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A leaked intelligence report from February says “Netanyahu probably calculates Israel will need to strike Iran to deter its nuclear program.”
The report — which was first covered by the Israeli channel i24 News and subsequently posted by DDoSecrets, a group that publishes leaked documents — reveals an undisclosed military exercise conducted by Israel. “On 20 February, Israel conducted a large-scale air exercise,” the intelligence report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on February 23, states. The exercise, it says, was “probably to simulate a strike on Iran’s nuclear program and possibly to demonstrate Jerusalem’s resolve to act against Tehran.” There have been several joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises in recent months, including one proudly billed by the Pentagon as the largest “in history.”
“CIA does not know Israel’s near term plans and intentions,” the report adds, speculating that “Netanyahu probably calculates Israel will need to strike Iran to deter its nuclear program and faces a declining military capability to set back Iran’s enrichment program.”
That the U.S.’s premier intelligence service indicated it had no idea how seriously to take Israel’s increasingly bombastic threats to Tehran means that, in all likelihood, neither does the White House. But despite this lack of clarity, Biden has not opposed a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran — and his national security adviser recently hinted at blessing it.
“We have made clear to Iran that it can never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Jake Sullivan said in a speech earlier this month, reiterating the administration’s oft-repeated line. The rhetoric reflects what military planners call “strategic ambiguity,” a policy of intentional uncertainty in order to deter an adversary — in this case, around how far the U.S. might go to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But Sullivan went a step further, adding, “As President Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, he will take the actions that are necessary to stand by this statement, including by recognizing Israel’s freedom of action.”
Sullivan’s statement represents the strongest signal yet that the administration would not oppose unilateral action by Israel. The rhetoric has also been echoed by other administration officials. In February, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, said that “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [Iran] and we’ve got their back.”
“In the current context this constitutes glibness,” said Paul Pillar, a retired national intelligence officer for the near east, of Sullivan’s statement. Pillar is now a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security Studies. “I believe the administration is playing with fire with this kind of rhetoric and with the joint military planning.” Last week, Axios reported that the U.S. recently proposed cooperating with Israel on joint military planning around Iran but denied they would plan to strike Iran’s nuclear program.
“Biden has dangerously shifted America’s policy on Israeli military action against Iran,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Intercept. “Previous administrations made it crystal clear to Israel – including publicly – that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program would be destabilizing, would not prevent a nuclear Iran and would likely drag the US into a war it could do well without.
“Obama’s clear opposition played a crucial role in the internal deliberations of the Israeli cabinet in 2010 and 2011 when Israel was on the verge of starting war,” Parsi pointed out. In 2009, after then-Vice President Biden said “Israel can determine for itself … what they decide to do relative to Iran,” Obama clarified that his administration was “absolutely not” giving Israel a green light to attack Iran.
Israel’s own military officials concede that an attack on Iran would likely metastasize into a broader regional war. Earlier this month, retired Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi reportedly said that “Israel might have to deal with the Iranian nuclear program,” adding that “this will mean an Israeli attack on Iran which will probably result in a regional war.”
In January, just weeks before Israel’s secret exercise referenced in the intelligence report, the U.S. and Israel conducted what the Defense Department touted as their largest joint military exercise in history. Called Juniper Oak, the exercise involved “electronic attack, suppression of enemy air defenses, strike coordination and reconnaissance,” which experts said “are exactly what the U.S. and Israel would need to conduct a successful kinetic attack on Iran’s nuclear program.”
The unprecedented exercise was made possible by a little-noticed order by President Donald Trump just days before Biden’s inauguration. Using his authority as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Trump ordered Israel be moved from European Command’s area of responsibility, where it had been located since 1983 to avoid friction with its Middle East neighbors, to that of Central Command, the Pentagon’s Middle East combatant command.
Under Biden, CENTCOM, whose area of responsibility includes Iran, has continued to coordinate closely with Israel. In March, Biden’s CENTCOM chief, Gen. Michael Kurilla, said in Senate testimony that the decision to move Israel from EUCOM to CENTCOM “immediately and profoundly altered the nature and texture of many of CENTCOM’s partnerships,” adding that “CENTCOM today readily partners with Arab militaries and the Israel Defense Force alike.”
“In fact, the inclusion of Israel presents many collaborative and constructive security opportunities,” Kurilla said. “Our partners of four decades largely see the same threats and have common cause with Israel Defense Forces and the Arab militaries in defending against Iran’s most destabilizing activities.”
Put simply, for the first time, the U.S. and both its Arab and Israeli allies are structurally aligned against a common foe: Iran.
