George Stephanopoulos Thinks Iran is Enriching Weapons-Grade Uranium
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | September 30, 2013
Iran’s new foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared on ABC‘s “This Week” and addressed a number of the same questions every Iranian official is asked again and again in interviews by the American media.
George Stephanopoulos, who effectively conducted the same interview with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad three years in a row, asked Zarif about possible concessions Iran is willing to make over its nuclear program. By doing so, however, he revealed that he knows very little about Iran’s domestic enrichment program and the consistent findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In response to Zarif’s comment that, for negotiations to be successful, Iran’s inalienable right to enrich uranium be recognized and sanctions begin to be lifted, Stephanopoulos countered, “I understand that’s your demand. But in return, is Iran prepared to stop enriching uranium at the levels they are now enriching it?”
Iran, under strict IAEA safeguards, round-the-clock surveillance and regular intrusive inspection, is currently enriching UF6 (uranium hexafluoride feedstock) to between 3.5% and 5% U-235 for use as fuel in nuclear power plants and to just under 20% U-235 for use in medical research reactors. Both 5% and 20% enriched uranium are considered “low-enriched uranium” (LEU). Neither of these enrichment levels are close to the minimum of 90% U-235, or high-enriched uranium (HEU), needed to produce nuclear bombs.
Not only this, but Iran has been systematically converting its roughly 20% LEU into U3O8 (triuranium octoxide) metallic fuel plates for its research reactor, thus precluding the material’s further enrichment to weapons-grade and decreasing its accumulating stockpile, thus deliberately reducing the potential threat of proliferation. Nuclear physicist Yousaf Butt has explained, “This conversion essentially freezes the enrichment level and subtracts from the ‘enrichable’ gaseous stockpile used in centrifuges. It is not something that a nation hell-bent on weaponization would do.”
The Tehran Research Reactor, where these fuel plates are used, produces radioisotopes required to diagnose and treat more than 850,000 cancer patients across the country.
In short, Iran is not – and has never even been accused or suspected of – enriching weapons-grade uranium.
Yet, as Stephanopoulos’ interview with Zarif continued, it became increasingly clear the ABC host thinks it is.
When Zarif noted that, while “various aspects of Iranian’s enrichment program” are open to negotiation, Iran’s “right to enrich is nonnegotiable,” Stephanopoulos replied, “But you don’t need to enrich above 20 percent, which is only used for military purposes.”
Zarif explained, “We do not need military-grade uranium. That’s a certainty and we will not move in that direction.”
Stephanopoulos, after asking if Iran would ever allow “surprise inspections” of its nuclear facilities – something Iran already does – was told forthrightly by Zarif that Iran has absolutely no interest in producing nuclear weapons.
“We’re not seeking nuclear weapons… We don’t want nuclear weapons,” the Iranian Foreign Minister said, echoing decades of official Iranian policy. “We believe nuclear weapons are detrimental to our security. We believe those who have the illusion that nuclear weapons provide them with security are badly mistaken. We need to have a region and a world free from nuclear weapons.”
What was Stephanopoulos’ response? This:
“But if you don’t want nuclear weapons why enrich uranium to the levels you’re enriching uranium?,” he wondered.
Again, Iran is not enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, so Stephanopoulos’ question makes no sense. Next time, perhaps, he’ll ask one of the hundreds of thousands of Iranians suffering from cancer why they think their government is enriching uranium to the levels it does.
With media personalities like Stephanopoulos, it is no wonder that the American public remains misinformed and mislead on basic facts about Iran’s nuclear program.
Mainstream Media’s Ongoing Misinformation Campaign on Iran
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | September 30, 2013
As the United States and Iran carefully embark on a renewed push for diplomacy, including direct contact between the presidents of each country for the first time in 34 years, the mainstream media continues to stymie any chance for an honest assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, engaging instead in the misinformation, misrepresentation and misleading reporting that has long characterized coverage of the issue.
In just the past month alone, numerous networks, newspapers and websites have referred, both implicitly and overtly, to an Iranian “nuclear weapons program,” despite the fact that, for years now, United States intelligence community and its allies have long assessed that Iran is not and never has been in possession of nuclear weapons, is not building nuclear weapons, and its leadership has not made any decision to build nuclear weapons. Iran’s uranium enrichment program is fully safeguarded by the IAEA and no nuclear material has ever been diverted to a military program. Iranian officials have consistently maintained they will never pursue such weapons on religious, strategic, political, moral and legal grounds.
The August 27, 2013 broadcast of NPR‘ “All Things Considered,” featured correspondent Mara Liasson claiming that the tragic civil war in Syria is “a proxy war” and that “Iran, who is developing its own weapons of mass destruction, is currently backing the Syrian regime, and it is watching very carefully to see what the U.S. does.”
The same day, an editorial in USA Today similarly advocated the U.S. bombing of Syria, stating that it “would demolish U.S. credibility” were Obama not to order a campaign of airstrikes, “not just in Syria but also in Iran, which continues to pursue nuclear weapons despite repeated U.S. warnings.”
Neither Liasson, who has a history of getting things wrong about Iran, nor the editors of USA Today were being honest with their audience, presenting what are hysterical allegations unsupported by any evidence as fact.
