(Article updated 31 Jan 2015)
This cable https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/GX44-47.pdf was submitted as evidence by the prosecution in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a trial in which Sterling was convicted on entirely circumstantial evidence of leaking to a reporter that the CIA had given nuclear weapons part plans (with flaws added) to Iran. The cable makes crystal clear that the CIA proposed to do the same with Iraq.
There are only two nations beginning with a vowel and containing in adjectival form five letters: IRAQI and OMANI. The United States has neither worried about slowing down a nuclear weapons program in Oman nor sought to concoct reasons for a war on Oman. Iraq is of course a different story.
The above cable is in a font with each character receiving equal space.
The letters line up in vertical columns. There are in two places blanks that will hold the word "IRAQI" and in one the word "IRAQIS." There is no way that OMANI and OMANIS makes sense. No other countries fit at all. And it has to be a country. And it has to be a country that follows the word "AN" not "A.”
I reported on this on Friday morning, and the reaction was complete disinterest.
If any other nation in the world were discovered to be handing out nuclear weapons plans, it'd be interesting. Maybe the U.S. just does too much of this stuff. But whether you believe the CIA was attempting through a reasonable means to impede weapons proliferation or you think they were recklessly contributing to it, the sheer irony of having worked on giving Iraq nuke plans not long before attacking Iraq over the false accusation that it was building nukes should be of interest. There should be a half dozen people alive and awake in the United States who find themselves at least vaguely curious as to how far this plan was carried out.
Now, I recognize that the corporate media obeys the CIA's wishes. If the CIA wants us to pretend we can't spell the names of countries or count the letters in words, then it is our patriotic duty to uphold that pretense.
But what about people whose jobs don't depend on the good wishes of the corporate media? I've had people tell me that the CIA would not put something out that's so obvious, and therefore it's false.
I've had people tell me it simply must be forged, as if the CIA wants to pretend it was giving nukes to Iraq, as if that helps its image.
I've had people give me all sorts of screwy reasons for not giving a shit (and a few people expressing actual interest) but in the end it seems to come down to this: We've reached saturation. If we're not among those who consider it a duty to think what we're told, we're among those who—with growing disgust and fatigue—see a cop choke a man on video and walk, see a government lie about Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and Ukraine and Russia and ISIS and launch wars right and left, and see Henry Kissinger treated as an honored guest in Congress (with a handful of honorable protesters).
That's not all it is, of course. There's also the combination. There's the person who knows the government lies and commits evil acts but wants the government to openly and explicitly say it was giving nuclear plans to Iraq, not let it slip in a redacted memo, before it can be deemed believable. The human experimentation at Guantanamo should be announced at a press conference, not buried in footnotes in masses of reports. What kind of a manner is that in which to present a hideous crime of such proportions. It just doesn't fit.
Well, I don't know what to do about that. But, unlike the government, I've never lied to you. And I'm not making any assertion anyway. You can trust me or not, it's completely irrelevant. Read the cable above and see what it says and what it must have said with the blanks filled in. And then see if you can bring yourself to give a damn. The rest of the world already thinks we're insane. Imagine it they knew that this is the sort of thing we just accept with our morning coffee before going about our wasteful lives.
"WE WILL WANT TO SEE HOW THE IRAN PART OF THE CASE PLAYS OUT BEFORE MAKING AN APPROACH...."
It seems that a national adjective belongs in that space. Most are too long to fit: Chinese, Zimbabwean, even Egyptian.
But notice the word "an," not "a." The word that follows has to start with a vowel. Search through the names of the world's countries. There is onely one that fits and makes sense. And if you followed the Sterling trial, you know exactly how much sense it makes: Iraqi.
"MAKING AN IRAQI APPROACH."
And then further down: "THINKING ABOUT THE IRAQI OPTION."
Now, don't be thrown off by the place to meet being somewhere that M was unfamiliar with. He met the Iranians in Vienna (or rather avoided meeting them by dumping the nuke plans in their mailbox). He could be planning to meet the Iraqis anywhere on earth; that bit's not necessarily relevant to identifying the nation.
Then look at the last sentence. Again it distinguishes the Iranians from someone else. Here's what fits there:
"IF HE IS TO MEET THE IRANIANS OR APPROACH THE IRAQIS IN THE FUTURE."
North Koreans doesn't fit or make sense or start with a vowel (And Korean doesn't start with a vowel, and DPRK doesn't start with a vowel). Egyptians doesn't fit or make sense.
The closest words to fitting this document, other than IRAQI and IRAQIS, are INDIAN and INDIANS. But I've tried approximating the font and spacing as closely as possible, and I encourage typographical experts to give it a try. The latter pair of words ends up looking slightly crowded.
And then there's this: The United States knew that India had nukes and didn't mind and wasn't trying to start a war with India.
And this: the mad scheme to give slightly flawed nuke plans to Iran was admitted in court by the CIA to risk actually proliferating nukes by giving Iran help. That's not such a bad outcome if what you're really after is war with Iran.
And this: the U.S. government has repeatedly tried to plant nuke plans and parts on Iraq, as it has tried for decades to portray Iran as pursuing nukes.
And this: The Sterling trial, including testimony from Condoleezza "Mushroom Cloud" Rise herself, was bafflingly about defending the CIA's so-called reputation, very little about prosecuting Sterling. They doth protested too much.
What did blowing the whistle on Operation Merlin put at risk? Not the identity of Merlin or his wife. He was out there chatting with Iranians online and in-person. She was outed by the CIA itself during the trial, as Wheeler pointed out. What blowing the whistle on giving nukes to Iran put at risk was the potential for giving nukes to more countries—and exposure of plans to do so (whether or not they were followed through on) to the nation that the United States had been attacking since the Gulf War, began to truly destroy in 2003, and is at war in still.
When Cheney swore Iraq had nuclear weapons, and at other times that it had a nuclear weapons program, and Condi and Bush warned of mushroom clouds, was there a bit more to Tenet's "slam dunk" than we knew? Was there an alley oop from the mad scientists at the CIA? There certainly would have been an attempt at one if left up to "Bob S," "Merlin," and gang.
Did Sterling and other possible whistleblowers have more reason to blow the whistle than we knew? Regardless, they upheld the law. Drop the Charges.