Censoring Flynt Leverett

December 16, 2006

I’m anxious to hear the White House’s explanation for this.

Middle East analyst Flynt Leverett, who served under President Bush on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation, revealed today that the White House has been blocking the publication of an op-ed he wrote for the New York Times. The column is critical of the administration’s refusal to engage Iran.

Leverett’s op-ed has already been cleared by the CIA, where he was a senior analyst. Leverett explained, “I’ve been doing this for three and a half years since leaving government, and I’ve never had to go to the White House to get clearance for something that I was publishing as long as the CIA said, ‘Yeah, you’re not putting classified information.'”

According to Leverett the op-ed was “all based on stuff that Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Armitage have talked about publicly. It’s been extensively reported in the media.” Leverett says the incident shows “just how low people like Elliot Abrams at the NSC [National Security Council] will stoop to try and limit the dissemination of arguments critical of the administration’s policy.”

It’s one thing to crack down on people who work for the federal government — there are a quite a few scientists on the administration’s payroll who talk about censorship — but Leverett is a private citizen, working for a think tank, who wants to recommend a path for a responsible policy towards Iran. The administration doesn’t like the message, so it’s silencing the messenger.

Like Maha, I think this seems to be a near-textbook definition of government censorship.

And what, exactly, does Leverett want to say? It sounds pretty straightforward.

Flynt Leverett, a Middle East expert who once worked for Bush’s National Security Council, advocates a “grand bargain,” offering Iran full diplomatic and economic relations and a security guarantee in return for forswearing nuclear weapons.

This was “the best of the available options for American policy,” Leverett, now with the New America Foundation, told a conference hosted by the CATO Institute thinktank. […]

The Iranians “will not cooperate with us on Iraq or the nuclear issue unless it is part of a broader package” because they want a fundamentally different relationship with the United States, Leverett said.

This would include a U.S. commitment not to use force to change the government and a lifting of unilateral sanctions, he added.

Keep in mind, after Leverett wrote his op-ed, it was cleared — without edits — by the CIA. Not so fast, said the White House, which shut the piece down, apparently because it could.

The “it’s classified” excuse seems to be the rationale of the day for hiding information the Bush gang prefers to keep quiet, doesn’t it?

How does the Whte House have the power to prevent the New York Times from publishing material? Is this country more screwed-up than even we have feared? The War on Truth continues …

  • At the risk of being smited with the “anti-semite” club, here is the reason why we (US) can’t talk to Iran. It is because Israel may be isolated in its confrontation with Iran (end of page 1 of 1st link) because a likely condition to any deals would be the US turning a blind eye to Iran’s nuclear program.

    Speculation on deals with Iran for help with Iraq

    Some Israelis are confident that the US will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons.

    Former Israeli ambassador to the US says US will not allow Iran to go nuclear

    Here is some hard core spinning. Don’t read this unless you are wearing waders.

    JPost spin job comparing Churchill to Shitstain encouraging war with Iran as usual

    Contrary to what it may seem, I have nothing against Israel, but I feel that US policy should be shaped on the US’s needs or direction and not be purchased by another country.

  • On an Iraq tangent, MyDD has a good post up about a Bill Richardson quote on John McCain’s ill thought-out tactic for improving the situation in Iraq: “But John McCain is wrong, dead wrong to think that we can solve Iraq’s political crisis through military escalation.”

    Calling Iraq’s civil war a political crisis and McCain’s request for more troops an escalation really crystalizes the issue at hand. It’s amazing how one sentence can bring things into such clear focus.

  • This WH doesn’t believe in the free flow of information, nor does it believe in open debate of the issues before us. This WH nixed habeas corpus, having the nerve to wipe out Western heritage dating back to 1215 CE. This WH has demonstrated for far too long now its penchant to exercise power at the expense of our democracy. This WH is scary, very scary! -Kevo

  • How does the Whte House have the power to prevent the New York Times from publishing material? Is this country more screwed-up than even we have feared?

