This administration is such a failure that they feel the need to censor their own.

Middle East analyst Flynt Leverett, who served under President Bush on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation, revealed today 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 Iran.

Leverett's op-ed has already been cleared by the CIA, where he was a senior analyst. Leverett explained, "I've been doing this for three and a half years since leaving government, and I've never had to go to the White House to get clearance for something that I was publishing as long as the CIA said, 'Yeah, you’'re not putting classified information.'"

According to Leverett the op-ed was "all based on stuff that Secretary Powell, Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Armitage have talked about publicly. It’s been extensively reported in the media." Leverett says the incident shows "just how low people like Elliot Abrams at the NSC [National Security Council] will stoop to try and limit the dissemination of arguments critical of the administration's policy."

They have additional transcript and audio at ThinkProgress.

We'll, the Bush Administration may have suppressed the short version... However, the long version came out sometime ago. Seeing that this report is one that the WH feels they need to suppress, we should all consider what the report concludes (.pdf download here). I bet it doesn't fall in line with the 'policy' the cheery-pickers have picked for our next Middle East adventure.

[UPDATE] Flynt Leverett spoke at the New America Foundation today; audio can be found at this link. The craziness of the WH and its acts of suppression gained the talk coverage by C-SPAN and it will likely be replayed, so look out for it..