Spy Case:Franklin to Luti to Feith to Wolfowitz to Rumsfeld?

Firth gave Israel secret in the 1980s?
While I'm always doubtful about the credibility of the Washington Times, this article contains some new information. ---BBB

Pentagon aide draws scrutiny from FBI
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The FBI is investigating a senior Pentagon official who is suspected of passing classified information to the Israeli government through a pro-Israel lobbying group, U.S. officials said yesterday. The probe is focusing on whether the senior official, who has not been identified by name, disclosed classified information related to White House policy toward Iran.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the suspected mole works in the office of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy who is considered one of the top three officials in the Pentagon.

One U.S. official said the FBI had unconfirmed information that Mr. Feith supplied information to Israel in the 1980s. However, the officials declined to provide further information citing the ongoing investigation. It could not be learned whether arrests are expected in the case. But a third official, also speaking anonymously, said an arrest could come as early as next week.

If the charges of a Pentagon mole are confirmed, the case would be the first Israeli intelligence-gathering effort against the United States exposed since the spy case involving Navy analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard, who pleaded guilty to passing highly classified information to the Jewish state in 1985.

Officials confirmed details of the probe after it was first reported by CBS News, Associated Press and Reuters news agency. The reports quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying the suspected mole within the Pentagon supplied documents and information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential, pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington. Two persons within AIPAC are said to have been the recipients of the information, which was passed on to Israel's government.

Israel is focused intently on Iran because the Islamic government in Tehran has declared Israel an avowed enemy. A senior Iranian defense official recently said that Iran had weapons that could knock out Israel's nuclear complex at Dimona.

Bush administration officials have said tensions are rising between Israel and Iran and there are concerns that Israel may conduct a military strike on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, which is being built with Russian assistance, but which has not been supplied with nuclear fuel. One official said the suspected Pentagon spy supplied Israel with a draft presidential directive relating to U.S. policy toward Iran.

Critics of Mr. Feith have said that he and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz are pro-Israel "neoconservatives" who sway U.S. policy, including policy on Iraq, favoring Israel. Supporters of Mr. Feith and Mr. Wolfowitz have dismissed the criticism as anti-Semitic. Officials said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been notified about the investigation.

An AIPAC official told CBS News that the organization cooperating with the government in the investigation and has hired lawyers. AIPAC denied any wrongdoing by the organization or any of its employees. At the Israeli Embassy, a spokesman said: "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous."

The Pollard case was considered a major counterintelligence breakthrough for the FBI in 1985, which had been seeing indications of Israeli intelligence gathering for years but had been limited from taking action. The Israeli intelligence services have worked closely with the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for decades and have provided valuable information on international terrorism. However, the Pollard case led to temporary disruption in U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing.

•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
-------------------------------------------------

Douglas J. Feith
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Douglas J. Feith is the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. His responsibilities include the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, Department of Defense relations with foreign countries and the Department's role in U.S. Government interagency policy making.

Before President George W. Bush appointed him in July 2001, Mr. Feith was for fifteen years the managing attorney of the Washington, D.C. law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C.

From March 1984 until September 1986, Mr. Feith served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy.

Before becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary, Mr. Feith served as Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle.

Mr. Feith transferred to the Pentagon from the National Security Council at the White House, where he worked in 1981-82 as a Middle East specialist.

Mr. Feith's writings on international law and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New Republic and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller, ed., Churchill as Peacemaker; Douglas J. Feith, et al., Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History; and Uri Ra'anan, et al., eds., Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism.

Mr. Feith holds a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College.
----------------------------------------

Douglas Jay Feith

Douglas Jay Feith currently serves as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the third ranking civilian position at the Pentagon.

Feith, a staunch neo-conservative, previously served on the White House National Security staff under Richard Allen during Ronald Reagan's first term in office. During Reagan's second term in office, Feith was part of Richard N. Perle's Pentagon team.

In 1989, Feith registered International Advisors, Inc. (IAI) as a foreign agent representing the government of Turkey. The brainchild of Richard N. Perle, IAI's stated purpose was to "promote the objective of U.S.-Turkey defense industrial cooperation."

Douglas Feith was not only the CEO of IAI but also its only stockholder. Feith earned $60,000 per year and his law firm, Feith and Zell, was the recipient from IAI of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 1992, Feith joined with Perle and other neo-cons opposing President George H.W. Bush's stern policy on Israel in forming the Committee on U.S. Interests in the Middle East.

Feith and Perle reportedly teamed up once again as consultants for Bosnia. They both worked for and advised the Bosnians during the Dayton peace talks. They were not, however, registered then as foreign agents with the Deparment of Justice.

Above paragraphs from the Arab American Institute's Washington Watch.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Doug Feith was most recently Managing Attorney with Feith and Zell, P.C., in Washington, D.C. He served from 1984 to 1986 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and was Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard N. Perle from 1982 to 1984. Doug is a graduate of Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center." [1]
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The title of Laura Rozen's May 18, 2004, The American Prospect Online article states the case clearly: "Ye of Little Feith. Why one of Doug Feith's underlings thinks he might go to jail."