At the same hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton, who had advocated for the relocation of Israel to CENTCOM weeks before Trump gave the order, raised the possibility of training Israeli pilots in the use of mid-air refuel aircraft. The lack of such aircraft, which allow fighter jets to travel long distances, is a key impediment to Israel’s ability to reach Iranian nuclear facilities.
“One of the opportunities I see is having Israeli Air Force personnel training alongside American personnel on KC 46 tankers, which we expect to provide them in future,” Cotton said. Kurilla, for his part, demurred, replying that training might be better “when they get closer to getting their aircraft … so they can retain that training and go right into the execution of operating them.”
Though Biden campaigned on reinstating the Iran nuclear deal — also called JCPOA, which Obama established and Trump pulled out of — the deal is all but dead.
“With Iran, any concerns about a nuclear program have sometimes been overwhelmed by a desire — based on partisanship in the U.S. and heavily influenced by the government of Israel — to isolate Iran and not do any business or negotiations with it at all,” Pillar told The Intercept. “Hence you had Trump’s reneging on the JCPOA agreement in 2018, with a direct result of that reneging being that there is now far more reason to be worried about a possible Iranian nuclear weapon than there was when the JCPOA was still in effect.”
Should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, it would likely trigger a dangerous regional arms race. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has made clear that Riyadh would “follow suit as soon as possible” with its own atomic bomb should Tehran obtain one.
But one key fact is often left out of discussions about Iran and the bomb: There’s no evidence that it’s actually pursuing one.
As the Pentagon’s most recent Nuclear Posture Review plainly states, “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.” More recently, CIA Director William Burns reiterated that point in an interview with CBS in February. “To the best of our knowledge,” Burns said, “we don’t believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003.”
Iran’s policy could, of course, change. And tensions are rising in large part because of the U.S.’s recent posturing. For example, following the Juniper Oak exercise, Iran responded with its own military exercises, which Iranian military commander Maj. Gen. Gholam-Ali Rashid said they consider a “half war” and even a “war before war.”
In April, CENTCOM announced the deployment of a submarine armed with guided missiles in the Mediterranean Sea. This was likely a message directed at Iran, which quickly responded by accusing the U.S. of “warmongering.”
Earlier, in October, CENTCOM issued an extraordinary press release featuring Kurilla, the CENTCOM chief, aboard a submarine armed with ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the Arabian Sea — another message for Iran.
On May 9, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that the military would be increasing its patrols in the Strait of Hormuz, through which many Iranian vessels travel. In his remarks, Ryder made particular mention of the P-8 Poseidon aircraft and the role it would play in bolstering maritime surveillance of the area.
The same aircraft made international news in 2019, when Iran disclosed that it almost downed a P-8 carrying U.S. service members that it claimed had entered its airspace, opting instead to shoot down a nearby drone. The U.S. military scrambled jets to strike Iran in retaliation, only to be called off by Trump 10 minutes before the attack when a general told him that the strikes would probably kill 150 people. The strikes would not, Trump said, have been “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
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President Donald Trump holds up papers in the White House briefing room on April 20, 2020. (photo: Alex Brandon/AP)
On Thursday, The Washington Post teased out another aspect of this complicated situation. According to people familiar with the investigation, the government has evidence that Trump’s team practiced moving documents he took from the White House — the implication being that they rehearsed hiding them. Then, shortly before inviting the Justice Department to come pick up a cache of documents, the Trump employees apparently put that practice to use.
This has been the subtext to the investigation from the outset: Trump had things he wanted to keep despite not being authorized to do so. The timeline of events, delineated below, reinforces that idea.
The question, then, is why. What use did they serve?
In recent weeks, we’ve gotten more insight in that regard, as well. Consider Trump’s response when asked at CNN’s town hall event earlier this month whether he showed documents marked as classified to anyone after leaving the White House.
“Not really,” he said, insisting (falsely) that he had the right to do so anyway. When pressed on it, he reeled his response back a bit: “Not — not that I can think of.”
“Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said,” The Post reported this week, “and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.”
Since news first emerged of the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the nature of that place has been a complicating factor. It’s not simply that Trump took presidential records from the White House to his home or even that some of those documents were marked as classified. It’s that he took them to a facility where he hosts paying customers, political supplicants and publicly accessible events.
The idea that Trump sought to retain those documents despite requests from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is reinforced by The Post’s report about boxes being moved before the Justice Department’s first visit. But the full timeline below, building in part on a Washington Post timeline compiled by Rosalind S. Helderman, makes that intent harder to ignore.
Jan. 20, 2021. Trump leaves the White House, bringing a number of boxes containing documents and other material with him to his home at Mar-a-Lago. Some of the documents he kept there were marked as classified.
