The New York Times is reporting that the U.S.-backed Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi disclosed to an Iranian official one of Washington’s most guarded secrets about Iran — that it had broken Iran’s top-secret communications code allowing the U.S. to easily spy on Iran’s intelligence services. According to the Times, the breaking of Iran’s code was so important that the Bush administration requested, on national security grounds, that the New York Times and other newspapers not to report on the story. The Times said it agreed to the order. It is not clear how long the Times knew about the charge before it published its article today. The order not to publish was rescinded by the government on Tuesday as information about the code-breaking began to leak out to the press. American officials said that about six weeks ago, Chalabi told the Baghdad station chief of Iran’s spy service that the United States was reading its communications traffic. According to officials the Iranian station chief then sent a cable to Tehran detailing the conversation using the code. The U.S. intercepted and read the cable. The FBI soon opened an espionage investigation to determine who told Chalabi that the Iranian code was broken.