I had a friend once who had access to the personnel files and efficiency reports of senior officers. He told me a trend he often saw was a minor negative performance characteristic might be noted early in an officer's career and then never be seen again. Never, that is, until the officer reached a point in their career where they were obviously not going to be promoted. At that point, the negative performance characteristic (such as speaking critically of superiors) suddenly re-appears.

One wonders what bearing that phenomenon might be having on the report noted in this story.

Very compelling reading.

Here's the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31adviser.html?th&emc=th