May 6. Realizing that documents are missing, NARA contacts Trump about obtaining them.
Jan. 18, 2022. After being prodded repeatedly, Trump’s team in late December informs NARA that it has documents to return. After being packed with Trump’s personal oversight, they are shipped from Florida to Washington, where NARA discovers that the material includes a number of documents marked as classified.
Early February. Trump asks an attorney to tell NARA that all of the requested material has been returned. The attorney, not knowing if this is true, declines to do so.
Feb. 9. NARA sends a referral to the Justice Department centered on concerns that Trump has been in possession of that material, that some of it has been mixed in with other records, and that some documents have been torn up.
April. NARA informs Trump that it will turn over the material to the FBI following a Justice Department request. Trump’s attorneys object, claiming executive privilege. NARA rejects that idea, and the material is turned over to the FBI in May.
May. At some point in April or early May, Trump and aides reportedly practice moving material that he didn’t want to turn over.
May 11. Trump’s team is served with a subpoena for “any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings” — notably, not just documents that were actually classified.
June 2. Trump aide Walt Nauta and another Mar-a-Lago employee reportedly move a number of boxes of papers into a storage area at Mar-a-Lago.
That evening, a lawyer contacts the Justice Department and invites officials to come pick up documents responsive to the subpoena.
June 3. Jay Bratt and several FBI agents arrive at Mar-a-Lago to collect the material. They are given a single envelope containing 38 documents. Trump attorney Christina Bobb signs an affidavit asserting, “Any and all responsive documents accompany this certification.”
While there, Bratt views the storage room. Attorneys for Trump reportedly prevent his team from looking in any of the boxes there.
Nauta later helps load an SUV in which Trump would depart for Bedminster, N.J.
June 8. Bratt emails Trump’s lawyers and asks that the storage room be secured and that the material in it not be disturbed.
June 24. The Trump Organization receives a subpoena for footage from security cameras at Mar-a-Lago beginning in January. This footage reportedly includes images showing Nauta moving boxes — but it also contains unexplained gaps.
Aug. 8. FBI agents arrive at Mar-a-Lago to execute a search warrant. They retrieve a number of boxes, including material with classification markings, both from the storage room and from Trump’s office. Some of the documents found in the office — many marked with high levels of classification — are separated into a leather-bound box.
November. Attorneys working for Trump search Bedminster, Trump Tower in New York and a storage unit in Florida. Several documents with classification markings are found at the latter location.
Trump attorney and ally Boris Epshteyn had reportedly tried to block the search at Bedminster.
There are a number of legal questions raised here, of course, ones being adjudicated by special counsel Jack Smith.
There is also a political question — about Trump’s apparent interest in again subverting governmental boundaries to satisfy his own interests. Independent of Smith’s determinations, that question deserves to be considered.
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Members of the Free Russia Legion at a news conference in Northern Ukraine. (photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/New York Times)
Russia, they told reporters at a news conference in a forest in northern Ukraine near the Russian border, should brace for further cross-border assaults, warning that any section of the frontier could be vulnerable.
By Wednesday, the incursion was over, the fighters said, and the news conference back in Ukraine seemed intended as a victory lap to highlight weaknesses in the Russian military and to try to shape the narrative of the fighting.
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'It's one of many public rebukes of Florida's current war against inclusion, in which schools have inevitably become a battleground.' (photo: John Raoux/AP)
Ron DeSantis’s war on ‘wokeness’ is part of a larger effort to make Black people feel unwelcome, their identities un-American
“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the NAACP wrote in a press release issued last week.
It’s one of many public rebukes of Florida’s current war against inclusion, in which schools have inevitably become a battleground. Along with slashing funds for diversity and inclusion initiatives at institutions of higher education, DeSantis also recently blocked a new high school AP African American studies class, calling it “a political agenda” and “woke indoctrination”. Some of the offending topics in the course outline included intersectionality, the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations and prison abolition.
The NAACP’s warning is important because it’s a stark reminder of how Black erasure is weaponized in the project of white supremacy. History has taught us that any attempt to assert the dominance of whiteness necessarily involves the subjugation, destruction and erasure of Black people. Whether it’s preventing Black people from voting, or blocking access to vital educational material that would teach kids why Black people once couldn’t vote, Black struggle has always gone hand in hand with its own un-remembering.
Still, DeSantis’s war against “wokeness” is operating alongside a larger effort to make Black people feel unwelcome, their identities inherently un-American. And in a country where white victimhood has become a powerful motivator, and where misinformation is regularly used to further the cause of white supremacy, it’s not difficult to see how dangerous it is to implicate children and young people in that system of ignorance.
