AS THE WORM TURNS – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:   We said here several weeks ago that the most underreported story of 2010 was the Stuxnet virus, a computer worm that did enormous damage to the Iranian nuclear program, and set it back several years.  Now, in a piece of revealing reporting, The New York Times pieces together how the United States and Israel produced the worm and used it, in a program initiated by the Bush administration.  We hope that President Bush gets the credit he deserves for this contribution:

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal.

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

COMMENT:  This is a great detective story, and well worth reading.  It also shows what two allies, working together, can accomplish.  Compare please with our "alliance" with Pakistan or even some European countries.

January 16, 201