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Vindicating Larry Franklin

[New York Sun] Eli Lake - When President Bush announced the new Iraq strategy last week, acknowledging that Iran was effectively at war with us in Iraq by supplying terrorists with advanced improvised explosives, my thoughts turned to Lawrence Franklin. Nearly a year ago, this Pentagon Iran analyst was sentenced to almost 13 years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to discussing classified information with two former lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Franklin, it turns out, was trying - unconventionally - to influence a debate in the administration in 2003 over a national security policy directive regarding Iran. He provided AIPAC's Iran specialists with his own list of specific instances of how Iran was sending teams from its Quds Force to sow terror, kill American soldiers, and pose a threat to Israeli operatives in northern Iraq. He hoped his list could find its way to the National Security Council, through the two lobbyists, to counter the intelligence from other channels suggesting that Iran had an interest in stabilizing Iraq. Franklin, a Persian speaker, now parks cars and works odd jobs as he awaits final word on the jail sentence he earned for trying to get word of all this to the president.
2007-01-17 01:00:00
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