The "New York Times" called it "mystery", but it was the United States that carried out a secret naval operation that we knew nothing about so far.
The U.S. Navy Diving and Rescue Center is located in a place as unknown as it itself – along the erstwhile side road in Panama City, present an expanding hotel on the southwest edge of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The facility is as inconspicuous as its location – grey concrete buildings from the post-WWII period, resembling buildings of any professional school in the west of Chicago. It presently runs next to a four-lane road where there is an automatic laundry and dance school.
This centre has been training for many decades the best deep-sea divers who later go to US military units around the planet with the skills that can be utilized in good matters – cleaning ports and coasts from various scraps and explosions, besides utilizing C4; but besides bad ones – blowing up drilling platforms, clogging inlet valves of offshore power plants, damaging locks on key shipping channels. The Panama City resort, where the second largest indoor swimming pool in America is located, was the most suitable place to recruit the best, the most discreet diving school graduates who successfully performed last summer, at a depth of 80 metres below the Baltic Sea surface entrusted to them with the task.
According to an informant with direct access to information on operational planning, in June last year, acting under cover of NATO's openly held exercises, known as BALTOPS 22, Navy divers installed remotely operated explosives that 3 months later destroyed 3 of the 4 strands of the Northern Gas pipeline.
Two of them, known as Nord Stream 1, supplied inexpensive Russian natural gas to Germany and much of Western Europe for more than 10 years. 2 more, called Nord Stream 2, have already been completed, but have not yet been put into service. With the arrival of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border and the outbreak of the most bloody conflict in Europe after 1945, the president Joe Biden considered that these pipelines constitute for Vladimir Putin a tool to treat gas as a weapon to realise its political and territorial ambitions.
When we asked for comment, White home spokeswoman Adrienne Watson She sent an email: “This is not actual and full fiction”. Spokeswoman of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Tammy Thorp, said in a akin spirit: “This message is completely and profoundly false”.
Biden's decision to sabotage the pipelines was taken after more than 9 months leading to various conclusions of secret interior discussions in Washington's national safety committees on how to accomplish this objective. For most of this period, the issue was not whether to carry out the operation at all, but how to hide who was responsible.
There was an crucial formal reason to usage the graduates of the school of utmost diving from Panama City. The divers belonged exclusively to the Navy, not subject to the American peculiar Operations Command, whose classified operations must be reported to Congress, and they must be accepted in advance by the legislature and home of Representatives, so-called. The 8 Gang. Meanwhile, already in the planning phase in late 2021 and in the first months of 2022 the administration Bidena did everything she could to avoid leaks.
President Biden and his people for abroad affairs – National safety Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland – they consistently did not hide their hostility to gas pipelines that connected 2 ports in north-western Russia, close the Estonian border, with northern Germany, moving close the Danish island of Bornholm.
Victoria Nuland.The direct way to avoid transit through Ukraine was a dream gift for the German economy enjoying the abundance of inexpensive Russian natural gas, which was adequate for manufacture and heating homes, and German companies could besides sale its surpluses to all Western Europe. The action, which was born in the administration, violated the United States' declarations to limit direct clash with Russia. Her cover-up was crucial.
Nord Stream 1 was seen from the very beginning by Washington and the anti-Russian NATO countries as a threat to Western dominance. Its operator is simply a company registered in 2005 in Switzerland, Nord Stream AG, whose shareholder is Gazprom, a stock exchange Russian corp generating gigantic profits for its shareholders, among whom the oligarchs controlled by Putin dominate. Gazprom owned 51% of the operator's shares, while the remaining 49% of European energy companies – French, Dutch and 2 German, which had the right to sale inexpensive gas to local distribution companies from Germany and Western Europe. Gazprom's profits besides went to the Russian budget, for which in any years oil and gas sales accounted for up to 45% All influences.
America's political concerns were justified: Putin obtained an additional origin of income so needed, and Germany and the remainder of Western Europe depended on inexpensive gas supplied by Russia, which at the same time reduced Europe's dependence on America. Actually, that's what happened. Many Germans recognized Nord Stream 1 as part of the implementation of the known concept Ostpolitik Chancellor Willy Brandt, which would let post-war Germans and another European countries to rebuild after the demolition of planet War II, allowing for the usage of inexpensive Russian gas to drive flourishing markets and the Western European economy.
