RT.com
27 Sep 2023, 06:14 GMT+10
The White House wanted to send a message to Berlin, a US intelligence source has told the veteran reporter
A US intelligence source has told journalist Seymour Hersh that President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to prevent Germany from backtracking on promises to abandon Russian energy.
In a blog post on Tuesday, the veteran reporter alleged that the German economy was of no concern to the White House.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connected Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea, were destroyed in a series of underwater explosions a year ago. Competing theories have emerged as to who was to blame, with mainstream media in the West blaming a Ukrainian commando unit and Hersh claiming that the CIA carried out the operation under direct orders from Biden.
In his blog post, Hersh alleged that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a series of meetings in late 2021, tasking intelligence officials with coming up with a means of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from sending troops into Ukraine.
"The White House's policy was to deter Russia from an attack," an intelligence source told Hersh. "The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability."
By January, as Russian forces were massing on the Ukrainian border, the CIA had "solved the problem," the source said. With a plan in place to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea, Biden warned in early February that in the event of military action by Russia, "there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
Following Biden's statement, which was delivered alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the CIA team tasked with sabotaging the pipelines received new orders, Hersh claimed. Instead of immediately destroying Nord Stream, the team was instructed to plant the explosives for detonation at a later date.
"It was then that we understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command," a member of the team told Hersh.
"We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war," the source continued. "But was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up."
According to Hersh's earlier reporting, CIA divers planted the explosives last summer with the help of the Norwegian navy, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. By the time the bombs were triggered in September, the flow of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 had already been slowed to a trickle by Russia in response to Western sanctions, while Nord Stream 2 was never certified to begin operation by Scholz's government. However, with the German economy heavily dependent on Russian gas, Biden reportedly feared that Scholz would choose reproachment with Moscow over support for Ukraine.
"The President of the United States would rather see Germany freeze than [see] Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine," Hersh declared earlier this year.
(RT.com)
Get a daily dose of Europe Sun news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Europe Sun.
More InformationCOLUMBUS, Ohio: To stop the spread of bird flu, more than 1.3 million chickens will be killed on Ohio's Union ...
In a devastating turn of events, Israel's war on Gaza, sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attacks on October 7, has resulted ...
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: In a Louisiana election where more than 43,000 people cast their ballots, a candidate for parish sheriff ...
LIVINGSTON, Kentucky: This week, railroad operator CSX said a train derailment involving 16 cars, two of which spilled molten sulfur ...
Fifty-seven journalists have been killed as of Saturday as a result of Israel's war on Gaza, which has extended to ...
TEL AVIV, Israel - Following Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's statement on Emily Hand's release, Israel's foreign minister says he summoned the ...
NEW YORK, New York - Retreating bond yields and a higher-then-expected GDP reading for the third quarter boosted U.S. stocks ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: President Joe Biden invoked a Cold War-era act this week to boost investment in U.S. manufacturing of medicines ...
NEW DELHI, India: On November 24, the Economic Times (ET) reported that Tesla is ready to invest up to $2 ...
NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks closed in positive territory despite a volatile day Tuesday. Spending much time in ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: On November 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled three more brands of whole and pre-cut ...
DETROIT, Michigan: US electric vehicle (EV) sales are expected to reach a record of 9% of all passenger vehicles this ...