Pentagon ousts official who tied Russia, Iraq arms

This seems both typical and unfortunate. There are sometimes reasons to keep things of this nature quiet. One is leverage. The US may have wanted to use the leverage disclosure to encourage the Russians to play nice. This "leverage" is also known as "blackmail" when performed by entities other than governments. In this case, I suspect that Powell's State Department would not dream of squeezing Putin over this one. He doesn't seem the type. Were it Rice things would be differnt. More on this as it develops.

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