The life of a Pentagon whistleblower ain't easy. Just ask Richard Barlow, a former Pentagon intelligence official, who was wrongly fired for doing his job back in 1989.
At the time, the government was poised to sell $1.4 billion worth of new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan to help the mujaheddin fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
But Congress, through two laws passed in 1985, had forbidden the sale of any equipment that could be used to deliver nuclear bombs.Barlow wrote an analysis for then-Secretary Dick Cheney that concluded the planned F-16 sale violated this law. Drawing on detailed, classified studies, Barlow wrote about Pakistan's ability, intentions and activities to deliver nuclear bombs using F-16s it had acquired before the law was passed
Barlow was fired and stripped of his clearances. Even after being vindicated, Barlow can't get back to where he started. Today Barlow lives in a motor home, and as the article delicately points out, his status as a whistleblower has--understandably--consumed his life.
Pakistan got its F-16s, and then some.
