
"reconsider" the project. Tehran has told the IAEA that the
reactor is to begin operating in 2014. The spent nuclear
fuel from both light- water and heavy-water reactors
contains plutonium—the other type of fissile material in
use. But clandestinely obtaining weapons-grade plutonium
from light-water reactors is considerably more
difficult. SNIP Uranium-Enrichment Program Tehran has
been conducting research on two types of centrifuges: the
P-1 and the more advanced P-2. Iran acquired its centrifuge
materials and equipment from a clandestine supply network
run by former Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Iran has not been fully forthcoming to the IAEA about either
of these programs. The agency is concerned that Tehran may
have conducted undisclosed work on both types of centrifuges
and may also have an ongoing clandestine centrifuge
program. Iran ’s capability to produce enough
centrifuges for its programs is unclear. A diplomatic source
in Vienna close to the IAEA told Arms Control Today recently
that Iran currently lacks the expertise to produce P-2
centrifuges. Tehran can build large numbers of P-1
centrifuges but not enough to meet the commercial centrifuge
facility’s planned capacity, the source
said. Procurement Efforts The IAEA’s investigation of
these efforts has been hampered by Iran’s lack of full
cooperation. Tehran has both lagged in fulfilling IAEA
requests for documentation and provided the agency with
false information regarding its centrifuge procurement
efforts. Iran has acknowledged receiving centrifuge
components and related materials during the late 1980s and
1990s. Tehran has provided the agency with some information
regarding these acquisitions as well as related offers from
foreign suppliers. According to a November 2005 report
from IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei, Iran has
recently provided the agency with substantial amounts of
additional documentation regarding its P-1 procurement
activities. This information appears to have resolved some
of the discrepancies in Iran’s previous accounts, but the
IAEA has requested additional documentation. For example,
Heinonen reported that " Iran has been unable to supply any
documentation or other information about the meetings that
led to the acquisition of 500 sets of P-1 centrifuge
components in the mid-1990s." Heinonen’s report also
says that Iranian officials’ accounts of "events leading
up to" the mid-1990s centrifuge deal offer "are still at
variance" with accounts provided by "key members of the net
work." The report provides no details about these
discrepancies but does note Iran’s claims that "there were
no contacts with the network between 1987 and
mid-1993." Iran claims that it conducted no work on its
P-2 centrifuge program between 1995 and 2002, but the IAEA
is skeptical of this claim. However, this response does not appear to
address the basis for the agency’s concern. According to
ElBaradei’s September 2005 report, the agency suspects
that Iran may have conducted undeclared centrifuge work
because an Iranian contractor was able to make modifications
for certain centrifuge components "within a short period"
after first seeing the relevant drawings. Additionally,
ElBaradei reported in November that the agency is assessing
documentation provided by Tehran indicating that an Iranian
contractor who had worked on the program obtained related
materials that the government had apparently not disclosed
to the IAEA. Heinonen’s report states that the IAEA,
after sharing with Tehran information "indicating the
possible deliveries" of P-2 centrifuge components, asked
Iran in November "to check again" whether it had received
additional components after 1995. Both the Vienna source and
a former Department of State official familiar with the
issue confirmed that the IAEA’s information originated
with Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a businessman who has been
detained by Malaysia for his role in the Khan
network. Both sources also noted that Tahir only recently
revealed this information, although he has been in custody
since the spring of 2004. Tahir had no documentation for his
claim, the former U.S. official
added. in March, 2006 that it is
unclear whether Iran even has the capability to mass
manufacture P-2 centrifuges, and could confirm the existence
of only 500 sets of components for the less efficient P-1
type.
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran-IAEA-Issues.asp
Iran’s
Nuclear Programs
Gas centrifuges enrich uranium by
spinning uranium hexafluoride gas at very high speeds in
order to increase the concentration of the uranium-235
isotope. They can produce both low-enriched uranium (LEU),
which can be used in nuclear power reactors, and highly
enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used in certain types
of nuclear reactors and as fissile material.
Ambassador Ali Asghar
Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA,
told Arms Control Today Jan. 23 (see page 9) that Iran
suspended work on the program during those years because
Iran had not yet "achieved mastery" of the P-1
centrifuge.
SNIP
In early 2005, it was revealed publicly that Iran also had obtained a small number of a more modern P-2 type. This wasn’t news to the CIA – beginning in the mid-1990s, these machines had been purchased by Iran from A.Q. Khan under the watchful eyes of the Agency’s nuclear weapons experts working in the covert Directorate of Operations.
The Iran War Plans Go Off the Track
Accusations against Iran involving the Khan centrifuges emerged simultaneously with charges Washington was making against Saddam Hussein about aluminum tubes and Niger Yellowcake, charges also related to the Agency's intimate knowledge of the Khan network.