Excising Black Americans and their historical struggles from the larger story of the US also lets the country off the hook for the ways it continues to owe an immeasurable debt to its Black people. Yet as the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates highlights in his 2014 essay The Case for Reparations, for every noble effort to figure out how the US can right its wrongs, there have been forces waiting to explain why reparations for Black people are either impossible to achieve or unnecessary to even attempt. Erasing the very knowledge base that helps us remember why these reparations are important only helps further that agenda.
Unsurprisingly, rightwing white Americans are responding with jest to news of the NAACP advisory. “Maybe they had a travel advisory because of the humidity, I know that it gets frizzy,” podcast host Steven Crowder said on his show on Monday, apparently referring to the tendency for Black people’s hair to respond to humidity.
He and his co-hosts lobbed racist jokes back and forth before Crowder finally said the quiet part out loud: “After the advisory went up, 49 governors called the NAACP asking if they could be added to the list.”
This banter is disturbing not because of how uninspired it is as far as “comedy” goes, but because of just how close to reality their jokes come. DeSantis is, after all, launching his presidential bid.
The US has never been fully safe for Black people, and as the country shifts toward a very frightening time in its history, it’s taking specific aim at the very people upon whose backs the country was built.
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Tributes are displayed on the three-year anniversary of George Floyd's death at George Floyd Square, Thursday, May 25, 2023, in Minneapolis. (photo: Abbie Parr/AP)
For more than nine minutes, a white officer pressed his knee to the neck of Floyd, a Black man, who gasped, “I can’t breathe,” echoing Eric Garner’s last words in 2014. Video footage of Floyd’s May 25, 2020, murder was so agonizing to watch that demands for change came from across the country.
But in the midst of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty and a divisive U.S. presidential election, 2020 ended without the kind of major police reforms that many hoped, and others feared, would come. Then, 2021 and 2022 also failed to yield much progress.
Now, three years since Floyd’s murder, proponents of federal actions — such as banning chokeholds and changing the so-called qualified immunity protections for law enforcement — still await meaningful signs of change. The beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers in early January underscored just how long it could take.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, said during a recent press conference convened by a Black Lives Matter collective that she sees no evidence of a “racial reckoning.”
“I don’t play with words like ‘reckoning,’ ” Pressley said. “That needs to be something of epic proportion. And we certainly have not seen a response to the lynching, the choking, the brutality, (and) the murder of Black lives.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN MINNEAPOLIS?
Soon after Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis adopted a number of changes, including bans on chokeholds and neck restraints, and requirements that police try to stop fellow officers from using improper force. Minnesota lawmakers approved statewide police accountability packages in 2020 and in 2021, as well as tight restrictions on no-knock warrants this month.
The city is still awaiting the results of a federal investigation into whether its police engaged in a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional or unlawful policing. A similar investigation by the state Department of Human Rights led to what it called a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” in March to revamp policing in the city.
The federal investigation could lead to a similar but separate agreement with the city. Police in several other cities already operate under such oversight for civil rights violations.
“We are shifting the culture of our police department — to ensure that our officers strengthen and hold the trust of our entire community,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement Thursday.
There were immediate cries after Floyd’s murder to defund the police — and instead fund public housing and other services. But a ballot measure that had roots in that movement failed, even in some heavily Black neighborhoods.
An AP review of police funding found that some municipalities elsewhere made modest cuts that fell far short of activists’ calls.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MINNEAPOLIS THIS WEEK?
More than 100 people gathered Thursday night at George Floyd Square, the corner where Floyd died. The event to remember Floyd included music and dancing, and a candlelight vigil was planned. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara stopped by and talked with people in the crowd — at one point, raising his fist in solidarity.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of flowers and signs swayed in the wind between towering statues of fists at the square. Kendrick White and Georgio Wright, two Black men, said they visit the site every day and lead “pilgrimage guides” — or tours — to spread awareness about what happened.
About 20 high school students and teachers from California were in their group Thursday. Lee Fertig, head of school at The Nueva School in the Bay area community of San Mateo, said they wanted to see how the community is rebuilding.
Gov. Tim Walz declared Thursday “George Floyd Remembrance Day” in Minnesota, proclaiming, “True justice for George Floyd will come only through real, systemic change to prevent acts like this from happening again.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OFFICERS?
Derek Chauvin, the white officer who killed Floyd, and the three other officers who failed to stop him, are all in prison. Chauvin was sentenced in state court to 22 1/2 years for second-degree murder. Two of the three other officers pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting manslaughter and received shorter terms, while the third was convicted of that count by a judge and awaits sentencing.
