The Libya ‘Scandal,’ Part II

The White House has added its say to the Washington Post’s sensational–and almost certainly false–claim that it “misled” U.S. allies about North Korean proliferation of uranium by “concealing” the fact that Pakistan acted as middleman in that transfer.

“U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export,” the March 20 front-page story about nuclear material exported to Libya, was flat wrong. Our allies were not “misled” by the United States about North Korea’s proliferation activities. We provided an accurate account of the intelligence assessment of the most likely source of the nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through A.Q. Khan’s network.

The reporter asserted that “Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang’s guilt.” In fact, the Khan network was cited several times, but the key point is that the briefing made clear that the nuclear material transferred to Libya went through the Khan network. The U.S. government has no evidence that the transfer was authorized by Pakistan’s government.

Whether the intended recipient was the Khan network or Libya is irrelevant to our proliferation concerns regarding North Korea. The fact that nuclear material found its way out of North Korea to any destination is a source of serious concern for the United States and other participants in the six-party talks. That is why we brought the matter to their attention.

SCOTT McCLELLAN
Press Secretary
White House
Washington

I could forgive the Post for not printing the White House’s side of the story in the first place, since that’s about what I expect from them anyway. I’ve similarly accepted that the Posties, almost like the Corsican Brothers, are perfectly willing to say anything to harm themselves, the security of their own country, the North Korean people, or anyone else, . . . as long as it hurts Bush. What’s really repellant about this story is that it took me 20 minutes of googling to find enough contemporary published material to prove its sheer, reckless falsity.

Dafna Lizner and Glenn Kessler both deserve to be fired for this, but given the Post’s standards today, they won’t be. Kessler has distinguished himself for journalistic awfulness since he wrote this Potempkin vignette about “vibrant and thriving” Pyongyang last summer. Contrast that with Ari Sharp’s more recent blog entries about his visit to Pyongyang here and here, which don’t exactly paint a picture of vibrancy. Ari doesn’t have the million-dollar journo diploma, but he could teach Kessler plenty about describing what he sees with honesty and healthy skepticism.

This is more than ideological. Indeed, I often disagree with what David Sanger–certainly no conservative–has written about Korea for the New York Times, but I credit Sanger (and his editor, Bill Keller, too, for the most part) with checking his facts.