Curt Weldon's Deep Throat. Check out my new piece from the Prospect about the Pennsylvania Republican's Iran intelligence source, who Rep. Weldon has been pushing to get on the CIA payroll. It's a follow up to the piece Jeet Heer and I reported in April on yet another back channel between the Iran Contra arms dealer Manoucher Ghorbanifar and US officials. Rep. Weldon is supposed to appear on Meet the Press Sunday to discuss his new book, and you'll definitely want to read our pieces as background to that. Supporters of discredited intelligence sources such as Ahmad Chalabi -- incredibly -- blame not Chalabi but the CIA for not doing a better job vetting the dishonest defectors with fantastic tales of Saddam's WMD and connections to bin Laden pushed on the US government and the media by Chalabi in the campaign to build a case for war against Iraq. Here's an example where the CIA did its job and did weed out some amiable emigre fabulists, being pressed on the US government by American supporters eager to make the case for action on Iran. More from Matt.

Posted by Laura at June 11, 2005 10:37 AM