Posted on 04/13/2006 4:29:55 PM PDT by neverdem
Botched CIA operations may have handed Iran vital information on how to make nuclear weapons and betrayed the identities of America's spies in the country, according to a new book on US intelligence.
The latest account of American intelligence failures includes details of how the CIA allegedly tried to slip Teheran some Russian designs for an atomic bomb, which contained hidden flaws that would have made any device inoperable.
The Iranians, however, were tipped off by the very agent sent to give them the documents.
In a separate incident, the book claims a CIA officer mistakenly sent an Iranian agent - who turned out to be a double agent - information that was used to arrest virtually all of the agency's spies in Iran.
The claims are made in State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who also revealed that the National Security Agency had tapped phone calls and e-mails of some US citizens without warrants.
The CIA says the book contains "serious inaccuracies", but has not elaborated.
The claims about Iran are startling because of the scale of bungling that Mr Risen claims has taken place.
He highlights one operation, known as Merlin, in February 2000, when the CIA allegedly sent a Soviet-era defector to Vienna where, posing an unemployed scientist selling nuclear secrets, he was supposed to contact the Iranians.
The Russian scientist, who had previously worked as an engineer on the Soviet nuclear weapons programme, was given Soviet documents for a key bomb component.
These had been provided by another Russian defector and then doctored by the CIA. Had they used the documents, "instead of a mushroom cloud the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle", Mr Risen writes.
But the Russian scientist immediately spotted the flaw and told his CIA handlers: "This isn't right." When told to go ahead with his mission, he apparently feared the Iranians would find the errors and decided to include a letter that alerted them to the flaws in the designs.
Mr Risen describes Operation Merlin as "one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the 'axis of evil' ".
Mr Risen also claims that in 2004 a CIA officer mistakenly sent one of its agents some information that was used by Iran to "roll up" the CIA espionage network in Iran.
"It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the critical issues facing the United States - whether Teheran was about to go nuclear," Mr Risen writes.
Such tales of incompetence coming after the fiasco over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, will inevitably raise fresh doubts about the accuracy of Western intelligence reports that claim Iran is bent on building nuclear weapons.
Iran insists it seeks nuclear power only to generate electricity and has steadily dismantled its agreement with European countries to freeze activities linked to its uranium enrichment programme.
Western countries have so far failed to muster enough political support to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council for breaches of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
European governments have given detailed intelligence briefings to Russian, Chinese, Indian and South African officials in an attempt to persuade them to back American claims that Iran has obtained designs for nuclear warheads, which could be fitted to its range of missiles.
George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. 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
Thursday January 5, 2006 The Guardian
And why are we sitting here watching doing apparently nothing but consult with their Euro co-conspirators while they beat a direct path towards making nukes? Is there anyone who seriously believes one won't show up in a US city not long afterwards?
And who was in charge of foreign policy in February of 2000?
Hint: It was NOT GWB.
...and who was President when the CIA gave nuclear plans to Iran? Yet the story seems calculated to smear the current administration.
Another "slam dunk" CIA operation.
Six years ago, the POTUS was Clinton, not Bush. Bush wasn't sworn in until January 2001.
I heard this story tonight on the radio. Another fact that you won't find in this country's MSM, and another reason that the dems should never be trusted with national security again.
I've heard that the U.K.'s Guardian is a leftwing rag. What do you know about the Telegraph?
Clinton was President back then. But it must be said that Bush did very little to fix the problem for more than four years. The CIA is still broken.
So the CIA gave Iran plans for a nuke, and then the CIA betrayed its agents in Tehran.
Thats in their spare time, when they weren't occupied trying to bring down the president, assuring us that there is no uranium smuggling in Niger, losing Iraq's WMD, losing Atta and his band of brothers...
It leaves you wondering just what they did get right. But it also clears up the little matter about why Bush and Rumsfeld maybe do not trust the CIA as far as they can boot them down the hall.
If you want some serious spook work done, send Mossad, send MI6, send Navy intel, send the Des Moines vice squad, but don't even let the CIA know you're curious or they'll make such a mess of it you'll never know what the truth of it was. And the whole thing will wind up on page one of the New York Times.
The Telegraph was pretty conservative in its American reporting during the clinton years, but recently it has been pretty liberal.
But it's not stuck on Far Left like the Guardian. It could easily change again.
Good summary. Now there's a slam dunk.
Pretty much any UK paper is a leftwing rag, the only difference is matter of degree.
It is much easier to change the CIA during PEACE TIME then during WAR.
That being said the POTUS has followed the advice of the 911 commission concerning national intelligence and in addition appointed Goss as the new head to weed out the Clinton leftovers.
It is hardly fair to compare an adminstration that was complicit in giving the BOMB to Iran and our ICBM secrets to China to THIS administration that is trying to fix a problem started 30 plus years ago with the Church commission.
I agree with everything you say, and I didn't equate Clinton's screwing up the CIA with Bush's initial failure to deal with the problem.
Yes, Porter Goss is hopefully weeding out the worst offenders. But an awful lot of damage was done while Bush left George Tenet in place.
As Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." Bush was not responsible for screwing up the CIA, but he bears some of the responsibility for waiting so long to fix it.
And he has done absolutely NOTHING to deal with similar problems in the FBI. He didn't cause them, either, but he sure isn't trying to fix them.
Thanks for the update.
Is this the same James Risen from the NY Times?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.htm
Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 16, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Do you think maybe Billzo didn't tell George about it?
Shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter the remnants to the wind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.