One of the competing narratives being pushed by the Bush Administration on the HDX/RDX story is the “jilted Mohamed” hypothesis.
“Bush administration officials suspect political motivation behind a letter focused on the disappearance of 377 tons of explosives sent yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Security Council,” the reliably Republican New York Sun reported. The Sun notes the letter appeared “a week after Mr. ElBaradei announced that he would seek another term as the director general of IAEA, despite American opposition.”
“The timing of this seems puzzling,” Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission, intimated to the Sun.
The Bush Administration has been moving to forestall a third ElBaradei Directorship-General since the lead-up to the Iraq clusterf*ck. The Administration’s hostility to ElBaradei is recounted by Hans Blix in Chapter 10 of Disarming Iraq, appropriately titled “Bashing Blix and ElBaradei.”]
Ah, taking the high road, again.
The Sun also trots out this line: “Senator Kerry’s aides told Reuters recently that they, too, would like to see Mr. ElBaradei replaced, but they would be sensitive to the ruffled feelings in the Arab world and other ‘political consequences’.”
Huh? Here is the source paragraph
The Massachusetts Democrat has not evolved positions on such issues as the IAEA director-general appointment, campaign sources say. But a Democratic insider told Reuters that, while some Kerry advisers may like to see ElBaradei replaced, ‘We’d have to look at the political consequences.”
Not even close.
