emptywheel and the iranian laptop

* "According to Time magazine, the US plans to present the security council with evidence that Iran is designing a crude nuclear bomb, like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The evidence will be in the form of blueprints that the US said were found on a laptop belonging to an Iranian nuclear engineer, and obtained by the CIA in 2004. However, any such presentation will bring back memories of a similar briefing in February 2003 in which Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, laid out evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which proved not to exist." (link)

* again, make sure to read emptywheel on this here:

"The same has happened with information gathered from a mysterious laptop handed to US intelligence by a walk-in source. I reported on that intelligence here and here and here (and as I pointed out in the last link, this intelligence was first floated by none other than Colin Powell, just after he had announced his resignation from the Bush Administration, but before they were done using and disposing of his reputation). November 2004, November 2005, and January and February of this year. Presented as new to one or another source each time. And always, conveniently forgetting that back in November 2004, no one was willing to vouch for the provenance of this intelligence. Even this LAT article from the other day claims that the case against Iran comes from the IAEA and not our politicized intelligence services, but it still reverts back to intelligence that was deemed questionable two years ago."

(read those links)