NYT and IAEA slam Bush in pre-election meaneuver
Not for the first time, the IAEA is teaming up with the New York Times to embarrass Bush on the even of an election. I seem to recall that the International Atomic Energy Agency (a United Nations Agency known by the acronymn “IAEA”) had previously tried an election eve gambit (also with the cooperation of the NYT) . Specifically, the IAEA claimed that negligence on the part of the US led to the looting of tons of high explosive in Iraq. Supposedly, under US guard, these explosives had gone missing. The Pentagon was later able to deflate this “expose” by showing that the Hussein regime had already moved this stockpile of explosives before the invasion by coalition forces. Back then, the UN was accused of meddling in the US Presidential election; now it and its partner The New York Times is once again attempting to influence American elections by casting aspersions on the competency of a Republican Administration.
U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Guide
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”
Certainly there’s no love lost beween the Bush Administration and Mohammed El-Baradei, the feckless leader of the IAEA, that the Administration had hoped to replace after his term expired. The New York Times, true to form, has used its franchise for partisan purposes.
Ed Lasky 11 2 06
