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OPINION:
A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.
The catastrophe’s cause remains a mystery. But longtime investigative reporter Seymour Hersh — relying almost exclusively on anonymous sources — has pinned blame on the U.S. government. He published “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” on Wednesday on Substack, which has left official Washington nearly speechless.
The article recounts a super-secret operation, purportedly conducted by the U.S. Navy and NATO allies, that destroyed three of four conduits that make up Nord Stream 1 and 2 connecting Russia to Germany.
Mr. Hersh is most famous for uncovering the Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre. For decades, however, much of his reporting has been challenged for heavy reliance upon anonymous sourcing. In this latest report, Mr. Hersh
writes that the scheme was conceived within the Biden administration when, in February 2022, Russia was readying its invasion of Ukraine. The aim was to thwart the Russian president’s bid “to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions.”
The operation, reportedly authorized by President Biden, ended with the pipelines’ destruction on Sept. 26, 2022. The White House responded to the publication of Mr. Hersh’s report with a perfunctory “This is false and complete fiction.” But in this time of government distrust, the details of Mr. Hersh’s story ring truer than the denial for several reasons.
First, the administration’s early suggestion that the Russians possibly sabotaged the conduits themselves — to cast Europeans into frightening energy poverty — made little sense when Russia was profiting handsomely from its Nord Stream gas sales. Moreover, an investigation conducted by Germany found no evidence of Russian involvement in the disaster.
Second, as Mr. Hersh points out, Mr. Biden publicly threatened, in so many words, to destroy the pipelines: “If Russia invades … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
Then, it happened.
Finally, the story appears to be exhaustively reported, right down to the operation’s “BALTOPS 22” code name, the Florida base that sent the expert Navy demolition divers, the NATO exercises that served as cover for their presence in the Baltic Sea, and the Norwegian surveillance aircraft that released the sonar buoy which detonated the planted C4 charges.
If sabotage is statecraft by other means, however, crippling Nord Stream appears glaringly counterproductive. Russian energy revenue grew by 28% in 2022 despite the loss of its exports to Europe, and Moscow has since signed a deal to become China’s main gas supplier. As Russia turns eastward, a Eurasian power axis is rising to challenge — and threaten — the West and its long-standing global geopolitical dominance. How does that benefit the U.S.?
The Washington Times has not independently authenticated Mr. Hersh’s narrative, and major media outlets dedicated to shielding Mr. Biden from criticism are not inclined to do so either. The charges are disturbing enough that Americans should demand to know whether President Biden engaged in an undersea misadventure that a nuclear power could view as an act of war.
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