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

Update: Clarice Feldman adds,

It does seem to be stretching things.
 
In January of this year, the NYT's own James Risen reported that under Clinton , in 2000, the CIA provided Iran with plans for a nuclear bomb. The article is not available longer there or at the LA Times site where it was first reported but you can read it here:

VIENNA: The CIA, using a double—agent Russian scientist, may have handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran.

State of War by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who exposed the Bush administration's controversial domestic 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 codenamed Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA," according to Risen.

Boris at JOM points out something else useful..

Iraq must have been rather closer to a nuke than the MSM has admitted. More of an "imminent" threat.

The New York Times just tore the heart out of the antiwar argument, and they are apparently completely oblivous to it.

 

The antiwar crowd is going to have to argue that the information somehow wasn't dangerous in the hands of Saddam Hussein, but was dangerous posted on the Internet. It doesn't work. It can't be both no threat to America and yet also somehow a threat to America once it's in the hands of Iran. Game, set, and match

"This is apparently the Times' November surprise, but it's a surprising one indeed. The Times has just authenticated the entire collection of memos, some of which give very detailed accounts of Iraqi ties to terrorist organizations. Just this past Monday, I posted a memo which showed that the Saddam regime actively coordinated with Palestinian terrorists in the PFLP as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On September 20th, I reposted a translation of an IIS memo written four days after 9/11 that worried the US would discover Iraq's ties to Osama bin Laden. [snip]

 

That appears to indicate that by invading in 2003, we followed the best intelligence of the UN inspectors to head off the development of an Iraqi nuke. This intelligence put Saddam far ahead of Iran in the nuclear pursuit, and made it much more urgent to take some definitive action against Saddam before he could build and deploy it. And bear in mind that this intelligence came from the UN, and not from the United States. The inspectors themselves developed it, and they meant to keep it secret. The FMSO site blew their cover, and they're very unhappy about it.

What other highlights has the Times now authenticated? We have plenty:

* 2001 IIS memo directing its agents to test mass grave sites in southern Iraq for radiation, and to use "trusted news agencies" to leak rumors about the lack of credibility of Coalition reporting on the subject. They specify CNN.

 

* The Blessed July operation, in which Saddam's sons planned a series of assassinations in London, Iran, and southern Iraq

 

* Saddam's early contacts with Osama bin Laden and al—Qaeda from 1994—7

 

* UNMOVIC knew of a renewed effort to make ricin from castor beans in 2002, but never reported it

 

* The continued development of delivery mechanisms for biological and chemical weapons by the notorious "Dr. Germ" in 2002