Author Archives: kerr

Bolton Misleads about UN Inspections

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One of the Senators (Hegel, I think) asked Bolton a few minutes ago during the SFRC hearing why the United States didn’t listen to UNMOVIC and the IAEA when they said Iraq didn’t have WMD. During the course of his answer, Bolton said that the Bush administration had not disputed the IAEA’s claim that Iraq did not have a uranium enrichment program.

Right. This is what Cheney “told”:http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm _Meet the Press_ a few days before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq:

MR. RUSSERT: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program, we disagree?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: *I disagree, yes.* And you’ll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. Let’s talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We’ve got, again, a long record here. It’s not as though this is a fresh issue. In the late ’70s, Saddam Hussein acquired nuclear reactors from the French. 1981, the Israelis took out the Osirak reactor and stopped his nuclear weapons development at the time. Throughout the ’80s, he mounted a new effort. I was told when I was defense secretary before the Gulf War that he was eight to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. And we found out after the Gulf War that he was within one or two years of having a nuclear weapon because *he had a massive effort under way that involved four or five different technologies for enriching uranium to produce fissile material.*

We know that based on intelligence that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. *And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted [his] nuclear weapons [program]. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.* [Emphasis, Lewis]

SSCI Iraq Investigation in Process…

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The Senate Intel Committee’s “Iraq investigation”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=527 came up “today”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7452510/ on Meet the Press. It seems that Roberts has now said publicly that he will do as he promised a while back – investigate the Exec. Branch’s use of the intel it received:

bq. SEN. ROBERTS: Tim, we’re going to do that. I will bring it here. We’ll have the 50 statements. We’ll have the intelligence. We can match it up and you can do it with members of Congress, who are very, very critical, who made the same things, and you can say, “OK,” and you’ll say “Well, Pat, it just looks to me that the intelligence was wrong and that’s exactly why they said what they said.”

Unless, of course, Mr. Russert even kind of knows WTF he’s talking about…

Iraq Investigations Wankery

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Although the Robb-Silberman report didn’t get into the question of Bush administration officials’ statements RE: Iraq’s supposed WMD, the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be looking into the question.

Supposed to be. Apparently, there’s a bit of controversy about the matter, which I wrote about “here”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_04/Iraq.asp. And a reader kindly pointed me to a “TNR editorial”:http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050418&s=editorial041805 calling out Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) (_right_) for trying to scotch the whole investigation.

One example of Roberts-as-shill: He issued a “31 March press release stating”:http://intelligence.senate.gov/050331.htm that it “would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further.”

In other related news: the House Intel Committee ended its investigation quite a while ago without telling anyone.

Solid. Obviously the wrong month to quit sniffing glue…

Exiles and Iran Intel

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_Newsweek_’s Mark Hosenball, who also wrote the Bolton/Cuba story referenced in “my last post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=516, has “another piece”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369510/site/newsweek/ about the MEK/NCRI’s role in revealing Iran’s nuclear programs. (See also “ACW 24 October 2004”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=259)

Most of you probably know that the NCRI announced in August 2002 that Iran had secret nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz. The USFG had no official reaction at the time, but the IAEA’s investigation of Tehran’s nuclear programs began shortly afterwards.

Now, the NCRI was largely correct in that instance. (I say “largely” because its August 2002 announcement referred to Natanz as a facility for “nuclear fuel production,” which could imply something other than uranium enrichment.) Since then, however, it is often said that this group’s revelations gave Western intelligence agencies their first clue about the facilities in question.

Indeed, Hosenball points out, Bush told reporters 16 March that the facilities were “discovered, not because of their compliance with the IAEA or NPT, but because a dissident group pointed it out to the world.”

But it seems that some in the IC have taken issue with the implication that they knew nothing about Arak and Natanz:

bq. Intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK, however, that while the council’s revelation may have been new to the public, U.S. agencies had reported the same information to policymakers, in classified form, well before the resistance group went public with it.

U.S. officials have said much the same thing in public on at least two occasions. First, former SecState Powell said during a “March 2003 interview”:http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030311a3.html that the US had shared intelligence with the IAEA. Second, Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner George Tenet “said almost a year later that”:http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/05/tenet.transcript.ap/ “It is flat wrong to say that we were surprised by reports from the Iranian opposition.”

