Credentials
I hadn’t planned to begin my questioning with credentials, but ABC did identify Albright as a “former U.N. weapons inspector” and Scott Ritter, who was a former chief U.N. weapons inspector, had written a piece that directly questioned that. In “The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was,” Ritter wrote: “David Albright is not a former U.N. weapons inspector, but rather an accidental tourist. To call oneself a weapons inspector suggests that one participated in the totality of the inspection process, and as such can converse readily, based on firsthand experience, about the total spectrum of issues that entails. Albright, based on his flimsy résumé in this regard, is not capable of such, and therefore should stop referring to himself in this manner, and encourage the media to do the same. Likewise, all reference to Albright as ‘Dr. Albright’ should be eliminated. …
“Had Albright in fact been a true nuclear expert, especially one fortified with firsthand experience as a former U.N. weapons inspector, he would not have had any association with Khidir Hamza, the disgraced Iraqi defector who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program. A true nuclear expert would have recognized the technical impossibilities and inconsistencies in Hamza’s fabrications. And a genuine former U.N. weapons inspector would have known that Hamza had been fingered as a fraud by the IAEA and UNSCOM. David Albright instead employed Hamza as an analyst with ISIS from 1997 until 1999.”
So I began my questioning:
Sam Husseini: You’re commonly, as you were on ABC News this morning, ID’d as a “former U.N. weapons inspector”. Scott Ritter wrote an article saying that that’s inaccurate, that you were kind of an adviser, a consultant, he said “accidental tourist” for a brief period in the mid-1990’s and were never invited back. Do you maintain that you are a former U.N. weapons inspector?
David Albright: I certainly do, and Scott Ritter is now in jail for sex crimes. And so I think you should be very careful about your facts. I certainly did work with, it’s called the IAEA Action Team, worked with them, with the head of it, for several years. Ritter wrote some slanderous lies, hate to put it that way, about me. He had to take many of them back. He didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. And what I did is very transparent, it can be learned on their website, and I’m surprised you didn’t read it.
SH: You maintain that you actually did inspections in Iraq?
Albright: That’s right. And more important, what I did is I assessed all kinds of documents — declarations, interviews — I was one of the only people, if not the only person, to go through thousands of pages of seized Iraqi documents in the early and mid-90’s, about their calutron [check] program. And so I think what you’re raising, is just more kind of nonsense that Ritter’s perpetuated, and here’s a guy who molested teenage girls, convicted of that, sentenced to what is it, five years in jail? And you’re using him as your source? You should be ashamed of yourself.
SH: I’m asking you a question, it’s a factual question.
Albright: No you’re not. You’re not asking a question, you’re perpetuating lies by Scott Ritter.
Besides Ritter’s personal life being irrelevant to his assertions about Iraqi WMDs and Albright’s credentials, Albright misrepresents the case. Ritter was not convicted for “molesting teenage girls,” he was convicted of “illegally contacting what appeared to be a 15-year-old girl in an online adult chat room and then exposing himself on a webcam” i.e., he was not convicted for any physical contact.
Current Iran Claims
The main reason for my choosing to question Albright this week however was that he was featured in a Nov. 6 Washington Post piece “IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability” by Joby Warrick. This was addressed by Robert Parry, “An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?“: “The American public is about to be inundated with another flood of ‘expert analysis’ about a dangerous Middle Eastern country presumably hiding a secret nuclear weapons program that may require a military strike, although this time it is Iran, not Iraq.
“In the near future, you will be seeing more satellite photos of non-descript buildings that experts will say are housing elements of a nuclear bomb factory. There will be more diagrams of supposed nuclear devices. Some of the same talking heads will reappear to interpret this new “evidence.”
“You might even recognize some of those familiar faces from the more innocent days of 2002-2003 when they explained, with unnerving confidence, how Iraq’s Saddam Hussein surely had chemical and biological weapons and likely a nuclear weapons program, too.
“For instance, back then, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright was all over the news channels, reinforcing the alarmist claims about Iraq’s WMD that were coming from President George W. Bush and his neocon-dominated administration.
