| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Shnozzle | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject: FBI PROBES DOD (FEITH's) OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS |
| http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040824-102938-1916r.htm
FBI probes DOD office
By Richard Sale
UPI Intelligence Correspondent
8/28/04
The FBI has intensified its investigation of senior members of what was formerly known as the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans on suspicion that one of them passed highly classified U.S. military information to the government of Israel, according to federal law enforcement officials.
In some cases, colleagues, former associates and members of other government agencies have been interviewed as many as four times by teams of FBI agents, FBI officials told United Press International.
Two of the people interviewed are Bill Luti, former chief of OSP, and Harold Rhode of the Near East/South Asia office, according to participants in the investigation.
The OSP, an intelligence unit, was set up by the No. 3 man in the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, according to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who was a staffer in the office from June 2002 through March 2003.
Luti, a former Navy captain, switched to the Pentagon from Vice President Richard Cheney's staff, according to a congressional investigative memo.
According to other congressional memos, Luti was made deputy undersecretary and reported directly to Feith.
Luti also presided over the NESA office that worked closely with OSP "with sometimes an interchangeable staff," according to one congressional memo described the OSP "as a loose group of acolytes and hired hands" for Cheney, and (Cheney's chief of staff) I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Feith -- all "performing a mixture of intelligence, planning and other unspecified operational duties in support of preordained policy."
According to Kwiatkowski, Luti was a "name-dropper, who often referred to deadlines and assignments coming from 'Scooter.'"
Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col Chris Conway, told UPI that neither Luti nor Rhode had been interviewed or polygraphed by the FBI nor had their bosses alerted them that they were the subjects of an investigation.
A federal law enforcement official was not surprised. He said, "Any target of an investigation is the last person we would talk to. The fact that subjects haven't been approached is part of normal investigative procedure."
Rhode, another prominent official of the NESA office, also works for the Office of Net Assessment, Pentagon officials said.
According to one federal law enforcement official, Rhode and Luti and other OSP officials have been frequently mentioned in FBI interviews, "chiefly the nature and extent of his contacts with Israel," according to federal law enforcement officials.
A Pentagon spokesman said Rhode has been working for Net Assessment "for the last 10 years."
A former very senior CIA official told United Press International that Rhode recently had his security clearances lifted.
In an e-mail to UPI, Rhode denied this. "I have never had my security clearances revoked or canceled."
At least three former CIA officials told UPI that in 1998 Rhode had his clearances suspended, based on allegations he had given classified information to Israel.
In the same e-mail, Rhode denied this as well, adding: "Nor have I been informed that I am under any type of investigation."
Two former senior U.S. intelligence officials also stated that Rhode is on administrative leave.
However, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Conway said answering the question about whether or not Rhode is on administrative leave would violate the privacy act and therefore had no comment.
The NESA/OSP office was located on the fourth floor of the Pentagon, D ring, 7th corridor, according to Kwiatkowski, the former staffer.
According to one former senior U.S. intelligence official who maintained excellent contacts with serving U.S. intelligence officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, "Rhode practically lived out of (Ahmad) Chalabi's office."
This same source quoted the intelligence official with the CPA as saying, "Rhode was observed by CIA operatives as being constantly on his cell phone to Israel," and that the information that the intelligence officials overheard him passing to Israel was "mind-boggling," this source said.
It dealt with U.S. plans, military deployments, political projects, discussion of Iraq assets, and a host of other sensitive topics, the former senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Other members of OSP are also under scrutiny, but federal law enforcement officials declined to confirm additional names furnished them by UPI. Pentagon spokesman Conway said, "We have no knowledge of any probe of particular OSP members."
Rhode is a close member of an inner circle of senior Bush officials who in the past have had skirmishes with the FBI over allegations that they provided classified information to Israel, several serving and former U.S. intelligence officials said.
FBI spokesman, Bill Carter said, "It has been our long-standing policy not to comment on matters of this type or to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation."
A great many examples of this was substantiated by Stephen Green, a highly respected author of two books on U.S.-Israeli relations, who, in a February article in Counterpunch, noted that the Pentagon finally downgraded Ledeen's security clearances from Top Secret-SCI to Secret in the mid-1980s, after an earlier boss, Noel Koch, the Principal Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, had urged the FBI to begin a probe of Ledeen, then a consultant on terrorism, for passing classified materials to a foreign country, believed to be Israel. (Green notes that Ledeen "was carried in Agency files as an agent of influence of a foreign government: Israel," a fact he confirmed for UPI in an interview.