"'He was very arrogant,' Karen Kwiatkowski, Feith's former deputy, says, describing what it was like to work with him. 'He doesn't utilize a wide variety of inputs. He seeks information that confirms what he already thinks. And he may go to jail for leaking classified information to The Weekly Standard.' (As she explains, an article appeared in The Weekly Standard that included a leaked memo written by Feith alleging ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.)

"It seems unlikely that Feith will face time for the leaked memo. But he may well be forced to look for a new job soon. As he knows all too well, regime change isn't pretty."
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Feith and Paul Wolfowitz "are blamed for persuading President Bush that an invasion would be relatively easy." (Julian Borger, Guardian UK, May 20 2004)
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A supplementary annexe of the committee's review of the intelligence leading to war in Iraq says about Feith: A Senior Pentagon policy maker created an unofficial "Iraqi intelligence cell" in the summer of 2002 to circumvent the CIA and secretly brief the White House on links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'eda ([2])
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Affiliations:

Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Director, United States Institute of Peace[3]
Energy Infrastructure Planning Group

----------------------------------------------------------------------
A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush
Topic Politics
Posted on 2002-04-26 16:38:17 by gato
Dr. James J. Zogby is President of Arab American Institute.

Office of Special Plans: Command Post Primer
July 11, 2004
Office of Special Plans: Command Post Primer
The Command Post - Iraq - Office of Special Plans: Command Post Primer

As noted below, Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans (OSP) May 2003 information about his staff:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:g-1ltc86jusJ:www.ladlass.com/intel/archives/003801.html+names+of+analyst+staff++in+office+of+Douglas+J.+Feith&hl=en&start=1&ie=UTF-8

Remember these names:

Bill Bruner
Kevin Jones
Michael Makovsky
Karen Kwiatkowski
Harold Rhode
Michael Ledeen
Michael Rubin

Directorate of Special Plans site:

http://www.defenselink.mil/policy/isa/nesa/postwar_iraq.html

Pentagon Team on Iran Comes Under Fire
By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:Rn3Gsc-VYh4J:www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.06/news6.html+Office+of+Special+Plans+Iran+desk+staff&hl=en&start=1&ie=UTF-8

Spy Arrest Said Possible Soon
Spy Arrest Said Possible Soon
Aug. 28, 2004
CBS NEWS

The FBI is investigating whether a Pentagon analyst fed Israel secret materials about White House deliberations on Iran. The probe could strain U.S.-Israeli relations and muddy the Bush administration's Middle East policy.

The investigation centers on whether the Pentagon analyst passed secrets about U.S. policy on Iran to the main pro-Israeli lobbying group in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which then was said to have given the secrets to the Israeli government, one official said. Both AIPAC and Israel deny the allegations.

60 Minutes Correspondent Leslie Stahl was first to report the story, on Friday.

No arrests have been made, said two federal law enforcement officials, speaking to The Associated Press Saturday on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. A third law enforcement official, also speaking anonymously, said an arrest in the case could come as early as next week.

Two of those officials raised the possibility the government might not bring espionage charges, but rather lesser ones that could include the mishandling of sensitive government material.

The officials refused to identify the Pentagon employee under investigation but said the person is an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.

The allegations threaten to create tensions between Israel and its closest ally at a sensitive time. After four years of fighting with the Palestinians, Israel faces growing international isolation and can ill afford a confrontation with Washington.

Israeli security sources said to the AP Saturday that the Mossad foreign espionage service, military intelligence and other intelligence branches had all been asked about possible involvement with the Pentagon analyst. All denied any connection to the affair, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, traveling with President Bush on a campaign visit in Dayton, Ohio Saturday, said he was not in a position to discuss a continuing investigation.

"Obviously, any time there is an allegation of this nature, it's a serious matter," he said.

The Pentagon said in a statement the investigation involves an employee 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."

The Pentagon said Friday night it had cooperated with the Justice Department for "an extended period of time."

David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said, "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous."

Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who works on sensitive policy issues including U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. Feith's office includes a group assigned specifically to work on Iran.

He also oversaw the Pentagon's defunct Office of Special Plans, which critics said fed policy-makers uncorroborated prewar intelligence on President Saddam Hussein's Iraq, especially involving purported ties with the al-Qaida terror network. Pentagon officials have said the office was a small operation that provided fresh analysis on existing intelligence.

One of the law enforcement officials said the person was not in a policy-making position but had access to extremely sensitive information about U.S. policy toward Iran.

In Israel, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said Saturday that Israel worries about Iran's nuclear policies. But Yuval Steinitz said he is confident the government has not abandoned a 20-year-old decision not to spy on the United States.

Mr. Bush has identified Iran as part of an "axis of evil," along with North Korea and the Iraqi government deposed by the U.S.-led invasion last year.

Yet his administration has battled internally over how hard a line to take toward Iran. The State Department generally has advocated more moderate positions. More conservative officials in the Defense Department and some at the White House's National Security Council have advocated tougher policies.

Israel, one of the United States' strongest allies, has worked behind its conservative prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to push the United States toward a tougher stance against Iran. The Israeli tactics have raised questions whether inside information may have been used to try to influence U.S. policy.