Another issue concerns the NCRI’s track record for accuracy. News from this group is often good for getting right-wingers to show their “O” face and belittle the EU3’s diplomacy with Tehran, but it’s probably good that we’re not banking on these exiles for too much intel.

For example, IAEA inspectors visited another site that the NCRI ID’d as a secret nuclear facility. ElBaradei reported this past November that the inspectors …

bq. … visited three locations at an industrial complex in Kolahdouz in western Tehran that had been mentioned in open source reports as relevant to enrichment activities. While no work was seen at those locations that could be directly linked to uranium enrichment, environmental samples were taken. The results did not reveal any indications of activities involving the use of nuclear material.

Additionally, an IAEA official told me 5 April that no subsequent NCRI reports have led the agency to any smoking guns.

Moreover, “ElBaradei thinks”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_03/ElBaradei.asp the IAEA needs more information, which suggests that the NCRI isn’t helping all that much.

To be fair, the NCRI _was_ right once and the IAEA is continuing to follow up on at least some of the group’s information. But the point is that we have the agency there to verify the exiles’ claims. Of course, that didn’t much matter with Iraq …

Bolton and BW Intel

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Interesting. Apparently some Senate staffers are looking into whether Bolton was involved in “pressuring intel analysts”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369509/site/newsweek/regarding about their assessments of Cuba’s BW program.

Jeffrey wrote about this “a while ago”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=35. Relevant excerpts from the SSCI report included.

Iran Offers Its Nuts to the US

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At least some Iranian officials appear somewhat skeptical of the “Bush administration’s limited incentives”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=475 for Tehran to comply with the EU3’s negotiating demands.

Senior Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri told Iranian state television 15 March:

bq. As far as America is concerned, we said: Ms Rice, are you prepared to shut down two of your power plants if we supply you with pistachios? We said that we would supply them with a three year stock of pistachios. However, we will supply their pistachios lorry by lorry because they said things would have to be taken step by step and when we see any progress, we will reward them with more pistachios. This is how ridiculous the situation is.

Mmmmmmmm….pistachios. I bet they next offer a fruit basket…

*Jeffrey’s 2 cents:* ACW reader AM sends word that Iranian pistacho merchants have been reluctant to include their product in a barter deal for Bushehr:

A high-powered delegation of Russian nuclear industry officials is traveling to Tehran this week to negotiate details of how Iran will pay for nuclear reactor construction contracts worth a total of $1 billion. … [Russian officials] are proposing to be paid by a combination of cash and Iranian barter goods. Sources in Tehran say about $700 million is to be paid to Moscow in cash, and $300 million in Iranian barter goods.

[snip]

At the same time, the Iranians have come up with a high-powered product of their own. Presented for the first time at the WorldFood-97 exhibition in Moscow last week, the Iranian wonder product reportedly does one thing nuclear energy cannot – it revives flagging male sexual potency. It’s the pistachio nut prepared with saffron.

“Iranians don’t suffer from impotence,” said Mohammed Karimiapour, director of Arian Milan, one of Iran’s leading exporters of pistachios. “But for centuries, Iran’s shahs have used saffron with their pistachios to cure this ill. In the northern countries of Europe, the saffron pistachio is now being advertised for this purpose. I’ve seen the case studies and letters that have poured in.”

[snip]

In the much larger barter deal now in planning, Iranian merchants are competing hard for inclusion of their products. But Mr. Karimiapour says the pistachio traders are holding back. Because of this year’s supply shortage and rising prices, most of the Iranians believe they can do better selling directly for hard currency, rather than accept the barter terms and currency controls that will be overseen by the Iranian Central Bank.

But Mr. Karimiapour is confident about the future of Iran’s pistachio trade in Russia. He’s also taken a long, hard look at the American competition. “They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts. Also, they can’t offer what we can for the Russian man.”

“They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts.” AWESOME.

In case you don’t believe me: John Helmer, “Iranian Nuclear Trade With Russia Goes Nuts; Pistachios Marketed For Sexual Potency,” _Journal of Commerce_ (June 11, 1997) 7B.

More on North Korea HEU

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Larry Niksch (_right_) from CRS recently published an “interesting summary”:http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503200025.html of the relevant intel in the _Chosun Ilbo_.

