"The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, London Sunday Times, Guardian, Die Zeit, Ashi Shimbun, Der Spiegel, Stern, and Times of India and by Reuters, Associated Press, AFP and Bloomberg wire services. Albright has also appeared many times on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, 60 Minutes, Dateline, Nightline and multiple National Public Radio shows."
Forgetting Iraq Fiasco
Yet, when the Washington Post cited Albright on Monday, as the key source of a front-page article about Iran's supposed progress toward reaching "nuclear capability," all the history of Albright's role in the Iraq fiasco disappeared. The article by Joby Warrick stated:
"Beginning early in the last decade and apparently resuming -- though at a more measured pace -- after a pause in 2003, Iranian scientists worked concurrently across multiple disciplines to obtain key skills needed to make and test a nuclear weapon that could fit inside the country's long-range missiles, said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who has reviewed the intelligence files."'The program never really stopped,' said Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. The institute performs widely respected independent analyses of nuclear programs in countries around the world, often drawing from IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] data.
"'After 2003, money [in Iran] was made available for research in areas that sure look like nuclear weapons work but were hidden within civilian institutions,' Albright said."
The Post reported that key elements of this foreboding analysis come from a soon-to-be-released IAEA report, but the Post relied on Albright for emphasis and interpretation. The article said:
"Some of the highlights were described in a presentation by Albright at a private conference of intelligence professionals last week. PowerPoint slides from the presentation were obtained by The Washington Post, and details of Albright's summary were confirmed by two European diplomats privy to the IAEA's internal reports. ...
"Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran 'has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device' using highly enriched uranium as its fissile core. ... 'The [intelligence] points to a comprehensive project structure and hierarchy with clear responsibilities, timelines and deliverables,' Albright said, according to the notes from the presentation."
The Post cited Albright as describing a key breakthrough for Iran when it obtained the design for an R265 generator, "a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction."
The Post reported that the IAEA had received intelligence claiming that a former Soviet nuclear scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, explained to Iranian scientists how to develop and test an explosion needed to detonate a nuclear warhead. However, one source told the Post that Danilenko's work was limited to civilian engineering projects.
The Post doesn't spell out where the new IAEA intelligence originated, but the New York Times reported that "some of that information came from the United States, Israel and Europe." Israeli leaders have been trying to rally public support for a bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities, while Iran remains deeply unpopular with U.S. and European officials.
A Different IAEA
The IAEA also is not the same organization that bucked the Bush administration's intelligence regarding Iraq's supposed nuclear weapons program.
As former CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote on Feb. 21, 2010, the new IAEA chief, Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, had "huge shoes to fill when he took over from the widely respected Mohamed ElBaradei, [who] had the courage to call a spade a spade and, when necessary, a forgery a forgery -- like the documents alleging that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium in Niger."
Citing the contrast between ElBaradei's expertise and reputation and that of the less known Amano, McGovern added, "lacking gravitas, one bends more easily. It is a fair assumption that Amano will prove more malleable than his predecessor -- and surely more naà ¯ve."
Now, it appears that Amano's IAEA has accepted intelligence information from Israel and other enemies of Iran in preparing a report that is sure to add fuel to the fire for a possible military confrontation with Iran. Republican presidential hopefuls are already lining up to beat the war drums and accuse President Barack Obama of softness on Iran.
CIA analysts are sure to come under new pressure to back away from an important National Intelligence Estimate from 2007 which concluded that the Iranians had halted work on a nuclear weapons program in 2003. President Bush said the NIE tied his hands when he was considering a military attack on Iran before he left office.
Official Washington's animus toward Iran also continues to be reflected in the intense interest over Iran's nuclear program, which Iranian officials insist is only for peaceful purposes, compared to the usual silence over Israel's actual nuclear-weapons arsenal.
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