The Pakistan Connection: Is This Really News?
Other than the odd exceptional case of an outright admission, every specific accusation that a secretive regime has engaged in a specific nefarious act is subject to the collateral attack that it rests upon the inexact science of intelligence. Intelligence errors cut both ways, of course, and any administration facing a hostile press is certain to face withering criticism no matter where it chooses to assign the very real risk of error. What is so often missing in these discussions is (1) an honest acknowledgement that in such matters, evidence is necessarily imperfect; and (2) the fact that a nation that eschews transparency ought to be charged with bearing the burden of the uncertainty it chose to create.
I’m unwilling to have my children bear the risk, and I believe that a policy that gives the safety of the rest of the world the benefit of the doubt deserves the support of any sane person who would blame the administration for underestimating the risks if the worst were to happen.
Predictably, the Bush administration’s assertion that North Korea transferred uranium to Libya is now under attack in the press (specifically, the Washington Post). The specific allegation is that the administration (wait for it) lied! by concealing the fact that Pakistan could have been the direct source of the Libyan uranium:
Pakistan’s role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington’s partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity.
What the author meant to say was “concealed from everyone but the New York Times, the Washington Post, and everyone who reads them,” because none of this is new. I’ve already discussed the evidence and why the Pakistan issue is mostly academic at great length. The Pakistani and North Korean programs were “like lips and teeth,” and North Korea was at the very least malignantly reckless in its transfers, making it not one iota less of a proliferation threat. Other than the alarming headline (and the fact that South Korea and China both threatened to bolt from the six-party talks) the WaPo story, sourced to anonymous officials, adds little in the way of fact to what the papers have already reported and I’ve already blogged.
It does, however, add plenty in the way of mislabelled commentary. First, this stunner:
In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.
I don’t quite get how people who are capable of looking the other way at North Korean uranium sales to a shadowy international network located in a region bristling with terrorists can fairly be considered allies, but the reporter is entitled to her opinion (she should also label it appropriately). There’s more:
The Bush administration’s approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.
Further down, Jack Pritchard shows up as a source, with extensive quotes.
It’s not difficult to see what Dafna Lizner and Glenn Kessler think, namely that (1) after a decade of fruitless diplomacy and North Korean cheating, Bush evidently dashed the region’s high hopes of a diplomatic settlement that would make us all safe; (2) China and South Korea are “allies;” and (3) Japan is alienated. All of these premises are false. To these, I add a fourth–the idea that the Pakistan connection was ever omitted in the first place. Here’s what the U.S. Embassy said today, via the Joongang Ilbo:
The United States has not misled allies or anyone else about the matter. United States officials informed allies of the intelligence community’s assessment of the most likely source of certain nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through the A.Q. Khan network. . . . Whether the intended recipient was the A.Q Khan network or Libya is irrelevant to our proliferation concerns regarding North Korea.”
That seems consistent with the evidence. Exhibit A: a New York Times story, available here, quoted here, and printed back on February 9th when the Libya story was first breaking:
American and Asian intelligence officials say it is unclear whether North Korea knew that Libya was the ultimate destination for the chemical, called uranium hexafluoride. One senior official with access to the intelligence data said it was possible that the North Koreans only knew that it was transferring the fuel to members of Dr. Khan’s network. “We don’t know how much they produced, or if it was shipped elsewhere,” the official said. “It’s one of the questions we have to get answered.”
So the Administration admitted all along that Khan could have been the middleman, and that it didn’t matter if he was, since this is an effort to keep nukes out of terrorist hands, not a sentencing hearing. And of course, the Post’s Glenn Kessler raised the very same allegation the first week of February. The only things that are new about this story are the hyperbole and the paper it’s printed on. The Washington Post has written a verifiably misleading non-story that is far richer in commentary than enlightenment. If the Bush administration truly meant to lie to its “allies,” it must have counted on them not to read the New York Times.