AIPAC said in a statement that the lobbying group was "fully cooperating with the governmental authorities and will continue to do so." It said any allegation of criminal conduct by the group or its employees was "baseless and false."

The Pentagon investigation has included wiretapping and surveillance and searches of the suspected Pentagon employee's computer, the law enforcement officials said.

Israel and Iran have been in an increasingly hostile war of words in recent months.

In 1981, Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in Iraq after becoming suspicious that Saddam was developing a nuclear weapons capability.

Despite the close U.S.-Israeli relations, this is not the first allegation of spying on Israel's behalf.

Jonathan Pollard, a former naval intelligence officer, was convicted of giving top-secret documents to Israel in the mid-1980s. He continues to be a point of contention in U.S.-Israeli relations. The Israeli government has repeatedly pressed for his release, but intelligence officials have called the information he passed to the Israelis highly damaging.

Pollard was caught in Washington in November 1985, and was arrested after unsuccessfully seeking refuge at the Israeli Embassy.

Separately, Iran said Saturday it would continue its nuclear program but provide "guarantees" not to build atomic weapons, and warned Washington it cannot stabilize neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan without Tehran's help.

In a wide-ranging news conference in Tehran, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said the wall of mistrust separating Tehran and Washington had become thicker during the Bush administration, adding he hoped American casualties in Iraq would affect U.S. public opinion before the November election.

Washington claims the Iranian nuclear program is aimed at building atomic weapons, but Tehran says is directed at generating electricity.

"We are ready to do everything necessary to give guarantees that we won't seek nuclear weapons," Khatami said.

"As Muslims, we can't use nuclear weapons," he told reporters in Tehran. "One who can't use nuclear weapons won't produce them."

He did not elaborate on the nature of the guarantees, but Iran has already agreed to international inspections of its nuclear facilities and military sites. Khatami reiterated his country would not give up its nuclear program.

Khatami's statement marks the first time Tehran has so publicly said it would provide guarantees to ease international concerns about its nuclear program.

The official under suspicion was described by senior Defense officials as a civilian employee and Iran specialist working at the Pentagon's office of Near East and South Asian Affairs. NESA is the office charged with setting the Pentagon's policy for the entire Middle East. Before going to work for Feith, the analyst worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The suspected Israeli mole has been identified as Larry Franklin. ---BBB

FBI Has Probed Pentagon Analyst for a Year
Aug 28, 5:31 PM (ET)
By CURT ANDERSON
(AP) A nuclear research reactor at the Iran Atomic Energy Organization's headquarters is seen in Tehran,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI has spent more than a year covertly investigating, including with the use of electronic surveillance, whether a Pentagon analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel, officials said Saturday. Prosecutors were still weighing whether to bring the most serious charge of espionage.

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 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 undersecrerary for policy. Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld whose previous work included prewar intelligence on Iraq, including purported ties between Saddam Hussein'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 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 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 including Iran with Iraq and North Korea 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. Last week, Iran threatened to destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor if Israel attack's Iran's nuclear facilities.

Larry Franklin
See several articles in Haaretz re this story re Larry Franklin, Douglas Feith and William Luti:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/

Larry Franklin

Larry Franklin is an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who works in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. He reports directly to Feith's deputy, William Luti and specializes in Iranian policy issues. [1]

Background

Franklin was a Soviet analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who transferred to the Middle East division in the early 1990's. He learned Farsi and became an Iran analyst, developing extensive contacts among Iranians who opposed the Tehran government. [2]

Franklin also has a military background. Franklin was a colonel in the Air Force Reserve who served two short tours at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv. [3]

Allegations of Espionage

On August 29th 2004, it was reported that Franklin is under investigation for allegedly spying for the state of Israel [4] [5] [6]. According to an article in Haaretz, Franklin is not Jewish himself [7].

Secret Meetings with Iran-Contra Arms Dealers

According to a 8th September 2003 Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service article, in 2003 Franklin and Harold Rhode held secret meetings in Paris with Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Rhode is Feith's top specialist on the middle east. The article claimed that the meetings were aimed at undercutting official US policy towards Tehran [8].

An anonymous senior administration official quoted by the article said that the immediate objective of the Pentagon hawks appeared to be to "antagonise Iran so that they get frustrated and then by their reactions harden U.S. policy against them." [9]

Craig Gordon, "Pentagon hawks, Iran-Contra scam dealer hold talks", Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, September 8, 2003.

"Profile: Larry Franklin", Center for Cooperative Research, undated.

James Risen "F.B.I. Said to Reach Official Suspected of Passing Secrets", The New York Times, August 29, 2004
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Timeline for start up to Iraq war:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:GFNiAZneY8kJ:www.cooperativeresearch.org/item.jsp%3Fitem%3Dcomplete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_12+who+does+Larry+Franklin,+Analyst+at+the+Defense+Intelligence+Agency,+report+to&hl=en&start=5&ie=UTF-8

Larry Franklin, Analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, is also a member of The Center for Cooperative Research.

