Posted on 04/13/2006 9:10:39 PM PDT by Carl/NewsMax
In a hairbrained scheme that was personally approved six years ago by then-President Clinton, the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program.
The allegation, detailed recently in the book "State of War," by New York Times reporter James Risen, comes as the Iranian nuclear crisis turns white hot, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting ominously on Wednesday that his nation has joined the world's nuclear club.
Reports Risen: "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints], but the plan was first approved by Clinton."
Beginning in February 2000, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist who had defected to the US years earlier. His mission: Take the nuclear blueprints to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Dubbed "Operation Merlin," the plan was supposed to steer Iranian physicists off track by incorporating design flaws in the blueprints that would render the information worthless.
But in what may turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of all time, Operation Merlin backfired when the Russian scientist spotted the design flaws immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix the problems.
Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."
He noted that thanks to the bizarre operation, Iran could now "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon."
Ironically, Risen's New York Times has declined to cover Mr. Clinton's Iranian debacle - concentrating instead on his book's other revelation: President Bush's decision to authorize the NSA to monitor terrorist phone calls inside the U.S.
That treasonous SOB should be in chains.
in my opinion, this story reflects more on the competencies of the CIA.
My family will be glowing radioactive red thanks to Bill Clinton.
This fellows after-effects are going to be around a long time. Like a bad smell in an enclosed space.
R
The name Sandy "Pantload" Berger comes to mind.
this is really asinine.
Him and Jimmy Carter. The two Democrat Presidencies of the past 30 years should be enough to warn every sane minded citizen that Democrats are dangerous to the well being of this nation.
Their legacies are chaos and failure.
All it may take is a third modern era Democrat President to finish the nation off once and for good.
I don't know. I don't smell the absolute truth in this one. Perhaps I am playing Jr. Detective, but this has no corroboration and plays well to my distrust of Clinton. So late in 2000 it seems odd that Clinton would authorize this. Secret, read as "Not in the Library" attempt to derail Iranian nukes that were not on the table in 2000. He chucked a couple of cruise missiles at Saddam, but did not have the testicular fortitude to go any farther against a dictator that was clearly closer to WMD than Iran in 2000. Two years after he kicked the UN out..
Two years after the S.H. kicked the U.N. out that is
O.K. take out the "the" before S. H. three tries later I posted correctly...
<< That treasonous SOB should be in chains. >>
Against an effing post!
Exactly like the putrefied stench from Jimmah Cahtah's term.
Was there anything too heinous for Beelzeflubba?
bump
Not enough details to go on here. But I don't automatically accept the premise of this story. They may have already had blueprints for a certain component and we offered to give them an updated one with embedded flaws in it. So it may have been a good plan depending on what they already had.
Why would it seem odd that Klintoon would authorize the program?
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.