In a TIME magazine article published online at the end of August, Michael Crowley wrote, “If another round of negotiations with Tehran should fail, Obama may soon be obliged to make good on his vow to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”
New York Times staff writer Robert Worth assessed the Obama administration’s push for bombing Syria on September 3, explaining, “If the United States does not enforce its self-imposed “red line” on Syria’s use of chemical weapons… Iran will smell weakness and press ahead more boldly in its quest for nuclear weapons.”
On September 4, the website Foreign Policy posted a shrill piece of propaganda in which former AIPAC official and accused Israeli spy Steven Rosen claimed that not bombing Syria “would certainly undermine the campaign to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program.”
On September 5, Politico revealed that “some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that “barbarism” by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would “send a message” to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.”
On September 6, Peter Baker wrote in the New York Times that stepping back from a military assault on Syria would signal a lack of willingness on the part of Obama to counter the nonexistent “the development of a nuclear bomb by Iran.”
On September 10, the Washington Post reported uncritically on the same story, identifying AIPAC’s position that there exists “a direct connection between the Syria crisis and Iran’s effort to get nuclear weapons.” The Post quoted an unnamed AIPAC official as warning of grave consequences were the United States not to bomb Syria, noting that “it will send the wrong message to Tehran about their effort to obtain unconventional weapons.”
The Post was back at it on September 15, stating in an article that “Israel’s security establishment fears that a failure to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons could encourage Tehran, Syria’s ally, to continue to enrich uranium for a bomb.”
When this erroneous conclusion was brought to the attention of Patrick Pexton, Washington Post‘s former ombudsman, he agreed that the “should be corrected,” as no government, agency or organization on the planet has ever claimed Iran is enriching uranium “for a bomb.”
Editors for the Times and Foreign Policy allowed those statements to be published. Neither Politico nor the Post challenged these absurd presumptions.
USA Today published another misleading article on September 22, which stated that President Obama is “trying to take advantage of a diplomatic opening–created by the installation of a new, more moderate president in Iran–to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.”
Peter Hart of the media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) caught this bit of misinformation and added that the USA Today editing staff are “not the only ones who should consider clarifying the record.” He quotes CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer smugly opining on September 22, “Rouhani says that Iran does not want and is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Does anybody take that at face value?”
Hart noted:
Actually, the burden of proof should be the other way around: Politicians who claim that Iran has such a program should have to prove it. Schieffer obviously doesn’t see the world that way. He’s interviewed people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and failed to challenge their claims about Iran’s weapons. Indeed, Schieffer presented them as facts, telling viewers about Iran’s “continuing effort to build a nuclear weapon” (FAIR Blog, 7/15/13).
Even more alarming, though, was a claim from NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, which opened his Friday evening broadcast on September 27. Speaking of the surprising telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani, Williams said, “This is all part of a new leadership effort by Iran – suddenly claiming they don’t want nuclear weapons! – what they want is talks and transparency and good will. And while that would be enough to define a whole new era, skepticism is high and there’s a good reason for it.”
Really, Brian? Suddenly? In truth, the Iranian government has constantly reiterated its wholesale condemnation of nuclear weapons and refusal to ever acquire them – for over twenty years. Apparently the host of what is often the most-watched evening newscast in the country believes pretending the statements by Rouhani represent a sea change in Iranian policy, rather than undeniable consistency, is good for ratings.
There is literally no way Brian Williams believes this is breaking news unless he has both short-term and long-term memory loss. Why not? He himself has reported on Iran’s repudiation of nuclear weapons for years now.
On September 19, 2006, Williams asked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to respond to what he deemed the U.S. government position that Iran “[s]top enriching uranium toward weapons,” which made now sense in the first place since no one on the planet – including the United States – had ever claimed Iran was enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.
Ahmadinejad replied, “We have said on numerous occasions that our activities are for peaceful purposes… Did Iran build the atomic bomb and use it? You must know that, because of our beliefs and our religion, we’re against such acts. We are against the atomic bomb.”
Williams interviewed Ahmadinejad again in late July 2008 and asked the Iranian president, “Is Iran’s goal to have nuclear power or to be a nuclear power in the sense of possessing weapons?”
Ahmadinejad again was clear: “We are not working to manufacture a bomb. We don’t believe in a nuclear bomb… Nuclear energy must not be equaled to a nuclear bomb… A bomb, obviously, is a very bad thing. Nobody should have such a bomb.”
Williams’ NBC colleague Ann Curry also conducted a number of interviews with Ahmadinejad over the past few years during which the Iranian president expressed identical sentiments.
Nevertheless, as The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald puts it, “NBC News feels free to spout such plainly false propaganda – ‘suddenly claiming they don’t want nuclear weapons!’ – because they know they and fellow large media outlets have done such an effective job in keeping their viewers ignorant of these facts. They thus believe that they can sow doubts about Iran’s intentions with little danger that their deceit will be discovered.”
Despite the increasingly rapid pace of renewed Iranian and American communication and cooperation, the media’s misinformation campaign against Iran has yet to slow down. The journalists, editors, analysts and anchors who traffic in dishonest reporting should be held accountable.
Media researchers Jonas Siegel and Saranaz Barforoush recently wrote in the Cairo Review of Global Affairs:
If the goal of news media is to act in the public interest, to hold public officials accountable, and to permit an informed public to play a constructive role in the foreign policy decisions made by their governments—in their name—then journalists ought to consider more carefully how they go about framing the facts and assessments that animate complex policy issues such as Iran’s nuclear program and how the international community could and should respond. Without considering these fundamental characteristics more carefully and reflecting a broader spectrum of viewpoints and policy possibilities in their coverage, they are liable to repeat the mistakes that contributed to disastrous policy choices in the past.