Secret Talks With Iranian Arms Dealer
Note the August 8, 2003 date on this article. ---BBB

Secret Talks With Iranian Arms Dealer
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps | Newsday | August 8, 2003

"The senior administration official identified two of the Defense officials who met with Ghorbanifar as Harold Rhode, Feith's top Middle East specialist, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst on loan to the undersecretary's office."Washington -- Pentagon hardliners pressing for regime change in Iran have held secret and unauthorized meetings in Paris with a controversial arms dealer who was a major figure in the Iran-contra scandal, according to administration officials.

The officials said at least two Pentagon officials working for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian middleman in U.S. arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

The administration officials who disclosed the secret meetings to Newsday said the talks with Ghorbanifar were not authorized by the White House and appeared to be aimed at undercutting current sensitive backchannel negotiations with the Iranian regime.

"They [the Pentagon officials] were talking to him about stuff which they weren't officially authorized to do," said a senior administration official. "It was only accidentally that certain parts of our government learned about it."

The official would not identify those "parts" of the government, but a former intelligence official confirmed they are the State Department, the CIA and the White House, itself.

The senior official and another administration source who confirmed that the meetings had taken place said that the ultimate policy objective of Feith and a group of neo-conservatives civilians inside the Pentagon is regime change in Iran.

This second official said, "United States policy officially is not regime change, overtly or covertly," but to engage Iranian officials in dialogue over contentious issues, such as Iran's nuclear weapons program, and to press the regime to extradite al-Qaida operatives.

He said that the immediate objective of the Pentagon hardliners appears to be to "antagonize Iran so that they get frustrated and then by their reactions harden U.S. policy against them."

He confirmed that Secretary of State Colin Powell complained directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld several days ago about Feith's policy shop conducting missions that countered U.S. policy.

A spokesman for Feith's Near East, South Asia and Special Plans office, the controversial intelligence office that sources said played a key role in the Ghorbanifar contacts, did not respond Thursday to an e-mailed inquiry about those contacts. Newsday's inquiry was e-mailed at the spokesman's request.

The senior administration official identified two of the Defense officials who met with Ghorbanifar as Harold Rhode, Feith's top Middle East specialist, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst on loan to the undersecretary's office.

Rhode recently acted as a liaison between Feith's office, which drafted much of the administration's post-Iraq planning, and Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile disdained by the CIA and State Department but groomed for leadership by the Pentagon.

Rhode is a protege of Michael Ledeen, a neo-conservative who was a National Security Council consultant in the mid-1980s when he introduced Ghorbanifar to Oliver North, a National Security Council aide, and others in the opening stages of the Iran-contra affair.

A former CIA officer who himself was involved in some aspects of the Iran-contra scandal said that current intelligence officers told him it was Ledeen who reopened the Ghorbanifar channel with Feith's staff.

Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an ardent advocate for regime change in Iran, would neither confirm nor deny that he arranged for the Ghorbanifar meetings. "I'm not going to comment on any private meetings with any private people," he said. "It's nobody's business."

Ghorbanifar, who is said to live in Paris, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Ledeen once described him as "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." But the CIA, noting he had failed four polygraph tests administered during the arms-for-hostages deals, warned its officers not to deal with him, asserting he "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and nuisance."

The senior administration official said he was puzzled by the resurfacing of Ghorbanifar after all these years. "It would be amazing if anybody in government hadn't learned the lessons of last time around," he said. "These guys [including Ledeen] should have learned it, 'cause they lived it."

Staff writer Craig Gordon contributed to this story.

www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-usiran0808,0,432543.story
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Colin Powell blew whistle re pentagon's secret meetings
9 August 2003
By Bradley Graham and Peter Slevin Washington Post
Meetings With Iran-Contra Arms Dealer Confirmed Iran Expert

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that Pentagon officials met secretly with a discredited expatriate Iranian arms merchant who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal of the mid-1980s, characterizing the contact as an unexceptional effort to gain possibly useful information.

While Rumsfeld said that the contact occurred more than a year ago and that nothing came of it, his aides scrambled during the day to piece together more details amid other reports that Rumsfeld's account may have been incomplete.

Last night, a senior defense official disclosed that another meeting with the Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, occurred in June in Paris. The official said that, while the first contact, in late 2001, had been formally sanctioned by the U.S. government in response to an Iranian government offer to provide information relevant to the war on terrorism, the second one resulted from "an unplanned, unscheduled encounter."

A senior administration official said, however, that Pentagon staff members held one or two other meetings with Ghorbanifar last year in Italy. The sessions so troubled Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the official said, that he complained to Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.

Powell maintained that the Pentagon activities were unauthorized and undermined U.S. policy toward Iran by taking place outside the terms defined by Bush and his top advisers. The White House instructed the Pentagon to halt meetings that do not conform to policy decisions, said the official, who requested anonymity.

The Defense Department personnel who met with Ghorbanifar came from the policy directorate. Sources identified them as Harold Rhode, a specialist on Iran and Iraq who recently served in Baghdad as the Pentagon liaison to Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.

State Department officials were surprised by news of the latest meeting with Ghorbanifar. Tension runs deep in the Bush administration between State and the Pentagon, which under Rumsfeld has aspired to a powerful role in foreign policy. The two agencies have sparred repeatedly over strategy toward Iran and Iraq.

