Hi folks. Hope all of you are enjoying the Holiday season. I wanted bring to your attention a very troubling story concerning alleged censorship by the Bush White House, which Think Progress spotted last week, and the Washington Post and the LA Times reported on this week.
According to these reports the White House apparently intervened and forbid the publication of an op-ed on Iran by former Bush official Flynt Leverett. Mr. Leverett, a prominent analyst on Middle East, who served under President Bush on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation, revealed last week 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 in dialogue with Iran.
Reportedly the White House redacted passages from Mr. Leverett’s op-ed even though the information in those passages had already been cleared by the CIA. Mr. Leverett also served as a senior analyst at the CIA.
Well I am deep troubled by all this. And if there was censorship then I believe the White House owes the American people an explanation.
So today my office sent off the enclosed letter demanding explanation from the President on why the White House intervened in this matter and decided to redact information on Iran, which reportedly had been cleared by the CIA.
Here is the letter:
December 19, 2006
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing to seek clarification of the processes and policies employed by your Administration in determining whether materials contain classified information and when to withhold information from the public.
According to an article published in the Washington Post today, Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council Advisory, who left the Administration in 2003, suggested that the White House had redacted substantial passages of an opinion article on Iran. According to Mr. Leverett, this article was "only a summary of a longer paper" he had written a few weeks earlier which the CIA had cleared as "containing no classified information."
I am concerned that your Administration is employing inconsistent policies when classifying information. If, indeed, redacting the information from the op-ed was necessary for national security purposes, then the CIA’s failure to deem the information in the previously published version of the article as classified may have put our security at risk. If classifying information in the previously published version of the article was not necessary, then I am left to believe that your Administration redacted information for political purposes.
I would also appreciate an explanation behind your Administration’s decision to redact substantial passages from Mr. Leverett’s op-ed, even though reportedly the CIA had already cleared the information based on which Mr. Leverett had drafted those passages
Given the questions this incident raises about your Administration’s consistency in applying policies and processes to reviewing classified information and your willingness to allow criticism by the national security and intelligence communities that disagree with your policies, I ask that you clarify and explain policies pertaining to how and when information is deemed classified and also your decision to intervene in the publication of the article written by Mr. Leverett.
Thank you for reviewing my request, and I await your response.
Sincerely,
Louise M. Slaughter
Member of Congress
I will do my best to keep you posted.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank you once again for all your energy and dedication which gave us a great gift: the chance to get our country back on track and to change it for the better.
I will be back here in the New Year as we unveil the people’s agenda in 110th Congress, which will include:
*Draining the swamp – breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation, bring civility to the legislative debate, and committing to pay-as-you-go budgeting;
*Making America more secure – implementing the independent 9/11 Commission recommendations; Giving Americans a raise – increasing the minimum wage;
*Making college more affordable – cutting the interest rate in half on federally subsidized student loans;
*Making health care more affordable – negotiating for lower prescription drug prices;
*Beginning on a path to energy independence - ending subsidies for Big Oil and investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency; and
*Giving hope to families with devastating diseases – allowing stem cell research.
I'm excited about all that we have accomplished - and I'm even more excited about taking on the challenges ahead of us in the 110th Congress. With your help, I know there isn't anything we can't accomplish.
Wishing you all the best this holiday season and in the coming year.
LMS