Former agency officials said they knew this to be accurate.
In 2001, Ledeen was hired by Feith to work on contract for the Office of Special Plans, which involved the handling of sensitive materials, Green said, a fact confirmed last week to UPI by congressional investigators.
Yet according to Green, in March 1983, Feith, then a Middle East analyst on the National Security Council, was fired by Judge William Clark, who had replaced Richard Allen as national security adviser, because Feith "had been the object of an inquiry into whether he had provided classified material to an official of the Israeli Embassy in Washington" and that the FBI "had opened an inquiry."
Former Counterterrorism Chief Vince Cannistraro confirmed that Feith was fired from the NSC for leaking classified data to Israel.
In 1982, Feith went to work for Pentagon official Richard Perle, according to Green and confirmed by U.S. intelligence sources.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who an administration official described as having played a "large role in getting Feith" his current job, was working for the Arms Control and Disarmament agency in 1978 and was the subject of an investigation that alleged he had provided "a classified document on the proposed sale of U.S. weapons to an Arab government to an Israeli government official" via "an AIPAC intermediary," according to Green. The probe was eventually dropped.
In 1981, Wolfowitz, who was working as head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, hired Ledeen as a Special Advisor, Green said.
copyright 2004 united press international
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alleged Leak to Israel Probed for a Year
33 minutes ago
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) has spent more than a year covertly investigating, including with the use of electronic surveillance, whether a Pentagon (news - web sites) analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel, officials said Saturday. Prosecutors were still weighing whether to bring the most serious charge of espionage.
AP Photo
Charges could be brought in the case as early as next week, said two federal law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The case has taken so long in part because of diplomatic sensitivities between the United States and its close ally Israel, they said.
Although the information involved — material describing Bush administration policy toward Iran — was described as highly classified, prosecutors could determine that the crime involved falls short of espionage and could result in lesser but still serious charges of mishandling classified documents, the officials said.
They said the still-classified material did not detail U.S. military or intelligence operations and was not the type that would endanger the lives of U.S. spies overseas or betray sensitive methods of intelligence collection.
The target of the probe was identified by the two officials as Larry Franklin, a senior analyst in a Pentagon office dealing with Middle East affairs. Franklin, who did not respond to a telephone message left at his office Saturday, formerly worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Efforts to find a home telephone number were unsuccessful.
In a statement late Friday, the Defense Department, without saying he was under investigation, described Franklin as being at the "desk officer level, who was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy. Nor could a foreign power be in a position to influence U.S. policy through this individual."
Franklin works in an office overseen by Douglas J. Feith, the defense undersecretary for policy. Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whose previous work included prewar intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites), including purported ties between Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime and al-Qaida terrorism network.
In August 2003, Franklin and a Pentagon colleague were in the news after it was disclosed they had met two years earlier with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, who was among the Iranians who suggested to the Reagan administration in the 1980s that profits from arms-for-hostages deals be funneled into covert arms shipments to U.S.-backed Contra rebels battling the leftist Nicaraguan government.
The investigation centers on whether Franklin passed classified U.S. material on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the highly influential main Israeli lobbying organization in Washington, and whether that group in turn passed them on to Israel. Both AIPAC and Israel deny the allegations.
The U.S. law enforcement officials stressed that the investigation is not yet complete and it remained possible that others could be implicated. They would not comment on whether that might include officials at AIPAC, which said it has been cooperating in the investigation.
"Any allegation of criminal conduct by AIPAC or its employees is false and baseless," AIPAC said in a statement.
In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) issued a statement Saturday saying that Israel has no connection to the matter. Israeli officials say their government halted all espionage activities in the United States after the 1985 arrest of Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard on charges of passing secrets to Israel.
"Israel does not engage in intelligence activities in the U.S. We deny all these reports," the statement said.
The investigation is being handled by U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty, whose Virginia district includes the Pentagon and whose office regularly deals with classified material, terrorism and other sensitive matters. The FBI's counterintelligence division and counterespionage prosecutors at the main Justice Department (news - web sites) in Washington are also involved in the case.
