Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.

In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.

They said Iran had accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz.

If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb.

“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday. This revealed that Iran’s production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.

Labels: Dick Cheney, FUBAR, Iran, Valerie Plame, WMD

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recount the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Labels: Bush Administration, corruption, rant, Valerie Plame

In 2004 the FBI received intelligence that Al Qaeda hit teams were enroute to the United States to kill Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Valerie Plame. The FBI informed Valerie of this threat. This was just more “good” news piled on the fact that her intelligence career was in shambles, that intelligence assets she had recruited/managed were destroyed, and that she was unable to rebut publicly false and malicious smears of her character and reputation by a bunch of partisan Republican hacks. As the mother of two pre-school children, her first thoughts were about protecting her kids. She took the threat seriously and asked for help.

When the White House learned of these threats they sprung into action. They beefed up Secret Service protection for Vice President Cheney and provided security protection to Karl Rove. But they declined to do anything for Valerie. That was a CIA problem.

Valerie contacted the office of Security at CIA and requested assistance. They told her too fucking bad and to go pound sand. They did not use those exact words, but they told her she was on her own.

Before learning of this I credited George Tenet with doing a good job of restoring morale at the CIA but criticized him strongly for playing politics with the White House and helping set the table for scamming the American public into the Iraq war. Now, in light of this revelation, I realize the man is a despicable coward. He refused to come to the aid of one of his CIA officers who faced a specific death threat. In fact, Georgie boy never once reached out to Valerie to provide any comfort or encouragement. He wanted to stay on good terms with the White House so he effectively cut her loose.

So if you have wondered why Joe and Val are a little pissed off, this might help shed some additional light on the matter. Not only did the Bush Administration out a covert intelligence officer working on the most sensitive national security issues in a time of war, but when that officer faced a direct threat to her life and her family’s safety because of that public exposure, they did not do a goddamn thing to help. I don’t know about you, but that fries my ass.

Labels: Valerie Plame

Labels: Iran, Valerie Plame

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald's memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

The nature of Plame's CIA employment never came up in Libby's perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

Labels: cowardice, Democrats, Valerie Plame

Labels: Republic Party, Valerie Plame

Mr. Vice President, did you push Mr. Libby to dig into Joe Wilson’s background and discredit him? Mr. Libby made such a major effort to gather materials from the C.I.A. and State Department about Mr. Wilson — both before and after you told him on June 12, 2003, that his wife worked at the C.I.A. — that it seems likely that you commanded the effort. True?

What did you mean when you wrote, in a note to Scott McClellan that has been entered into evidence, “not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres. that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others.”

First, you wrote that it was “the Pres.” who had asked Mr. Libby to do this, and then you crossed out those two words. Did President Bush indeed ask that Mr. Libby take charge of the effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson? And is it true, as was hinted at in the trial, that the White House tried to block the release of this document?

When you discussed Joe Wilson with Mr. Libby on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, what instructions did you give him?

Trial testimony indicates that on that flight, Mr. Libby looked over some questions a reporter had sent in about Mr. Wilson and then said: “Let me go talk to the boss and I’ll be back.” After consulting with you, Mr. Libby later called reporters to feed them a skewed version of Mr. Wilson’s trip.

Mr. Cheney, on that plane, did you specifically tell Mr. Libby to leak to reporters the fact that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the C.I.A.?

Deborah Bond of the F.B.I. has testified that Mr. Libby acknowledged in one of his interviews that on that flight, he might have talked to you about whether to tell the news media about Valerie Wilson. So did he?

Since Mr. Libby is renowned for his caution, it seems highly unlikely that he would have leaked classified information twice to reporters right after talking to you, unless you had sanctioned the leak.

During the leak investigation, were you aware that Mr. Libby was telling the F.B.I. apparently false information?

You rode to work with him nearly every day in your limousine, and the issue never came up? Or did you ask Mr. Libby to protect you because you didn’t want it known that in fact you were the one who had told him about Ms. Wilson? Was there some other information you wanted kept secret?

Were you trying to cover up your own reliance on misinformation about Iraqi W.M.D. by blaming the C.I.A. and anybody else within range, like Mr. Wilson?

More than anybody, Mr. Vice President, you made the argument in the run-up to the war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And one senses, in the indictment and the trial testimony, that by the early summer of 2003, there was panic in your office that the W.M.D. had failed to materialize.

So when Ambassador Wilson came forward, you seem to have been infuriated. You tried to blame the C.I.A., and then your office tried to discredit Mr. Wilson by arguing that he had simply enjoyed a junket arranged by his wife.

Robert Grenier, a C.I.A. official, told the court that he thought the White House was “trying to avoid responsibility for positions that they took with regard to the truth about whether or not Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger.” So did this all arise from an attempted cover-up?

So when are you going to come clean?

When Richard Nixon was accused of misusing campaign contributions in 1952, he gave his famous Checkers speech. When questions rose about Spiro Agnew’s conduct in 1973, he repeatedly addressed them in public. (Look, you know you’re in trouble when the press tries to hold you to the same standards of transparency and integrity as Nixon and Agnew.)

I’m not accusing you of committing a crime. But there are serious questions here, and you owe the nation not legalisms, but that “stiff dose of truth.” If you continue to stonewall, then you don’t belong in office and you should resign.

Labels: Dick Cheney, Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame