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Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

(New York Times) David E. Sanger - From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities - begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games. The impetus for Olympic Games dates from 2006, when President George W. Bush saw few good options in dealing with Iran. The U.S. National Security Agency and a secret Israeli unit respected by American intelligence officials for its cyberskills developed the enormously complex computer worm. The unusually tight collaboration with Israel was driven by two imperatives. Israel's Unit 8200, a part of its military, had technical expertise that rivaled the NSA, and the Israelis had deep intelligence about operations at Natanz that would be vital to making the cyberattack a success. But American officials had another interest, to dissuade the Israelis from carrying out their own pre-emptive strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities. To do that, the Israelis would have to be convinced that the new line of attack was working. The only way to convince them was to have them deeply involved in every aspect of the program. Obama authorized the attacks to continue, and every few weeks - certainly after a major attack - he would get updates and authorize the next step. Sometimes it was a strike riskier and bolder than what had been tried previously. "From his first days in office, he was deep into every step in slowing the Iranian program - the diplomacy, the sanctions, every major decision," a senior administration official said. "And it's safe to say that whatever other activity might have been under way was no exception to that rule."
2012-06-01 00:00:00
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