Full Release - IRmep

.Officials Say Publicity Derailed S~ts InquiryO
w ~ T
Franklin is one 9f.aboutl,SOO people who·~ork
for Mr. Feith.
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When he..transferred to the Pentagon policy office, Mr. Franklin was assigned to the Northern Gulf
directorate to work on issues related to Iran. After the attacks ofSept. 11, 2001, that office was expan~ed
and renamed.the Office ofSpecial Plans, and did most ofthe policy work on Iraq in the run-up to the
war. Mr. Franklin was a part ofthat office but continued to work on Iran.
In his job, Mr. Franklin is one oftwo Iran desk officers in the Pentagon's Near Eastern and South Asian
Bureau, one ofsix regional policy sections. The Nell! Eastern office is supervised by William J. Luti, a
deputy under secretary ofdefense, who also ovefSaw the Pentagon's Office ofSpecial Plans, which
conducted some early policy work for the 2003 invasion ofIraq.
According to former colleagues, Mr. Franklin was originally a.Soviet specialist at the D.nA. who
transferred.to the agency's Mlddle,East division in the early 1990's. He learned Farsi and became an Iran
analyst, developing extensive contacts within the community ofIranians who opposed the Tehran .
government.
'
"He was very close to the anti-Iranian dis,sidents," one former colleague said. "He was a good analyst of
the Iranian political s~ene,
but he was also someone who would go offon his own.II
Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reportingjrom West Virginiajor this article, and Steven Erlangerfrom
Jerusalem. .
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