Rooz

Race to Publish Classified Information

Hossein Bastani h.bastani@roozonline.com - 2008.06.15

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Recently, after the President’s recent revealing “disclosures” that were directed against ‎some authorities in various state agencies while on a trip to Qom – which was supposedly ‎done because he believed they blocked his policies - conservative news sites in Iran ‎published reports indicating that the Leader of the Islamic regime had criticized the ‎President.‎

The importance of this news is that soon after the President was scolded by the Leader for ‎his regular disclosures against his political rivals, on May 17, 2008 he participated in a ‎question and answer session with supportive students at the presidency in which he ‎embarked on newer “disclosures” against Majlis’ obstructions, and those of the Judiciary ‎and even two of his own cabinet ministers.‎

This type of response by Mr. Ahmadinejad is very similar to the way he had responded to ‎an earlier admonition made by ayatollah Khamenei when the latter had called for the ‎President stop making “revelations” about Azad University. That unofficial warning did ‎not lead to the termination of the President’s “revelations”, and instead the warning was ‎made public. It the Spring of last year when a supportive student asked the President why ‎the government had not followed up on its plans against Azad University, the President ‎made a reference to the Leader and said, “Some very senior authorities had advised that ‎the issue should not be pursued under the current nuclear conditions.” This reference was ‎repeated on at least two other occasions by the President.‎

The news of ayatollah Khamenei’s criticism of the President’s accusations against other ‎officials came after the classified letter that the Judiciary had sent to the Majlis on ‎January 13, 2008 was made public in response to the publication of a report by the Majlis ‎regarding the work of the Judiciary, which contained some strong accusatory language ‎against it. This letter was revealed to the public as the Judiciary took an unprecedented ‎step in actually beginning the prosecution of a Majlis deputy who had a criminal sex case ‎sitting on a docket (which was a reminder of the sex scandal to which the former Police ‎chief was recently exposed to).‎

These revelations and counter-revelations by the Majlis and the Judiciary are a reminder ‎of the earlier expose fights that went on between the Majlis and the President, which ‎began last February when Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel read out a presidential ‎letter that he had received from Ahmadinejad in which the latter had objected to a certain ‎legislature as being unlawful. The Majlis Speaker approached the Leader to intervene, ‎whose unofficial response he read out on the very same floor, and consequently to the ‎media.‎

This race to reveal classified letters and information has also included the most sensitive ‎issues relating to the national security. These revelations have included those regarding ‎the serial killings of intellectuals in 1998 that were recently made by two individuals ‎close to security agencies, going to the extent that one of them (Abdollah Shahbazi) ‎published the secret remarks of the Leader of Iran that were made in the presence of the ‎heads of the three branches of government in December of 1998. The revelations have ‎also included those regarding the nuclear case, for example, when former Interior ‎Minister’s statement in June 2007: “Iran has more than 100 kilograms of enriched ‎uranium,” was published by ISNA news agency (even though this amount appears very ‎unlikely). Another case was of course when the President invited television cameras to ‎follow him while on a visit to a secret nuclear enrichment facility, which shocked ‎observers.‎

Since then, there have been many revelations by current and former officials, and news ‎websites belonging to the conservatists regarding discussions and details of the ‎government’s unofficial meetings etc. These have in fact turned into regular shows. ‎

It appears that the ascent of vocal yet unqualified neo-conservatists to power in Iran has ‎created a situation that it has become very easy to obtain classified information about the ‎country.‎

One cannot forget that the cries that these very individuals who now boat the ‎‎“homogeneity” of the government made about “exposing state secrets” during former ‎President Khatami’s administration when they were in the opposition.‎

In all honesty, one wonders how does the state of protecting intelligence in the Islamic ‎republic look like, while the Iranian neo-conservatists make the loudest noise about state ‎‎“security” and “intelligence”?‎


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