And CBS joins ABC in blowing covert operations against Iran

The US media -- no worse enemy of the state. That should be their motto. Allah exposes this one, and everyone should be outraged by now with the media. This is simply unacceptable any way you look at it. From CBS News:

CBS News has learned that Iran is continuing to make progress on its expanded efforts to enrich uranium — in spite of covert efforts by U.S. and other allied intelligence agencies to actively sabotage the country's nuclear program.

"Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works," says Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad.

Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable. "One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it's a black market … you don't know exactly who you are dealing with," Fitzpatrick says.

Senior government representatives, who spoke to CBS News on condition that neither they nor their country be identified, pointed to the case of the exploding power supplies. Installed at the pilot enrichment facility at Natanz in April 2006 as Iran was first attempting to enrich uranium, the power supplies, used to regulate voltage current, blew up, destroying 50 centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in January of this year that the equipment had been "manipulated."

There is other evidence, CBS News was told, that some of the technical difficulties Iran is having in consistently running its centrifuges are the results of a concerted effort at industrial sabotage.

Sources familiar with the U.S. effort against Iran tell CBS News that U.S. intelligence agencies have run several programs in recent years, employing different techniques, including modifying components in hard-to-detect ways and making subtle changes to technical documents and drawings, rendering them useless.

CBS is reporting on efforts that were conducted under President Clinton, which is manipulating and tinkering with components and blueprints. It didn't work well then, and that was because those involved in the AQ Khan network made the necessary corrections, for the most part. But the question remains as to why the media has taken it upon itself to blow these operations. Marcie touched on this this morning in her post regarding the Taliban's non-existent offensive by tying the support Iran has given the rogue elements of the deposed regime. ABC News blew a brand-new operation wide open, and has put any and all operatives involved in those efforts in danger. Now, CBS has decided to tip the Iranians off to our efforts to hinder their nuclear program.

What's worse is that the UN released their report today showing that Iran is stil moving forward and not being forthright with it's activities, and no one but the US seems to give a rip about it:

The U.S. will seek greater pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions than Britain, France and Germany want, diplomats said after the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said existing sanctions aren't working.

``It is clear that what we have done so far has not been enough,'' U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters at the UN. ``The time has come to take a look at additional pressure, to ratchet up the pressure to bring about a change in the Iranian calculation.''

French and German envoys said they would support an ``incremental'' tightening of sanctions imposed on Iran in an attempt to halt uranium enrichment and open its nuclear program to more scrutiny. ``I didn't use that word,'' Khalilzad said, while declining to speculate on what the U.S. would propose in a new measure on Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it is learning less about Iran's atomic work than before the Security Council imposed sanctions, increasing concern that Iran may be diverting uranium for military purposes.

The Vienna-based agency's ``level of knowledge of certain aspects of Iran's nuclear-related activities has deteriorated,'' read a four-page report released today. The deputy chairman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saeedi, told the official Iranian news agency that there is no obstacle to legal inspections of nuclear facilities by the IAEA. Saeedi said Iran had suspended some of its cooperation because its rights are being ignored by the UN.

France (despite the election of Sarkozy) and Germany aren't going to play hardball. If we're lucky, Britain may help, but we're not holding our breath. This is the same game played by Saddam Hussein, played by Kim Jong-Il, and other rogue regimes attempting to gain weapons of mass destruction. They're building them, and our efforts to end that program are now wide open. It's time that Justice starts holding these media agencies accountable. When the rule of law, and what is decent and right are tossed by the wayside, the moral responsibility will soon follow. It definitiely seems that is happening now with the media.

Publius II