With the advent of Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and the unfolding of the Lewis Libby perjury trial, the famous “16 words” are back and, in the most literal possible sense, with a vengeance. It is not only on MSNBC or in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly — which had a cover story on Presidential lying — that “Bush lied!” is again the order of the day. In Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Iraq last month, one Senator after another seized the opportunity to assail the administration’s credibility. “I have not been told the truth again […]

Last month’s uranium smuggling episode in Georgia has renewed concerns about nuclear terrorism. In that incident, a rogue Russian trader sought to sell 100 grams of highly enriched uranium on the local black market. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the primary multinational institution involved in these issues, 662 confirmed cases of smuggling of radioactive materials occurred between 1993 and 2004. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recorded 215 reported incidents of nuclear trafficking in 2005 alone (though it is unclear whether the increase resulted from more sales attempts or improved detection and reporting procedures). At the […]

The Bush administration’s current suspicion that Iran plans to manufacture nuclear weapons is not the first time that Washington has faced such intentions from Tehran, but earlier the circumstances were different. In the late 1970s, U.S. intelligence learned that Iran’s ruler, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, had secretly set up a nuclear weapons development program. According to the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, between 1974 and 1978 the Iranians were carrying out “laboratory experiments in which plutonium was extracted from spent [nuclear] fuel using chemical agents.” Plutonium is an ingredient for nuclear weapons. The difference between then and now […]