The law enforcement officials said that until the past few weeks, the investigation has been kept under tight wraps and included use of sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques they would not further describe. They also would not say whether such surveillance was conducted inside the Pentagon itself, although it has involved at least one computer of Franklin's, they said.
The United States has strongly backed Israeli efforts to block nuclear development in Iran, with President Bush (news - web sites) including Iran with Iraq and North Korea (news - web sites) as part of an international "axis of evil."
Yet his administration has battled internally over how hard a line to take toward Iran. The State Department generally has advocated more moderate positions, while more conservative officials in the Defense Department and some at the White House's National Security Council have advocated tougher policies.
Sharon's government has pushed the Bush administration toward more toughness against Iran.
Israel in recent months has repeated expressed concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, with some senior officials accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons in violation of promises made to the United Nations (news - web sites). Last week, Iran threatened to destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:13 pm Post subject: Israeli Pentagon Spy - Jewish Neocon Feith Hired Suspect |
| Israeli Pentagon Spy - Jewish Neocon Feith Hired Suspect
Douglas Feith, Top Deputy To Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz At The Pentagon,
Has Extensive Personal Connections To Israel And The Israeli-Jewish Lobby
MER - MiddleEast.Org
8-28-4
This latest Israeli spy scandal has connections to the very top of the Pentagon. The analyst involved is thought to have been hired by and worked for non other than Douglas Feith, a man long considered by many insiders to be a kind long-time Jewish lobby operative in Washington and a man known to have long and deep connections to the Sharon regime in Israel.
Now those who are familiar with MER know that we have for a long time pointed culpability fingers at the extensive Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington; to the many ties between the Israelis and the top Jewish neocons in the Bush government, including Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon and Eliott Abrams at the N.S.C. No doubt they are all working furiously now to contain and cover up this latest Israeli spy scandal, as they have so many times before. And in all likelihood, one way or another, they will succeed in doing so especially as neither of the political parties will dare risk truly offending 'the lobby' and Israel during this crucial pre-election season.
Many, most no doubt, of these kinds of things relating to Israel never get out into the public domain; they are buried and sucked up into official Washington where so many have so many reasons for always wanting to hush such things up. But there should be no doubt that the Israelis have infiltrated at many levels and greatly influenced in many ways U.S. policies in the Middle East, especially of late the decision to invade and occupy Iraq.
The following quick list of past Israeli spy scandals all of which were covered up or sucked in one way or another include
* Israeli Attack on U.S.S. Liberty - 1967
* Steve Bryent Israeli Spying Scandal - 1982
* Jonathan Pollard Arrested outside Israeli Embassy - 1985
* AIPAC infiltration scandal, President forced to resign - 1991
* Mossad bugging of Clinton and Monica - 1997
* Martin Indyk's Security Clearances 'temporarily' suspended - 2000 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:53 am Post subject: It's Time to Put America First |
| It's Time to Put America First
Commentary by Laura Dawn Lewis
http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2004/Cipel1.htm#First
Another Israeli Spy, as reported by CBS is suspected in the Pentagon, though some news sources state this is the first time since Pollard during the 1980's one has been caught.
This is categorically untrue. September 11, 2001 five Mossad assets were arrested celebrating the attack in New Jersey as the Twin Towers disintegrated. In January 2002, FOX News exposed a nationwide Israeli Spy ring utilizing art students and mall kiosk workers in the hundreds nationwide, in addition to the use of moving companies as Mossad fronts in the United States. Between September 11, 2001 and January 2002 we deported nearly 800 Israeli nationals suspected of spying on the US. This moving company manifestation continues both in organized crime and earlier this year more Israeli agents under the cover of moving company workers were caught in Tennessee attempting to smuggle out classified submarine fuel. We have the wire and phone tapping scandals by Israeli companies likewise exposed in this time frame. Then we have Golan Cipel, a confirmed Israeli Agent.
It's long been suspected that members of JINSA, (Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs) the authors of our current war in Iraq, the PNAC (Project for the new American Century) and organizations including AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) which lobbies congress and is considered the most powerful lobby in America and the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which acts as the Intelligence Arm in the United States under the guise of fighting racism while it promotes, funds and protects it in Israel have been involved in securing American support, funds and munitions on behalf of Israeli interests.
