You might not have heard about it with all the media hype surrounding Vladamir Putin and Barack Obama’s dueling presidential addresses to the United Nations General Assembly last Monday, but something pretty spectacular happened.
The former president of Argentina, Christina Fernandez de Kirchener, delivered quite a shock to the General Assembly when she announced that an official of the Obama administration approached her and requested that Argentina provide Iran with enriched nuclear fuel in 2010.
That White House official was Gary Samore. He is the White House former Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Surprisingly, he did not even dispute the claim- which one would expect he that he would- given the seriousness of the accusation. Samore is unequivocal in his opposition to the agreement that is currently being hashed out between the White House and Iran.
According to Kirchener, Samore asked Argentina to provide the nuclear fuel to Iran, seemingly in an attempt to counter Iran’s claim that they still needed the nuclear fuel to power their reactors.
Having it in their possession would make it appear that Iran was developing nuclear technology for a weapons program, and not just for their power grid- as they claim. It was, ostensibly, an attempt to frame Iran- and possibly to set up the pretext for a false flag attack in order to justify military action against Iran.
Kirchener said the deal fell through when the Argentinian government asked to receive the request in writing- in order to adhere to legal protocol. It was at that point when Samore dropped the issue. That was the last time Kirchener ever heard from him about the request.
Shortly after the UN hearing last week, Samore released a statement in which he admits having traveled to Argentina at the time Kirchener says he did, and he admits that he made the request. Somehow, though, he seems to believe that the request was not a big deal.
He went on to explain that, after the Argentinians recoiled at the idea of apparently setting up Iran to look like a rogue nation in the eyes of the world, he traveled to Russia and France to ask the same thing of their leaders.
The only difference was that in these proposals Iran would send Low-enriched uranium to Russia. It would be enriched further in Russia before being sent to France. According to Samore’s plan, it would then be sent back to France where the enrichment would be completed, transforming the uranium into nuclear reactor fuel. Only then would it finally be sent on to Iran.
Then the Republic of Iran would have the fuel they say they don’t have, making the story of their not attempting to achieve weaponized uranium seem like a lie.
Fortunately, for the world, the deal fell through.
According to Samore, this is just the sort of thing that goes on all the time between the US and foreign nations. Swapping around nuclear material under the nose of the public isn’t a big deal to him, and he’s not afraid to say so.
There’s no doubt that if this really was an attempt to frame Iran as pursuing nuclear weapons- Samore would have been given a great deal of guidance on how to play the story down and make it seem like everyday business.
But that doesn’t explain why Kirchener, a respected world leader would be shocked by it, and call Obama a traitor to his country for it. The one part of this story that doesn’t fit is Kirchener’s reason for waiting six years to tell the world that the US is riding cowboy with plans to stick Iran with undisclosed uranium.
In light of a possible Clinton presidency, events like this are extremely foreboding- especially considering how anxious she has been to go to war with Iran over the past several years.
The White House has yet to respond to Kirchener’s statement, and there’s little doubt that anything less than a federal court injunction will change that.
