NY Times: Saddam would have had Atom bomb in a year

[Michael Tee]

<<Since when in the mind of liberals are the names of experts a critical factor?

<<Doesn't seem to be when they quote anomynous high level administration officials who always seem to offer opinions that often coincide with the talking point of the day. >>

I don't usually quote from anonymous insiders, so I have no idea whom you are talking about.

High administration officials have a vested interest in keeping secrets of state.  If they can't be trusted to keep secrets confided to them, they are virtually unemployable in their chosen field of work.  Scientists commenting on another country's scientific achievements have no such vested interest.  Presumably, they have no reasonable prospects of employment with Saddam Hussein, so they are not as concerned about giving away his nuclear secrets, as opposed, say, to the nuclear secrets of the Pentagon, a possible future employer.  Since the opinion that they are supposedly giving is an opinion which favours the government of the day, one would think that the government of the day would have no objection at all to their coming forward and speaking out. 

So it IS kind of surprising that these "experts" remain un-named in the story, while the anonymity of political insiders is not so surpising.  Unless of course the "experts" either do not exist, do not say what the reporter claims they say, or do not possess very impressive "expert" credentials.  Which, I have to say, in all likelihood, is the explanation for their anonymity in this particular case.

[domer]

Why do we have to credit this report among the melange of intelligence estimates and journalistic reportage? Even if we did, would it NECESSARILY entail an invasion. A year hence is not now. There was the POSSIBILITY of a diplomatic solution. And even if the regime did acquire nuclear weapons after the expiration of time, would they have had the delivery systems to threaten us, or, contrary to all evidence, would the regime have been likely to share its technology with terrorists, in a sober assessment? Indeed, the entry of any nuclear weapons into the terrorist black market would have a reliable return-address. One lesson we have learned from this fiasco is that a nation cannot lightly precipitate the deaths of hundreds of thousands (worse than a nuclear attack?), including some three-thousand of our own, and counting. I'll note in closing that North Korea HAS the bomb, and Iran is on the cusp of getting one, but our administration apologists are content to raise red herrings to retain naked power.

[Plane]

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/world/middleeast/03documents.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/international_atomic_energy_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org

http://www.iaea.org/


IAEA experts.

Is this suffecient identifacation of the experts?

[Plane]

Why do we have to credit this report among the melange of intelligence estimates and journalistic reportage? Even if we did, would it NECESSARILY entail an invasion. A year hence is not now. There was the POSSIBILITY of a diplomatic solution. And even if the regime did acquire nuclear weapons after the expiration of time, would they have had the delivery systems to threaten us, or, contrary to all evidence, would the regime have been likely to share its technology with terrorists, in a sober assessment? Indeed, the entry of any nuclear weapons into the terrorist black market would have a reliable return-address. One lesson we have learned from this fiasco is that a nation cannot lightly precipitate the deaths of hundreds of thousands (worse than a nuclear attack?), including some three-thousand of our own, and counting. I'll note in closing that North Korea HAS the bomb, and Iran is on the cusp of getting one, but our administration apologists are content to raise red herrings to retain naked power.

I do not agree that there was any possibility of an entirely Diplomatic effort making Saddam Hussein toe the line or step down .

Nor any possibility that an entirely Diplomatic effort would make Iraqs discoverys about Atomic bomb building safe secrets.


How do you imagine such a thing working?

As soon as you say "This is an entirely Diplomatic effort" you might as well close the door on all potential of success.

You have to bargan with some coin in your purse , with no jingle there is no barganing.

[domer]

You're an idiot, Plane.  Quote me correctly or don't quote me at all.

[Plane]

You're an idiot, Plane.  Quote me correctly or don't quote me at all.

Hmmmm .... I included your entire Quote , what of it did I misunderstand?

[Michael Tee]

 You gotta be kidding.

 Your first link was to a password-protected NYT article.

Your second link linked to a page consisting only of TEN other links, six of them concerned with Iran and North Korea, the others concerned with various plans being announced by Warren Buffet, Hosni Mubarak's son, the 40 nations next in line to get nukes and one on art analysis through nuclear power.

