Flynt Leverett Calls Ken Pollack 'Flat-Out Wrong'

[seemslikeadream]

Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution at Washington Foreign Press Center Briefing on The Case for Invading Iraq."
http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/kpollack.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/opinion/08pollack.html?ex=1323234000&en=e85a63d102419a90&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Don’t Count on Iran to Pick Up the Pieces


http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/12/flynt-leverett-calls-ken-pollack-flatout-wrong.html

A few minutes ago in a speech before the New America Foundation, Flynt Leverett, a former CIA and NSC official, attacked Kenneth Pollack, the "thinker" at Saban/Brookings who served up the Iraq war on a silver platter for liberals. Leverett said Pollack had made a "deeply-flawed and flat-out wrong case regarding WMD," which led him to assert in his book The Threatening Storm that invading Iraq was "the conservative option."

The speech was remarkable because Leverett once worked alongside Pollack at Brookings. Sort of like Anatol Lieven, who had to parachute out of Carnegie when they didn't want to hear what he had to say about Israel. "People at the thinktanks have courage somewhere between a seaslug and sheep-guts," Lieven told me earlier this year. What a pleasure to watch the war-party delaminate.

But how amazing is it that Pollack maintains credibility? "Now he's doing it on Iran," Leverett notes, pointing to a Dec. 8 Op-Ed in the Times. And at a CFR event not long ago, Pollack was all-but-praising neocon Reuel Marc Gerecht's burn-down-the-house option for Iran.




http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/18/18338378.php
Here is an excerpt of Leverett's statement on the affair.



' Until last week, the Publication Review Board had never sought to remove or change a single word in any of my drafts, including in all of my publications about the Bush administration's handling of Iran policy. However, last week, the White House inserted itself into the prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration's bungling of the Iran portfolio that I had prepared for the New York Times, blocking publication of the piece on the grounds that it would reveal classified information.

This claim is false and, I have come to believe, fabricated by White House officials to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach to Iran and the Middle East more generally.

The op-ed is based on the longer paper I just published with The Century Foundation -- which was cleared by the CIA without modifying a single word of the draft. Officials with the CIA's Publication Review Board have told me that, in their judgment, the draft op-ed does not contain classified material, but that they must bow to the preferences of the White House.

The White House is demanding, before it will consider clearing the op-ed for publication, that I excise entire paragraphs dealing with matters that I have written about (and received clearance from the CIA to do so) in several other pieces, that have been publicly acknowledged by Secretary Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and that have been extensively covered in the media.

These matters include Iran's dialogue and cooperation with the United States concerning Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and Iran's offer to negotiate a comprehensive "grand bargain" with the United States in the spring of 2003.

There is no basis for claiming that these issues are classified and not already in the public domain.

For the White House to make this claim, with regard to my op-ed and at this particular moment, is nothing more than a crass effort to politicize a prepublication review process -- a process that is supposed to be about the protection of classified information, and nothing else -- to limit the dissemination of views critical of administration policy.

Within the last two week, the CIA found the wherewithal to approve an op-ed -- published in the New York Times on December 8, 2006 -- by Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA employee. This op-ed includes the statement that “Iran provided us with extensive assistance on intelligence, logistics, diplomacy, and Afghan internal politics."

Similar statements by me have been deleted from my draft op-ed by the White House. But Kenneth Pollack is someone who presented unfounded assessments of the Iraqi WMD threat -- the same assessments expounded by the Bush White House -- to make a high-profile public case for going to war in Iraq.

Mr. Pollack also supports the administration's reluctance to engage with Iran, in contrast to my consistent and sharp criticism of that position. It would seem that, if one is expounding views congenial to the White House, it does not intervene in prepublication censorship, but, if one is a critic, White House officials will use fraudulent charges of revealing classified information to keep critical views from being heard.

My understanding is that the White House staffers who have injected themselves into this process are working for Elliott Abrams and Megan O'Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Their conduct in this matter is despicable and un-American in the profoundest sense of that term. '

[lyonn]

1. Since when doesn't bush want to attack Iran?

And Pollack thinks we should? Is he saying Pollock has backed all of bush's war decisions and gets approval for his articles while Leverett is prohibited from articles objecting?

This is Monday and I am a bubble off. Interesting but confusing seemslikeadream?

[seemslikeadream]

2. Discussions here

:hi:

Seymour Hersh: Cheney Says 'Whether Or Not Dems Win-NO STOPPING Military Option With Iran'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2757350

“This is the largest massing of military power in the region, and it is gathering for a reason.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2753952

Does anyone still believe the US will launch a full scale invasion of Iran?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2856177

[lyonn]

4. Iran is a no brainer, don't do it!

Read most of those post at the time. This article confuses me. What do you think Leverett (sp?) is trying to say?

This administration had ignored all offers of help from Syria, Iran, Eqypt, etc. before invading Iraq. Even Saddam wanted to play let's make a deal, but bushie said "you can't trust them" (Muslim nations).

But Mr. Leverett's comments don't make sense to me. Where is he coming from?

[seemslikeadream]

5. Have you read this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2939328
Skidmore (1000+ posts) Mon Dec-18-06 11:44 AM
Response to Original message
2. Says drafts of his work were heavily edited by the WH and
then he was threatened with prosecution because the WH are under heavy political pressure right now and what he has to say does not support their policy. He says the WH claims are fraudulent. Says that other writers are not being threatened so long as their writing support the policy currently being promoted.

Lala Publishes Excerpt of What May Be Blocked Leverett Article on Iran!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2934236&mesg_id=2934236

[lyonn]

6. Been reading those sites since you posted this and now it

makes sense. Some long interesting reading, only now I am totally depressed. We are in such a mess. How in the hell could one U.S. President screw things up so bad is mind boggling.

Edit: Read the Leverett report which explained much of what bush managed to do through stupidity and listening to only a few people immediately around him. He is unteachable

[seemslikeadream]

3. and from Reuel Marc Gerecht - To Bomb, or Not to Bomb

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/100mmysk.asp?pg=1

....


The opponents of military strikes against the mullahs' weapons facilities say there are no guarantees that we can permanently destroy their weapons production. This is true. We can't guarantee the results. But what we can do is demonstrate, to the mullahs and to others elsewhere, that even with these uncertainties, in a post-9/11 world the United States has red lines that will compel it to act. And one nonnegotiable red line is that we will not sit idly and watch a virulently anti-American terrorist-supporting rogue state obtain nukes. We will not be intimidated by threats of terrorism, oil-price spikes, or hostile world opinion. If the ruling clerical elite wants a head-on collision with a determined superpower, then that's their choice.

....