Gareth Porter

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian on U.S. national security policy and the recipient of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. His most recent book is Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, published in 2014.

The New York Times’ Shaky Case that Russia Manipulated Social Media to Tip the 2016 Election

Gareth Porter dissects the New York Times Shane & Mazzetti’s case that the Russian government seriously threatened to tip the 2016 election through social media.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
A Facebook posting for a group called "Being Patriotic." A federal grand jury indictment alleges 13 Russians ran an elaborate plot to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election beginning in June 2016, defendants allegedly organized and coordinated political rallies in the U.S. "Being Patriotic" promoted and organized two political rallies in New York according to the indictment. (AP/Jon Elswick)

In their long recapitulation of the case that Russia subverted the 2016 election, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times painted a picture of highly effective Russian government exploitation of social media for that purpose. Shane and Mazzetti asserted that “anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia

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Netanyahu’s Evidence Wasn’t Just Old, Some of It Was Fabricated

Benjamin Netanyahu’s stage performance about Iran seeking a nuclear weapon not only was based on old material, but evidence shows it was fabricated too.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents material he claims comes from on Iranian nuclear weapons development during a press conference in in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2018. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim in his theatrical 20-minute presentation of an Israeli physical seizure of Iran’s “atomic archive” in Tehran would certainly have been the “great intelligence achievement” he boasted if it had actually happened. But the claim does not hold up under careful scrutiny, and his assertion that Israel now

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UK Government Overlooks Russian Mob’s Use of Novichok for Assassination

An alternative explanation to the mystery surrounding the poisoning of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter may involve a possibility that neither the British nor Russian governments want to talk about.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomurdin, right, attends the funeral of slain Russian banker Ivan Kivelidi, Aug. 8, 1995, in Moscow. Ivan Kivelidi, the director of a major Russian bank and head of a politically influential enterpreneurs' group, died from poisoning Friday in an apparent contract killing. (AP/Sergei Karpukhin)

For weeks, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have insisted that there is “no alternative explanation” to Russian government responsibility for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury last month. But in fact, the British government is well aware that such

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How ‘Operation Merlin’ Poisoned U.S. Intelligence on Iran

The CIA’s “Operation Merlin,” which involved providing Iran with a flawed design for a nuclear weapon and resulted in whistleblower Jeffery Sterling going to prison, was the perfect example of creating intelligence in order to justify operations.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
The Central Intelligence Agency flag is displayed, partially cast in a shadow. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Jeffrey Sterling, the case officer for the CIA’s covert “Operation Merlin,” who was convicted in May 2015 for allegedly revealing details of that operation to James Risen of the New York Times, was released from prison in January after serving more than two years of a 42-month sentence. He had been tried and convicted on the premise that the

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Operation Orchard: In 2007, Israeli Intelligence Misled the CIA on a Syrian Nuclear Strike

In joining Israel and the White House selling military intervention in Syria, the CIA and international inspectors hid key evidence that would undermine the case.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter

When Yousry Abushady studied the highly unusual May 2008 CIA video on a Syrian nuclear reactor that was allegedly under construction when Israeli jet destroyed it seven months earlier, the senior specialist on North Korean nuclear reactors on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s staff knew that something was very wrong. Abushady quickly

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Have We Been Deceived Over Syrian Sarin Attack?

A closer look at the evidence suggests the official narrative is based on a crudely staged deception.

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
Close up photograph of the crater that has been shown in numerous mainstream media publications that the White House alleges is proof that the source of the nerve agent attack was the Syrian government.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report this September that reinforced the official narrative that the Syrian air force dropped a bomb containing nerve gas sarin on the insurgent-controlled town of Khan Sheikhoun, Syria on April 4. That conclusion comes several weeks after the Organization for

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How America’s ‘Deep State’ Sold Counter-Terrorism To Keep Itself In Business

Since 2001, senior Pentagon and CIA officials have sacrificed American interests in weakening al-Qaeda to pursue their own interests

Gareth Porter
By Gareth Porter
Former CIA director James Woolsey adjusts his glasses during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman outraged many readers when he wrote an opinion piece on 12 April calling on President Trump to "back off fighting territorial ISIS in Syria". The reason he gave for that recommendation was not that US wars in the Middle East are inevitably self-defeating and endless, but that it would reduce the "pressure on

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