Your third link was to the home page of the IAEA.

Three strikes, plane.  Yer out.

If you can post an article which quotes recognized scientific authorities saying that Saddam was within a year of getting nukes, let's see it.  Otherwise, it's just one more piece of conservative bullshit.

[R.R.]

Otherwise, it's just one more piece of conservative bullshit.

hehehe, this is the New York Times you're talking about, a paper in which Lanya just posted has not endorsed one Republican candidate for office this year.

Care to try again?

[Michael Tee]

<<hehehe, this is the New York Times you're talking about, a paper in which Lanya just posted has not endorsed one Republican candidate for office this year.

<<Care to try again? >>

No, hehehe, I wouldnt.  This is the same New York Times that sat on the surveillance story till after the elections, that printed a whole rash of Judith Miller's "investigative journalism" stories about Saddam's WMD that turned out to have been Pentagon plants without a shred of evidence or truth in them and that printed all of Jayson Blair's imaginative little creations as "reporting."

So either print the names of the "experts" who claimed that Saddam was within a year of getting nukes as the article claims, or don't, and confirm my initial impression that this was just one more wagonload of Republican conservative bullshit.

[BT]

Unless of course the "experts" either do not exist, do not say what the reporter claims they say, or do not possess very impressive "expert" credentials.  Which, I have to say, in all likelihood, is the explanation for their anonymity in this particular case.

Would it be possible for the unnamed high level administration sources to also fall into this likely scenario?

Kinda like when referring to a high level source in the CIA it turns out to be Larry Johnson or Ray McGovern.

or a high ranking former official in the State Department turns out to be Joe Wilson.

[Plane]

You gotta be kidding.

 Your first link was to a password-protected NYT article.

Your second link linked to a page consisting only of TEN other links, six of them concerned with Iran and North Korea, the others concerned with various plans being announced by Warren Buffet, Hosni Mubarak's son, the 40 nations next in line to get nukes and one on art analysis through nuclear power.

Your third link was to the home page of the IAEA.

Three strikes, plane.  Yer out.

If you can post an article which quotes recognized scientific authorities saying that Saddam was within a year of getting nukes, let's see it.  Otherwise, it's just one more piece of conservative bullshit.

[Plane]

"Your first link was to a password-protected NYT article."



I hate it when that happens .

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-03-website_x.htm


Well look at this , the NYT says that the IAEA requested that the web page be pulled , but USA today specificly contradicts this!

The plot thickens.

Here is an article that includes a few named experts.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1520786/posts
In a March 2003 op-ed piece for London's Evening Standard, Norman Dombey, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, calculated that Saddam's yellowcake could have yielded a staggering nuclear arsenal.


"You have a warehouse containing 500 tons of natural uranium," Dombey wrote. "You need 25 kilograms of U235 to build one weapon. How many nuclear weapons can you build?


"The answer is 142 [nuclear bombs]," he said.



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Frankly though, I kinda agree with you about the use of the term "expert" it always begs the question ,Expert in whose estimation?.

[Michael Tee]

<<Would it be possible for the unnamed high level administration sources to also fall into this likely scenario?

<<Kinda like when referring to a high level source in the CIA it turns out to be Larry Johnson or Ray McGovern.

<<or a high ranking former official in the State Department turns out to be Joe Wilson.>>

Well, I tend to agree with you there.  In those kind of cases, you're more or less going on the reputation of the reporter.  I tend to take the report at face value if it comes from Seymour Hersh, for example (hope I spelled his name right!) or it the report makes some kind of sense to me.  But it's very important where the sources are anonymous to have some understanding of who the reporter and the publisher are, and what's their agenda.

In the specific cases you mentioned, I wouldn't say anything unless I had some understanding of the employer's organization chart and where the source fits in.  "High-ranking" I would think would have to be at most one or two removes from directly reporting to the top dog but if I had a direct interest in the story, I'd probably want to ask the reporter or his editor if there was any policy governing the use of such terms.

[Michael Tee]

<<I'd probably want to ask the reporter or his editor if there was any policy governing the use of such terms.>>

I mean, of course, any editorial policy, not any government policy.