Jake Sullivan.Nord Stream 1 was so a threat from NATO and Washington, and Nord Stream 2, whose construction completed In September 2021, and which, in the case of its entry into service by German regulatory authorities, would double the supply of inexpensive gas to Germany and Western Europe. This next gas pipeline would safe more than 50% of German yearly gas demand. That is why tensions were expanding between Russia and NATO, further escalated by Biden's aggressive abroad policy.
The opposition to Nord Stream 2 was activated on the eve of Biden's inauguration in January 2021 erstwhile Republican Senators, with Ted Cruz. from Texas headed, they continually raised the issue of inexpensive Russian gas during the Blinken nomination procedure as Secretary of State. It was then that the legislature majority adopted regulations which, as Blinken Cruz told, "withholding pipeline launch". Meanwhile, the German government, which was headed at the time Angela Merkel, exerted tremendous political and economical force to activate the second gas pipeline.
Would Biden argue Germany? Blinken claimed yes, but addedHe hasn't talked to the fresh president about details of his views yet. "I know his clear opinion that Nord Stream 2 is simply a bad idea – he said – I know that he is willing to usage all the arguments to convince our friends and partners, including Germany, not to proceed it.”.
Antony Blinken.A fewer months later, erstwhile the construction of the second gas pipeline was coming to an end, Blinken made a point. In May, after amazing recovery shares, the administration waived sanctions against Nord Stream AG and the State Department statedthat attempts to halt the gas pipeline from moving through them and through diplomacy “By nature things must last”. There was besides a bullet news that the US authorities transmitted the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenski, then facing the Russian invasion so that he would not criticize their decision.
This resulted in immediate effects. Directed by Cruz Republicans in the Senate, they announced that they would block all Biden's denominations in the field of abroad policy and then hold the adoption of the defence budget for months. Politico portal described later Biden's return on the second Russian pipeline as "a decision which, far more than the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, threatened to implement its intentions".
The administration inactive keyed, although in mid-November it received additional time erstwhile German energy regulators Stopped consent to operate the second strand of the Northern Gas pipeline. Gas prices have increased in a fewer days by 8%, and in Germany and Europe, increasing concerns arose that stopping the pipeline and the expanding hazard of Russia's war with Ukraine would lead to the winter cold, which was so badly avoided. Washington was unclear about the position of the fresh German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. A fewer months earlier, after the defeat in Afghanistan, Scholz publically supported the French President's appeal in Prague Emmanuel Macron for a more autonomous European abroad policy, explicitly calling for a simplification in dependence on Washington and its militant policies.
Throughout this period, the number of Russian troops at the border with Ukraine has steadily increased; in December more than 100,000 soldiers took positions in Belarus and Crimea in readiness to attack. In Washington, D.C., the alarm was getting louder, and Blinken estimated that the army's numbers could collapse. "double in a short time".
The administration's attention again focused on Nord Stream. Washington feared that as long as Europe depended on inexpensive gas pipelines, countries specified as Germany would be reluctant to fund Ukraine and transfer its weapons essential to defeat Russia.
It was during this stormy period that Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to set up an interministerial group to come up with a plan.
It was to consider different scenarios. However, she did only one.
Planning
In December 2021, 2 months before the Russian tanks entered Ukraine, Jake Sullivan organized a gathering of a fresh task force—people from the Joint Staff Command, CIA, State Department and Treasury Department—on which he asked how to respond to Putin's upcoming invasion.
This was to be the first of a series of secret meetings held in a safe area on the top level of the Old Building of the Executive Office, where the President's abroad Intelligence Advisory Council (FIAB) was besides established, located close the White House. Standard discussions were held on different scenarios, which yet led to the formulation of a key preliminary question: is the group's advice to the president to presume reversible actions (such as another package of sanctions, currency constraints) or irreversible (i.e. direct actions that cannot be reversed)?