To speak of such automatically brands the reporter or politician anti-Semitic. There is nothing anti-Semitic about protesting or pointing to our security breaches and undue influence on US policy, politicians, budgets and the Constitution (Several pro-Israel but unconstitutional resolutions have been winding through congress stripping Americans of our 1st, 4th, 5th and 10th Amendment rights while protecting Israel from scrutiny including HR4230, HR3077 and S-625). Rather it is anti-American not to object. It is our country after all. To date these organizations hide behind the Jewish faith, curbing any discussion in the mainstream press through accusations of anti-Semitism.
This new spy scandal in Washington DC must be huge for CBS to risk condemnation by AIPAC and the Christian Zionists. Otherwise it would be covered up like the aforementioned incidents of the past three years. AIPAC will swing into action and attempt to minimize this, denying of course everything. Israeli loyalists in the media will attempt to spin this as not damaging because Israel is our "friend"; don't be surprised by this. Ariel Sharon has bragged on at least one public occasion that Israel controls the US Media. But what Americans need to realize, only Israel continually gets caught spying on us, selling our military secrets to communist countries and compromising our security. Britain doesn't do this. France doesn't do this. Canada doesn't do this, nor does Mexico and there would be hell to pay if they did. This discovery is the tip of the iceberg.
The biggest problems facing American democracy, our constitution and freedom, all trace back to the same little country, the one we keep catching spying and selling our security, the same country both Bush and Kerry proudly and publicly swear their solidarity to, our "friend" Israel.
The Agenda
This isn't about religion, nor is it about "fighting terrorism"; the issues would be the same if Israel were Catholic, Muslim or Buddhist. Religion continues to be used as a weapon to obscure and prevent discussion. As far as terrorism, it wouldn't exist in the Middle East if Israel ceased exterminating its neighbors, or if it had adhered to the agreement establishing the State of Israel in 1948.
(Israel possesses the 4th largest military in the world with over 600 WMD's. Israel is not a helpless nor an oppressed nation by any means. It defeated several nations in just six days and it has always, from day one outnumber the totality of all Arab country militaries by at least 3:1)
Terrorism wouldn't exist for Israel if America its enabler wasn't continually supplying the injunctions, money and weapons of oppression. Its problems with terrorism originate because of its policies: apartheid, genocide, racism, elitism and ethnic cleansing, nothing more.
If Americans truly want to end the threat of terrorism, the solution begins in Palestine and it is called justice, not apartheid. Continuing to shield Israel isn't helping Israelis. It's killing them, morally, spiritually and physically. If Americans really care about the Israelis and really want to save the Jewish people the biggest favor we can do for them is cut off all support until they learn to get along with their neighbors. This they will do quickly; they've gotten along in relative peace from nearly 1900 years. Terrorism will end without the financial and political support of America. It's called tough love and it works whether we're speaking of teenagers, alcoholics or rogue nations drunk on elitism and racism.
America please tell me, how many spies are required for this nation to wake up? Why we are supporting presidential candidates who place the welfare and importance of a foreign theocracy, primary and before the Constitution and the welfare of the United States? Does it not seem odd for the President of the United States and three quarters of congress to proudly swear their solidarity to a foreign country? Think about that. Think about what that really means. As Americans we need to decide whether we continue to cower in fear of being labeled anti-Semitic for simply standing up for our country, or whether Americans are willing to pay the true price of freedom by fielding these accusations and exposing them for the BS they are. What is more important: The Constitution, Freedom and the United States, or apartheid, terrorism and Israel.
I vote for America. What amazes me is how few of my countrymen agree. If the choice is between supporting Israeli apartheid and the United States our constitution and freedom, Israeli apartheid and racism win every time. I don't get it. What are we afraid of, a little name calling, being called racists for objecting to racism? Anyone who thinks will see this for the oxymoron it is. Honestly, there is nothing anti-Semitic about putting American interests first. We are American; we're supposed to. It's called self-preservation. After thirty-seven years and nearly two-trillion in aid and munitions to Israel, it is time we put the United States first. This is easy. All we need to do is follow the Constitution and apply the same standards we adhere to in the United States with our actions and support abroad. Apartheid, racism, oppression, ethnic cleansing are not American values. So why in Israel do we fund, defend and support them? If this isn't hypocrisy, what is? Isn't it time we put America first | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:54 am Post subject: Report on Iran Key to Spying Inquiry |
| http://us.f522.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=1492_24103696_368264_1326_4603_0_8002_10339_2178395726&Idx=1&YY=5824&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b&box=Inbox
THE WORLD
Report on Iran Key to Spying Inquiry
Investigators are looking closely at Pentagon policy analyst Larry Franklin's relationships with advocates for Israel.