“Today, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is issuing a flurry of alarmist reports about Iran’s nuclear bomb progress, often accompanied by the same kind of satellite photos and diagrams that helped persuade many Americans that Iraq must possess unconventional weapons that turned out to be fictitious.
“For instance, in the run-up to war in Iraq, Albright co-authored a Sept. 10, 2002, article entitled ‘Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?’ which declared, ‘High-resolution commercial satellite imagery shows an apparently operational facility at the site of Iraq’s al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility (Unit-340), located in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border. This site was where Iraq extracted uranium for its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. …
“‘This image raises questions about whether Iraq has rebuilt a uranium extraction facility at the site, possibly even underground. … Unless inspectors go to the site and investigate all activities, the international community cannot exclude the possibility that Iraq is secretly producing a stockpile of uranium in violation of its commitments under Security Council resolutions. The uranium could be used in a clandestine nuclear weapons effort.’”
Additionally, Gareth Porter wrote the piece “IAEA’s “Soviet Nuclear Scientist” Never Worked on Weapons,” which stated: “The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.
“But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report (PDF) but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.
“In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm.
“It now appears that the IAEA and David Albright, the director of the International Institute for Science and Security in Washington, who was the source of the news reports about Danilenko, never bothered to check the accuracy of the original claim by an unnamed ‘Member State’ on which the IAEA based its assertion about his nuclear weapons background.” So I asked Albright:
SH: Did you do any checking on [Vyacheslav] Danilenko biography before passing on the allegation from an unnamed state that he was a quote “former Soviet nuclear scientist?”
Albright: Yes, of course we did. And I know his work pretty well.
SH: What did you find?
Albright: Well I found he was a member of the Soviet nuclear weapons complex at Chelyabinsk-70. And we knew he went into producing nanodiamonds, he worked in the early 60s in the nuclear weapons program and he has an incredible amount of information about how you build a nuclear weapon. And more than one state, in fact the IAEA has said that they think he’s part or — he contributed — to Iran’s effort to build a nuclear explosive device, in particular to diagnose a multi-point initiation system.
SH: So you’re saying that you knew prior to identifying him as a Soviet nuclear scientist that he was actually a nanodiamond expert?
Albright: He’s also a nanodiamond. He has a tremendous amount of knowledge about building nuclear weapons. He’s an ex nuclear weapons expert who went and worked in Iran. Of course he does other things. He left the business of nuclear weapons in about 1990. Now the issue with him is he was recruited and signed a contract with the head of the physics research center which was running the secret nuclear sector for Iran.
I sent my exchange with Albright to Porter, who wrote back to me: “Albright doesn’t offer any offer any evidence that he did any investigation at all. He simply reiterates as a fact the assertion made by the IAEA on the say-so of a member state. He claims that Danilenko was working on nuclear weapons from the beginning, but the only fact that he can cite is that Danilenko was working at the Soviet Institute at Chelyabinsk which was known to produce nuclear weapons. He doesn’t deal with the fact that Danilenko was involved in extremely technical pioneering work in nanodiamonds from the very beginning, and that he had a string of technical publications about them. He is suggesting, by inference, that he had a secret all that time, but clearly neither he nor the IAEA nor the member state have anything on which to base that fantasy. The fact is that by the time, Danilenko left the Institute at Chelyanbinsk in 1989, half the work force there was working on non-military research, according to the Nuclear Threat Institute. So Albright is simply using his imagination in claiming that that Danilenko worked on weapons — that’s all he’s got.”
I also sent the exchange to Muhammad Sahimi who recently wrote the piece “The IAEA Report on Iran’s Nuclear Program: Alarming or Hyped?” He wrote back: “This is an excellent interview and you really pushed Albright. But Albright never concedes anything, least of all his errors, and the fact that, in my opinion, he has an anti-Iran agenda. Several years ago he and his ISIS made a big deal about the Parchin facility. After the IAEA visited there and found nothing, he and his institution never retracted anything. He consistently refers to ‘Iran’s nuclear weapon program,’ whereas even the IAEA does not say that Iran has one, but that some studies might be relevant. He never ever took a public position on the so-called laptop, because he reportedly believed that it was fake, but did not want to say it publicly. After one nuclear test by North Korea, he outrageously insinuated that, “I heard Iranians were there,” meaning what? I can just go on and on with this.”
