According to this documentary 35 minutes in, Israel knew it did not have the military capability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but they hoped that if they started the job, the Americans would step in and finish it.
A new documentary tells the story of Stuxnet, a computer virus developed, it is claimed, by Israel and the U.S. to disrupt the Iranian nuclear project. In an interview, filmmaker Alex Gibney talks about Israel’s responsibility for the revelation of the operation and its eventual spread around the world. Are we already in the midst of what Gibney calls ‘World War 3.0’?
NEW YORK – The two following assertions sound like something out of a James Bond movie: 1. We are in the midst of a new global war on a scale of the world wars of the 20th century, and, 2. The countries that have declared and launched the war refuse, in effect, to acknowledge its existence – or being held accountable for its outcome.
These notions are not some Hollywood fantasy: They underlie “Zero Days,” the new film by the Oscar-winning American documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney.
The film is based on years of in-depth research, carried out with the help and cooperation of more than 100 journalists, information security experts, senior personnel at the U.S. National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, and Israeli figures including Yuval Steinitz, the national infrastructure minister who is also responsible for the Atomic Energy Commission, and the former director of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin.
“Zero Days” tells the constantly surprising story of the Stuxnet computer virus, which, according to Gibney and his sources, was developed by Israel and the United States during 2007-2008 in order to thwart the Iranian nuclear enterprise. Considerable information about the virus, including Israeli and U.S. involvement in its development, became public in September 2010, a few months after Stuxnet was first detected by information security firms.
In the six years that have elapsed, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other important media outlets have revealed additional details about the subject. Neither Israel nor the United States, however, has ever admitted its involvement in creating the virus, nor have they taken responsibility for its subsequent unexpected and aggressive spread around the world, in the course of which it attacked American computer networks and infrastructure facilities.