Related article
- What is Kerry actually negotiating with Iran? (alethonews.wordpress.com)
CAGW memeplex
By Andy West | Climate Etc. | November 1, 2013
The hypothesis for a single, simple, scientific explanation underlying the entire complex social phenomenon of CAGW.
Whatever is happening in the great outdoors regarding actual climate, inside the minds of men overwhelming evidence indicates that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is a self-sustaining narrative that is living off our mental capacity, either in symbiosis or as an outright cultural parasite; a narrative that is very distanced from physical real-world events. The social phenomenon of CAGW possesses all the characteristics of a grand memetic alliance, like numerous similar structures before it stretching back beyond the reach of historic records, and no doubt many more cultural creatures that have yet to birth.
Having painted a picture CAGW from a memetic perspective in fiction last December [link], I realized that many people instinctively sense the memetic characteristics of CAGW, and typically express this in blogs or articles as relatively casual comments that cite memes or religion. Yet these folks appear to have no real knowledge of how truly meaningful and fundamental their observations are. Hence I have written a comprehensive essay which attempts to fill in this knowledge gap, and indeed proposes that the entire complex social phenomenon of CAGW is dominated by memetic action, i.e. CAGW is a memeplex.
Note: a ‘meme’ is a minimal cultural entity that is subject to selective pressures during replication between human minds, its main medium. A meme can be thought of as the cultural equivalent to a gene in biology; examples are a speech, a piece of writing (‘narratives’), a tune or a fashion. A memeplex is a co-adapted group of memes that replicate together and reinforce each other’s survival; cultural or political doctrines and systems, for instance a religion, are major alliances of self-replicating and co-evolving memes. Memetics101: memeplexes do not only find shelter in the mind of a new host, but they will change the perceptions and life of their new host.
Because the memetic explanation for CAGW rests upon social and evolutionary fundamentals (e.g. the differential selection of self-replicating narratives, narrative alliances, the penetration of memes into the psyche causing secondary phenomena like motivated reasoning, noble cause corruption and confirmation bias etc.) it is not dependent upon politics or philosophies of any stripe, which tend to strongly color most ‘explanations’ and typically rob them of objectivity. Critically, a memetic explanation also does not depend on anything happening in the climate (for better or for worse). CO2 worry acted as a catalyst only; sufficient real-world uncertainties at the outset (and indeed still) provided the degree of freedom that let a particular ‘ability’ of memeplexes take hold. That ability is to manipulate perceptions (e.g. of real-world uncertainty itself), values, and even morals, which means among other things that once birthed the CAGW memeplex rapidly insulated itself from actual climate events.
Homo Sapiens have likely co-evolved with memeplexes essentially forever (Blackmore), therefore they are a fundamental part of us, and indeed no characteristic of CAGW appears to be in the slightest bit new, quite the contrary. Underlining this ancient origin, one class of memeplexes folks are familiar with is: ‘all religions’. Yet these fuzzy structures are by no means limited to religion; science has triggered memetic themes before and extreme politics frequently does so, and there have even been historic memeplexes centered on climate. This does not mean CAGW is precisely like a religion, but being similarly powered by self-replicating narratives creates the comparable characteristics that many have commented upon.
Using a great deal of circumstantial evidence from the climate blogosphere and support from various knowledge domains: neuroscience, (economic) game theory, law, corporate behavior, philosophy, biological evolution and of course memetics etc., the essay maps the primary characteristics of CAGW onto the expected behavior for a major memeplex, finding conformance. Along the way, contemporary and historic memeplexes (mainly religious) are explored as comparisons. The essay is long, book-sized, because the subject matter is large. I guess an essay describing all of climate science would be very long, so one exploring the entire memetic characteristics of CAGW plus I hope enough context for readers to make sense of that, is similarly so.
The context is extremely broad, ranging from why pyramid building evolved in Egypt to a passionate cry against kings, priests, and tyranny in a radical women’s journal of the early nineteenth century. From the impact of memeplexes on the modern judicial system courtesy of Duke Law, to the ancient purpose of story-telling and contemporary attempts to subvert this, along with a plot analysis of the film Avatar. From the long and curious tale of an incarnation of ‘the past is always better’ meme currently rampant on the internet, to the evolutionary selection of fuzzy populations in biology and the frankenplex multi-element cultural creature that is CAGW. From the conflict related death-rates in primitive tribes versus modern states, to analysis of corporate social responsibilities after the Enron and banking sector crises. From memetic chain letters that stretch back to the hieroglyphs (Letters from Heaven), to the analysis of social cross-coalitions via game theory within the perspective of economics. From the concept of ‘the Social Mind’ courtesy of neuro-scientist Michael Gazzaniga, to pressure upon religions by aggressive atheism as promoted by Richard Dawkins. From modification of theistic memes in the Old to the New Testament, to notions of Gaia and telegraph wires and wing-nuts. Plus memetic sex, witchcraft, cults, Cathars, concepts of salvation, Communism, hi-jacking altruism, Lynsenkoism, lichen, psychologizers, National Socialism, de-darwinisation, that ugly term ‘denier’, and much more.
The reason for this huge breadth and depth is that memeplexes are deeply integrated into both our psyche and our societies; this level of vision and historical context is necessary to uncover the entities, to identify their actions with as much distancing from what remains of ‘ourselves’ as can be achieved.