The day after my exchange with Albright, he was quoted in another piece in the Washington Post, “Russian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko’s aid to Iran offers peek at nuclear program,” also by Warrick, that tried to portray Danilenko’s nanodiamond expertise as a sort of cover, referring to “his diamond-making scheme.” The piece states that Danilenko had contacts with Iranian scientists until 2002, so how was he suppose to help them make advances that have not been detected until now?
Albright’s Record
SH: In terms of credibility and so on, you made a number of allegations around Iraq in 2002-2003 for example quote “in terms of chemical and biological weapons Iraq has them now.” [See "The Great WMD Hunt"] That was in October 2002. Shouldn’t you be scrutinized for your record, sir?
Albright: I have been, I have been. But we were the lead group to point out the aluminum tubes probably are not for centrifuges at a time when no one else was willing to do, including your colleagues, were not willing to stand up and say ‘look, what the Bush administration is saying about the nuclear program is not correct.’ And we are nuclear experts. I’ve certainly been criticized about making comments on biological and chemical but I’ve certainly made it clear — two things — one is: we were critical. Later on I stood up to Lou Dobbs on chemical weapons on CNN. I also by the time of this war we felt that the chemical and biological weapons case was extremely weak. But more importantly, we’re nuclear experts and that’s where we put our effort and you won’t find any other group that was willing to do as much as we did to challenge Bush administration in September and October [2002] when it counted. There were many who came forth later but it didn’t count nearly as much then.
SH: What you’re saying is inaccurate, sir. Scott Ritter was saying Iraq was qualitatively disarmed during that period. You were making allegations during that period, including about nuclear weapons. That’s a factual thing —
Albright: — Scott Ritter was seen as working for Iraq. Scott Ritter had no credibility.
SH: That’s a factual thing. Whatever his personal life is —
Albright: — Scott Ritter —
SH: — has nothing to do with WMDs —
Albright: Scott Ritter in 1998 said Iran [sic: Iraq?] had all the components for three nuclear weapons. Except for —
SH: — I’m talking about this specific period. [2002- 2003]
Albright: I don’t care, you’re going to listen. Scott Ritter said in 1998 – he testified in Congress — all components for three nuclear weapons, minus the fissile material. We opposed that because we thought it was nonsense. Scott Ritter had a conversion but his analysis was poor in the 90s on nuclear, his analysis was empty in the early 2000s if you look at the content. We suspect that perhaps he got paid, got money from the Iraqi government to tell —
SH: — to tell what turned out to be the truth, unlike what you said in 2002.
Albright: Well. What we said was the truth.
SH: That’s not true. If you look at the record in 2002 you were making allegations, including about nuclear. [Such as the "Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?" piece cited by Parry, above.]
Albright: Tell me what I said about the aluminum tubes.
SH: I’m not talking about aluminum tubes. I’m talking about general, general Iraq allegations on nuclear.
Albright: Well, well, that’s our expertise. Talk to me about what we knew about nuclear. We’re a nuclear group.
SH: That’s right and you made allegations in term of nuclear —
Albright: Tell me what we knew about nuclear — I could have made a mistake on chemical and biological but we’re a nuclear group.
An obvious issue here, is if they are a nuclear group, why were they — and why was Albright — making statements on chemical and biological weapons other than to generally back up the Bush administration in 2002-2003?
SH: Are you claiming you didn’t make any allegations, positive allegations, in terms of nuclear weapons in 2002?
Albright: I saying you’re distorting my record, and you are not giving me a chance to —
SH: I’m saying I’ve read items in that regard. I want to ask you this: looking at your record and your web page you’ve done a minimal amount of work on Israel — I believe 3 items in the last decade — in contrast in the last year there are 36 reports on Iran. So if you don’t have a bomb, have signed the NPT and grant IAEA access to your facilities, you get targeted by ISIS.
Albright: What you are saying is simply not true.
SH: — But If you have an undeclared nuclear arsenal, won’t sign the NPT and won’t allow inspectors, you get a pass. Is that what you do?