By Mark Mazzetti and Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writers
August 29, 2004
WASHINGTON — The man at the center of an FBI investigation into possible Israeli espionage in Washington is a career Pentagon employee, a colonel in the Air Force reserves and a national security analyst who at the end of the Cold War taught himself Farsi and refashioned himself as an expert on Iran, officials said Saturday.
The FBI is trying to determine whether he is also a spy.
U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that the target of the investigation was Larry Franklin, the Pentagon's top Iran policy analyst and a confidant of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, who, as undersecretary for policy, was the Pentagon's third-ranking official.
The FBI is trying to ascertain whether Franklin turned over a draft presidential directive on policy toward Iran last year to two people affiliated with the Washington-based American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which may have given the information to Israel.
Officials are concerned because the directive was still being debated by U.S. policymakers at the time, possibly putting the Israeli government in a position to influence the final document, officials said. U.S. policy toward Iran is vital to Israel, which is gravely concerned about the expanding nuclear capability of the country run by Shiite Muslim clerics.
The probe, which is being handled by the FBI's counter- espionage division, might not result in espionage charges against Franklin.
Instead, the Pentagon analyst could be charged with lesser offenses such as improper disclosure or mishandling of classified information. Or he could be exonerated.
A U.S. official with knowledge of the case expressed doubts Saturday that Franklin's alleged actions rose to the level of espionage. Instead, he said it was more likely that Franklin, who maintains close ties with Israeli officials, passed documents to Israel without knowing the seriousness of his actions.
"From everything I've seen, the guy's not a spy," the official said. "The guy's an idiot."
According to the official, the closeness of the U.S. relationship with Israel means that top officials of the two nations often share sensitive information. Nevertheless, Franklin should have known what information was and was not permissible to be shared, he said.
"We knew this guy had the relationship for a while, and he shared some stuff beyond what he should be sharing," the official said.
Franklin did not respond to phone messages Saturday seeking comment.
Sources said that Franklin, a longtime official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, three years ago joined the Pentagon's Office of Near East and South Asian Affairs, the group charged with developing the Pentagon's policy for the Middle East. The office is run by William J. Luti, who in turn reports to Feith.
Since joining Luti's office, Franklin has been the Pentagon's leading Iran policy analyst, a job that took on greater importance after President Bush included Iran in his "axis of evil" and his appointees at the Pentagon advocated a hard line toward Iran.
As a member of the Air Force reserves, Franklin is assigned to a DIA reserve unit based in Washington.
A Pentagon statement released Friday characterized Franklin as a "desk officer" with no significant influence on U.S. policy. Yet some who have worked with him offer a different picture, saying he was very influential in high-level Pentagon policy debates.
"You're not talking about someone toiling away in the bowels of the U.S. government," said a former Pentagon official who worked for Feith until last year and spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Franklin was the go-to guy on Iran issues for Wolfowitz and Feith."
In addition, the former official characterized Franklin as an ideological ally of Wolfowitz, Feith and Luti. The three men were among the Bush administration's leading advocates of war with Iraq, and the Middle East policy office and the Office of Special Plans, both of which reported to Luti, produced analyses bolstering the U.S. case against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Their analysis wasn't whether we should invade Iraq, but whether we should do it on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday," the former official said.
FBI investigators fear that Franklin — given his influential position and high-level security clearance — may have been in a position to compromise government information about Iraq and the U.S. war effort.
Sometime after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Franklin took a secret trip to Rome with Harold Rhode, another civilian official in the Pentagon, to meet with Iranian dissidents who reportedly promised to provide information to them that would aid the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.
One of the dissidents the pair spoke to was Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer and former Iranian spy who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
The White House blessed the trip. Yet when news of the meeting leaked two years later, officials said they had not known that Ghorbanifar would be among the dissidents Franklin and Rhode met.
According to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that meeting and a subsequent one between Rhode and Ghorbanifar "went nowhere."
