The Amiri Puzzle: Not your Father’s CIA, Coming Out of the Closet, yet Again……………
“The Iranian scientist who American officials say defected to the United States, only to return to Tehran on Thursday, had been an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency inside Iran for several years, providing information about the country’s nuclear program, according to United States officials……. This account by the Americans, some of whom are apparently trying to discredit Mr. Amiri’s tale of having been kidnapped by the C.I.A., provides the latest twist in one of strangest tales of the nuclear era. It also provides the first hint of how the United States acquired intelligence from Iranian scientists, besides its previously reported penetrations of Iranian computer systems……After more than a year of denying any knowledge of Mr. Amiri while he was living undercover in Tucson and then briefly in Virginia, American officials in recent days have been surprisingly willing to describe their actions in the case. That may be in part to fend off charges that the handling of the Amiri case was badly bungled……..”
If he were in fact a CIA agent inside Iran for years, would he really go back now? Somehow this scenario is not convincing: it can be true, but it stretches credulity. As I wrote yesterday, this is more complex than it seems. Anonymous US “officials” are leaking out “information” bit by bit about this case, but that may be just a reaction to what Mr. Amiri is saying in Tehran. This definitely is not your father’s quiet CIA.
Amiri claims that American and Saudi intelligence agents kidnapped him outside his hotel in Saudi Arabia and flew him out on a military plane. He also claims that Israeli agents were present during his long interrogation. No doubt American and Saudi agents were involved, since he was kidnapped or defected, whichever, while inside Saudi Arabia. He also claims that he is not a nuclear scientist, although he is a professor at a university, but that is okay: Alan Dershowitz is also a professor and he ain’t no nuclear scientist either.
One thing would be interesting to watch: how Mr. Amiri does inside Iran in the coming months. The Iranians may want Americans to believe that he was a double agent for them. Or maybe he was actually a double agent. The Americans may want the Iranians to believe that he was their agent, or maybe they want the Iranians to believe that they are pretending he was their agent. Or maybe the Iranians want Fox News to believe that he was not really their agent, that they are just pretending, or maybe it is the other way around. Or maybe Ajman wants everybody else to……sorry, wrong story here…..
I hope I made things a little bit clearer.
Cheers
mhg
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