In counter-weight to this very broad context, the essay is richly laced throughout with quotes from many of the main players and commenters in the climate blogosphere (plus from newspapers and other publications too), much of which will be pretty familiar to followers of the climate debate. These quotes cover luke-warmers, skeptics and Consensus folks, plus politicians, philosophers, psychologists and others as regards their views on CAGW, yet all are chosen and brought together for their focus on the memetic aspects of the phenomenon. There are also plenty of deeper topics specific to the sociological aspects of CAGW that most denizens of the climate blogosphere will recognize and can get their teeth into, some contentious. For instance, a look at Richard Dawkins’ immersion within a rampant memeplex (while this would seem to be both controversial and ironic, when one realizes that we’re all immersed to some extent in several memeplexes, irony tends to morph to introspection). A brief view of a different Stephan Lewandowski paper (i.e. NOT either of the ‘conspiracy ideation’ ones) in which he highlights the very type of inbuilt cultural bias that has then led him blindly to produce those very challenged and troubled works! An exposé of memetically induced cultural bias in a recent paper on ‘Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change’, that in my opinion undermines the objectivity of the work and robs the conclusions of any real meaning. A very interesting take on Mike Hulme’s stance as revealed by the memetic perspective. A glimpse of the ‘shall-we shan’t-we dance’ tentative cross-coalition between the Christian and CAGW memeplexes. The constant references to grandchildren within CAGW advocacy texts. Both the laudable and the lurking memetic content in philosopher Pascal Bruckner’s essay ‘Against Environmental Panic’. Numerous views of sociological comment by atmospheric scientist Judith Curry or at her blog Climate Etc from a memetic perspective. Plus a delve into one of pointman’s very interesting climate related essays, strong language and classic climate quotes explained via memetics, and more…
While CAGW skeptics might at first blush celebrate the possibility of a single, non-climate related, non-partisan, science-based theory that explains the whole complex range of CAGW’s social characteristics, acceptance of this theory also requires acceptance of a couple of pretty uncomfortable truths, and the ditching of at least one touchstone used by many (but by no means all) climate change skeptics. These issues are all expounded in the essay, but I summarize here:
- Acceptance of the memeplex explanation requires us to rethink what ‘self’ means, and how our opinions, perceptions, and even morals are formed and maintained, with an implication that our ‘self’ is much more about the societal groups we’re immersed in than about what’s intrinsically inside our heads. The fact that we don’t really ‘own’ ourselves, is challenging.
- Acceptance of the memeplex explanation requires a rejection of the ‘scam’ or ‘hoax’ theory as a root cause of the CAGW phenomenon, and as a primary motivator for the vast majority of CAGW ‘adherents’. (Note this does not rule out the fact that scams / hoaxes and other negative social phenomena may be attached to the memeplex as secondary structures – this is in fact common for major memeplexes). The essay spends quite some length saying why this is so.
- Whatever downsides are observed to stem from the social phenomenon of CAGW, memeplexes in general often contribute major net advantages to their host societies, sometimes very major. The balance between positive and negative aspects of a major memeplex are not easy to determine except long in retrospect and with access to the ‘big picture’ (all attributes and all impacts across all of society). Hence we cannot yet know the balance of this equation for CAGW. The positive aspects are not typically intuitive.
- As already mentioned, the memetic explanation is virtually independent of actual climate events. Hence dangerous climate scenarios are not ruled out. It simply means that no scenarios are ruled out, from the very dangerous to the utterly benign, and it is very much in the memeplex’s interests to keep the situation that way. Memeplexes wallow in uncertainty and confusion.
Many commenters in the climate blogosphere have written to the effect that: ‘it isn’t and never was about the science’. I happen to agree, very little of the CAGW phenomenon is about the science. The memetic perspective reveals why this is; not in terms of political or financial motivations but in the objective terms of the underlying social mechanisms, which are independent of (and enable) all such motivations.
Despite the essay’s length, I hope you will take the journey to acquiring a memetic perspective. Here [ memeplex summary ] is a very distilled summary of each section of the essay below this text, with a list of references, in which a few regular contributors might find their names. Please note that the work is not a ‘paper’, containing no proofs or supporting mathematics, excepting a couple of references to Game Theory and the Price Equation. And merely for convenience, I have written as though the memeplex hypothesis is true, i.e. that CAGW is a memeplex and that this characteristic dominates the social effects. It is just extremely cumbersome throughout hundreds of references to make them all conditional – so I haven’t. Yet by no means does that mean the hypothesis is true, or at least wholly true in the sense that the memetic effects are dominant. Readers must form their own opinions regarding that, no doubt which opinions will be colored by the memeplexes they’re already immersed in J. I think most folks will find it an interesting and enjoyable ride though. The complete essay is here [link]: (Note: this Post text doubles as the essay Foreword, so you can skip that).
P.S. while I intend to issue further Revs of the essay with some extensions plus feedback / corrections applied, in practice this may only happen on a very long timescale, or possibly not at all as my time is extremely pressured. Please keep an eye on www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com for any up-Revs or additional information. Note: the novella Truth from the WUWT post above is now available (free) at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/273983 or within the anthology ‘Engines of Life’ also at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/334834, or at Amazon here.
