Replies

Operation Merlin "was a United States covert operation under the Clinton Administration to provide Iran with a flawed design for a component of a nuclear weapon ostensibly in order to delay the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program, or to frame Iran."

Twisted view of CIA’s Operation Merlin - "The conviction Monday of former CIA case officer Jeffrey A. Sterling for leaking classified information to a reporter requires a review of the CIA’s once-covert operation to slow down Iran’s nuclear program. The CIA effort, which began in 1997, tried to use a former Russian nuclear engineer to misguide Tehran’s scientists pursuing a nuclear bomb. The engineer was to pass on flawed Russian plans for a nuclear triggering device. The complicated spy operation ended in January 2006 after it was disclosed in James Risen’s book “State of War .” Called “Operation Merlin” by Risen — after the engineer’s code name — the program was described as not only a failure but as “one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA.” Risen said it was one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W. Bush called the “axis of evil.”

James Risen - "So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb? In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco"

This had the same M/O as Loral Space giving China nuclear guidance and staging technologies in exchange for $$$ c/o John Huang & those Buddhist Monks.