Michael Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who specializes in Mideast affairs, arranged the contacts between the Pentagon officials and the Iranian dissidents, which he said led to American lives being saved in Afghanistan.
Asked Saturday for comment on the investigation, Ledeen said he expected the FBI probe to yield nothing incriminating about Franklin, whom Ledeen has known for years.
"I don't believe Larry Franklin would ever do anything improper with classified information," said Ledeen, who worked as a consultant to the National Security Council and the State and Defense departments during the administration of Ronald Reagan.
Ledeen said the information Franklin was suspected of transferring was well known among foreign policy observers. The U.S. had not developed a coherent Iran policy, he said, and the divergent views of various administration officials were publicly known and available.
"There is no American policy on Iran," Ledeen said. "What is he telling them? What can there possibly be that is classified about American policy on Iran that we do not know about from the public debate?"
Franklin and Rhode also have close ties with Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, whose Iraqi National Congress was the dissident organization most favored by Pentagon officials during Hussein's rule.
Chalabi met often with top officials at the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office to advocate regime change in Iraq.
Chalabi himself has been investigated by American officials in connection with the transmission of U.S. secrets to Iran. It is unclear whether the investigations into Franklin and Chalabi are connected. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:37 am Post subject: Analyst Who Is Target of Probe Went to Israel |
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42625-2004Aug28?language=printer
Analyst Who Is Target of Probe Went to Israel
By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 29, 2004;
The FBI investigation into whether classified information was passed to the Israeli government is focused on a Pentagon analyst who has served as an Air Force reservist in Israel, and the probe has been broadened in recent days to include interviews at the State and Defense departments and with Middle Eastern affairs specialists outside government, officials and others familiar with the inquiry said yesterday.
At the center of the investigation, sources said, is Lawrence A. Franklin, a career analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who specializes in Iran and has served in the Air Force Reserve, rising to colonel. Early in the Bush administration, Franklin moved from the DIA to the Pentagon's policy branch headed by Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith, where he continued his work on Iranian affairs.
Officials and colleagues said yesterday that Franklin had traveled to Israel, including during duty in the Air Force Reserve, where he served as a specialist in foreign political-military affairs. He may have been based at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on those tours, said a former co-worker at the DIA but was never permanently assigned there.
Messages left at Franklin's Pentagon office were not returned yesterday, and nobody answered the door at his house in West Virginia.
FBI officials have been quietly investigating for months whether Franklin gave classified information -- which officials said included a draft of a presidential directive on U.S. policies toward Iran -- to two Israeli lobbyists here who are alleged to have passed it on to the Israeli government. Officials said it was not yet clear whether the probe would become an espionage case or perhaps would result in lesser charges such as improper release of classified information or mishandling of government documents.
On Friday, Pentagon officials said Franklin was not in a position to have significant influence over U.S. policy. "The Defense Department has been cooperating with the Department of Justice for an extended period of time," a Pentagon statement said. "It is the DOD's understanding that the investigation within DOD is very limited in its scope."
At the Pentagon and elsewhere in Washington yesterday, people touched by the case said they were baffled by aspects of it.
Colleagues said they were stunned to hear Franklin was suspected of giving secret information to a foreign government. And foreign policy specialists said they were skeptical that the pro-Israel group under FBI scrutiny, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, would jeopardize its work with classified documents from a midlevel bureaucrat when it could find out almost anything it wanted to by calling top officials in the Bush administration.
"The whole thing makes no sense to me," said Dennis Ross, special envoy on the Arab-Israeli peace process in the first Bush administration and the Clinton presidency. "The Israelis have access to all sorts of people. They have access in Congress and in the administration. They have people who talk about these things," said Ross, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office yesterday issued a statement saying Israel was not involved in the matter and conducts no espionage in the United States. AIPAC has strongly denied any wrongdoing and said it is "cooperating fully" with the probe.
The FBI investigation was touched off months ago when a series of e-mails was brought to investigators' attention, said a U.S. official familiar with the case. The investigation moved into high gear in recent days, another official said. On Friday, Justice Department officials briefed some Pentagon officials about the state of the inquiry.
"I think they are at the end of their investigation and beginning to brief people in the chain of command, partly to make sure that the acts weren't authorized," one official said.