All four of the officers were also convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER PROTESTS?
Around the world, protests against racial violence and police brutality erupted after Floyd’s murder, reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement. Videos circulated on social media of U.S. police using tear gas and less-lethal munitions like rubber bullets, fueling calls for accountability, which so far has largely come in the form of civil settlements.
New York City found 146 officers had committed misconduct at protests, including one officer who drove a car into protesters. Independent reviews in Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Los Angeles also found those departments had mishandled their responses.
In some cities, a handful of officers were fired. Some faced criminal charges: In Austin, Texas, 19 officers were indicted. Few have been convicted.
Minneapolis has agreed to millions of dollars in settlements with people who alleged they were victims of excessive police force during unrest that followed Floyd’s killing, which included the burning of a police station. Few officers were disciplined.
WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE FEDERAL LEVEL?
In 2020, federal legislation called the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act showed signs of promise. It would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, like the one that enabled Louisville police to kill Breonna Taylor. It would also create a database listing officers who were disciplined for gross misconduct, among other measures.
The House passed it in 2021. But the Senate failed to reach a consensus.
Last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that applied key elements of the bill to federal law officers. On Thursday, Biden renewed his call for Congress to act to bring “real and lasting change at the state and local levels.”
“I urge Congress to enact meaningful police reform and send it to my desk. I will sign it,” he said in a statement, adding that he will fight for police accountability and work with both parties to reach solutions.
Meanwhile, Pressley, the Massachusetts congresswoman, has been promoting the Ending Qualified Immunity Act, a measure she has reintroduced every year since 2020.
WHAT ABOUT THE FLOYD FAMILY?
Over the last three years, George Floyd’s family members have appeared at rallies and spoken out against police violence. Within days of his brother’s death, Philonise Floyd testified at a congressional hearing about police reform.
While relatives and reform advocates called for legislation changes, George Floyd’s youngest daughter, Gianna Floyd, met Biden at the White House in 2021. A photo of a Marine holding the door for the 7-year-old went viral.
New York City-based Terrence Floyd, who became an activist after his brother’s murder, planned to hold the third-annual memorial event at a Harlem church on Thursday evening. He has supported get-out-the-vote efforts and promoted music paying tribute to his brother.
“You have to have the faith that it will happen, because it didn’t happen overnight for Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X. It didn’t happen overnight for Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson,” he said about meaningful social change. “You can’t expect it to happen overnight for us, but it will happen.”
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A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan. (photo: Marwan Ali/AP)
Nearly 17,000 civilian deaths were recorded across 12 conflicts around the world last year, a 53% rise.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council “to live up to its commitments” to protect civilians as enshrined in international humanitarian law, citing examples of civilian deaths in Ukraine and Sudan, schools destroyed in Ethiopia, and damage to water infrastructure in Syria.
In 2022, the UN said there was a 53 percent increase in civilian deaths compared with 2021, with nearly 17,000 civilian deaths recorded across 12 conflicts.
Guterres said UN research into war zones showed 94 percent of victims from “explosive weapons” in populated areas were civilians last year, while more than 117 million people faced acute hunger primarily because of war and insecurity.
“Law overlooked is law undermined. We need action and accountability to ensure it is respected. And that depends on political will,” said Guterres, sitting next to Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya. “Peace is the best form of protection.”
In Ukraine, which Russia invaded more than a year ago, the UN recorded nearly 8,000 civilian deaths and 12,500 injuries. However, it added actual figures were likely higher.
Worldwide, the number of refugees forced from their homes because of “conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution” has reached 100 million, the UN boss added.
‘Break the pattern’
Swiss President Alain Berset, who chaired Tuesday’s meeting, said as the depository state for the Geneva Conventions and the home of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), respect for international humanitarian law was a longstanding priority for the country.
The number of people facing acute food insecurity rose to 258 million last year, which he noted was 30 times the population of New York City.
More than two-thirds live in conflict zones, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, the Sahel, Somalia, Myanmar and Afghanistan, or in countries where violence is widespread such as Haiti, Berset said.
He urged all countries to implement a 2018 UNSC resolution against the use of starvation as a method of warfare and unlawfully denying humanitarian access and life-saving supplies to civilians, as well as a 2021 resolution condemning unlawful attacks that deprive civilians of essential services.
Meanwhile, the president of the ICRC said during recent visits to Africa, Europe, and the Middle East she saw a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation with “entire regions trapped in cycles of conflict without an end in sight”.
Mirjana Spoljaric said many of the conflicts are compounded by climate shocks, food insecurity, and economic hardship.
