Eli Lake and Sara Carter report for the Washington Times:
The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities.
The document, which was removed from the Web on Tuesday, is a draft declaration of facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, required under agreements that the United States signed in 2004. It is considered highly sensitive though technically not classified.
The vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, said the disclosure revealed "a virtual treasure map for terrorists."
The New York Times reports that "the information, considered confidential but not classified, was assembled for transmission later this year to the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of a process by which the United States is opening itself up to stricter inspections in hopes that foreign countries, especially Iran and others believed to be clandestinely developing nuclear arms, will do likewise." So the Obama administration is leading by example, exposing information about sensitive nuclear facilities to international agencies, and the public, in the hope that the Iranians will be stupid enough to do the same.
The Times also publishes specific details about the location of the largest stockpile of highly enriched uranium in the country, because when the Times has information that puts American lives at risk, you can be sure they're going to print it. But they assure their readers not to be overly concerned about the release of the documents:
Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, called the document harmless. "It's a better listing than anything I've seen" of the nation's civilian nuclear complex, Mr. Cochran said. "But it's no national-security breach. It confirms what's already out there and adds a bit more information."
Never heard of "the private group that tracks atomic arsenals" called the Natural Resources Defense Council? Perhaps you're accustomed to hearing it described by the same paper as "one of the nation's most powerful environmental groups" or "one of the country's most influential environmental groups." The first line of Cochran's bio at the NRDC website describes him as "a nuclear physicist and an environmentalist." The Times might as well describe Greenpeace as a Pentagon think-tank.
