Dafna Linzer, the Iran War's A17 Expert

by emptywheel

Remember how Walter Pincus, in the lead-up to the Iraq war, had everything right, knew they were lying us into war. But the WaPo invariably buried his stories while putting the warmongering on the front page?

I think Dafna Linzer has been placed in the same role with the Iran War. So far, she has debunked several of the key claims about Iran's nuclear program. And today, on A17, she provides a story about the IAEA smacking down Peter Hoekstra for his Fred Fleitz-written propaganda piece suggesting Iran has a nuclear program.

The article makes it all very clear. Among the other things the Fleitz propaganda did was claim that 3.5% uranium is the same weapons grade uranium as 90% uranium. And the letter notes the instances where the Fleitz letter ignored the requirements of the NPT treaty so as to launch baseless attacks on Iran.

But for now, I'm just going to keep a file with Linzer's reporting, so we can publish it together when they get back to the warmongering after the election. Linzer's reporting shows (as Pincus' did, to some degree) that they know they're lying as they're calling for war.

Update: lukery pointed me to this, from Kevin Drum. I guess Drum and I are thinking alike.

Comments

[Kagro X]

Hoekstra? Hoekstra? What am I, in the Twilight Zone? It hasn't even been three months since Hoekstra was totally discredited on the subject of Iraq and WMD. Now we're having to waste precious time debunking his idiocy on Iran?

WTF?!

When the hell is someone going to write a story that examines the track record of the morons who tell these tales?

I know Cheney, et al., have their 1% doctrine and all, but we're in Iraq because of their retarded stovepiping. And they engaged in their retarded stovepiping because they were all embarrassed and angry at having been caught flatfooted in the first Gulf War because the CIA had gotten it wrong on WMD then.

So now here we are, with the Cheney cabal having gotten it wrong on WMD now, and still we're supposed to just forge ahead? The exact conditions which gave rise to a movement that allowed Cheney and his cronies to totally write the established intelligence community out of the loop are now present again, only with respect to... Cheney and his cronies!

And we're still playing the "deference to the official government position" game, out of what? Respect for the office? The 1% chance they might be right?

[dlake]

I am alway a little sad when I see things about the complete roll over of the Washington Post.
I , like many of my generation, cheered the 2 intrepid reporters who became legends for the breaking of Watergate.
The great editor Ben Bradley along with his boss and paper owner, Kathryn Graham, were the dynamic duo who exposed the worst of government to help keep it an effective government.
These days it's not just a sad shadow of it's former glorious self, but, completely dark. An endless midnight.
At least the NYT has tried to make it back from thier trip to the dark side and regain thier reputation and become a real newpaper again.
Sadly, the Washington Post has stayed entrenched on the dark side and is addicted to the koolaid. I think because of this, the mighty Post will continue to see thier fortunes fall and eventually die.
This is true of most corporate owned media. The cutting off of important stories and cheerleading of Bush and his ilk will be the death of MSM.

[Chefrad]

Fredrick Fleitz has had his finger in every neocon pie from the start. His name turned up in the Larry Franklin affair too.

[The Ugly American]

Lets try and be honest here. I will start by saying I have no idea why Hoekstra would publish a report like this which only calls his credibility into question.

That being said you did see the report in the NYT just two weeks ago citing an IAEA report that stated IAEA inspectors had recently found traces of "highly enriched uranium". This was not the first time the IAEA caught the Iranians cheating. Previously they had claimed the uranium traces had come from equipment purchased from the Pakistanis that had not been cleaned properly.

This time the IAEA ruled out that possibility.

I am certainly no expert but I find it hard to believe that 3.5% would qualify as "highly enriched"

Unfortunately you need a subscription to access the NYT article now but you can read an excerpt here at Captain's quarters

yes I know you hate him but just suck it up and read the excerpt before erupting into flames ok?

[emptywheel]

Ugly

You mean the story that says this:

The report did not specify the level of the particles or whether they were weapons-grade quality. The official who was discussing the report refused to be drawn into that discussion, suggesting that such a definition was meaningless. "You cannot say weapons-grade, but very high," he said.

The report also concluded that Iran had continued to produce enriched uranium but on a modest scale, despite claims of various Iranian officials of plans to build and operate thousands of gas centrifuges on an industrial scale.

Indeed, Iran has built and operated only one 164-machine cascade or set of centrifuges, and other isolated machines.

Over the summer, the centrifuges did not produce enriched uranium continuously, but only for a few days and then often operated empty, the report said.

In addition, only a few kilograms of nuclear material was fed into the machines; only a small amount of uranium -- tens of grams -- was enriched, the official said.

And then, when you go to the actual report, it sure doesn't seem to merit the big old headlines that former Miller collaborator, William Broad, and his colleagues gave it.

