New York Times, IAEA, American Elections, & the NPT.

With the crucial election that will determine the fate of national policy just days away, the New York Times delivers a bittersweet blow to Republicans. It's a big story which has been covered quite extensively across the full political spectrum of the blogosphere. From left to right, this story has fodder for every partisan, but in examining the crux of the story, questions arise.

Notwithstanding the info on Republicans or Iraq's WMD imminence, the New York Times has unequivocally made evident, where they stand. They are an international news service which pays no homage to any nation, which waves no flag, yet actively promotes certain political agendas. And as such, they bring to the public significant information, which too often are stories in line with their worldview, too often omit relevant facts. Which is why the NYT is inevitably and unavoidably digging their grave.

With this story, the NYT sheds light on what may be potentially disastrous government behavior brought on by Republicans in Congress:

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents’ release.

If memory serves me correctly, this website is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bars nuclear nations from distributing nuclear technology and/or sensitive nuclear knowledge to other non-nuclear nations. Not as if everybody else hasn't violated the NPT in one form or another, but this is a clear and publicly known violation nonetheless.

Here is the relevant part of the NPT from IAEA.org:

Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons... directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons...

This sharing of nuclear information goes "beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet" would certainly be a violation, would it not?

This raises interesting questions. If the website did in fact reveal too much sensitive nuclear information, why then has nothing come of this clear violation of the NPT? Where is the IAEA's claim of this violation? Funny, the only thing close to a claim of U.S. violation is found right here in the New York Times:

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.”

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.

Interesting how IAEA officials, the enforcers of the NPT, knew about it, and yet took no official action. The website has been up since March, and suddenly we hear the outrage days before an important election. I'm beginning to question if we actually violated the NPT.

Would it be too far a leap to think there was no violation, that such information was already public or at least known by all other countries? I suspect not.

But an even shorter leap would suggest that "European diplomats," and/or IAEA officials and/or The New York Times, were trying to influence the outcome of American elections. How internationalist of them!

The big story here is not that the government made public Iraq's progress on WMDs, not that they revealed previously non-public nuclear information, but that the Republicans outraged European diplomats and IAEA officials.

If the released information was too sensitive, we wouldn't be hearing about IAEA officials privately protesting, we would be hearing Kofi Annan scolding the U.S. for violating the NPT through every willing media outlet in the world. This is about politics. Yes, even from a non-flag waving internationalist New York Times.

Yet even as they try to lay blame on Republicans for jeopardizing international security, the New York Times inadvertently helps build the case for the invasion of Iraq by verifying the legitimacy of these Iraqi intelligence documents. And reveals:

The imminence of Saddam's WMD threat.
The ties to Palestinian terrorists.
The ties to Osama Bin Laden.

But let's not stray from the article's main point:

Did we jeopardize international security? Did we release too much information?

The Times would have you believe we did. If that's the case, where are the NPT police?