No Surprise: NSA Stores All Metadata It Collects For At Least A Year, Even If It Has Nothing To Do With Anything
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | September 30, 2013
The latest revelation from the Snowden docs published by The Guardian is that the NSA’s MARINA metadata system for internet data stores the information it gets for up to a year.
“The Marina metadata application tracks a user’s browser experience, gathers contact information/content and develops summaries of target,” the analysts’ guide explains. “This tool offers the ability to export the data in a variety of formats, as well as create various charts to assist in pattern-of-life development.”
The guide goes on to explain Marina’s unique capability: “Of the more distinguishing features, Marina has the ability to look back on the last 365 days’ worth of DNI metadata seen by the Sigint collection system, regardless whether or not it was tasked for collection.” [Emphasis in original.]
Note that this is different than the phone metadata that people have been talking about. This is “internet” metadata — so browser history, contacts, etc. In other words, the kind of stuff that Dianne Feinstein accidentally admitted the US is scooping up by the boatloads by tapping the internet’s backbone with help from US telcos.
The fact that they can look through it even if it hasn’t been “tasked for collection” is pretty big. It again shows how the NSA keeps saying one thing (such as claiming they only keep data on people they’re “targeting”) is simply false. The NSA continues to redefine things. Information isn’t “collected” until it’s searched. And it’s apparently not “stored” until it’s moved into a different database than this one.
How does anyone take these guys seriously?
Why the WHO report on congenital anomalies in Iraq is a disgrace
By Christopher Busby | RT | September 28, 2013
The recently published World Health Organization report on its study of congenital birth anomalies in Iraq is nothing short of a disgrace.
There have been an increasing number of reports about childhood cancers, adult cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Public pressure and media attention to this catastrophic situation prompted a joint study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Health Ministry to determine the prevalence of birth defects in the country. The study began in May-June 2012 and was completed in early October 2012. But it was not made public until recently. And I have to say that those who designed and carried out the study were well aware that the method they chose could not possibly give correct answers to the question of congenital anomaly rates, since they had consulted with me before they started, and I had pointed out why their method was unsafe, even sending them a report suggesting a method that would work.
In May 2011, I was asked to travel to Geneva by the Union of Arab Jurists to make my first presentation at the UN Human Rights Council, reporting our preliminary findings of extraordinarily high rates of cancer, infant mortality and sex ratio perturbations in the population of Fallujah, which we published in the International Journal of Environment and Public Health in 2010. I met with the director of the Human Rights Council, and also with the director of the International Red Cross, and made the case for intervention.
There was massive anecdotal evidence of these genetic damage effects of the US uranium weapons since the mid-1990s and in Fallujah after the 2004 war, but no one had carried out any study. We collected some money from individuals (about £4,000) and marched in. What we found made headlines in The Daily Telegraph, Le Monde and all over the world. In that study, we examined infant mortality rather than congenital birth defects, for reasons we gave in the paper and I will review here.
Later we also published two other follow-up studies based on hospital data, one analyzing 52 elements in the hair of the parents of children with congenital anomalies, the other giving the congenital anomaly rates and types. Both were based on prospective collection of data by the pediatricians from Fallujah General Hospital, and so we could be sure of the types of anomaly and the numbers.
I have to say that the fear generated by these discoveries made it extremely difficult to get the results published. The Lancet threw the papers out without sending them for review. The International Journal of Environment and Public Health was attacked after the first one, by various individuals they refused to name – and they wouldn’t publish the second one, which was published by Conflict and Health. The third one was also rejected by The Lancet and various other frightened journals and eventually was published by the Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, and then only after I asked them what Allah would think of their pusillanimous behavior. So much for scientific truth.
I pointed out to the WHO representative who contacted me in January 2011, Syed Jaffar Hussein, asking if I would join the WHO project, that the kind of questionnaire study that WHO were proposing would fail for two reasons. The first and most critical is that parents will not have sufficient knowledge to diagnose a congenital anomaly in their baby. For example, in the absence of hospital involvement at a high technical level (e.g. Fallujah Hospital) the baby will just die of what seems to the parents to be pneumonia, or failure to thrive, or the child will die for no apparent reason. In terms of congenital heart defects, or kidney defects, or many neurological defects there is no observable sign. And the type of monstrous defect, the Cyclops eye, the lack of arms, all the pictures on the Internet, these are a minor fraction of all the congenital defects that are fatal at birth. Generally the mother is not allowed to see such a baby and she is told it has died. It is the heart defects that make up the majority, and these are only diagnosable in a hospital pediatric unit.
The second problem I know about, since I have designed and carried out several questionnaire epidemiology studies since the pilot one in Carlingford, Ireland in 2000, is that people can’t remember back even five years, let alone 15 years. And in a situation like Iraq, where having a child with a congenital defect means that you yourself are contaminated and damaged, the likelihood is that you will shortly be dead from cancer and a whole range of illnesses generated by the causes that killed your baby. So the questionnaire study loses cases as you go back in time. The WHO results clearly show this, since the rates they report are actually lower than expected, suggesting that living in Iraq is good for birth outcomes. They seem surprised by this.
So a hospital-based prospective study is the only way. And since this is such a political issue, I said I would only be involved if I could have a hands-on role so that the numbers could be checked, and that was the end of our communication.
