Who is David Albright? Nuclear expert who never was?

NEW DELHI: Who is David Albright? And why has he again dug some dirt on India allegedly selling sensitive nuclear blueprints for as little as $10?

The Washington Post has published a report titled "'06 Blueprint Leak Intensifies Concerns Over US-India Deal" based solely on an interview with Albright, who is described in the article as "a former UN weapons inspector" - on the day the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations met to review the implementing 123 agreement to fast-track its approval by US Congress. 

Albright is the founder and president of the non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and the author of several books on proliferation of atomic weapons.

But those who wish to dig deeper into Albright's background should listen to what John Ritter, chief UN weapons inspector in the crucial 1991-1998 period, says about Albright, a darling of the press in Washington. Ritter is not the kind to indulge in frivolous polemics as he was the who played the iconoclast and argued that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) just before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Ritter, in an article on his blog entitled "The Weapons Inspector Who Never Was", says of Albright: "In that he never has designed or worked in a nuclear reactor, never has designed or worked on nuclear weapons, in fact never has done anything of a practical, hands-on nature in the nuclear field, to call Albright an expert is a disservice to the term and, again, misleading in the extreme."

"David Albright has a history of being used by those who seek to gain media attention for their respective claims. Albright and his organization, ISIS, have served as the conduit for other agencies gaining publicity about the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program, the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor, and most recently the alleged Swiss computer containing sensitive nuclear design information."

"On each occasion, Albright is fed sensitive information from a third party, and then packages it in a manner that is consumable by the media," says Ritter, while describing Albright as "little more than a well-funded, well-connected blogger".

"The media, engrossed with Albright's misleading résumé ('former U.N. weapons inspector', 'Doctor', 'physicist' and 'nuclear expert'), give Albright a full hearing, during which time the particulars the third-party source wanted made public are broadcast or printed for all the world to see."

"More often than not, it turns out that the core of the story pushed by Albright is, in fact, wrong," says Ritter.