She issued an urgent call for countries to protect civilians and critical infrastructure in urban areas, pointing to large-scale destruction in Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. She also urged that food be provided to all civilians in conflict areas, and for access to be given to humanitarian workers.
“We need to break the pattern of violations, and this can be done through strong political will and sustained action,” Spoljaric said.
Nicolas de Riviere, France’s ambassador to the UN, singled out alleged rights violations committed by Russia in Ukraine and by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group in the Central African Republic and Mali.
“Civilians have suffered the deadly effects of armed conflict for too long,” Guterres said. “It is time we live up to our promise to protect them.”
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The Shell ethane cracker in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on the evening of March 25. (photo: Leila Register/NBC News; Katarina Sabados/Global Reporting Centre)
“It’s not normal to look up in the sky and see flames,” said a local resident. “The sky has been a completely different color” since the plant became operational.
“With this agreement, the Department of Environmental Protection is taking steps to hold Shell accountable and protect Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to clean air and water while encouraging innovation and economic development in the Commonwealth,” said acting Secretary Rich Negrín.
The “ethane cracker,” as the plant is called, is a 384-acre-wide industrial complex that heats ethane — a byproduct of fracking in the region — and “cracks” it under high pressure into ethylene to produce polyethylene pellets, a building block for plastic.
It officially switched on last November, with an interim permit that allows it to emit a yearly total of 516 tons of “volatile organic compounds” — chemicals such as benzene, toluene and naphthalene, which are linked to a range of adverse health effects, from respiratory irritation to nerve damage.
But state records show that before operations even began, Shell had exceeded its 12-month VOC emissions ceiling due in part to “flaring” events — when excess gasses are burned off instead of released into the atmosphere.
“It’s not normal to look up in the sky and see flames,” said local resident Hilary Flint, 31. “The sky has been a completely different color since they’ve become operational.”
The enforcement action comes three weeks after NBC News and the Global Reporting Centre first started asking Shell and DEP questions about the plant, and not long after environmental advocacy groups sued Shell over its excess emissions. The agency’s consent order details a range of violations. In addition to repeatedly breaching emissions limits for VOCs, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and “hazardous air pollutants” — otherwise known as air toxics — DEP cited a slew of malfunctions at the plant dating back to June 2022.
In late March, Shell had temporarily halted operations at the plant to conduct repairs and, as part of the consent order, work at the plant can restart effective immediately. But according to the terms of the agreement, it may be months before Shell is in compliance with its emissions limits.
“If my car doesn’t pass inspection, I’m not really allowed to drive that car,” said James Fabisiak, director of the Center for Healthy Environments … Communities at the University of Pittsburgh. “There’s no negotiation about ‘well, I’ll get my snow tires next week.’”
The $10 million agreement doesn’t preclude DEP from fining Shell for future violations, but Fabisiak said that while it’s good that DEP has taken enforcement action, he is concerned that Shell is being allowed to restart operations even though the company anticipates being in violation of its rolling 12-month emissions limits into fall 2023, according to the agreement.
Generally speaking, Fabisiak said, “It’s cheaper for industry to pay the penalty, pay the fine, to be allowed to continue to pollute.”
A Shell spokesperson said, “We’ve worked closely with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PaDEP) to fix the issues that led to prior violations, and Shell Polymers Monaca (SPM) is resuming production as a result. We’ve learned from previous issues and remain committed to protecting people and the environment, as well as being a responsible neighbor.”
“At first I was happy they’re being held accountable,” said Flint, who lives in Enon Valley, Pa. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is just putting a price on our lives.”
A burn pit
To date, Shell has submitted 43 malfunction reports to DEP. And since the plant became fully operational in November, state records show the agency has dealt 11 “notices of violation” to the company, nearly all due to excess emissions.
Local environmental activists and residents have been sounding the alarm for months, and for some, the civil penalty is a complicated victory. “I think it is really the bare minimum,” said Anais Peterson, 25, an organizer with Eyes on Shell, a local, citizen-led advocacy group that has been pushing for more transparency about, and regulation of, the plant’s emissions.
“How much wiggle room are we giving them?” Peterson said. “If Shell has said, ‘We can’t operate in compliance,’ the DEP should say, ‘Then you’re not operating.’”
In Beaver County, forested hills frame towns tightly packed along the banks of the Ohio River and its tributaries. At night, an eerie, sometimes orange glow from the Shell cracker beams through the sky, visible for miles.
In February and March, two separate, dramatic flaring events occurred as residents were already struggling to cope with a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — just a half-hour away — that ignited a toxic inferno. Plumes of black smoke and orange fire billowed from the cracker’s stacks for hours.