The United States does not have formal relations with Iran, although a small number of sanctioned meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials have taken place, most notably to address U.S. war plans in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush administration has struggled to develop a coherent and consistent approach to Iran. In his State of the Union address last year, Bush characterized Iran as being part of an axis of evil, along with Iraq and North Korea, and administration officials have repeatedly accused Iran of supporting terrorist groups and of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. While broad agreement exists within the administration favoring changes in Iran's Islamic government, officials differ on how to accomplish them.

More than two years after the administration began drafting a national security presidential directive on Iran, the policy document remains unfinished. While the State Department favors increased dialogue and engagement with potential reformers inside Iran, prominent Pentagon civilians believe the policy should be more aggressive, including measures to destabilize the existing government in Tehran.

The Iran-contra scandal erupted over a decision by the Reagan administration to sell weapons to Iran in an effort to win the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. The proceeds of the arms sales were illegally funneled to contra fighters opposing Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.

Ghorbanifar was enlisted in the effort, helping to arrange the delivery by Israel of 508 TOW antitank missiles to Iran. The White House had drafted him as an intermediary despite warnings from the CIA that he was a cheat and had failed lie-detector tests.

The intelligence agency had instructed its operatives not to do business with him.

News of the Pentagon's contact with Ghorbanifar was first reported yesterday by Newsday, and Rumsfeld was asked about the story when he emerged with Bush from a meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Saying he had just been told of the Newsday article by a senior aide and by Rice, Rumsfeld acknowledged that "one or two" Pentagon officials "were approached by some people who had information about Iranians that wanted to provide information to the United States government."

He said that a meeting took place "more than a year ago" and that the information received was circulated to various federal departments and agencies but did not lead to anything.

"That is to say, as I understand it, there wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further," he said.

Asked if the Pentagon contact was intended to circumvent official U.S. exchanges with Iran, Rumsfeld replied: "Oh, absolutely not. I mean, everyone in the interagency process, I'm told, was apprised of it, and it went nowhere. It was just -- this happens, of course, frequently, that in -- people come in, offering suggestions or information or possible contacts, and sometimes they're pursued. Obviously, if it looks as though something might be interesting, it's pursued. If it isn't, it isn't."

Standing by Rumsfeld's side, Bush was asked if the meeting was a good idea and if his administration wants a change in government. "We support the aspirations of those who desire freedom in Iran," the president said, then took a question on a different subject.

According to the account given later by the senior Pentagon official, the contact in 2001 occurred after Iranian officials passed word to the administration that they had information that might be useful in the global war on terrorism. Two Pentagon officials met with the Iranians in several sessions over a three-day period in Italy. Ghorbanifar attended these meetings, "but he was not the individual who had approached the United States or the one with the information," the official said.

What his role was, however, the official did not know.

The official said the June meeting involved one of the two Pentagon representatives who had been present at the 2001 meeting, but he declined to say which one.

Douglas Feith is toast!
Posted on Fri, Aug. 08, 2003
Rumsfeld confirms Iran-Contra meeting
By WILLIAM DOUGLAS
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed Friday that Pentagon officials met secretly and discussed Iran with a controversial and discredited figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. But Rumsfeld said the talks "went nowhere."

Rumsfeld, in a session with reporters following a meeting with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, described the contact with Manucher Ghorbanifar as a routine effort to gain information about Iran and said the meetings took place more than a year ago.

State Department officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said that the meeting between the Pentagon officials - who work for Undersecretary for Defense Policy Douglas Feith - took place without the knowledge of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"I think a lot of people in this building were blindsided," said a State Department official, asking not to be identified.

Some administration officials and Middle East analysts believe that a Pentagon office Feith oversees, the Office of Special Plans, sought to devise its own policies and operate its own intelligence operations on Iran and Iraq.

Asked whether he had authorized secret talks with Ghorbanifar in regard to regime change in Iran, Rumsfeld confirmed only that the meeting had taken place and said information had been shared with other agencies of the government.

"There wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further," Rumsfeld said.

Ghorbanifar is an Iranian businessman who served as a middleman in the arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

From those encounters, Ghorbanifar earned a reputation in the intelligence community as a liar. In 1984, the CIA issued a "burn notice" on Ghorbanifar, recommending that no U.S. agency deal with him.

"The CIA had concluded, after past interaction with Ghorbanifar, that he could not be trusted to act in anyone's interest but his own," an independent counsel's report on the Iran-Contra affair said.

According to Rumsfeld, the talks occurred after Pentagon officials were "approached by some people who had information about Iranians that wanted to provide information to the United States government."

A senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said Friday that Ghorbanifar wanted to be paid to help U.S. officials open channels to moderates in Iran. The United States does not have formal relations with Iran and talks with the Middle East nation usually occur through back channels.

"We support the aspirations of those who desire freedom in Iran," Bush said Friday following Rumsfeld's explanation.

Newsday, which first reported the story, said Ghorbanifar met with Harold Rhode, Feith's top Middle East specialist, and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.

