Who's responsible for nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri's death? Not just Hillary
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton went on Fox News over the weekend, and blasted Hillary Clinton for endangering the life of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who was hung over the weekend.
Let's go to the videotape.
While there's no doubt that Clinton mishandled the Amiri case, the real question is why Amiri was brought to the US without his wife and child in the first place. This is from a post I did in 2010.
Finally, for those who wonder - as I do - why the CIA didn't just bring his family along.
One
of the mysteries about Amiri is why he decided to defect without his
young wife and child, leaving them -- and himself -- vulnerable to
Iranian pressure. The CIA often tries to arrange for the escape of a
defector’s family, to avoid just this sort of squeeze.
“The
choice to come to this country, and who he brought with him, were his,”
said a U.S. official who is familiar with the details of Amiri’s case.
I would guess that Amiri's wife refused to defect. As my mother-in-law
often reminds me, whom you marry is the most important decision you make
in life.
Amiri should never have been brought to the US without his family unless everyone was sure that he wished to abandon them, which was clearly not the case. That's what Bolton discusses around the 4:30 mark. Who's responsible for that? Certainly, Obama is responsible, as is the CIA and its director Leon Panetta (later Secretary of Defense), who ran the CIA from 2009-11.
But Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State at the time, also bears some responsibility for what happened, and she may have been the one who disclosed to the Iranians just what Amiri had done.
And you want to make her President and keep her party in power?
Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her
private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran
for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday.
"I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have done
for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary
Clinton's private server, there were conversations among her senior
advisors about this gentleman," he said on "Face the Nation." Cotton was
speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about
Iran's nuclear program.
The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.
"That goes to show just how reckless and careless her decision
was to put that kind of highly classified information on a private
server. And I think her judgment is not suited to keep this country
safe," he said.
...
It would appear possible that discussion on an unclassified — and quite
possibly hacked — email system about a person who was hanged as a spy
will have a chilling effect on others who might want to engage in
espionage for the United States.
...
"We have a diplomatic, 'psychological' issue, not a legal one. Our
friend has to be given a way out," the email by Richard Morningstar, a
former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy, read,
according to the Associated Press. "Our person won't be able to do
anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it."
But don't expect that to keep the media from going all out for Clinton....
Iranian nuclear scientist who defected to US and returned is executed
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Nearly seven years ago, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiridefected to the United States. Once his presence in the United States was confirmed, Amiri's family in Iran was threatened, leading to his return to his home country. Amiri was promptly arrested and tortured, and then charged with treason. This evening, the BBC is reporting that Amiri was executed. He was 39.
Shahram Amiri's mother said the body of her son had been returned to
their hometown with rope marks around his neck, showing that he had been
hanged.
He was later buried. Amiri had been held at a secret
location after returning from the US, where he said he had been forcibly
taken by the CIA.
Some reports say he had in-depth knowledge of Iran's nuclear programme.
Mr Amiri, who was born in 1977, went missing after taking a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2009.
He
surfaced in the US a year later saying he had been kidnapped and put
under "intense psychological pressure to reveal sensitive information"
by the CIA.
In a video recording - apparently made in the US - he
said: "They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn't know.
They gave me an anaesthetic injection."
In another video he claimed he had escaped from US custody. He returned to Tehran in 2010 to a hero's welcome.
US
officials told the BBC at the time that Mr Amiri had defected of his
own free will and provided "useful information" to the US.
He was later reported to have been given a long prison sentence after his return to Tehran.
His family confirmed at the time that he had been detained and told the BBC that they feared for his life.
Something tells me that Amiri's widow got part of that $400 million in cash that Obama gave to the Iranians. I've suspected all along that she was the reason for his return to Iran. And you will note that none of the more recent reports about him even mention her trying to see him - only his parents. Nice woman, eh?
Iran claims to have caught more 'assassins' but where is Shahram Amiri?
Iran claims to have broken up another ring of 'assassins' that was killing its nuclear scientists, according to reports in the Iranian media.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that the suspects were responsible for the killing of Majid Shahriari, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan and Reza Qashqaei - all scientists allegedly working on Tehran's contentious nuclear program.
Iran alleged that western spy agencies responsible for carrying out the nuclear assassinations collaborated with People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK,) an exiled Iranian organization dedicated to overthrowing the ruling regime and replacing it with a democratic, secular government.
Following the arrests, Iran announced its commitment to continue with its efforts to bring to justice the "terrorists" who "martyred the young scientists in cold-blooded murder," IRNA reported.
[Iran] provided no details as to the number of suspects, their identities or nationalities, or when or where they were arrested. But it promised further information would be made public once it was declassified.