The result is very shoddy procedure which would not make it into peer-review. The WHO says that its work and the report was peer-reviewed by senior epidemiologists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, but if this is true these reviewers should be sent packing. The WHO report fails to refer to any of the studies, like our follow-up papers on uranium in Conflict and Health and the IMANA congenital anomaly rates one. There, for example, we looked at the uranium content along long strands of hair in mothers of birth-defect children and showed that the concentrations increased back to the time of the US attacks.
It is fairly easy to show that the WHO results are ridiculous. There was a previous similar study under Saddam’s regime for the period 1994-1999 which is of interest. This study also was not cited in the WHO report but was discussed in our paper which they must have read. The Iraqi child and maternal mortality survey covered 46,956 births in Iraq from 1994-1999. Results were obtained by questionnaires filled out by the mothers and results were given for all children aged 0-4 who died in 1994-1999. Effects found in this period, if due to environmental agents, would, of course, follow exposures in and following the first Gulf War. Using data presented in the tables in this publication it is easy to show that the results indicated a marked increase in deaths in the first year of life with an infant mortality (0-1) rate of 93 per 1,000 live births. Fifty-six percent of deaths in all the children aged 0-5 occurred in the first month after birth, but since the results were from self-reporting, it was difficult to draw conclusions as to the underlying causes of death except in the case of oncology/hematology. For example, the largest reported proportion of deaths in the neonates were listed as “cough/difficulty breathing” which might result from many different underlying causes. The low rates from congenital malformation reported are hardly credible. However, using data published in the report it appeared that the cancer and leukemia death rates in the entire all-Iraq 0-4 group were about three or four times the levels found in Western populations for this age group. These rates were three times higher in the south where depleted uranium was employed in the major tank battles near the Kuwait border (53 per 100,000 per year) than in the north (18 per 100,000 per year) where there was less fighting and where depleted uranium was not employed to such an extent. Furthermore, cancer and leukemia rates were highest in the 0-1 year group, which is unusual; the main peak in childhood cancer is generally found at age 4.
Despite all that can be said about the methodology, it is extremely hard to reconcile the WHO study’s finding of an overall congenital anomaly rate of 23.6 with the rate of 147 we found in Fallujah General Hospital, reported by us in. In Table 2, I copy the full results which were submitted in this congenital anomaly paper. It is clear from this that the majority of conditions could not be recognized by mothers of children who died at or shortly after birth. Of 291 babies with congenital abnormalities in our Fallujah hospital study, 113 were cardiovascular, 40 digestive, 9 genitourinary and 44 chromosomal defects, few of which could be recognized as congenital anomalies by mothers, and would need specialized diagnoses in a top hospital to classify.
It is shown in Table 2 that the rate for congenital heart effects alone is twice the rate reported in the WHO study. Of particular concern is the outcome of the “Expert Peer Group” meeting on 27-28 July, 2013, which apparently endorsed this epidemiologically unsafe approach and its results.
I have written and given presentations on scientific dishonesty. The truth can be established by science, but not if it is dishonest and political. And it seems that this report, and the events and decisions that preceded it, and particularly the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine peer review meeting, are a classical example of scientific dishonesty. The use of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reminds me of the use of the Royal Society to produce a disgraceful report on depleted uranium in 2001. Since the outcome is intended to exonerate the US and UK military from what are effectively war crimes, and since the result will be employed to defend the continued use of uranium weapons, all concerned in this chicanery should be put before a criminal court and tried for what they have done. Their actions are responsible for human suffering and death and cannot be forgiven. This is a human rights issue. I returned to the issue of Fallujah when I was invited a second time to make a presentation at the UN Human Rights Council in September 2011. I said then it was time to make a legal stand and I presented the human rights petition I had developed with the International Committee for Nuclear Justice. This issue will be taken forward by the Low Level Radiation Campaign in the next six months, so watch this space.
Finally, we should not forget that the WHO signed an agreement in 1959 with the International Atomic Energy Agency to keep their noses out of any research that has a connection with radiation or radioactivity. This agreement is still in force and is a matter of deep concern.
Christopher Busby is an expert on the health effects of ionizing radiation and Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk.
Political Moves: How Dianne Feinstein Cut Off One Of The Few Attempts At Actual Oversight By Senate Intelligence Committee
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | September 27, 2013
We’ve already covered how Dianne Feinstein used the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to play games with the English language, while Senator Dan Coats used it to rant against all you stupid Americans for not trusting the NSA, but there have been some actual attempts to have the Senate Intelligence Committee perform its actual duty of oversight. Both Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall — who have been trying to raise these questions for years — actually had specific questions for the assembled panel, but the panel (mainly Keith Alexander) did its best to completely avoid answering the questions, then used political gamesmanship to block Wyden from asking followups.
Wyden used his question to highlight what he’s been hinting at for years, that it’s almost certain that the NSA has collected bulk data on the locations of Americans (something not yet officially revealed, and which they’ve sort of tried to deny for a while). Wyden has been asking versions of this question for a few years (and trying to pass legislation blocking this kind of thing for nearly as long). But watch how Keith Alexander never actually answers the question:
Wyden: Now with respect to questions, let me start with you Director Alexander, and, as you all know, I will notify you in advance so that there won’t be any surprise about the types of issues we are going to get into. And Director Alexander, Senators Udall, Heinrich and I and about two dozen other senators have asked in the past whether the NSA has ever collected or made any plans to collect Americans’ cell-site information in bulk. What would be your response to that?