Albright: What you are saying is simply untrue. We’ve looked at Israel’s program. I’ve looked at it for 30 years.
SH: What’s your estimate?
Albright: Well, it depends on the year. The most recent, that we haven’t published yet but we’ve done is that they have well enough for well over 100 nuclear weapons. So what you’re saying is just wrong — it again reflects a highly incomplete biased —
SH: Am I counting your reports wrong? You haven’t done 36 reports [on Iran]?
Albright: It’s irrelevant to the number of reports. It’s irrelevant. In fact, tell me why does it matter how many reports we’ve written if we write about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, and if it doesn’t change much. Why would you think we would write — Iran is a very different situation.
SH: Are you saying that the US government will not acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons program?
Albright: Well, they certainly do, indirectly. So what does that have to do with me?
SH: Barack Obama was asked directly about this and he said he didn’t want to speculate at his first news conference. Are you aware of that or not?
Albright: We think Israel has a nuclear weapons program.
SH: Are you aware of that stance of the US government?
Albright: We are aware that Iran [sic: Israel?] has a nuclear weapon.
SH: So you don’t care what the stance of the U.S. government is.
Albright: Well, we challenge it.
SH: How do you challenge it?
Albright: We say that Israel has nuclear weapons.
SH: — Three times in the last decade —
Albright: And if you look at our website, you’ll also find that we’ve worked very actively for a fissile material cutoff treaty in the Middle East – and have engaged with the Israelis and the Egyptians on getting a fissile material cut off to stop the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. But again, you don’t look at the record. You come up with these biased accusations that you read in the media. You don’t even do your own research. It’s clear you don’t know what is on our website. You parrot a bunch of garbage from people —
If you go to ISIS’s webpage and click under Israel, you see the following for the last ten years: “Israel: ISIS Reports: 2010: Case Study – ‘U.S. Company Faces Penalties for Alleged Nuclear Export Attempts to India, Israel; ‘Israeli Military Stocks of Fissile Material As of Late 2003′ June 30, 2005; 2004 ‘ISIS Estimates of Unirradiated Fissile Material in De Facto Nuclear Weapon States’ April 1, 2004″
In contrast, for Iran, for 2011 alone you see the following pieces: “Iran’s Work and Foreign Assistance on a Multipoint Initiation System for a Nuclear Weapon; ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report: Part 1 IAEA Details Evidence of Nuclear Weaponization Activities in Violation of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty; Enrichment at Natanz Continues to Stagnate; Three Cascades of IR-1 Centrifuges Installed at Fordow, Low Enriched Uranium Cylinder Moved to Fordow; Iran Nuclear Issue – Considerations for a Negotiated Outcome; Debunking Gregory Jones Again; Iran’s Advanced Centrifuges; Performance of the IR-1 Centrifuge at Natanz; New Satellite Imagery of Iranian Nuclear Sites on Google Earth; Ahmadinejad Reiterates Willingness to Halt 20 Percent Enrichment; Determining the purpose of Iran’s growing stock of 19.75 percent enriched uranium : Production should be capped; Natanz Enrichment Site: Boondoggle or Part of an Atomic Bomb Production Complex?; Critique of a Recent Breakout Estimate at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP); Ahmadinejad and Abbasi-Davani at Odds on Enrichment Claims; ISIS Analysis of the IAEA Iran Safeguards Report from September 2, 2011; ISIS Analysis Part II: Iran’s Critique of May 24, 2011 IAEA Safeguards Report: More Obfuscation; Abbasi-Davani Interview on Iran’s 20 Percent Enrichment; Two Recent Media Reports to Note on Iran’s Nuclear Program; Iran Moving Centrifuges to Fordow; Iran’s Critique of May 24, 2011 IAEA Safeguards Report: Arguments Not Based on Facts; ISIS Analysis of Russian Proposal: Ask Iran to Come Clean on Nuclear Weaponization Before Removing Sanctions; Iran Confirms Installation of Advanced Centrifuges; Iran Reportedly Installing Advanced Centrifuges; Iran to IAEA: Drop Nuclear Weaponization Investigation; Case Study – IRISL and Affiliates Indicted on