This article doesnt seem

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This article doesn’t seem to have been picked up much of anywhere. But it provides a very interesting view into the struggles taking place behind the scenes in the US government over Iraq.

In this case, one of the important hawks at the Pentagon, F. Michael Maloof, has apparently had his security clearances lifted because of his contacts or connections with a Lebanese-American businessman whom the US is investigating for running guns to Liberia. (Small world, ain’t it?) Maloof was a key player in the Pentagon’s effort to develop its own intelligence to support a al Qaida-Iraq link.

This sort of story about security clearances, secret intelligence, and administrative decisions which are themselves supposed to be classified are very hard to nail down. And the article inevitably leaves all sorts of questions unanswered.

Maloof’s defenders (the usual suspects among the hawks) say he’s being punished for dissenting from and finding evidence to challenge the State Department-CIA view of the Middle East. Whatever the case, this is clearly part of a deeper tug-of-war over the control of intelligence, most details of which remain outside the public view.

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