Today's New York Times ran an op-ed piece about U.S.-Iran relations, showing the White House-demanded redactions. The Bush administration demanded the changes even though the CIA had already approved the piece.From TPM on Thursday, which does a good job explaining the whole issue:
Blog: NYT to Ignore White House
By Paul Kiel - December 21, 2006, 3:58 PM
Over at the Washington Note, we see that the New York Times is set to reject a White House-led effort to block publication of an essay critical of its foreign policy.
Last week the paper was set to publish an op-ed piece by Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration official who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and on the National Security Council, which criticized the White House for its disastrous diplomatic approach towards Iran.
The CIA reviewed the article and cleared it for publication, but the White House put the brakes on it, saying it contained classified information that the CIA missed. Leverett cried foul: "All of my publications on Iran -- and, indeed, on any other policy matter on which I have written since leaving government -- were cleared beforehand by the CIA's Publication Review."
The Times further emphasized the silliness of censorship by pointing readers to other places where they can read the censored material. This isn't the administration's first attempt to control information. TPM has more.
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