Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy

The Guardian
Dec. 20, 2006

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.

Mr Leverett, who now works at the New America Foundation, a thinktank in Washington, is the latest in a series of analysts and agents to accuse the CIA publication review board of stifling criticism of the administration or the intelligence-gathering operations in the run-up to the war in Iraq. However, Mr Leverett goes a step further in accusing the White House of putting pressure on the CIA to prevent the distribution of views which do not conform to its policy of refusing any diplomatic discussions with Iran.

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.