Iran Special: New York Times Notices Important Nuclear Story...Four Months Later

Because Washington still envisages that it can get Tehran to agree to its conditions --- a suspension of all 20% uranium enrichment, a shipping of the existing stock outside the country, and a halt to operations at Fordoo --- it gave the lead to David Sanger and James Risen for their article today.

Those clues to the politics and propaganda of the Obama Administration, rather than journalism on Iran's nuclear programme, is the real value of The New York Times coverage.

Even it is sometimes months late.

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Iran Feature: Pushing Back with "Intelligence" Against the Drumbeats of War (Risen)

James Risen, the intelligence correspondent of The New York Times, posts an interesting intervention in the spin and counter-spin over "war" and Iran's nuclear programme.

Risen's colleagues David Sanger and William Broad have been fed by other US officials in the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA to push the spectre of Iran threat. Risen's contacts in the intelligence community, however, do not believe that the information --- as opposed to the spinning of that information --- point to an imminent Iranian Bomb. 

With the brake on military action applied by President Obama last week and the likely resumption of nuclear talks with Tehran, Risen gets the space in The Times to present that line muting the drumbeats of war. Note that --- as in the pieces pushing the Iranian spectre --- the actual information given is sparse; the significance here is the presentation of that supposed material:

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U.S. Faces a Tricky Task in Assessment of Data on Iran
James Risen

While American spy agencies have believed that the Iranians halted efforts to build a nuclear bomb back in 2003, the difficulty in assessing the government’s ambitions was evident two years ago, when what appeared to be alarming new intelligence emerged, according to current and former United States officials.<

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Afghanistan: Guards at US Military Bases Linked to Taliban (Risen)

Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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