Wednesday, May 31, 2006

US ignores nuke smuggling investigation

* reddhedd:
"Only George Bush could take a country run by a violent dictator, where the people were oppressed and murdered and terrorized by secret police and tortured for disagreeing with the government…and turn it into an even less stable country where people are murdered and tortured and kidnapped and killed in cold blood and worse, inflaming sectarian and tribal rivalries and raising the bar on the fight to control Iraq’s valuable oil reserves, as armed militias for each faction fight amongst themselves and US troops for control. "

* via reddhedd:
"Today, the Court took that very signifiant step, holding that "when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline." This apparently means that employees may be disciplined for their official capacity speech, without any First Amendment scrutiny, and without regard to whether it touches on matters of "public concern" — a very significant doctrinal development…."

* via rawstory:

A Swiss investigation into an international nuclear smuggling network is being hampered by a lack of cooperation from the United States.

Authorities in Bern say they asked US officials for judicial assistance a year ago but have yet to receive a reply.

Washington's failure to respond to "multiple" Swiss appeals was revealed last week by former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright.

He told a US hearing into the nuclear trafficking ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, that he found the lack of cooperation by the US "frankly embarrassing".

"It is difficult to understand the actions of the US government. Its lack of assistance needlessly complicates this important investigation," said Albright, who is president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security."
why would they do that?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Democracy Now had a good interview with Albright and others on this topic this morning. Might be good to look there for more info.

It really does seem curious that the U.S. would bluster about breaking up A.Q. Khan and not help Switzerland prosecute some of these folks. Might be worth tracking how Brewster Jennings might have been looking at them earlier to see if that gives us any more clues as to who our conspirators are that might be interested in burying part of this investigation.

(anyone else having problems with the verification image coming up in the post popup?)

Had problems with this earlier, though it just started working again after I sent a note to Luke on it.