Maybe I haven't been following the news closely enough, but apparently this story broke six days ago and I only heard about it tonight: in 2000, President Bill Clinton tried to trick Iran by sending them fake plans for a nuclear bomb... but oops, he sent them real plans.
the transfer of classified data to Iran was personally approved by then-President Clinton and that the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program.The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran, according to a new book "State of War" by James Risen, the New York Times reporter, who exposed the Bush administration's controversial NSA spying operation, claims the plans contained fatal flaws designed to derail Tehran's nuclear drive.
But the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they would have been easily fixed by sophisticated Russian nuclear scientists, the book said.
The operation, which took place during the Clinton administration in early 2000, was code named Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA," according to Risen.
It called for the unnamed scientist, a defector from the Soviet Union, to offer Iran the blueprint for a "firing set" -- the intricate mechanism which triggers the chain reaction needed for a nuclear explosion.
The Russian was told by CIA officers that the Iranians already had the technology detailed in the plans and that the ruse was simply an attempt by the agency to find out the full scope of Tehran's nuclear knowledge.
But, contrary to orders not to open the packet, he added a note which made it clear he could help fix the flaws for money.
Risen states in his book, "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints] was first approved by Clinton."
Holy crap, nice going.
(HT: Right-Wing & Right Minded and Its [sic] a Matter of Opinion.)