Feith's Office of Special Plans has been under congressional scrutiny for alleged lapses in post-war planning in Iraq, for relying heavily on intelligence of questionable value from Iraqi exiles and for allegedly manipulating intelligence to bolster the case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

and more:

US-Israeli relations strained as Pentagon official investigated over espionage claim



Link

FBI espionage probe goes beyond Israeli allegations
Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2004
FBI espionage probe goes beyond Israeli allegations, sources say
By Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have first-hand knowledge of the subject.

In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing.

The linkage, if any, between the two leak investigations, remains unclear.

But they both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.

Feith's office, which oversees policy matters, has been the source of numerous controversies over the last three years. His office had close ties to Chalabi and was responsible for post-war Iraq planning that the administration has now acknowledged was inadequate. Before the war, Feith and his aides pushed the now-discredited theory that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida.

No one is known to have been charged with any wrongdoing in the current investigation. Officials cautioned that it could result in charges of mishandling classified information, rather than the more serious charge of espionage.

The Israeli government on Saturday strenuously denied it had spied on the United States, its main benefactor on the global scene.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby that top officials said is suspected of serving as a conduit to Israel for the mid-level analyst, also has denied any wrongdoing.

That analyst, Larry Franklin, works for Feith's deputy, William Luti, and served as an important - albeit low-profile - advisor on Iran issues to Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Franklin, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who lives in West Virginia, could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Investigators are said to be looking at whether Franklin acted with authorization from his superiors, one official said.

Two sources disclosed Saturday that the information believed to have been passed to Israel was the draft of a top-secret presidential order on Iran policy, known as a National Security Presidential Directive. Because of disagreements over Iran policy among President Bush's advisors, the document is not believed to have ever been completed.

Having a draft of the document - which some Pentagon officials may have believed was insufficiently tough toward Iran - would have allowed Israel to influence U.S. policy while it was still being made. Iran is among Israel's main security concerns.

Two or three staff members of AIPAC have been interviewed in connection with the case. In a prepared statement, AIPAC said any allegation of criminal conduct was "false and baseless." It is "cooperating fully," with investigators, AIPAC's statement said.

Israeli officials insisted they stopped spying on the United States after the exposure of Jonathan Pollard, who was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to discuss the continuing investigation.

"Obviously any time there is an allegation of this nature, it's a serious matter," he told reporters traveling with Bush in Ohio.

In a statement issued late Friday, the Pentagon said it "has been cooperating with the Department of Justice on this matter for an extended period of time. It is the DoD (Department of Defense) understanding that the investigation within the DoD is limited in its scope."

But other sources said the FBI investigation is more wide-ranging than initial news reports suggested.

They said it has involved interviews of current and former officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

Investigators have asked about the security practices of several other Defense Department civilians, they said.

Franklin's name surfaced in news reports last year when it became known that he and another Pentagon Middle East specialist, Harold Rhode, met in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms merchant who played a role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said publicly last year that nothing came of the meeting, which reportedly was brokered by former National Security Council official Michael Ledeen.

Rhode could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Feith has long been close to Israel. In 2000, he helped author a paper, "A Clean Break," that advised incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt a much tougher approach to the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors.

A former Feith employee, Karen Kwiatkowski, has described how senior Israeli military officers were sometimes escorted to his Pentagon office without signing in as security regulations required.
---------------

(Knight Ridder correspondent John Walcott contributed to this report.)

All part of the tilt.

Harold Rhode
Harold Rhode

Harold Rhode is a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense.[1]

According to Jason Vest's September 2, 2002, article "The Men From JINSA and CSP," Harold Rhode and Andrew Marshall, from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, "actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments."

In their January 26, 2004, Mother Jones article "The Lie Factory", Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest write:

"Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Douglas Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no 'bartering in the bazaar anymore.... You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.'

"Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying cryptically, 'Those who speak, pay.'

"According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Paul D. Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be 'pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with,' says a former analyst. 'They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the **** out of there.'

"The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND Corporation analyst and University of Chicago mathematician.

Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter's prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board.

Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials."

Harold Rhode and the other war mongers
Center for Cooperative Research

Profile: Harold Rhode

Positions that Harold Rhode has held:

Top Middle East specialist for Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy during the administration of George W. Bush

Harold Rhode actively participated in the following events:

Shortly after September 11, 2001 Complete Iraq timeline

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Middle East specialist Harold Rhode recruit David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for the American Enterprise Institute, to serve as a Pentagon consultant.

Wurmser is a known advocate of regime change in Iraq, having expressed his views in a 1997 op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal (see November 12, 1997) and having participated in the drafting of a 1996 policy paper for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" (see July 8, 1996).

Wurmser works at Feith's office, where he and another neocon, F. Michael Maloof, a former aide to Richard Perle, head a secret intelligence unit, named the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, or the "Wurmser-Maloof" project.

The four- to five-person unit, a "B Team" commissioned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, uses powerful computers and software to scan and sort already-analyzed documents and reports from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and other agencies in an effort to consider possible interpretations and angles of analysis that these agencies may have missed due to deeply ingrained biases and out-of-date worldviews. [Washington Times, 1/14/02; Mother Jones, 1/04; New York Times, 10/24/02; Los Angeles Times, 2/8/04; Reuters, 2/19/04]

The Pentagon unit's activities cause tension within the traditional intelligence community. Critics claim that its members manipulate and distort intelligence, "cherry-picking" bits of information that fit their preconceived conclusions.

