We Did WHAT???

James Risen's book is going to have enough in it to keep us talking for months. According to this LA Times story, the CIA used a Russian defector to hand officials in Tehran designs for a nuclear bomb with an intentional flaw.

But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful for designing a bomb, writes New York Times reporter James Risen in "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration."

How do we think we're dealing with, Iran or Wile E. Coyote? Are you fucking serious? We handed a foreign country labeled as a terrorist state BOMB PLANS??? And what was the hidden flaw, by the way, did they add one part hydrogen somewhere?

We know that, as stupid as it sounds, that this is likely to be true for the simple reason that the New York Times wouldn't publish it:

Top New York Times officials also refused to publish a news article about the reported CIA plot to give intentionally flawed nuclear plans to Iran, according to a person briefed on the newspaper's conversations by one of the participants. That person said the New York Times withheld publication at the request of the White House and former CIA Director George J. Tenet.

Thanks again, fellas. No wonder Risen decided to write a book, every thing he uncovered was getting stonewalled by the editors.

The Keystone Kops story of this goes that the CIA was trying to counter Iran's burgeoning nuclear program. They hired the Russian defector to provide the Iranians with what were purported to be Russian nuclear weapons blueprints. They then sent this guy UNACCOMPANIED, where he promptly tipped off the Iranians to the flaw.

The only way a flaw like that could be so well hidden was if 99% of it was legitimate. So we end up giving a country ALREADY WORKING on the nuclear issue a near-perfect design for how to build the bomb. And their scientists are well-trained enough to pick out the information that would move their project forward.

If true, this has got to be one of the most colossally stupid ideas this government has ever hatched. If this was in "Syriana" you would never have believed it. It reminds me of some lame sitcom plot. Do we routinely play these kinds of games with national security? If so, our intelligence services are more broken that any of us think.

I'm sure this idea was met within the CIA as some kind of great "outside the box thinking." Of course, there is a reason for the box, after all. It's so you don't do anything THIS THUNDERINGLY STUPID.