The White House yesterday faced fresh accusations of tailoring intelligence to suit its political viewpoint from a former CIA analyst barred from publishing a critical newspaper commentary on American policy towards Iran.
Flynt Leverett, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and the National Security Council who has criticised the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq and for its handling of Iran, accuses the White House of pressing the CIA to demand sweeping cuts to an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times on Washington's policy towards Tehran.
When will they learn?
We all now know about Bush's pre-war efforts to silence all critics of his dreams of war in Iraq. Now, Bush is trying to silence all the level-headed folks inside the intelliigence community who are calling out the cry for war with Iran for the nonsense that it truly is:
His 1,000-word article was based on a longer published piece that the CIA had cleared without demanding any changes, and that is available on the net. At the website talkingpointsmemo.com, Mr Leverett wrote: "The White House inserted itself into the prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration's bungling of the Iran portfolio."
Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts.
Apparently, Bush wants to stay in his own personal La-la-land, no matter what the costs are. He won't listen to the truth... Heck, he won't even let the truth be told. I just hope that now, with a more reality-based Congress, that they won't let Bush get away with creating another huge disaster in Iran!
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