"There is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Defense Department and the intelligence community, to include its own Defense Intelligence Agency," a defense official will tell the New York Times.

"Wolfowitz and company disbelieve any analysis that doesn't support their own preconceived conclusions.

The CIA is enemy territory, as far are they're concerned." [New York Times, 10/24/02 Sources: Unnamed defense official]

Defending the project, Paul Wolfowitz will tell the New York Times that the team's purpose is to circumvent the problem "in intelligence work, that people who are pursuing a certain hypothesis will see certain facts that others won't, and not see other facts that others will." He insists that the special Pentagon unit is "not making independent intelligence assessments." [New York Times, 10/24/02]

One of the cell's projects includes sorting through existing intelligence to create a map of relationships demonstrating links between terrorist groups and state powers. This chart of links, which they name the "matrix," leads the intelligence unit to conclude that Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other groups with conflicting ideologies and objectives are allowing these differences to fall to the wayside as they discover their shared hatred of the US.

The group's research also leads them to believe that al-Qaeda has a presence in such places as Latin American.

For weeks, the unit will attempt to uncover evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, a theory advocated by both Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. [Washington Times, 1/14/02; Mother Jones, 1/04; Los Angeles Times, 2/8/04]

David Wurmser will later be relocated to the State Department where he will be the senior advisor to Undersecretary Of State for Arms Control John Bolton.(see September 2002). [Mother Jones, 1/04; American Conservative, 12/1/03]

People and organizations involved: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Harold Rhode, Donald Rumsfeld, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, F. Michael Maloof.

Early January 2002 Complete Iraq timeline

Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi, moves into the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment, "an in-house Pentagon think tank" run by Andrew Marshall. Rhode, along with Douglas Feith, whose appointment to Undersecretary of Defense for Policy is not approved until July, imposes a new anti-Iraq and anti-Arab orientation on the department.

The two men purge the department of career Defense officials whose worldviews are not considered sufficiently compatible with the neoconservative perspective.

An intelligence analyst will tell reporter Robert Dreyfuss that Rhode appeared to be "pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with." The source adds: "They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the **** out of there." [Mother Jones, 1/04]

People and organizations involved: Harold Rhode, Andrew Marshall

June 2003 Complete Iraq timeline

The Pentagon Office of Special Plans sends two Defense officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to Paris where they secretly meet with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader who had been a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute is said to have arranged the meeting, which is not authorized by the White House. [Newsday, 8/9/03; Washington Post, 8/9/03 Sources: A senior official interviewed by Newsday]

It appears that the purpose of the meeting is to undermine a pending deal that the White House is negotiating with the Iranian government. Iran is considering turning over five al-Qaeda operatives in exchange for Washington dropping its support for Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iraq-based rebel Iranian group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. The Office of Special Plans is reportedly interested in using this group to help destabilize Iran?s government. [Newsday, 8/9/03; Inter Press Service, 8/7/03]

When Secretary of State Colin Powell gets wind of its activities, he complains directly to the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying that Feith's missions are against US policy. [Newsday, 8/9/03; Washington Post, 8/9/03]

People and organizations involved: Michael Ledeen, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhode

The War in Context: part 1 - The Franklin Affair
THE FRANKLIN AFFAIR

The FBI investigation
By Laura Rozen, August 27, 2004

For months, I have been working with my colleagues Paul Glastris and Josh Marshall on a story for the Washington Monthly about US policy towards Iran. In particular, it involves a particular series of meetings involving officials from the office of the undersecretary of defense for Policy Doug Feith and Iranian dissidents.

As part of our reporting, I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation into who allegedly passed intelligence on deliberations on US foreign policy to Iran to officials with the pro-Israeli lobby group, AIPAC, and to the Israelis, as alleged by the CBS report. That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith's office.

Here is what I was told in the days before the FBI investigation came to light.

A source told me that some time in July, Larry Franklin called him and asked him to meet him in a coffee shop in Northern Virginia. Franklin had intelligence on hostile Iranian activities in Iraq and was extremely frustrated that he did not feel this intelligence was getting the attention and response it deserved. The intelligence included information that the Iranians had called all of their intelligence operatives who speak Arabic to southern Iraq, that it had moved their top operative for Afghanistan, a guy named Qudzi, to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, that its operatives were targeting Iraqi state oil facilities, and that Iranian agents were infiltrating into northern Iraq to target the Israelis written about in a report by Seymour Hersh. According to my source, Franklin passed the information to the individual from AIPAC with the hope it could reach people at higher levels of the US government who would act on it. AIPAC presented the information to Elliot Abrams in the NSC. They also presented the part that involved Israelis who might be targeted to the Israelis, with the motivation to protect Israeli lives.