Pentagon co-workers expressed shock at the news. "It's totally astonishing to all of us who knew him," said a Defense Department co-worker who asked not to be identified by name because of the investigation. "He is a career guy, a mild-mannered professional. No one would think of him as evil or devious."
Franklin works in the office of William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. For years a bureaucratic backwater, the office has been in the thick of the action since 2001 because it formulates Pentagon policy on Iraq. It played a central role as the U.S. military prepared for the spring 2003 invasion and since then as the Pentagon has overseen the occupation.
Luti's office is part of the policy operation under Feith.
Feith has been a controversial figure in U.S.-Israeli affairs since the mid-1990s, when he was part of a study group of American conservatives, then out of government, who urged Israel's then prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to abandon the Oslo peace accords and reject the basis for them -- that Israel should give up land in exchange for peace.
More recently, Feith has been a target of criticism from Democrats who claim that two offices in his branch -- the Office of Special Plans, headed by Luti, and the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group -- sought to manipulate intelligence to improve the Bush administration's case for war against Iraq. House and Senate intelligence committee investigators found no evidence for allegations that the Pentagon offices tried to bypass the CIA or had a major impact on the prewar debate. But in the Senate panel's report on prewar intelligence, three Democratic senators -- John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), Carl M. Levin (Mich.), and Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) -- specifically criticized Feith's operation.
In Kearneysville, W.Va., about 80 miles from the Pentagon, neighbors of the Franklins interviewed yesterday said they did not know the family well. Though nobody answered the door, voices were heard in the house, which had a "God Bless Our Troops" sticker and an American flag in the window.
People who know Franklin from different phases of his life offered contrasting accounts of his political views.
A U.S. government official familiar with the investigation said Franklin was very outwardly supportive of Israel, for example. But a former co-worker at the DIA disputed that characterization, saying that he did not recall in years of working with him any strong political statements about Israel or anything else. Franklin, he said, was a solid, competent analyst specializing in Iranian political affairs, especially the views of top leaders and the course of opposition movements.
In February 2000, Franklin wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal's European edition that was sharply critical of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, arguing that the leader was launching a "charm offensive" that was simply a "ruse" to make the Iranian government look better to Westerners while it continued to abuse human rights.
Details of Franklin's Air Force service, and especially his time in Israel, could not be learned yesterday. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment.
In Israel yesterday, Sharon's office issued a statement. "Israel does not engage in intelligence activities in the U.S. We deny all these reports," the statement said, according to the Associated Press. That followed a strong statement Friday by the Israeli Embassy in Washington denying any wrongdoing.
One Israeli official familiar with the situation said yesterday that his government had checked "every organ here" to make sure that no part of government was involved. "We checked everything possible, and there's absolutely nothing. It's a nonevent, from the Israeli point of view. Someone leaked this to [hurt] . . . the president, AIPAC and the Jews on the eve of the Republican convention," he speculated.
He added that Israel would not have been involved in such activities, "because we have a trauma here in Israel. It's called Pollard."
That was a reference to the case in which a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, Jonathan J. Pollard, admitted in 1987 to selling state secrets to Israel. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison, and Israeli officials have said since then they do not conduct espionage against the United States.
At AIPAC, spokesman Josh Block said the organization had no comment yesterday beyond its Friday statement that the organization and its employees denied any wrongdoing and were cooperating with the government. A former AIPAC employee also said he was baffled by the news of the FBI investigation. "I have a hard time figuring out what this is about," he said. If the Israelis or their supporters want to know about deliberations in the Bush administration, he said, "all they have to do is take people to lunch."
Others in Washington, however, maintained that Israel does present a problem for the United States in certain aspects of intelligence, such as sensitive defense technologies and Iran policy.
Israel sees Iran as the single biggest threat to its existence, and so closely monitors all possible moves in Washington's Iranian policy -- especially as the Bush administration presses Tehran to disclose more about the state of its nuclear program.
One former State Department officer recalled being told that U.S. government experts considered the countries whose spying most threatened the United States were Russia, South Korea and Israel. "I also know from my time in Jerusalem that official U.S. visitors to Israel were warned about the counterintelligence threat from Israel," he said.
Taking a slightly different view, others speculated that the very closeness of the relationship between the United States and Israeli governments -- and especially the tight connections between the Israelis and Feith's policy office -- may have led officials to become sloppy about rules barring release of sensitive information. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