According to a origin with direct cognition of these events, it was clear to the participants that Sullivan expected the squad to propose a plan to destruct the 2 Nord Stream pipelines and that was besides the President's wish.
During the next fewer meetings, their participants wondered how to conduct the attack. The Navy proposed utilizing a fresh submarine to destruct the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed, remote-fired detonators. The CIA stressed that whatever method was used, everything had to stay confidential. Everyone understood the stakes. “This is no fun in the sandbox” – remembers the source. If the attack had been proven to the United States, it would have been "act of war declaration".
The CIA was already in charge William Burns, arranged and culturally erstwhile Ambassador to Russia, who in the Obama administration was Deputy Secretary of State. Burns rapidly approved the appointment of an ad hoc working group in the agency, 1 of the members of which was accidentally known for the capabilities of deep-sea Navy divers from Panama City. In the next fewer weeks, members of the CIA group began to work on a plan for a secret operation involving the preparation of pipeline explosions by divers.
William Burns.Something like this has been done before. In 1971, American Intelligence found out from 2 undisclosed sources to date, that 2 units of the Russian Navy in the russian Far East were communicating via an underwater cable located at the bottom of the Ochocki Sea. It combined regional naval forces command with office in Vladivostok.
A rapidly assembled group of officers of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National safety Agency (NSA) gathered in a secret location close Washington, D.C., and developed a plan to usage Navy divers, modified submarines and rescue diving equipment. The divers installed listening devices on the cable, which allowed them to capture and evidence Russian messages easy on tapes.
Soon the NSA found that russian naval officers, convinced of the safety of their communications, spoke to their colleagues without utilizing codes. Recording devices and tapes had to be exchanged each month, and the task was successfully implemented for the next decade until He revealed it. 44-year-old civilian technicians working for the NSA, Ronald Peltonfluent in Russian. Pelton betrayed a converted Russian spy in 1985, making him sentenced to prison. The Russians paid him for the operation news only $5,000, and another $35,000 received for other, previously unspecified operational data of the Russian curious party.
This underwater success, codenamed "Ivy Bells" (Ivy Bells) proved innovative and risky, but allowed to get priceless information on the intentions and plans of the russian Navy.
Initially, however, the interministerial squad referred skeptically to the CIA's enthusiasm for a secret underwater attack. besides many questions remained unanswered. The Baltic waters were besides heavy patrolled by the Russian Navy and there were no drilling platforms on them to supply cover for diving operations. possibly the divers could go to Estonia, to the Russian border, close the gas terminals to prepare for the mission? “That would be moronic” – the agency was answered.
While working on this “planning”, the informant claims, “Some CIA and State Department guys kept saying, ‘Let's not do this. It is foolish and will have a terrible political effect if it comes out.”.
Notwithstanding this, in early 2022 the CIA working group informed Sullivan's interministerial team: "We have found a way to blow up the pipelines".
Then the amazing thing happened. little than 3 weeks before the clearly unavoidable Russian invasion, on 7 February, Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after any hesitation, clearly approached the Americans. At a press conference after this meeting, the president unequivocally announced: “If Russia attacks... there will be no Nord Stream 2. We will end this”.
Twenty days earlier, the Deputy Secretary of State of Nuland actually said the same thing during the State Department press conference that attracted small media. "I want to be clear today – She saidby answering the question – If Russia attacks Ukraine, Nord Stream 2, 1 way or another, will be halted.”.
Many of those who were active in planning the mission of destroying the pipeline were terrified of what they considered indirect pointing to a possible attack.
"It's like we put a atomic bomb in Tokyo and told the nipponese we were going to detonate it – says the origin – The plan afraid options that could have been applied in the event of an invasion alternatively than advertised publicly. Biden seemingly did not realize it, or ignored it”.
The deficiency of discretion of Biden and Nuland, if you can just talk about him, frustrated any of the members of the planning team. But he besides created a chance. According to the informant, any of the CIA's elder officers thought the plan to blow up the pipeline "could no longer be considered a secret operation, due to the fact that the president just said that we know how to do it".
