Upon Publishing Iraqi Data Regarding Nuclear Weapons on the Web

Oliver Willis (among others) is going bananas over allegations in the NY Times that the Bush administration put Iraqi documents on the web that supposedl gave third world nations the atomic bomb. He has an article here on Democrats reacting to the news.



One question: If Iraqi documents we published on the Web gave some other nation the technical know-how to build a nuclear bomb, wouldn't that mean that Iraq knew how to build one?



Here's the article: U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer

Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

and

In September, the Web site began posting the nuclear documents, and some soon raised concerns. On Sept. 12, it posted a document it called "Progress of Iraqi nuclear program circa 1995." That description is potentially misleading since the research occurred years earlier.

News flash: Once you know how to do something, the knowledge doesn't just vanish. If they knew how to do it in 1991, they still knew in 1995, and in 2003. Soon as the sanctions come off, work starts. And the sanctions were fraying badly. Or has everyone else forgotten the votes and negotiations, and the Oil for Food corruption?



Let's look at the sources and quotations: Peter Zimmerman, quoted by the article, is a chair for the AAAS. Run his name through some search engines, and you'll come upon things like this gem. Looks like one of the other quoted authorities, Ray E. Kidder, has some very interesting information himself on his website here, including pictures of actual warheads and their component parts. From reading his webpage, and some Times Select stubs, we discover that he's another anti-SDI leading light.

Ray S. Blanton and the National Security Archive here. Iran Contra seems to be their main claim to fame.



Plus all those unnamed "senior officials."



In short, this piece looks to be something that looks credible for a few days (just coincidentally reaching the election) but is, IMHO, a hit piece.



Just One Minute has more



enrevanche notes that there may indeed, have been some damaging documents, and why.



Anchoress, of all people, lays on the snark very well.



National Review covers it much the same, but with less snark.



Carol Platt Liebau about sums it up.



Argghhh! seems to have the clearest vision: Dumb move, to put it on the web (if, in fact, it's real -DM). But it means that Iraq had the means for the bomb that the Times (and others) have been denying they had for years.



Hot Air has all the itemized details of what might possibly have happened in the future with this information.



Michelle Malkin has the complete text of Representative Hoekstra's statement.

"With respect to the possibility that documents may have been released that should not have been released, I have always been clear that the Director of National Intelligence should take whatever steps necessary to withhold sensitive documents. In fact, as of today the DNI had withheld 59 percent of the documents that it had reviewed, and has become more risk-averse over time. If the DNI believes that the documents that were released were in the safe 40 percent, imagine what the 60 percent being withheld must contain.



"That said, it is also important to emphasize that the IAEA, contrary to its assertions, never raised any concerns about this material with the United States Government before going to the press. Similarly, the DNI's office has informed me that no agency of the U.S. Government had raised any issues about the potential or actual release of these documents before yesterday. If there were such problems, they would have been better addressed through the appropriate channels rather than the press.

In other words, for the politically challenged, the New York Times did a hit piece which nonetheless validated the claims of the Bush administration and the intelligence community prior to the war on the status of the Iraqi nuclear program.





Captain's Quarters, who has been working extensively with that particular archive that contained the alleged leaks, connects the dots in a manner that only someone intentionally blinding themselves to what is there could miss.



(He just earned another "Blogger of the Year" nomination, although in his case, that's redundant.)