Obama Selling out the Brits' Nuclear Secrets?

That's the conclusion drawn from the latest Wikileaks releases, at least on countless right wing blogs and a few newspapers including the UK Daily Telegraph and New York Daily News.

google {wikileaks  trident start treaty} gets 33,000+ hits though the story only broke today, and I can find almost nothing among these hits but blog posts and a few newspaper stories that take for granted that a terrible betrayal has occurred.

The key allegation is that the U.S. in Start negotions with Russia promised to provide the serial number of every Trident missile the US provides to Britain.

I've had a hard time tracking down any actual source documents but here, perhaps is the source of that key assertion:



URL:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/london-wikileaks/8305116/GENEVA-AGREED-STATEMENTS-MEETING.html
 13. (S) The second was an agreed statement on the transfer of Tridents II SLBMs to the United Kingdom. Begin text: Document of the Russian side February 9, 2010 Agreed Statement On the movement of SLBM "Trident-II" missiles, transferred by the US to equip the Navy of Great Britain The Parties agree that, in order to increase transparency in relation to the use of "Trident-II" SLBMs, transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America shall provide notification to the Russian Federation about the time of such transfer, as well as the unique identifier and the location of each of the transferred missiles. The Parties agree that, upon conclusion of the life cycle of "Trident-II" SLBMs transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America will send notification to the Russian Federation about the time and method of elimination, as well as the unique identifier for each of the transferred missiles.

To me this sounds like not revealing British secrets but promising information on future actions by the U.S. Government.  Read carefully: "upon conclusion of the life cycle of "Trident-II" SLBMs transferred by the United States of America to equip the Navy of Great Britain, the United States of America will send notification to the Russian Federation about the time and method of elimination, as well as the unique identifier for each of the transferred missiles."

It is also claimed in the Telegraph and elsewhere that the US requested UK permission to share information of the UK's nuclear program and were refused.  They then clearly imply that we did what the UK refused to authorize.  For them to make this claim, I would assume there is some cable or cables in which the US requested permission to share something about the UK's capabilities and they said no.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is no relation whatsoever between whatever the UK asked us not to share, and any info about missiles we might give to the UK at some time time in the future.  It sounds as though they are at the moment our nukes.  And no nuclear treaty could fail to address future plans by either the US or Russia to transfer nuclear weapons to other nations.

If there really was the huge betrayal implied by the Telegraph and other sources, I would expect at the least to hear some statement of disapproval by the Conservative British Prime Minister.

Come Monday (it is Saturday, the first and possibly only day on which this story is being actively circulated), if nobody in any responsible US news source is talking about this, I expect a high proportion of the millions who read these blog stories will conclude it is just the usual coverup by the "MSM" of anything damaging to the liberal cause.

If you doubt this, I hope somebody will take a poll to see how many Americans still believe the Obama admin spent $200 million a day on the recent India trip.  I knew someone who was steaming over this (which broke conveniently just before the November election) and pointed out that was hundreds of thousands per day per member of the delegation.  Apparently some minor Indian official said something he may well have believed, and that was the whole source of the non-story.  What, you never heard of this?  It was being peddled by Michelle Bachmann among others.

Again, how many people still believe it?  It think it is a question well worth answering and not too challenging for a polling organization operating on more than a shoestring.

This is like many stories I've written about in the past:  Millions of people end up believing them, while the "MSM" by ignoring them or being unaware of them is made to look (to these millions of people) like they are the dishonest ones and it doubly feeds the paranoia of a growing segment of the population.