24. Analysis of the environmental samples taken from equipment at a technical university in January 2006, referred to in paragraph 25 of GOV/2006/27, showed a small number of particles of natural and high enriched uranium. This equipment had been shown to the Agency in connection with its investigation into efforts made by the Physics Research Centre (PHRC) to acquire dual use material and equipment (GOV/2006/27, paras 24–25).

And that paragraph, in turn, refers to this one:

25. As previously reported, the Agency met in February 2006 with one of the former Heads of the PHRC, who had been a university professor at a technical university while he was Head of the PHRC.11 The Agency took environmental samples from some of the equipment said to have been procured for use by the university, the results of which are currently being assessed and discussed with Iran. Although Iran agreed to provide further clarifications in relation to efforts to procure balancing machines, mass spectrometers, magnets and fluorine handling equipment, the Agency has yet to receive such clarifications. Further access to the procured equipment is necessary for environmental sampling. Iran has continued to decline requests by the Agency to interview the other former Head of the PHRC.

From the sounds of the reports, there are particles on recently-acquired dual-use equipment--the recently acquired ought to open your eyes to begin with.

If I had to guess, I'd say the NYT article was based on an interview with Robert Joseph (who, it should be said, was Fleitz' boss until Fleitz went to the House this spring, and who is cited in the article). And Joseph took a small matter and turned it into a big deal.

[pow wow]

The same Bob Joseph who supervised the drafting of the part of the 2003 State of the Union speech that included such issues as a purported Iraq/Niger uranium connection...? [I was recently reading the transcript from the Dan Bartlett/Stephen Hadley mea culpa press conference about the 16 words that they held in late July, I think, 2003. It was definitely implied, if not explicitly stated, that the information got into the SotU speech by way of the drafts in the area of expertise (national security, etc.) overseen by Joseph.] Yet another behind-the-scenes player who needs to be brought out of the shadows and into the spotlight...

[The Ugly American]

My only point was I can not see as a layman how anyone would qualify 3.5% as "highly enriched". Your excerpt contains these words:

"You cannot say weapons-grade, but very high," he said.

How they got there is definitely an important question that you, and I and our government should be very concerned with.

I would hope that you believe as I do that Iran intends to develop a nuclear weapon.

We may agree or disagree on the correct policy for dealing with Iran, but again that was not my point 8).

Thanks for responding and providing some substantive info.

[emptywheel]

Ugly

It concerns me gravely that someone (I'm guessing Joseph--and note, I'm suggesting it's Joseph who is trying to push the weapons grade here, so it's not very credible; the IAEA is not pushing it) is ginning this up to be a casus belli. Because it's not. It's traces on equipment they had just gotten. They mention the earlier time when there were traces on equipment they had just gotten from Pakistan. I suggest you think about that coincidence.

I have no doubt Iran wants to develop the know-how to do nukes. But there is absolutely no credible evidence they are a threat.

[Mark G. Levey]

Looks like Pincus did it again. Well, part of it, anyway. My diary at DKos today explains: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/15/104441/649

WP: WH Claims CIA Withheld Iraq Intel - Or did Cheney do that?
by leveymg [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]
Fri Sep 15, 2006 at 07:44:41 AM PDT
A report in today's Washington Post appears to provide additional context to the motive behind the Plame outing.

Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus revealed today that a highly secret CIA briefing in late 2002 by a ranking official in Saddam Hussein's government was withheld from distribution. That information contradicted the allegations being made at the time by the Bush Administration that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and held large stocks of chemical and biological arms.

As Pincus' sources at CIA makes clear, a section of that report should have been distributed within CIA to Valerie Plame's unit that was probing Iraq WMDs, and the other to the CIA Iraq counter-terrorism unit. From information previously released, the counterterrorism unit seems likely to have included the former Chief of Station in Islamabad, Robert Grenier. As we learned six months ago, Scooter Libby talked to Grenier about Plame's work at CIA before he outed her.

MORE -snip-

[CLK]

WE NEED A LAWYER WITH BACKGROUND IN INTERNATIONAL LAW TO EXAMINE BUSH'S VIOLATIONS OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS, ESPECIALLY ARTICLE 3, AROUND THE TORTURE INTERROGATIONS OF WAR PRISONERS/DETAINEES, ESPECIALLY IN SECRET CIA PRISONS AROUND THE WORLD. THE SUPREME COURT RULED IN JUNE PUT BUSH AND HIS ADMINISTRATION IN LEGAL JEOPARDY OF VIOLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW. BUSH'S APOPLECTIC PRESS CONFERENCE YESTERDAY CONFIRMS THE URGENCY OF HIS "TORTURE CLARIFICATION" BILL IN CONGRESS TO COVER HIS BUTT. EXAMINATION OF BUSH'S LEGAL JEOPARDY NEEDS THE SAME CAREFUL ANALYSIS YOU HAVE DONE FOR THE PLAME ISSUE. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE TO DO THIS?

[Kewalo]

I know this is OT but I have been trying to send an email with some research I've done about Victoria Toensing and her lying ways and the email came back. How can I get in touch? TIA