Baiting Iran
03-06-06
The Invasion of Iran has been in the works for years, since Rummy laid it all out for the first Bush in fact. Here is another move designed to bring about an invasion scenario. What better way to cull the support of the American people than with terror and the fear that we might be attacked and destroyed by rogue nuclear weapons? It has worked for Bush Co so far, but the chances of it working again, what with the incompetence of the Iraq fiasco and the hundreds of other mistakes that have been made by this administration, are not too high. I would say 50/50. It would be political suicide to invade at this point. However if the goal of the neo-con warmongers is to end up in front of a war crimes tribunal in Geneva then let's give them some more rope. They will no doubt hang themselves. If what Risen wrote is true it is pretty damning. There is not much time left for Bush Co., if they are going to try to pull it off, as the political climate in the US is changing. Too many people are beginning to distrust the motives of this administration.
SEE: Toronto Star
In his book, State of War,
James Risen includes the startling claim that the U.S. actually handed
Tehran the blueprints for an atomic bomb in 2000. The CIA scheme was to
introduce intentional flaws in the design plans that would delay or derail
Iranian work. The following excerpt shows the poorly conceived plan and
its easily identified flaws.
Risen is the reporter who revealed a secret domestic U.S. wiretapping
surveillance program exists in the United States.
The Russian stood out like a poor eastern cousin on Vienna's jeweled
cityscape.
He was a nuclear engineer who had defected to the United States years
earlier and quietly settled in America. He went through the CIA's defector
resettlement program and endured long debriefings in which CIA experts and
scientists from the national laboratories tried to drain him of everything
he knew about the status of Russia's nuclear weapons program. Like many
other Russian defectors before him, his tiresome complaints about money
and status had gained him a reputation within the CIA of being difficult
to manage. But he was too valuable for the CIA to toss away...
So despite their disputes, the CIA had arranged for the Russian to become
an American citizen and had kept him on the payroll, to the tune of $5,000
(U.S.) a month. It really did seem like easy money, with few strings
attached. Life was good. He was happy to be on the CIA gravy train.
Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front lines of a plan that
seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the United States,
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 code name for this operation was MERLIN...
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 recognize 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 walked 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
told the Russian that the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find
out where the Iranians are with their nuclear program. This was just an
intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal
attempt to give Iran the bomb.
At the case officer's urging, the Russian started sending messages to
Iranian scientists, scholars, and even Iranian diplomats stationed at the
IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in Vienna.
As he mingled with scientists and other academics, the Russian picked up
business cards and email addresses. The Russian began to email his new
contacts, sending intriguing messages explaining that he wanted to talk
with them about his ability to provide materials of interest to Iran.
Finally, at one conference, he hit pay dirt when he met a physics
professor visiting from Tehran.
The Russian followed up his chance encounter with emails to the scientist
back at his university in Iran. The Russian explained that he had
information that was extremely important, and he wanted to make an offer.
After some delays, the Iranian finally responded, with a wary message,
asking what he had in mind. That was enough for the CIA. Now the Russian
could tell Iranian officials in Vienna that he had been in touch with a
respected scientist in Tehran before he showed up on their doorstep. 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 take the next step and send the Russian to Vienna at
the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the
Iranian ambassador to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran.
The CIA sent him to Vienna without any backup...
Only a handful of CIA officers knew of the existence of MERLIN.
Better to let the Russian get lost and fumble his way around town than
tell more officers about the operation.
He could not stop thinking about his trip to San Francisco, when he had
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 in the room... After their trip to San
Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the
nuclear blueprints inside. The Russian 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 was more worried than ever about what kind of game the CIA
was getting him into. And he had his own ideas about how he might play
that game.
In Vienna, the Russian went over his options one more time and made a
decision. He 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 these blueprints — so he decided to mention that fact
to the Iranians in a 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 slid his letter in with the blueprints and resealed the
envelope.
After his day of floundering around Vienna, the Russian returned to his
hotel, near the city's large Stadtpark. He did a computer search and found
the right street address for the Iranian mission. His courage bolstered,
he decided he would go back and finish the job in the morning.
He found 19 Heinstrasse...
The only proof that this was the right place was a mail directory, with
three rows of tenants' names on the wall beside the building's front door.
Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: PM/Iran."
The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity.
The Russian 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
finally made the handoff without ever having to come face to face with a
real live Iranian. He flew back to the U.S. without being detected by
either Austrian security or, more important, by Iranian intelligence...
Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian
mission, the NSA (National Security Agency) reported that an Iranian
official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule and suddenly made airline
reservations and flew home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear
blueprints were now in Tehran.
From STATE OF WAR by James Risen. Copyright © 2006 by James Risen.