“I feel like we’re kind of next to a burn pit,” said Rachel Eshom, a 38-year-old registered nurse who lives roughly two miles from the Shell plant.
Residents of the Ohio River Valley, which includes swaths of Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania, are no strangers to pollutive industry and catastrophic environmental events. Before the train derailment, a chemical fire in 2019 forced residents to shelter in place, and a natural gas pipeline explosion in 2018 destroyed one home and prompted evacuation of 25 others.
Eshom said she and her husband have experienced headaches and a burning sensation in their eyes when driving past the plant. She wants to move farther away but doesn’t know where to go.
“It’s just pollution everywhere,” she said.
Communities that host petrochemical plants in Louisiana and on the Texas Gulf Coast have experienced hazardous levels of air pollution, accidents and industrial waste spills, including spills of the so-called "nurdles," or tiny plastic pellets, that crackers produce.
In 2022, Shell and one of its contractors were forced to pay a $670,000 civil penalty for spilling industrial waste along Shell’s 97-mile stretch of pipeline, built to supply ethane to the cracker. A Shell spokesperson said the company “cooperated with all relevant local, state, and federal agencies and affected communities to ensure Falcon was constructed in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.”
Over the past decade, state leaders in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania have pursued the plastics industry as a way to breathe economic life into the region, offering multinational companies more than a billion dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies to draw in plastics manufacturing projects.
Shell said it planned to create just over 600 permanent jobs. Data obtained by the Global Reporting Centre through a public records request shows that 457 full-time employees worked at the plant as of early 2022. Shell said it could not provide updated employment numbers.
Beaver County Commissioner Daniel Camp expressed support for the cracker during its construction and believes it will ultimately benefit the region. But since it turned on, he said he’s heard regularly from residents who are concerned about air quality.
“The one thing that we need to do moving forward is making sure that our state and federal leaders hold them accountable,” Camp said.
“Do I believe $10 million is going to do any damage to Shell as a whole? Absolutely not. It’s a slap on the wrist. But it’s in the right direction.”
The Beaver County Chamber of Commerce declined a request for an interview but said, “We have always believed that the growth of industry through businesses like Shell is vital and important for our county.”
‘You shouldn’t be having all these problems’
Petrochemical plants often conduct controlled burning of flammable gas, called “flaring,” to get rid of unwanted waste or to release pressure in the event of a safety concern or an emergency. But flares can also spew large amounts of methane, benzene and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
Richard Corsi, an environmental engineer and dean of the Engineering College at the University of California Davis, said flaring is a “necessary evil.”
Corsi’s research focus is indoor air pollution, and he has previously done emissions-related research funded by both Shell and BP.
“Flares are kind of this emergency response to, ‘We’ve got a problem, we’ve got to start burning stuff,” he said. “The hope is that you’re not forming lots of bad pollutants, but you always form some pollutants when you combust.”
According to Wednesday’s consent order, the cracker plant had nine flaring violations between June 23, 2022 and April 5, 2023.
Corsi said that the biggest air quality concerns posed by flaring events are the release of particulate matter, VOCs and thermal nitrogen oxide, because nitrogen oxide and VOCs mix to form ozone when exposed to sunlight, which can create increased risk of respiratory issues. According to DEP, Shell simultaneously violated its rolling 12-month limits of both VOCs and nitrogen oxide from December 2022 through April 2023. It also violated its rolling limit for carbon monoxide in February, March and April.
“The engineering that goes into these plants is pretty sophisticated,” he said. “If you do it right, you shouldn’t be having all these problems.”
Jim Zhang, an air pollution and environmental health expert at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said that flaring poses a particular risk for valley communities, like those in Beaver County, where air temperature inversions are common. Inversions happen when air is trapped near the earth’s surface, preventing pollutants from dispersing as they normally would.
“It’s like a tent, and they come and put a lid on top of it,” Zhang said.
Burn or emit anything, Zhang added, and high levels of pollution can accumulate.
That’s of particular significance, given southwest Pennsylvania’s existing air pollution burden, said Fabisiak.
The Pittsburgh metropolitan area currently ranks among the worst in the nation for particle pollution, although air quality has improved significantly in the past two decades, according to the American Lung Association.
“In most cases, when those sites get permitted for their air quality plans, cumulative effects are not necessarily taken into account very well. In other words, it’s only that one specific source that gets looked at, and not really in the context of all of the other sources that might be available around it at the time,” said Fabisiak.
‘I had to make sure it was real’
The cracker plant had a series of malfunctions this spring, as residents and activists pressed DEP to step in.