At the end of 2002, it was unclear which country would be first targeted. That answer was provided in February, when Colin Powell and President Bush addressed the UN. It was during this that Bush uttered the now infamous "sixteen deadly words" about Iraq’s alleged Niger yellowcake purchases. CIA Director George Tenet fell on his sword, allowing the Agency to take blame when no WMDs were found in Iraq several months later. Ambassador Wilson wasn't so sanguine, publishing his op-ed in the New York Times on July 6. Eight days later, Robert Novak published his infamous column in which he identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer working on WMD.
Just as the Plame scandal was unfolding,
in June, 2003, the same figures at the White House were
preparing the case for an attack on Iran. PBS Frontline
recounts these events below: The original date for inspection teams to view the
newly discovered nuclear facilities at Natanz came and went
in October 2002, but the following February Mohamed
ElBaradei, the IAEA's director general, went to Iran to meet
with nuclear officials. During the visit, Iran confirmed
that it was building a heavy-water production plant in Arak
and officially declared the two uranium enrichment plants it
was building in Natanz, which ElBaradei visited. His trip
was cut short, however, as the international debate over
whether Iran's neighbor Iraq had a nuclear weapons program
was about to erupt into war. Once Saddam Hussein's regime
had fallen to U.S.-led coalition forces, the world again
turned its attention to Iran. In June 2003, the IAEA
criticized Iran for hiding nuclear facilities and called on
the country to sign an additional protocol to the NPT,
putting its nuclear program under greater scrutiny. When
talking to reporters later, White House Press Secretary Ari
Fleischer said the United States would not rule out the
"military option" in dealing with Iran. (Fleisher resigned
on July 13, shortly after issuing this threat, and one day
before Novak’s Plame article appeared.) In August 2003,
IAEA inspectors visiting Iran discovered traces of enriched
uranium in Natanz. Enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear
reactors, but if it is enriched to a purer state, it can
also be used to form the core of a nuclear weapon. During
the visit, inspectors also found traces of enriched uranium
at the Kalaye Electric Company, just south of Tehran. Iran
claimed the equipment had been contaminated with highly
enriched uranium when it was imported from an unnamed
country, believed to be
Pakistan.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iran403/background.html
Distracted by the unfolding Plame scandal, and facing increasing resistance from the international community to sanctions, the campign against Iran proved an on again off again series of threats and relaxation of tensions. The confrontation escalated again in February 2005, when under pressure from the U.S., Pakistan’s Foreign Minister finally acknowledged that A.Q. Khan had been providing centrifuges for Iran since the late 1980s, and confirmed IAEA reports that included a number of more modern P-2 type devices. The following month, Iranian Prime Minister Khatemi defiantly announced that Iran would not give up enrichment. The U.S. then pressed a campaign to bring UN sanctions against Iran, after a long delay, repeating a pattern of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq two years earlier.
Meanwhile, another track in preparations for war with Iran was in progress, but this was to blow-up badly with the OSP-AIPAC scandal, which proved to be the undoing of neocon efforts to push the US into war with Iran.
The Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP), created in March 2002 by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, was installed as a stove-pipe to the Office of the Vice President (OVP). Through that office flowed salted Pentagon files containing intelligence data about Iran’s nuclear program "suggested by" Israeli intelligence officers working out of the Washington Embassy. This was a device to bypass the normal channels and checks and balances that attend CIA estimates and reporting.
All the while that OSP worked with Israeli intelligence, the FBI was watching as part of an ongoing surveillance of suspected espionage going back decades. Among OSP staff and consultants, a startlingly large percentage had previously been fired from government posts, lost security clearances or otherwise disciplined for unauthorized contacts with Israeli officials. That group included Feith, Richard Perle, and Harold Rhode.
On May 26, 2005, a 20-page indictment was handed down by the US District Court in Alexandria, VA against USAF Lt. Col. Larry Franklin, the OSP Iran desk officer, on espionage charges. Also indicted were two Iran experts, working for the American-Israel Political Affairs Council (AIPAC), one of whom had been observed communicating with Israeli officials since 1999. As news of the FBI investigation was leaked to Leslie Stahl, Naor Gilon, the Mossad Chief of Station in DC, and several Israeli military intelligence officers hastily slipped out of the country. The indictment lists 14 times between August 15, 2002, and June 23, 2004, that Mr. Franklin met with Mr. Gilon. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8
As the OSP-AIPAC Grand Jury deliberated, a related investigation across the Potomac River pushed into high gear.
On October 28, 2005, a Grand Jury returned an indictment against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on six felony charges of perjury and Obstruction of Justice. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald announced that figures in the White House and Vice President’s office was the subject of a previously quiet investigation into the outing of Plame.
North Korea and the Khan Network
When the A.Q. Khan network was made public, it was made clear that the CIA had been closely monitoring A.Q Khan’s activities "for decades". We also learned in 2006 at the time of first live test of North Korea’s bomb that the technologies that were peddled to North Korea didn't work.
END OF PART 1
Also published at DemocraticUnderground cross-posted at DailyKos:
2007. Mark G. Levey