Right.... I was just thinking about another Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri. When we last heard from him, Amiri, who defected from and subsequently returned to Iran, had been arrested, charged with treason and was facing the death penalty. This Iranian blog reported two weeks ago that Amiri was sentenced to ten years in jail and five years in exile. If he lives through his sentence, he'll be a lucky man.
Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri returned to Iran in July 2010 after defecting to the United States. In January, I reported that he had been tortured. Now comes word that he has been imprisoned and charged with treason and could face the death penalty.
Shahram Amiri, who returned to Iran in July after apparently defecting to the US, is under investigation for divulging secrets about Iran's clandestine uranium-enrichment program, The Times has learnt.
Sources inside Iran have confirmed Mr Amiri's arrest. If convicted of treason, he will almost certainly be executed.
...
The physicist vanished during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009. He had worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, closely connected with the Revolutionary Guard and a centre for nuclear research.
US media reported he had defected in a long-planned CIA operation. Tehran accused Saudi intelligence of kidnapping Mr Amiri and handing him to the Americans. The CIA declined to comment. The operation blundered when US intelligence failed to extract Mr Amiri's wife and son to join him.
I was among the group of journalists gathered outside the Iranian interests section on Washington's Wisconsin Avenue last July as Amiri was inside preparing the paperwork he needed to return to Iran. Inside the mini embassy, Amiri also gave telephone interviews to Iranian state television insisting he had been kidnapped and taken to the United States against his will. Amiri, who was reported to have been relocated to Tucson, Arizona after his 2009 defection, had however conducted another interview with a station connected to Iran's Press TV the day before at a U.S. safe house in Virginia, and apparently been dropped off at the Iran interests section at his request by U.S. officials.
"Amiri made his own decisions," a U.S. official told me last July on condition of anonymity. "He chose of his own accord to come to the United States and to leave the United States."
"He provided useful information on the Iranian nuclear program," the official continued. "Now Iran has to manage him. You be the judge as to who got the better end of the deal."
Sorry but if the reason his wife and child didn't join him in the US (one of the big mysteries in this case) was that the CIA messed up the operation (as the first link implies), I don't think any "U.S. official" has any place saying "he made his choices."
It was just Saturday that I asked how Shahram Amiri is doing. Amiri, as you may recall, is an Iranian nuclear scientist who defected to the United States and then decided to return to Iran. The answer was not long in coming and it's not surprising: Amiri has been and is being tortured.
An Iranian nuclear scientist who said he had been abducted by the C.I.A. has been imprisoned and tortured since his return to Iran in July, an opposition Web site reported Monday. The scientist, Shahram Amiri, spent the past two months in solitary confinement in a military prison and was hospitalized at least once because of physical and psychological pressure, according to the report on IranBriefing.net. Before his imprisonment, Mr. Amiri was subjected to three months of intensive interrogation, the report said. The report could not be verified, and much that has been reported about Mr. Amiri’s case has been confusing and contradictory. American officials said Mr. Amiri was a C.I.A. informer who voluntarily defected to the United States in 2009. When he returned to Iran, he said he had been abducted and tortured by the Americans, and Iran said he was a double-agent sent to spy on the C.I.A.
Iran asks UN to investigate Ali Reza Asghari disappearance
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
I'm sure many of you remember the story of Ali Reza Asghari, which burst back into the news a couple of weeks ago. Continuing to blame Israel for the former Deputy Defense Minister's disappearance, Iran is now asking the United Nations to investigate.
Ali-Reza Asgari, a former deputy defense minister, mysteriously disappeared in Turkey in 2007. He was believed to have been abducted and transferred to Israel.
A Ynet report on Tuesday stated that a prisoner had committed suicide in solitary confinement in Israel's Ayalon prison.
The Eurasia Review website claimed that a source within the “inner circle” of the Israeli Defense Ministry had identified the prisoner as Asgari and that his death could have been murder and not suicide.
“Publication of such reports strengthens suspicions over the abduction of aforementioned individual [Asgari] by the Zionist regime [of Israel],” Salehi said in a message to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday.
Salehi said Israel must therefore be held accountable for the health and safety of the former Iranian deputy defense minister, a Foreign Ministry statement added.
Asgari's abduction has taken place “against all recognized principles of international law and is an explicit example of the Zionist regime's state terrorism,” the Iranian official said.
The matter calls for proper reaction from the international community especially from institutions responsible for maintaining international peace and security, Salehi added.
Hmmm. By the way, how is Shahram Amiri doing? We haven't heard from him for a while.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