Niksch mentions a pair of 1993 Russian intel reports that point toward a North Korean HEU program:

bq. There are also assessments from non-U.S. sources simultaneous with or earlier than those of the Clinton Administration. Of special importance are the Russian intelligence assessments of the 1993. Reports in two Japanese journals and the Russian newspaper, Izvestia, quoted from two Russian intelligence documents, an October 1993 Defense Ministry report entitled “The Russian Federation’s Military Policy in the Asia and Pacific Region Under the New Military-Political Conditions” and a 1993 report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on “Weapons of Mass Destruction in the World.” Both Russian assessments asserted that North Korea had an active uranium enrichment program.

I am curious as to whether anyone has a copy of the Russian reports . I haven’t been able to find them, but maybe someone with sweeter skills can.

Niksch also correctly points out that South Korean intel sources have been cited in the ROK press for a while now on this issue. Those have never quite been solid enough for _ACT_ to publish, but Seoul clearly seems to think that North Korea has some sort of HEU effort.

There is, however, still no good evidence that the program is, or was, as advanced as North Korea’s plutonium progam.

*As an aside*, when I was doing the reporting for the article I wrote last month about this subject, I couldn’t find anyone who would really defend the intelligence. Now, there are obviously people I missed who likely would defend it, but it’s interesting that no one else reporting on the matter is having much better luck.

_Update_: The sweet skills are on display in the comments section.

Bolton Iraq Wankery

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You’ve likely noticed that the office of Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a “letter”:http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20050301112122-90349.pdf describing State Department efforts to “conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton … in the creation of a [December 2002] “fact sheet”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/16118.htm distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.”

That fact sheet, by the way, was the first public mention about this attempted uranium transaction.

While writing a “chronology”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_09/Iraquraniumchronology.asp about the Iraq/Niger uranium fiasco a while back, I looked into Bolton’s role in the creation of that fact sheet, but couldn’t get anyone to confirm his involvement. Members of Congress apparently faced similar obstacles.

Anyway, the relevant portion of the chronology reads as follows:

December 19, 2002: A State Department fact sheet charges Iraq with omitting its “efforts to procure uranium from Niger” from its December 7 declaration to UN weapons inspectors. UN Security Council Resolution 1441, adopted November 8, 2002, required Iraq to submit a declaration “of all aspects of its [weapons of mass destruction] programmes.” The declaration is supposed to provide information about any prohibited weapons activity since UN inspectors left the country in 1998 and to resolve outstanding questions about Iraq’s WMD programs that had not been answered by 1998.

The fact sheet is “developed jointly by the CIA and the State Department,” according to an April 29, 2003, letter from the State Department to Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA). Boucher later says July 14, 2003, that the Niger information was “prepared in other bureaus of the State Department,” but he does not say which bureaus were involved. The fact sheet was not cleared by the State Department’s intelligence bureau, according to knowledgeable sources.

A State Department official interviewed August 21, 2003, however, said the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau developed the fact sheet from a draft of a speech U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte gave December 20, 2002, to a closed session of the Security Council. The State Department would have discussed the information for that speech “at several levels with the National Security Council (NSC),” the official added. The final draft of Negroponte’s speech did not contain the reference to Niger.

The IAEA requests information from the United States on the uranium claim “immediately after” the fact sheet’s release, according to a June 20, 2003, letter from the IAEA to Waxman. This information is not supplied until February 4, 2003, according to a July 1, 2003, State Department letter to Waxman.

(Thanks to “Steve Clemons”:http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/ via “Laura Rozen subbing for Kevin Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_03/005848.php)

Iran Wankery

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Will someone in the press please, for the love of God, notice that Bush’s description of Washington’s Iran diplomacy does not constitute anything anyone could reasonably call “success”?

Bush told an audience on Friday that:

bq. we [the US and the Europeans] worked together on the issue of Iran, to make sure that we speak with one voice to the Iranian regime, that they should abandon any ambitions for nuclear weapons for the sake of peace in the world. I am pleased that we are speaking with one voice with our European friends.

Persuading other countries to take the courageous “Iranian nukes bad” stance does not a diplomatic triumph make. And who, exactly, was on the “Bombs for Tehran” bandwagon that W so successfully derailed?

Good thing the adults are in charge…