Warren Strobel of McClatchy newspapers often publishes articles which rely solely on unnamed intelligence sources. Today, he writes, “Some intelligence officials fear that [Iran] directorate [at the Pentagon] also is maintaining unofficial ties to questionable exiles and groups.” Well, no. False. Fabricated like the “Office of Special Plans” conspiracies, the Mujahidin al-Khalq accusations, etc. Whenever an interagency policy debate heats up, Strobel prints random accusations by “some intelligence officials” to smear participants so that his CIA and DIA sources needn’t defend their analysis. Hindsight shows how often he gets played. That McClatchy editors publish stories based entirely on anonymous sources; they do not check that the sources have access to the information they claim to; and they allow themselves to be so played, suggests editorial slant trumps its integrity. But the real problem is within the intelligence community. Selective CIA leaks are the equivalent of intelligence officials running information operations on the American public. John Negroponte and Pat Kennedy, how long are you going to allow these leaks to continue? Do you really think it healthy in a democracy for the CIA and DIA to stray from intelligence collection and analysis into politics? How many investigations have you launched? How many have concluded?