As a result, the rank of the plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 was abruptly changed from a secret operation requiring legislature to a top-secret intelligence operation conducted with support from the United States Armed Forces. Now according to the rules, according to the informant, "There was no longer an work to inform legislature about this operation. The only thing left to do is conduct it, under classified conditions. Russians have excellent intelligence in the Baltic Sea”.
The members of the working group at the agency had no direct contact with the White home and were eager to know whether the president was serious, that is, whether the mission was given green light. “Bill Burns came and said, ‘Act’”.
Operation
The perfect base for the mission was Norway.
Over the last fewer years of the crisis on the East-West line, the United States has importantly increased its military presence in Norway, the western border of which is the 2650 km of the coast of the North Atlantic, passing over the Arctic ellipse into the border with Russia. The Pentagon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in expanding and upgrading the Navy and Air Force installations in this country, creating high-paid jobs and offering favorable contracts, but besides causing any controversy. The most crucial of the investment was advanced radar with a synthetic aparture, located in the north of Norway and capable of observing a large part of Russia, which was launched immediately after the US intelligence lost access to long-range listening stations in China.
Renovated American database submarines that have been expanded over the years, and which would now let closer cooperation U.S. units with their Norwegian partners to jointly monitor and spy on the 400 km east of the Kolski Peninsula, Russian atomic silos. The United States has besides enlarged Norwegian database flying to the north of the country and delivered to the Norwegian fleet aeroplanes scout Boeing P8 Poseidon, expanding the scope of spying on all Russian movements.
In return, the Norwegian government, in opposition to the Liberals and centrists in parliament, adopted the Additional Defence Cooperation Agreement (SDCA) last November. According to its provisions, any ‘established’ areas in the north of the country entered the jurisdiction American justice, including in the case of crimes committed by U.S. soldiers outside the bases, as well as by Norwegian citizens accused or suspected of obstructing the functioning of these bases.
Norway was 1 of the first signatories to the North Atlantic Pact in 1949, in the early years of the Cold War. NATO Secretary-General is presently Jens Stoltenberg, a declared anti-communist who had been in charge of the Norwegian government for 8 years before receiving his current position with American support. He was a hawk in everything related to Putin and Russia; his cooperation with American intelligence began inactive during the Vietnam War. Since then, he has enjoyed unconditional trust. “This is simply a glove that fits the American hand perfectly” – comments on the source.
Returning to Washington, the planned operation knew they had to turn to the Norwegians. As the informant says, “They hated the Russians and the Norwegian Navy had quite a few sailors and divers who had gained experience for generations during well-paid exploration of offshore oil and gas deposits”. You could besides number on them to keep the mission a secret. The Norwegians may have had business here, too. The demolition of Nord Stream, if successful by the Americans, would let Norway to importantly increase its exports of natural gas to Europe.
In March, respective members of the squad flew to Norway to meet with the officers of the local peculiar services and Navy. 1 of the most crucial issues was to find the most convenient place in the Baltic to plant explosives. Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 had 2 pipes each, and the distance between them was little than 2 km. Gas pipelines ended in the port of Greifswald, northeastern Germany.
The Norwegian Navy rapidly found the right place: shallow waters of the Baltic Sea, a fewer kilometres from the Danish island of Bornholm. The pipelines ran within 1.5 km of each other, after the seabed at a depth of only 80 m. It was depth within scope of divers moving Norwegian Alta class mine catcher who dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium in tanks, and can install profiled C4 charges on the concrete shields of 4 pipelines. It would be a tedious, time-consuming and dangerous robot, but the waters around Bornholm had another advantage: there are no major currents there, which makes diving much easier.
After conducting respective analyses, the Americans made a decision.
At this point, a wider group of deep-sea divers from Panama City enters the game. The diving centre there, which trained participants in Operation Ivy Bells, is seen by the graduates of the elite Naval Academy in Annapolis, who want to service in peculiar forces most frequently (Seals) as fighter pilots or on submarines, as irrelevant facilities. If individual becomes a ‘black shoe’, which is considered a little attractive service on board officer, he can always be assigned to the crew of a destroyer, cruiser or submarine. The least spectacular episode is to fight with mines. Divers taking care of it are never shown in Hollywood films or on the covers of popular magazines.
