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US hides alliance with iran on afghanistan war Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/18/061218235150.xqfwfe3v.htmlhttp://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/18/061218235150.xqfwfe3v.html
White House accused in Iran intel row
Dec 18 6:51 PM US/Eastern
A former top White House Middle East policymaker accused ex-colleagues of censoring an article he wrote for the New York Times to silence his criticism of the tough US line on Iran.
Flynt Leverett, who stepped down as the national security council's senior director for the Middle East affairs over policy differences in 2003, said senior officials falsely claimed his article spilled intelligence secrets.
"The White House intervened in the CIA publication review process and has threatened me with legal proceedings if I publish this op-ed because the White House claims it contains classified information," said Leverett.
"That claim is false, I would say that claim is fraudulent. The people making that claim know it is not true," Leverett said at the New America Foundation think-tank where he is now a senior fellow.
The White House and the CIA rejected the charge, insisting the article, which Leverett says was based upon one already cleared by the agency, contained classified information.
Leverett advocates US engagement to reach a 'grand bargain' with Iran across a broad range of issues. The Bush administration rejects such an approach, saying Iran backs terrorism and is destabilizing the Middle East.
As a former CIA employee, Leverett is bound by law to pass material he intends to publish past the agency's publication review board, but said the White House had intervened in the process for purely political reasons.
"The White House is using the rubric of protecting classified information not to protect classified information, but to limit the dissemination of the views of someone who is very critical of their Iran policy," he said.
The White House pointed out that Leverett has become a frequent critic of Bush administration policy in the region.
"The White House is not blocking his writings," said Bush spokesman Tony Snow. "We don't falsely silence critics on national security claims. If there's a legitimate national security claim, I'm sure that that will be made."
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the sole criteria for an article to be rejected was the requirement that it contained no classified data.
"It was determined following an inter-agency review that the submission contained some information that was classified," he told AFP.
A National Security official, who requested anonymity, told AFP the CIA sent the article to the national security council for a routine review.
NSC staff decided there was "classified information in the op-ed" and sent it back to the review board Friday with suggested redactions, the official said.
Leverett said information in the opinion piece was material he had already published elsewhere, and which had been discussed by other top national security officials in public.
He said the episode was the latest in a what critics say were a string of attempts by the Bush administration to politicize intelligence to justify controversial foreign policies, including the drive to war with Iraq.
The material concerned partly focused an apparent offer by Iran in spring 2003 to negotiate a "comprehensive grand bargain" with the United States which was rejected by the administration, Leverett said.
It also included details of Iranian cooperation with the US effort to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, in 2001, he said.
"Officials of the CIA's Publication Review Board told me that in their view, on their own, my draft op-ed ... did not contain classified information, but they had to bow to the wishes of the White House" said Leverett.
"Intelligence officers are supposed to behave better than that," he said.
Mansfield countered that the claim of political interference in the CIA intelligence process was "simply not the case."
Despite his criticism, Leverett said he was honor-bound not to defy the CIA and attempt to publish the article.
Copyright AFP 2005
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