December 26, 2006
by Daithí Mac Lochlainn
.from the Los Angeles Times:
"A former National Security Council official said Monday that the White House tried to silence his criticism of its Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote.
Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, or NSC, and a former CIA analyst, said the White House told a CIA censor board to excise parts of a 1,000-word commentary on U.S. policy toward Iran that he had offered to the New York Times.
Leverett, who has criticized the administration for failing to deal directly with Tehran, said the board wanted to remove references to prior U.S. contacts with Iran.
Leverett said the events he wrote about were widely known."
This reminds me of Peter Wright's book, Spycatcher. Margaret Thatcher's government pulled all the stops to ban the book in the United Kingdom, claiming that it compromised Britain's security.
While the controversy was raging in Westminster, I purchased my own paperback copy of the book at my local supermarket here in New York. I had only gone there with the intention of buying potatoes, bananas, breakfast cereal and a Cornish hen. It was a damning book and a good read.
(Article Continues Below)
Whitehall's motive in this pre-internet period was not to protect "national security" (which was already hopelessly breached even before my Cornish hen had a chance to thaw out), but to protect the political security of Mrs. Thatcher's Tory Government from a knowledgeable and informed electorate.
The Leverett case is no different. I doubt that anything in Mr. Leverett's article would provide one single new datum to any individual or group in the Middle East. In all likelihood, every element in his article has already been discussed and debated aloud in every café and on every street corner, in every city and village throughout the Middle East.
No, the Dubya Administration is terrified that the undereducated American populace will start to learn about their own government's ineptitude, incompetence and moral bankruptcy.
And how disingenuous of this White House to wring it hands over "national security"!
We should ask ourselves, which of the following three was the most deadly breach of national security?
Peter Wright's book?
Flynt Leverett's op-ed piece?
Or leak of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan's identity to the press?
If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to the Free Populist Party Newsletter
Please consider a donation of $1 or more to help keep this website active.
Daithí Mac Lochlainn [send him email] is a researcher, journalist, conceptual artist, community activist and shameless agitator. Find all of his writings at http://gaelicstarover.blogspot.com/