"The best deep-sea divers form a narrow community and only the best of this narrow group have been recruited for this operation; they have been told they can be called to the CIA in Washington" – says the informant.
The Norwegians and Americans have already designated a place and performers, but there has been another concern: any non-standard underwater activity at the banks of Bornholm could draw attention to the Swedish or Danish Navy, which could have informed about it.
Bornholm.Denmark was 1 of the founding countries of NATO, known in the planet for maintaining peculiar relations with Britain. Sweden applied for NATO membership and had excellent skills to usage its underwater sound detection and magnetic sensors systems, allowing it to detect Russian submarines as they sometimes appeared around distant Swedish archipelagos and were forced to emerge.
The Norwegians have convinced Americans that elder officials in Denmark and Sweden should be mostly informed of the possible activities of divers in this area. In this way individual above could intervene, ignoring possible reports on this subject and pulling them out of the chain of command communication. “What they knew and what they were told were 2 very different things” – told me an informant. The Norwegian embassy did not answer to the comments.
The function of the Norwegians was crucial besides in solving another problems. The Russian Navy was known to have technologies to find and track underwater mines. American explosive sets had to be hidden in specified a way that Russian systems considered them to be a natural component of the seabed, which required a certain level of salinity. The Norwegians found a solution here.
It was besides the Norwegians who found the answer to the key question of erstwhile the operation should be carried out. For the last 21 years, in June each year, the American 6th Fleet based in the Italian port of Gaeta, south of Rome, organised major NATO exercises in the Baltic Sea involving dozens of allies from the region. Next exercises, known as Baltic Operations 22 or BALTOPS 22, was to take place again in June. The Norwegians suggested that they would be the perfect cover for installing explosives.
The Americans added 1 crucial component to this: they persuaded the 6th Fleet planners to add a investigation and improvement program to the exercise. Exercises, like reported The Navy was to be conducted by the 6th Fleet in cooperation with the “military investigation centres”. 1 of their elements was to take place off the coast of Bornholm with the participation of NATO's dive teams, who were to install mines and then compete in uncovering and disposing them utilizing the latest underwater technologies.
This was a useful exercise, and at the same time an excellent cover. The Panama City guys were expected to do theirs and the C4 charges were expected to be installed before the end of the BTOPS 22, with a fuse set for 48 hours. The Americans and the Norwegians were to be long gone before the first explosion.
Days were counted. "The clock was ticking, we were getting closer to the mission" – says the source.
And then Washington came up with another idea. The charges were to be placed during the BTOPS, but the White home began to fear that the two-day period between the completion of the maneuvers and their detonation was besides short and the United States' participation in the operation would thus become obvious.
The White home then asked a fresh question: “Can the boys in the field propose any way to blow up the pipelines later after giving the appropriate order?”.
Some members of the planning squad were angry and frustrated by the apparent deficiency of resolve of the President. Divers from Panama City repeatedly practiced establishing C4 on pipelines, besides during the BALTOPS, but now it was the Norwegian squad to offer a way to implement his wishes – to let the order to be carried out at the time he selected.
The CIA is utilized to dealing with arbitrary last-minute changes in plans. However, the full situation has re-emerged in any doubts about the intent and legality of the full operation.
President's secret orders resembled CIA dilemmas from the Vietnam War erstwhile president Lyndon Johnson, faced with expanding anti-war protests, he instructed the agency to overstep its competence—especially the laws prohibiting its action in the United States—and to observe anti-war leaders to see if they were not controlled by Communist Russia.
Eventually, the agency agreed to this and in the 1970s. We found out how far he could go. After the Watergate scandal was revealed, the media described further cases of CIA spying on American citizens, her engagement in killing leaders in another countries and the overthrow of the socialist government Salvador Allende.
Revealing these scandals during a series of dramatic hearings in the mid 1970s, in a legislature committee headed by Frank Church from Idaho, showed clearly that the then manager of the agency Richard Helms He felt that he had the work to obey all orders of the President, even those contrary to the law.