Financial Conspiracy Charges; Will Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani lead Iran to nuclear weapons? (Rev. 1); Ahmadinejad Announcement Laying Groundwork for Official Policy of Nuclear Ambiguity?; Iran Signals Continued Delay in Ratifying Nuclear Safety Pact: Is the Bushehr Power Reactor Safe?; UN Report Cites 2 Unreported Long-Range Iranian Missile Launches; IAEA Worried about Ongoing Military Nuclear Work in Iran; Moving 20 Percent Enrichment to Fordow: Slow Motion Breakout Continues?; Time for Iran to Come Clean and Cooperate With the IAEA; ISIS Analysis of May 24, 2011 IAEA Safeguards Report on Iran (Revised May 25); Yadegari Appeal Denied by Canadian Court; IAEA Iran Safeguards Report: Expansion of Natanz Enrichment Plant Lags (Rev. 1) ; LEU Production Not as High as Expected; Iran Readying Advanced Centrifuges for Deployment?; Stuxnet Malware and Natanz: Update of ISIS December 22, 2010 Report; Case Study – A Smuggler’s Use of the U.S. Financial System to Receive Illegal Payments from Iran Updated February 11, 2011″
SH: So you didn’t do 36 reports [on Iran] and you did more than three items on Israel?
Albright: I’ve certainly done more. I you look at the stuff —
SH: I mean, you vilify with these accusations but you actually haven’t taken issue with any statement that I’ve actually made.
Albright: Of course I did.
SH: Did you or did you not do 36 reports on Iran in the last year and barely anything on Israel?
Albright: You’ve lied — What you are saying is completely inaccurate. It’s completely inaccurate.
SH: What point is inaccurate, sir?
Albright: Oh, that we somehow downplay Israel’s nuclear weapons program. We don’t at all.
SH: So you’ve done more than three —
Albright: Well —
SH: When was the last report you did on Israel’s nuclear weapons program?
Albright: Well, one is on how much plutonium they have for nuclear weapons.
SH: When? When?
Albright: Which will be published soon.
SH: Oh, it will be published soon.
Albright: We did it for the United States Institute for Peace. It’ll be published in their book.
SH: It will be published soon. Great. We’ll look forward to it. Have a good day.
I’ve asked several politicians if they acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal, see: “The Absurd U.S. Stance on Israel’s Nukes: A Video Sampling of Denial.”
After leaving the podium, Albright came toward me, asking me for my name and affiliations and started talking about going to ABC about “letting me in” to ask questions. He specifically said: “I’m going to come after you.” After I wrote that down he said “legally” he would come after me if I “distorted” what he’d said. He called me a liar, but couldn’t point to anything I’d said that was false. I responded by saying that it’s a shame that being subjected to serious questioning was apparently such a novel experience for him. He then claimed to be anti-war in some way, especially citing his work in the late 90s. I said there were lots of times that the establishment doesn’t want war — they pick war at “a time and place of our choosing” (quoting Madeline Albright and other U.S. officials). Lots of people have obviously been unhappy with questions I’ve asked them, none have ever reacted in such a hostile, threatening manner.
Chris Belcher, my cameraman, emailed me this: “I recall, while waiting [for the stakeout to start], admiring all of the quotes on the wall celebrating the First Amendment and its crucial importance to an open society. After Albright walked away from the podium, I did my best to de-escalate the situation by dismantling the equipment, seeing that he wanted to talk to Sam directly and off camera. When I heard what he was saying, I began to regret having turned off the camera, as Albright engaged in ad hominem attacks, calling Sam ‘crazy’ and a ‘liar,’ and demanded to know how he had been allowed in. He also threatened Sam, saying he would either ‘get’ him or ‘go after’ him, I don’t remember the exact words. His reaction seemed hugely inappropriate, given the setting in a museum devoted to freedom of the press [the Newseum].”
— Sam Husseini
Special thanks to Raymond McGovern, Robert Naiman, Matthew Bradley, Sam McCann, Kristopher Irizarry-Hoeksema and Jonathan Schwarz.
[originally published on Washington Stakeout on Nov. 15, 2011; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]