On February 8, White House officials dismissed reports from investigative journalists who claimed the United States was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022.
Adrian Watson, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: “This is a total lie and complete fiction.” statement A State Department spokesperson told Reuters a similar comment.
Longtime investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, a former New York Times and New Yorker reporter who first came to prominence in 1969 with his coverage of the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, has published his Substack report. Did. page On February 8, titled “How America Take Out The Nord Stream Pipeline,” he cited an unnamed source in his claims.
“Last June, in a highly publicized midsummer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, Navy divers planted remotely controlled explosives, and three months later, three of the four Nord Stream pipelines with first-hand knowledge of the operational plans,” Hersch wrote.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesperson Tammy Thorpe also said in a statement, “This claim is completely and completely false.”
The Epoch Times was unable to corroborate this report. The White House did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Ultimately, Hersh’s report, based on an anonymous source, concluded that President Joe Biden’s administration operated a covert operation through the CIA to blow up the pipeline.
Several European countries have conducted an investigation into the cause of the September 2022 explosion, but have received few answers. The Russian government categorically denies that it was behind the explosion on a pipeline it operated jointly with Germany.
Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, said the White House’s “decision to sabotage the pipeline was the result of more than nine months of highly confidential discussions within Washington’s national security community about how best to achieve that goal.” During that time, the question was not whether or not to carry out the mission, but how to carry it out without any clear clue as to who was responsible.”
“This is not meant for children,” the unnamed source told him. said such an attack would be an “act of war”.
During “all of this conspiracy,” an alleged source told 85-year-old Hersch: It’s ridiculous and would be a political nightmare if it came out.”
According to his Substack post, a diver operating on the Norwegian mine detector ship Alta had “a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium flowing from a tank with a concrete protective cover” before detonating the explosives. We used plant-shaped C4 charges in four pipelines. Again, he cited an unnamed source.This has long been the subject of criticism Hersh’s past report.
When Hersh claimed years ago that the Obama White House lied about the murder of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, washington post In 2015, “Hirsh relied on an unnamed retired official at least 55 times,” he said.
nodestream research
Russia’s foreign ministry said on February 8 that the US should answer questions after Mr. Hirsch’s report. In response to the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on the White House to issue a statement on the “facts.”
Moscow implicates the West in last September’s explosions that affected the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, a multi-billion dollar infrastructure project that will carry Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. I have repeatedly said that I do.
Investigators in Sweden and Denmark, the exclusive economic zones where the explosion occurred, say the rupture was the result of sabotage, but have not said who they believe is responsible.
Construction of Nord Stream 2, designed to double the amount of gas Russia can send directly to Germany undersea, will be completed in September 2021, although Moscow will send troops to Ukraine in February. It was never put into operation after Berlin shelved certification a few days before it was dispatched.
Reuters contributed to this report.