Gen. Keith Alexander: Senator, on July 25, Director Clapper provided a non-classified written response to this question amongst others, as well as a classified supplement with additional detail. Allow me to reaffirm what was stated in that unclassified response. Under section 215, NSA is not receiving cell-site location data and has no current plans to do so. As you know, I indicated to this committee on October 20, 2011, that I would notify Congress of NSA’s intent to obtain cell-site location data prior to any such plans being put in place. As you may also be aware….
Note the word games: “under Section 215.” He does not say whether they’ve used some other authority to do so. And then he’s just repeating talking points so Wyden flat out cuts him off:
Wyden: General, if I might. I think we’re all familiar with it. That’s not the question I’m asking. Respectfully, I’m asking, has the NSA ever collected or ever made any plans to collect Americans’ cell-site information. That was the question and we, respectfully General, have still not gotten an answer to it. Could you give me an answer to that?
Alexander: We did. We sent that — as you’re also aware I expressly reaffirmed this commitment to the committee on June 25, 2013. Finally, in the most recent and now declassified opinion renewing this program, the FISA court made clear in footnote number five that notice to the court in a briefing would be required if the government were to seek production of cell-site location information as part of the bulk production of call detail records. Additional details were also provided in the classified supplement to Director Clapper’s July 25th response to this question. So what I don’t want to do, Senator, is put out in an unclassified forum anything that’s classified there so I’m reading to you exactly. So we sent both of these to you. I saw what Director Clapper sent and I agree with it.
Wyden: General, if you’re responding to my question by not answering it because you think that’s a classified matter that is certainly your right. We will continue to explore that because I believe this is something the American people have a right to know whether the NSA has ever collected or made plans to collect cell-site information. I understand your answer. I’ll have additional questions on the next round. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First off, Alexander’s answer shows that, contrary to the assertions of some staunch NSA defenders, it is entirely possible to answer a question by saying “there is more information in classified documents that shouldn’t be shared in an open setting.” Some have tried to excuse James Clapper’s lies to Congress by suggesting he couldn’t have said more or less what Alexander said here.
Second, note the doublespeak that Alexander is engaged in here. Even asked, again, to answer the basic question, Alexander pulls an “under this program” type of answer, suggesting (again) that American location data either has been, or is planned, to be collected in bulk. That is worrisome, and should not be classified information. Rather it should be open to public debate as to whether or not it’s appropriate.
But here’s where the political gamesmanship came in. Committee chair Dianne Feinstein gave Senators only five minutes each for their questions. It seemed like a majority of this “oversight” committee didn’t actually ask any questions, but rather, like Coats, simply filibustered angrily at the American public or press for not trusting the NSA. But when actual questions were asked, not enough time was given to get a straight answer. At the very end of the hearing, after most of the other Senators had left, Senator Wyden made a perfectly normal request: could he ask his followup questions. He noted that he just had two questions and both could be asked within an additional five-minute window. Senator Susan Collins, who had similarly filibustered during her own five minutes (focusing mainly on knocking down a complete strawman: falsely insisting that people were upset that the NSA was using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to record all phone calls, when everyone knows that it’s just about call records, not call contents), objected to Wyden’s request because she thought everything would go in order. It was pure political gamesmanship.
So instead of getting to conduct more actual oversight by having the committee ask important questions of the surveillance bosses, the panel, instead, moved on to the “second part” of the hearing, which involved two staunch non-governmental NSA defenders who basically sat down to talk about the awesomeness of being able to spy on everyone. Ben Wittes opened with a “joke” about how the NSA’s director of compliance John DeLong, mocked the level of scrutiny the NSA was under by pointing out that if he had typos in a document he’d have to reveal that to some oversight authority. Har har. This was useless. There was no reason to have them testify, and they were given a hell of a lot more time than the Senators actually asking questions.
That time could have been used to actually conduct oversight. Instead, we got nothing. Throughout the panel Senators pointed out that the American public doesn’t trust the NSA right now (though, they often blamed the public and the press for this, rather than the direct actions and statements of the NSA). If they wanted a lesson in how not to build up that trust, holding a completely toothless “oversight” hearing was a pretty good start.
After Wyden, Udall also asked some specific questions, in which the deputy Attorney General basically just repeated the FISA Court ruling saying that “relevant” has been redefined by the intelligence community to mean basically anything that the intelligence community feels is “necessary” to its investigations, and seems to think that it’s a good thing that this is a “low bar.” He completely ignores the basics of the 4th Amendment, as well as recent Supreme Court decisions on the topic.
I’ve included the video of both Wyden and Udall’s questions below, so you can see the less than 20 minutes of the two-hour session where actual serious questions were asked.
How Did ATF Lose 420 Million Cigarettes?
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | September 27, 2013
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is in trouble again, this time for losing more than 400 million cigarettes.
ATF agents failed to properly account for 2.1 million cartons containing 420 million cigarettes as part of the agency’s undercover operations, according to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (IG). The missing cartons had a retail value of $127 million.
The IG’s office also reported that ATF paid an informant more than $4.9 million without requiring him to account for his expenses.
“We found a significant lack of oversight and controls to ensure that cash, cigarettes, equipment and other assets used…were accurately tracked, properly safeguarded and protected from misuse,” IG Michael E. Horowitz said in his report (pdf).
The mistakes were discovered after the inspector general’s office reviewed 20 undercover operations targeting cigarette smugglers that generated $162 million in income for ATF over a five-year period.