    Assuming that your record isn’t rhetorical – I believe that the White House is applying a law that requires ex-CIA personnel to get clearance before they publish anything. Even though the guy is a private citizen now, he did have access to all sorts of very secret things while in CIA employ before, and the law is designed to prevent secrets from being published after agents leave the CIA.

    This particular case is troubling because the CIA has already cleared the item in question for publication – meaning that there are no secrets involved – and the White House is holding it up purely for political reasons,. which is clearly abusing the intent of the law.

  • Adds a whole new and chilling meaning to “Stop the presses!” It also highlights this [m]Admin’s counter-intuitive approach to… every single issue it confronts. Hey, we don’t want information to get out, so we’ll call attention to this information by blocking publication. Brilliant!

    Good luck dodging that hail of subpoenas, arseholes.

  • Bush/Cheney are fully aware of how fast and loose they’ve played with American democracy. I believe they saw a chance to radically transform all three branches of government in a short period of time, and the only way to do it was to advance their agenda faster than their enemies could hold them back. All this secrecy, which probably goes back to before the 2000 campaign, is to avoid accountability that would deny them their goals. Sadly, it’s been quite effective.

  • In reply to tko’s JP link, the following:

    Damn the label of anti-Semitism, and damn those who elect to hurl it in an attempt to suffocate free speech. The “Jocular Piss” seeks to compare Bush to Churchhill? Methinks they’ve gotten it backwards.

    The true “tyrant on the march” is none other than Herr Bush himself; waging an illegal war of aggression in Iraq is synonymous to Herr Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Both were based on excessively spun political hyberbole; both were spun on a foundation of lies; both were premeditated by invented threats and dangers—and both were waged for revenge.

    If Herr Bush is synonymous to Herr Hitler, then how, one might ask, does the state of Israel play into all of this? Simply put, Israel is to Herr Bush as the Italy of “Il Duce” Mussolini was to Herr Hitler. The incessant expeditions into Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank are but little different in their core scope from Italy’s move against Ethiopia and Greece.

    Further concern relating to Tel Aviv’s concern over an “Islamic Bomb” continues to mist over the all-but-overt fact that Israel already HAS the Bomb, and—depending on the information-source—in substantial quantities to deter any direct aggression from any quarter in the Arabian region. Tel Aviv does not “want” an Islamic Bomb for one reason, and for one reason only: It effectively negates their unilateral deterrent. If they launch against Iran, or any of Iran’s allies, then Tehran launches against THEM.

    The Middle East is about to find itself embroiled in a 21st-century version of “mutually-assured destruction” (MAD)—coupled with the hilarity of this current century’s Mussolini trying to present a Hitler as synonymous to a Churchhill—and it is well past the time for Tel Aviv to weigh the fact that “Israel” and “Palestine” are just two different ways to say the same damned word. It’s also time for the administrations in Washington and Tel Aviv to stop the childish game of “out-Sithing” each other….

  • The only clearance Leverett should need is from CIA — and he has that. OTOH, WH has been hassling press in general and Times in particular for a while now. There was that Judy Miller (re Plame’s outing) case, where she actually went to jail for keeping her source secret. When the tracking of Swift bank records were made public, they were made public, simultaneously, by WSJ and NYT, but only NYT was trashed in the other media. Etc, etc, etc.

    I seem to remember that there’s some other case against them going on now. Perhaps it’s not surprising — though depressing — that they’ve lost their balls and are lying doggo.

  • Things sure have changed since the Pentagon Papers. My how thin our protections are wearing. They fabric of Democracy is awfully threadbare.

    There was a time when the press would challenge the powers that be–here would be a good case. Leverett might need the clearance, but why does the Times? They can publish anything they like–and if they won’t publish it because Leverett won’t release it without clearance, well, then maybe he’s not quite as brave as Ellsburg and Sheehan were. I needn’t point out, though I will, that the Times and the Post were both advised by their lawyers NOT to publish. I guess at that time they had some notion of principle.

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