To many, the BBC stands as the gold standard in journalism: It has lots of resources, bright correspondents, able producers and a great web site. There is just one problem. It is missing the one element—more important than money, expensive technology and all the rest—necessary to do great journalism. It lacks the intestinal fortitude to broadcast stories important to its country that might get its government, and in particular its national security apparatus, in trouble. That is the Beeb’s great weakness. It is funded by the British people through the government. So when a story, no matter how important, proves too embarrassing for its paymasters, BBC management takes notice.
In journalism school the mantra is “without fear or favor.” It’s not a slogan they adhere to at the BBC. A case in point is that of Atif Amin, a British Customs agent who, in doing his job, tried to shut down the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network only to be blocked by U.S. and British intelligence. When the story of Amin’s curtailed investigation got out recently, the British government lashed out and tried to discredit him. The BBC took a powder, refusing to touch the story. Its sister service, BBC America, has also studiously ignored the story.
On December 5, British authorities raided Amin’s house ostensibly searching for evidence that he had provided information about his investigation of the Khan network to myself and my colleague, David Armstrong, for our book America and The Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise. The justification given by authorities in obtaining their search warrant against Amin was rubbish. The details of Amin’s investigation were known to intelligence organizations from Europe to the U.S. and we were able to piece together the story through a variety of sources. Amin’s great transgression was that when asked by reporters about the facts laid out in our book, he confirmed them. And as a patriotic Briton concerned for the present and future safety of his fellow countrymen, he spoke his mind about what he considered to be a perilous error in judgment on the part of MI6 and the CIA. He was removed from his job because the British government wanted to discredit him as a witness to its failure to deal intelligently and swiftly with A.Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling ring.
Succinctly stated, the story of Amin’s investigation, as told in our book, is that in April 2000 he uncovered evidence in Dubai of the Khan network supplying nuclear technology to Libya. When he informed MI6 of his findings, his investigation was halted. The only explanation he ever got was that he was “finding out too much.” The British Secret Service, in concert with our own CIA, allowed the smuggling gang to continue spreading its nuclear cancer to Iran, North Korea, Libya and others while the spooks stood by and watched. True, intelligence services like to give some line to the bad guys they’re fishing for so that they can discover what they’re up to and hopefully net more of them at the end of the day. Unlike Customs, their job is not law enforcement. But the CIA and MI6 let A.Q. Khan’s operatives run wild for another three years. When they finally did move to stop the network in the fall of 2003, a handful of people, at most, were placed under house arrest. Period. If Iran obtained the know-how to produce a functional nuclear warhead during that three-year grace period, shouldn’t the public know? And shouldn’t the policy makers who failed to act on what the spy organizations knew be held accountable for their gross negligence? The publicly released version of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear capability is absolutely mute on what occurred inside Iran between 2000 and 2003. The NIE claims Iran stopped its work on warhead design effort about the same time the Khan network was belatedly exposed. We also know that British authorities raided Atif Amin’s home and turned his life upside down less than two days after portions of the NIE were released to the public at the start of this month.
Amazingly, Amin’s personal ordeal—which in itself should raise questions about possible cover-ups and abuse of power as well as the larger issue of how emblematic his short-circuited investigation might be of an intelligence strategy that may have paved the way for Iran and North Korea to make substantial progress in their nuclear weapons programs between 2000 to 2003—are of no interest to the vaunted BBC. It isn’t that the BBC had to work hard to get the story. Copies of the warrant for the raid on Amin’s home along with other details of the situation’s possible significance were made available to Merion Jones, a BBC producer in London. But the BBC determined that the story did not merit its attention.
Contrast the Beeb’s cowardice with The Guardian’s handling of the matter. Guardian reporters Julian Borger and Ian Cobain reported details of the raid and how Amin was targeted by British authorities. They even mentioned that the government planned to turn to the draconian Official Secrets Act to discredit Amin. Were it not for the reporting of Borger and Cobain, the entire episode would be unknown to the British people.
Here in the United States, only Joby Warrick of the Washington Post reported on the raid.
The major U.S. television networks have not disregarded the story entirely. CBS, NBC and ABC just will not put it on the air. Before authorities lashed out at Amin, CBS producer Wendy Krantz did a piece for her network’s website that was introduced by Katie Couric. But Couric’s bosses did not feel the story of the U.S. and British governments’ delay in shutting down the most dangerous nuclear smuggling operation in history was worthy of an on-air piece. At NBC, producer Rich Greenburg and reporter Lisa Myers tried to get a story on the air and their bosses at the vice-presidential level of the network green lighted the idea, not once but twice. But an executive news producer killed the piece both times, we are told, based on the advice of network number crunchers who argued that nuclear proliferation did not fit into the female demographic the Nightly News is targeting. Instead a blog was posted by MSNBC that so mischaracterized Amin’s role that British authorities cited it as an excuse for their raid. Neither NBC or CBS have yet reported on the raid on air.
At ABC, reporter Brian Ross and his team repeatedly told us they were doing the story. They said it would be on World News Tonight and then on Nightline. They conducted interviews and began work. They shot in Pakistan near Khan’s home. They found his old business associate, Peter Griffin, living on an estate in France. First they were doing a story, showing, based on revelations in our book, how Khan’s associates were still operating in the United States. Then the story was to be done in Pakistan and Dubai, showing that almost none of the Khan network has been brought to justice. Months went by, yet ABC failed to air a story. After the British raided Amin’s home and ruined his life, Ross’s top producer, Rhonda Schwartz, offered to tell the tale on the ABC website. I told her to forget it. Either broadcast his story to the world or don’t bother.
And for those of you who wonder how Fox News fared in all of this, several producers and one correspondent there tried to tell this story. The correspondent told us it might not get by Brit Hume. I guess it didn’t.
Self censorship—be it the result of fear of the government as in the case of the BBC, or kowtowing to bean counters and demographers—has the same net result: The public does not get the story. The reason television news audiences are disappearing is that the public understands that the Edward R. Murrow approach to broadcasting—fearlessness without favor—has been relegated to the scrap heap of history by a generation of corporate suits worried more about their year-end bonuses than the public’s right to know.
Our book told the unpleasant truth. And for that, Atif Amin is paying the price. The least we can do now is to draw attention to his plight.
