Should Hillary Clinton be involved in the Iranian nuclear weapons problem?

By Jim Kouri

The rhetoric emanating from the Obama White House has shifted from the use of sanctions against Iran to deter that renegade nation's nuclear weapons program, to enforcement of sanctions to "get the Iranians back to the negotiating table," according to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

Recently, Israeli officials expressed concern after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that a nuclear-armed Iran could be contained by a US "defense umbrella." Her statement regarding the Iranian government's escalated program to create their own nuclear bomb reportedly contradicted the Obama Administration's stated Iran policy, which is focused on preventing the terrorist-sponsoring country from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking on the NBC-TV's Meet the Press on July 26, Mrs Clinton said that Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon was "futile." "What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that, if you're pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we are not going to let that happen," she said.

Hillary Clinton spoke as America's leading Middle East envoy and it brings up the question of whether she is the right person to deal with the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Afterall, according to some military experts, it was her husband — President Bill Clinton — who allegedly helped the Iranians in their quest to join the "nuclear club."

While the current occupant of the White House and the mostly compliant news media continue their favorite pastime — bashing George W. Bush over his mistakes and failures — they still remain silent about President Bill Clinton's own failures and mistakes that brought the United States to this point with renegade nations such as Iran.

"During the Clinton years in the White House, the Iranians were already working on a nuclear weapon and Hillary was there. Now she pretends she's cleaning up a mess left to her by the Bush Administration," said political strategist Mike Baker.

Radio talk show host and former US Justice Department official Mark Levin once shocked many of his listeners when he reported that President Bill Clinton gave nuclear technology to the Iranians in a harebrained scheme. The irony of the story is the fact that Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary, now serves as Secretary of State and must address Iran's march towards joining the "nuclear weapons club."

Levin said that 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 claims the plans contained fatal flaws designed to derail Tehran's nuclear drive.

But the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they had been easily fixed by sophisticated Russian nuclear scientists, the Risen wrote.

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 nuclear program, to offer Iran the blueprint for a "firing set" — the intricate mechanism which triggers the chain reaction needed for a nuclear explosion.

He had been 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."

This is just another chapter in the Bill Clinton saga of giving weapons technology to enemies of the United States. In the past, President Clinton provided missile technology to the Chinese, which increased the accuracy of their ballistic missiles, and he provided nuclear technology to the North Koreans that eventually enabled them to develop nuclear weapons.

Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."

Mark Levin, director of the Landmark Legal Foundation, said that thanks to Clinton Iran was able to "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon."

Ironically, Risen's own newspaper, the New York Times, has declined to cover Mr. Clinton's Iranian nuclear debacle — concentrating instead on his book's dubious claims that the National Security Agency was first authorized to commence domestic wiretapping by President Bush, according to NewsMax and talk host Levin.

"Don't hold your breath waiting for the elite media to create a frenzy over this story. They will never hurt either Clinton with such a damning report," says former intelligence officer Sid Francis.

© Jim Kouri