By February, Shell had exceeded various emissions limits for five months in a row. When black smoke was seen spewing from the stacks for several hours later that month, environmental groups asked DEP to temporarily halt operations at the cracker. The agency denied the request, writing that it was not “giving Shell a ‘pass’ for these violations” but that because of “ongoing evaluations and inquiries,” it could not commit to specific enforcement measures at that time.
In March, a dramatic video taken by a resident showed hoses spraying down the side of a flaring smokestack as flames billowed out.
“I had to pull over and make sure it was real,” the resident said in the video. “How much more can they get away with?”
Shell later announced that it was shutting down portions of the plant to conduct repairs, and in a letter to DEP acknowledged that it had found a construction error partly responsible for the incident. The floors of the flaring structure had been built “2-4 inches lower in places” than designed.
After a malfunction released benzene at the cracker’s wastewater storage facility in April, causing a chemical odor to spread over part of Beaver County, Shell held a community meeting with residents to address the recent issues, its first since August 2022.
Bill Watson, the plant’s general manager, said there were “no reported injuries to workers or to the community because of these violations. But that being said, no violation is acceptable.”
In a statement to NBC News before the penalty was announced, a Shell spokesperson declined to comment on pending litigation with environmental groups but said the cracker plant “is a unique asset, as are the complications that have surfaced there as part of startup — all related to the complexities of commissioning brand new systems and equipment that make up one of the largest construction projects in the country. Throughout construction and now in operations, the safety of people and the environment remain our top priorities.”
At that time, DEP had fined Shell twice for emissions-related violations at the cracker plant, in the amounts of $10,000 and $4,313.
A DEP representative said, “While it is not unusual for any new facility to have some technical issues during its start-up phase, operators are required to comply with Pennsylvania’s environmental laws, regulations, and any environmental permits issued to the operator.”
‘That ship is sinking’
As part of an agreement with environmental groups that challenged Shell’s air permit when the plant was still being built, the company installed a network of air monitors around the perimeter of the site, which continuously sample the area for VOCs. Shell is also required by the state to report emissions as part of its air permit.
But Shell’s network of monitors doesn’t allow residents to get real-time information about the concentration of pollutants in the air at any given moment. Days pass before the data is made public.
A number of residents have installed their own monitors at home. “PurpleAir” monitors are low-cost air quality sensors that measure levels of particulate matter and VOCs in real time. The data is sent to a publicly accessible map, viewable by anyone.
So far, 25 monitors have been deployed in the area as part of a campaign led by Mark Dixon, a Pittsburgh-based filmmaker and environmentalist.
“Putting monitors where people are feels like a common-sense practice,” especially in the context of an “unequal relationship” between Shell and nearby residents, Dixon said.
“Our leaders have hitched our economic wagon to this highly polluting, accident-prone industry,” said Dixon. “And we are going to reap the consequences of that unless we push back, keep a close eye on what’s going on, and try to hold them to account as best we can.”
While the monitors are not regulatory grade, in combination with other information – like daily weather forecasts and observations of smells and visible emissions – they can help paint a more complete picture for residents who want to know what’s in the air before going outside.
“What people can do is say, ‘Hey, you know, I should really close the windows, close the doors,’” Zhang said.
Clifford Lau, a 67-year old chemist and Eyes on Shell volunteer, periodically samples the air around the plant for VOCs. Lau’s monitoring is part of an Eyes on Shell effort — partially funded by the EPA — to independently track air quality.
Lau said that while exceeding permitted pollutant levels is problematic, he is more worried about the public health risks posed by the particular cocktail of chemicals released at a given time. The cracker emits various pollutants consistently as part of its regular operations, including carcinogens like benzene and 1-3 butadiene.
“What effect does that mixture have on the public?” Lau said. “They become guinea pigs, in essence, to find out.”
Lau said he’s concerned that the region risks turning into “Cancer Valley,” a reference to southern Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” an 85-mile corridor of petrochemical plants along the Mississippi River where the EPA has said residents suffer from high rates of cancer and other adverse health effects linked to pollution.
“What these people are being exposed to here is a low level, but 24/7, 365,” he said.
As Eyes on Shell watchdogs continue to test the air quality, hold community meetings and report potential permit violations, some residents contemplate if they can keep living in the plumes of the Shell cracker.
Sharon Kessler, 66, who lives on a hill roughly four miles from the plant, worries for her grandchildren’s future and what could happen if they stay in the area.
“Living next to that it’s like being on the Titanic, and you’re locked on the bottom deck,” Kessler said, as she pointed in the direction of the cracker. “That ship is sinking.”
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