[complete article] http://warincontext.org/2004_08_22_archive.html
-------------------------------------------------

Pentagon official suspected of giving U.S. secrets to Israel
By James Risen, New York Times, August 28, 2004

The Pentagon analyst who officials said was under suspicion was one of two department officials [Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin] who traveled to Paris for secret meetings with Iranian dissidents, including Manucher Ghorbanifar, an arms dealer. Mr. Ghorbanifar was a central figure in the Iran-contra affair in the 1980's, in which the United States government secretly sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in Lebanon and to finance the fighters, known as contras, opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

The secret meetings were first held in Rome in December 2001, were approved by senior Pentagon officials and were originally brokered by Michael Ledeen, a conservative analyst at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute who has a longstanding interest in Iranian affairs.It was not clear whether the espionage investigation was directly related to the meetings with Mr. Ghorbanifar. Nor was there immediate evidence of whether money had changed hands in exchange for classified information.

American policy towards Iran is now of critical importance to Israel, which is increasingly concerned by evidence that Tehran has accelerated its program to develop a nuclear weapon. The Bush Administration has become concerned that Israel might move militarily against Iran's nuclear complex.

American counterintelligence officials say that Israeli espionage cases are difficult to investigate, because they involve an important ally that enjoys broad political influence in Washington. Several officials said that a number of espionage investigations involving Israel had been dropped or suppressed in the past in the face of political pressure.

[complete article] http://warincontext.org/2004_08_22_archive.html

BBB

This is a good story. The advantages that might be perceived to accrue to Israel from the neo-conservative camp's designs for the Middle East haven't been discussed enough, likewise the ties of this crowd to Likkud. Of course, they have set up a pre-emptive defence though suggesting that any such discussion is simply a masked anti-semitism (as any criticism of Israeli government policy is often labeled anti-semitic).

How far the FBI or the press might get in following this story up is uncertain. But there will be some interesting PHD theses and history books on this up the road.

Blatham
Blatham, I found an article I read yesterday on the very subject you mentioned in your post above. ---BBB

www.haaretz.com

Last update - 03:22 29/08/2004
Analysis: The Franklin affair will damage Israel's image
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

Judging from the weekend reports on the investigation against Pentagon man Larry Franklin, who is suspected of passing classified material to Israel via AIPAC people, it appears talk of a "mole" in the administration and comparisons to the Pollard affair are highly exaggerated.

But regardless of the findings, the Franklin affair will cause serious damage to Israel's image and obstruct its working relations with the administration.

The timing, in the runup to presidential elections and on the eve of the Republican Party convention, exacerbates the problem.

The Franklin affair has all the ingredients of a conspiracy theory, implying that Israel manipulated the Bush administration to further its own interests and dragged America into a superfluous war on Iraq through a group of "neo-conservative" Jews at the top of the Pentagon, and with the power of enchantment AIPAC casts over Capitol Hill.

Those who want to bash Israel will use Franklin's investigation and his ties to Israel and its supporters as proof of their arguments. On the practical level, there is no doubt that the affair will deter American officials, who will think twice before talking to Israeli colleagues for fear of getting entangled in inquiries and surveillance.

AIPAC, which always takes pains to portray itself as an American organization that works for American interests and does not take instructions from Jerusalem, might suffer the hardest blow. The organization's image will be tarnished and administration officials will wary of returning calls from its representatives.

Israeli officials say that the affair will not cloud the relations with the U.S. in the long term, especially if the suspicions are groundless. But it reveals once again that under the friendship and closeness between Jerusalem and Washington, there are undercurrents of suspicion that have not healed since the Pollard affair in the '80s.

According to the Israeli version, Franklin's working relations with Israeli diplomats did not exceed the acceptable ties with many other officials in the administration and in other states. He did not play a covert role and the meetings with him were in the sphere of practical diplomacy and exchanging information and evaluations.

The Franklin case is not the first to arouse suspicions of excessive cooperation with Israel in Washington. Three years ago a similar suspicion was raised of a desk clerk in the State Department who had working relations with Israeli representatives. Someone suspected the friendship was too close and the man was suspended, interrogated, and suffered greatly before the case was closed. Since then he became wary and stopped talking with Israeli contacts - they too kept their distance.

Israel's representatives in Washington get quite a few briefings on formulating policy regarding the Middle East in talks with their contact people in the administration. Israeli officials who meet foreign diplomats or journalists also give them material originating in classified documents and inside consultations and nobody suspects them of espionage.

Israeli sources assume Franklin fell victim to power struggles in the Pentagon, between the professional level and the political appointments of the "neocons." The probe against him and its leaking were intended to weaken the political group, whose image was already tainted by the entanglement in Iraq.

The inquiry is being conducted only in the United States at present, and Israel has not been asked for comment, information, or testimonies.

Sources in the bureaus of the prime minister and defense and foreign ministers said that after the publication they conducted an extensive internal examination, which completely refuted any espionage allegations.

"Israel is not aware of having received information from this man," a Jerusalem source said. "Nobody used him, people hardly knew him, and we don't understand this fantasy," another source said. "Since the Pollard affair, no intelligence man would dare think of gathering information in the U.S."

However, even if the Franklin affair comes to nothing, Israel had better examine itself carefully. More caution will need to be exercised in contacts with American officials, who might be susceptible to accusations of having excessive affinity with Israel.

Uh-ha.

(Sorry, this is my way of 'bookmark')

BBB

Yup, that's the tone.