Like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, ATF is allowed under the law to use proceeds generated from certain investigations to make up for gaps in the agency’s budget.
When asked about the millions of missing cigarettes, ATF spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun told The Washington Post that the inspector general’s numbers were wrong. Colbrun insisted only 447,218 cartons were unaccounted for, not 2.1 million, after ATF conducted its own internal probe of the matter.
ATF has been under fire during the past few years for having lost more than 2,000 guns that it used as part of a Mexican drug cartel sting operation called “Fast and Furious.”
To Learn More:
ATF Lost Track of 2.1 Million Cartons of Cigarettes in Sting Operations, Report Finds (by Sari Horwitz, Washington Post)
ATF ‘Lost 420m Cigarettes’ in Churning Investigations (BBC News)
Audit of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Use of Income-Generating, Undercover Operations (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division) (pdf)
Is This the Most Bungled ATF Sting Operation Ever? (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
ATF Program Let Hundreds of Guns go to Drug Cartels (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Largest Seizure of Illegal Cigarettes in History (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
John Humphrys’ ignorance about Iran is par for the course in all Western media
By Peter Oborne | The Telegraph | September 26, 2013
… Mr Humphrys told listeners that “there will be high-level meetings to find ways of Iran giving up its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for sanctions being dropped”. Unfortunately for Humphrys, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme… Read full article
CASMII – September 27, 2013
In BBC Today’s programme today John Humphreys referred to Iran’s “nuclear weapons programme”, something that BBC does now and again.
Interviewing the Israeli government’s spokesman, Mark Gregory, he did not challenge him on his numerous lies and accusations, including describing Iran’s programme as “an aggressive nuclear weapons programme”, a phrase that Humphrey repeated! Neither did he challenge Gregory on the lie that the current Iranian government has threatened Israel with “obliteration” in the past couple of weeks.
It is crucial that people individually write to the BBC and John Humphreys and not allow such venomous propaganda to go unchallenged.
You can listen to the interview here. It starts at around 1.33.49
Iran news agency slams CNN for ‘fabricating’ Rouhani’s Holocaust remarks
RT | September 26, 2013
Iran’s state-owned Fars News Agency (FNA) claims that CNN has ‘fabricated’ the remarks made by President Hassan Rouhani in response to the question about the Holocaust. The US news channel added to or changed parts of his remarks, the agency said.
On Tuesday, the newly elected Iranian president gave his first English-language TV message in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. The interview made international headlines with hundreds of news agencies worldwide boasting titles like “Iran’s President Rouhani calls Holocaust ‘reprehensible’ crime against Jews” or “Rouhani recognizes the Holocaust as crime against Jews”.
Asking about Rouhani’s take on the Holocaust, Amanpour noted that his predecessor, President Ahmadinejad, infamously denied the Holocaust. “Do you accept what it was, and what was it?” the US journalist asked.
However, according to Iran’s FNA, the news channel made up parts of Rouhani’s answers, adding the word ‘Holocaust’ among other placatory remarks to its translation from the answers given in Farsi.
According to the exact English translation provided by FNA, the Iranian President said,
“I have said before that I am not a historian and historians should specify, state and explain the aspects of historical events, but generally we fully condemn any kind of crime committed against humanity throughout history, including the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and non-Jews, the same way that if today any crime is committed against any nation or any religion or any people or any belief, we condemn that crime and genocide. Therefore, what the Nazis did is condemned, [but] the aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers, I am not a history scholar.”
Meanwhile, the CNN translation of Rouhani’s answer stated:
“I’ve said before that I am not a historian and then, when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust, it is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime that Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jews is reprehensible and condemnable. Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we condemn, the taking of human life is contemptible, it makes no difference whether that life is Jewish life, Christian or Muslim, for us it is the same, but taking the human life is something our religion rejects but this doesn’t mean that on the other hand you can say Nazis committed crime against a group now therefore, they must usurp the land of another group and occupy it. This too is an act that should be condemned. There should be an even-handed discussion.”
According to FNA, the word ‘Holocaust’ as well as the statement “whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we condemn” are “the worst parts of the fabrications which totally change what President Rouhani has said.”
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Trump asks Iran not to retaliate after he strikes Pickaxe Mountain
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Book Review & Summary
Calling of an Angel: The True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine Called Essiac (1988)
Dr. Gary L. Glum – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | October 17, 2026
On June 10, 1975, Dr. Chester Stock, a vice president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, wrote to a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse: “Enclosed are test data in two experiments indicating some regressions in sarcoma 180 of mice treated with Essiac.” The sentence sat in a letter from one of the world’s largest private cancer research centers, concerning an herbal tea an elderly English woman had learned from an Ojibwa medicine man at a northern Ontario mining camp in the 1890s. The tests were terminated the following year after Sloan-Kettering admitted, in sworn affidavit three years later, that they had prepared the injectable solution improperly from the dried material supplied — freezing and thawing the herb rather than boiling it as Rene had instructed. By the time Calling of an Angel was published in 1988, Rene Caisse had been dead for a decade, having treated thousands of cancer patients across fifty-six years in her Bracebridge, Ontario kitchen, never charging a fee, and refusing every offer — from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the National Cancer Institute, Merck, Parke Davis, and private corporations dangling contracts up to $1 million — to release her formula before the medical establishment admitted her remedy had merit. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trump asks Iran not to retaliate after he strikes Pickaxe Mountain – w/ Prof. Marandi
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- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
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