In unpublished, closed statements, Helms seriously explained that following the president's secret orders “almost the position of the Immaculate Virgin. (...) Whether it is appropriate or not – the CIA operates on the basis of different rules and operating rules than all another government institutions”. In fact, he told the senators that as head of the CIA he understood that he worked for the Crown alternatively than the Constitution.
Americans operating in Norway operated on the same scheme, starting their careful work on solving the fresh problem – the issue of distant blasting of C4 loads at Biden's command. It was a much more demanding task than it seemed in Washington. The squad in Norway had no thought erstwhile the president would press the button. Will it happen in a fewer weeks, months, six months or possibly later?
Attached to the C4 pipelines was to be launched by a sonar buoy thrown out just before the plane exploded, but this procedure required the usage of the most advanced signal processing technologies. However, lighters attached to 4 pipes could have accidentally been fired by a complex set of seabed sounds on the crowded Baltic Sea – those coming from ships passing closer and farther, underwater drilling, seismic phenomena, waves, and even marine fauna. To avoid this, the sonar buoy was to emit a series of low-frequency tonal sounds, very akin to a flute or piano, which would be recognized by the trigger mechanics and would trigger the detonation after the programmed interval. "A signal would request strong adequate to prevent any another sound from accidentally triggering the detonation" – told me a retired prof. of physics, technology and national safety from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Theodore Postol. The postol, which served as a technological advisor at the Pentagon Maritime Operations Command, claims that the problem that the group in Norway solved due to Biden's late decision posed a considerable risk: ‘The longer explosives are in the water, the greater the hazard that their detonation will trigger an accidental signal’.
On September 26, 2022, the Norwegian Navy reconnaissance aircraft P8 took a regular flight at first glance and dropped the sonar buoy. The signal she aired first reached Nord Stream 2 and later to Nord Stream 1. A fewer hours later, high-power explosives were fired and 3 of the 4 pipes became unfit for use. Within a fewer minutes, methane stains were visible on the surface of the water, which recovered from the damaged gas pipelines, and the planet learned that something irreversible had happened.
Effects
Immediately after the explosion, American media treated the event as an unexplained mystery. Repeatedthat the likely perpetrator is Russia, which was expected to confirm controlled leaks from the White House, but in no way explain the motives of specified self-sabotage, but to claim the most average revenge. A fewer months later, erstwhile it turned out that the Russian authorities discreetly estimation the costs of repairing gas pipelines, “New York Times” statedthat "complicates liability theories" For the attack. no of the leading U.S. newspapers returned to threats of the demolition of the gas pipeline previously aired by Biden and Deputy Secretary of State Nuland.
It was never besides clear why Russia was expected to destruct its own, profitable pipelines. Meanwhile, the President's decision was rationalized by the Blinken State Secretary.
At a press conference last September, erstwhile asked about the consequences of the increasing energy crisis in Europe, Blinken felt that the situation had its possible advantages: "This is simply a unique chance to end erstwhile and for all with dependence on Russian energy sources and thus take distant Vladimir Putin's ability to treat them as a means to implement his imperial projects. It is very crucial and it gives us an incredible strategical chance in the coming years, although at the same time we must do everything we can to guarantee that the consequences of this situation are not a burden on citizens of our countries and others in the world.".
Not long ago, Victoria Nuland expressed satisfaction with the demolition of the latest pipelines. Speaking to the Senate's abroad Relations Committee in late January, she told Senator Ted Cruz: “Like you and, I believe, the administration, I am very pleased that Nord Stream 2 is today, as you like to call it, a pile of scrap metallic at the bottom of the sea”.
The informer has a much more straightforward view of Biden's decision on the sabotage made at the end of the winter on a full of nearly 2,500 km long Gazprom pipes. ‘Well, – says, judging the president – I gotta say, the guy's got balls. He said he would, and he did”.
On the question of the Russians' non-answer, he cynically states: “Maybe they want to get the ability to do things like us first”.
“It’s a beautiful communicative on the cover of writing. – continues – We have a classified operation here involving field experts and equipment utilizing a secret signal. The only problem was to decide to do this”.
Seymour Hersh
Source: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream.
