Report: Biden ordered U.S. Navy to bomb Nord Stream pipelines

By Bob Unruh, WND

A large disturbance in the sea can be observed off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, following a series of unusual leaks on two natural gas pipelines running from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany have triggered concerns about possible sabotage. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says she ‘cannot rule out’ sabotage after three leaks were detected on Nord Stream 1 and 2. (Danish Defense Command)

Joe Biden repeatedly has denied the U.S. had anything to do with the recent bombings of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines, but a startling new report is revealing that may not have been the truth.

Pulitzer-winner reporter Seymour Hersh as written at his Substack page that U.S. Navy divers, last June while operating under the cover of a “widely publicized” NATO exercise called BALTOPS22, “planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipes.”

The report explains the confirmation comes from “a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”

Two of the lines, known as Nord Stream 1, were supplying Germany and other points in Western Europe with “cheap Russian natural gas,” the report said.

A second pair, Nord Stream 2, were not operating yet.

At that point, with “Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions,” Hersh reported.

White House spokeswoman Adrienne Watson claimed, in an email, “This is false and complete fiction,” an opinion joined by Tammy Thorp of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But, Hersh reported, “Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible.”

The report said it was a team from the U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City, Florida, that accomplished the work.

A U.S. Navy diver assigned to Mobile Diving Salvage Unit (MDSU) 1 and a Mexican navy diver conduct hot tap training during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022 at Pearl Harbor. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Eric Chan)

“The center has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades who, once assigned to American military units worldwide, are capable of technical diving to do the good – using C4 explosives to clear harbors and beaches of debris and unexploded ordinance – as well as the bad, like blowing up foreign oil rigs…”

The report said they were chosen because they were Navy only, not “members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership.”

Hersh reported, “The Biden administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.”

Hersh reported Biden and his foreign policy team had been “hostile” to the pipelines for a long time. But he explained, “Action that could be traced to the administration would violate U.S. promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia.”

He explained Washington viewed the gas supply route to be a way of providing huge profits to Russia – and Putin’s agenda.

He said, “Nord Stream 1 was dangerous enough, in the view of NATO and Washington, but Nord Stream 2, whose construction was completed in September of 2021, would, if approved by German regulators, double the amount of cheap gas that would be available to Germany and Western Europe. The second pipeline also would provide enough gas for more than 50 percent of German’s annual consumption. Tensions were constantly escalating between Russia and NATO, backed by the aggressive foreign policy of the Biden administration.”

Biden, just as the second pipeline was nearly finished, “blinked,” Hersh reported.

He dropped plans for sanctions in opposition.

“The administration was floundering, despite getting a reprieve on the crisis in mid-November, when Germany’s energy regulators suspended approval of the second Nord Stream pipeline. Natural gas prices surged 8% within days, amid growing fears in Germany and Europe that the pipeline suspension and the growing possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine would lead to a very much unwanted cold winter. It was not clear to Washington just where Olaf Scholz, Germany’s newly appointed chancellor, stood. Months earlier, after the fall of Afghanistan, Scholtz had publicly endorsed French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a more autonomous European foreign policy in a speech in Prague—clearly suggesting less reliance on Washington and its mercurial actions,” Hersh wrote.

Then Russian forces built up along the Ukraine border and Biden “was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia.”

What resulted were meetings where it became apparent Biden adviser Jake Sullivan “intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the president.”

Eventually, the report explains, a plan emerged for divers to install explosives, which could then be detonated.

“What came next was stunning. On February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, ‘If Russia invades … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.’” Hersh wrote.

The report said divers then attached C4 to the pipelines to be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice.

“On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place,” he reported.

February 9, 2023 | 1 Comment »

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